Warning: The following may contain views contradicting your own. If you are under 10 years of age, cannot deal with differing creeds, or are scared of the big bad wolf, please take the nearest exit.
My good friend Issa joined my family for lunch, the next day we had this conversation:
Issa: Hani, your family aren’t like you.
Hani: What do you mean ?
Issa: They’re normal.
Hani: Normal in what sense ?
Issa: They don’t have your strange ideas
I’ll try to summarise those strange ideas below
1. God and marketing
Advertiser: God
Message: Roooaaaaar, I am God, I created you, I know everything, you must worship me or go to hell forever !
Product-lines(in order of release): Judaism, Christianity, Islam
Target-Audience: The wretched humans of Earth
Delivery: Spoken, delivered by Angels and burning bushes; Written transcribed in books; by proxy through various humans chosen to deliver the message.
Conclusion: Even 1500 years after the campaign ended, consumers have not forgot the products. Unfortunately the conflict between the different product lines has continuously escalated to physical violence over brand loyalty.
Evaluation: Isn’t the disparity in religions around the world in itself proof that none of them came from a perfect God ?
2. I tried talking to God, it never talks back. Would a reply of “Good morning Hani” be too much to ask ? I looked for God, but could not see it. Hmmmmmm it is invisible, silent, yet everywhere. A stealth God.
3. If God is Omnipotent (all-powerful) and benevolent, how can it allow a single human being to suffer ? An infant to die ? A tyrant to succeed ?
4. Premise: God must exist because everything we see must have been created by something.
- Okie dokie, so who created God ?
5. If God is omniscient (all-knowing), and it knows who will end up in Hell. Why create these people only to have them suffer for eternity ? Is God cruel ? Better yet why create Satan (Iblees) ? Entrapment ? How sinister.
6. Why are religions so patriarchal and male dominated ? Could it be because the men who created them were born at a time when women had as much respect as dirt ?
7. Most people on earth are Chinese, most Chinese are Atheist. Even if you count the ancient Chinese traditions as some sort of religion, it is certainly not (Islam/Christianity/Judaism). So if we are to judge validity numerically none of these can be correct.
8. What’s with the great flood ? When God’s pet humans misbehave, he decided to drown most of them ? So is that the example the Jordanian woman who threw her baby in the garbage was following ? A while back Susan Smith in the US also tried to drown her kids. Ok, so maybe God was having a bad day.
9. Earth was created at least 4.5+ Billion years ago. Abraham showed up only 4000 years ago. Jesus 2000 years. Mohammad around 1500. So before all these fine gentlemen arrived no one heard of the Torah, Bible, or Quran. that’s millions of people who haven’t heard of Jesus or the Christian kingdom of God, and who haven’t done the Muslim Shahadat. Moreover there are still remote and isolated parts of the world today where people haven’t heard any of this. Are they all going to hell ?
10. Why has religion since its inception been used to wage war ? Men were willing to give up their lives to go fight for God free of charge. Some still are. God can’t be supporting any religion since no theistic form of government is successful at the moment. The pope is now a figurehead with little or no power. (Great, considering the crusades and what other destruction the powerful popes wreaked on the world). The Islamic Caliphate was abolished (good riddance, the Muslim empire in the height of its power did no better than the Christians and went as far as Spain in using religion to drive military conquests). Even today we see Muslim suicide bombers thinking they’re headed to heaven, and George W. claiming to be a devout christian, yet following the (Praise the lord, and pass the ammunition) philosophy instead of (turn the other cheek).
11. Religion serves more to divide the human race rather than unite and has always done so. Palestine is the perfect example. If it wasn’t for the 3 religions which tried to fight over it, its people would have long ago followed England’s example where the Normans and Saxons went from conqueror and conquered to a single people.
12. Why would a perfect God require humans to worship it or pray to it ? After all God already knows what you want and always did, and you won’t add or take away anything with your worship. Could prayer be an exercise to ensure discipline, and conformity ? A way to pacify the helpless ?
13. By legal standards, all the evidence of Heaven, Hell, and an afterlife is circumstantial, and hearsay. Who do you know who has died and gone to heaven ? Did they send a postcard ?
14. Premise: Since 9-11, the number of new Muslims has increased, not decreased.
- Indeed because it is a mass delusion, and the more desperate and helpless people become, the more delusional, they can’t help themselves, so they seek supernatural assistance which never comes.
15. Premise: Islam/Christianity/Judaism are true because they are defined by the miraculous Quran/Bible/Torah.
- These are books written by men for men thousands of years ago, and the perspective of the writing is enough to see that it wasn’t written in a cosmic timeless manner. The examples given in each, the history, the parables etc… are all of the time periods they were written in.
16. Premise: God has already sent all his messengers (prophets) and Mohammad was the last.
- The reason no more messengers of God have come is that people are no longer that gullible to believe them when they come. Wait, I take that back, there is a brilliant new relig… errr scam in town called Scientology. A science fiction writer created an organization, called it a church (for tax evasion purposes), based it on a story that happened a quadrillion years ago that’s impossible to prove and disprove, oh and most important, they found some rich “believers” (Like Tom Cruise) dumb enough to finance the whole operation. There are now nearly 10 million scientologists. Sound familiar ? Looks like a new dog can still use old tricks.
17. One of the reasons all religions vilify sex is that it is instant gratification. It lessens the effect of the carrot on a stick (heaven) that is supposed to drive us. Bugs Bunny would tie a carrot to a stick, and dangle it in front of the horse he is riding in an attempt to motivate it to keep chasing the carrot. The horse can thus be directed in any direction, and never realizes that they’re never going to get the carrot. Who holds the stick ? The pope, a mufti, anyone claiming to be an authority on religion. Guess who’s the horse ? The other side is Hell. This is similar to the monster mothers tell their kids about to scare them into doing what she wants. Do this or the Bogey Man will come get you. Of course the Bogey Man never comes.
18. Blaise Pascal, one of the greatest mathmaticians of his time provided this gem:
You live as though God exists.
–a– If God exists, you go to heaven: your gain is infinite.
–b– If God does not exist, you gain nothing & lose nothing.
You live as though God does not exist.
–c– If God exists, you go to hell: your loss is infinite.
–d– If God does not exist, you gain nothing & lose nothing.
So Pascal reasoned that a is the most logical choice since you have the most to gain, and the least to lose.
while I respect Pascal’s logical approach. I think his model is just too simplistic to accurately represent the problem. You see Pascal lived in the 1600’s and as far as he and everyone around him was concerned, there was only 1 true religion Christianity (although several variations of it).
Conclusion:
If God really needs to be worshiped, then it will want to be worshiped a certain way, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any need for messengers, books, talking burning bushes, and what have you. Just beleivers or none-beleivers. Hence if you are worshiping it incorrectly you will go to hell anyway. So if that is the assumption, any way you put it most people on earth are going to hell. Muslims say Islam is God’s religion. Christian’s say the same. etc… So what religion does God follow ? They can’t all be right since their rituals and traditions differ. It can’t be that silly.
So I submit, if I make the following assumptions:
A1. God, Heaven, and Hell Exist
A2. God is good
Then, God cannot need or require to be worshipped because a good God would not want most of its creations to end up in hell.
Living with A1 and A2, one can make their own system of moral behavior. Really, its not that hard to tell right from wrong, I don’t need some guy with a collar, or a turban to tell me.
If A1, and A2 are right, then I go to heaven, if they are wrong then I doubt there will be any afterlife, but at least I wouldn’t have lived my life kissing carpets and kneeling to statues.
This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act I, Scene III)
So how did I come to have such strange ideas about the subject ? Some history is in order. I was born in Jerusalem to secular Muslim parents. For my first years of school, I went to (College De La Salle). The students were a mixture of Christians and Muslims, but when Religious Studies was taught, we split into 2 classes. Our Muslim teacher (Ms. Taghreed) in addition to teaching us Islam and the Quran, she taught us to hate Christians. That arrogant hypocrite. I’m not sure what went on in the Christian class, but based on how I see adult Muslims/Christian Arab men and women behave towards each other, I don’t think it was any more civil. Some Muslims/Christians will only buy/hire stores/trades-people of the same religion.
For the next 5 years, I moved to an International school in Jerusalem (Anglican School Jerusalem). The instructors were British/American, the students came from all over the world (UN officials, diplomats etc.. would send their kids to this school). They included Christians, Muslims and Jews. However in addition to gaining my first practical experience of the English language, the school was owned by a protestant society related to the Anglican church. Here, I learned about the Bible.
While the Christian teachers certainly didn’t explicitly teach us to hate Muslims. There were problems, racism, etc… I remember one British teacher (Ms Johnson) thought that I was misbehaving, and when I protested (slightly raising my voice), she said: ‘That may be acceptable where you come from, but not here‘.
During one field trip the school organised, I had a discussion with a priest who joined us for the trip about the Quran and the Bible. I had mentioned the miraculous mathematical properties Muslims attribute to the Quran. and the priest responded: “Satan is very clever“. Excellent, another brilliant scholar, his faith was so strong, anything other than the Bible was Satan’s work without even having to read it.
Next door to my new school, a Yeshiva (orthodox Jewish school) could be heard. Yes I said heard, because they were chanting all day, no doubt memorising the Torah. The windows had barbed wire. I can only imagine what they were taught about Arabs in there.
Didn’t it occur to any of these schools to teach the children about the other religions too if only in the name of tolerance/education/cooperation ? Perhaps, the problem was that It’s not possible to maintain 3 different lies at the same time.
At that point I moved to Canada where for about 1.5 years during college I lived with a Buddhist from Singapore, a Hindu from India, and an Ismaili Muslim from Pakistan. The Buddhist (his English name was Eugene, his Chinese name was hard to pronounce) was upset at how popular Buddhism was becoming in the west. When I asked him why that would upset him. He explained that it is spreading as a fad rather than a real faith. All sorts of con-artist “Gurus” were going around fleecing rich westerners trying to “reach enlightenment“. Again old trick.
When I tried to discuss Hinduism with my Indian flatmate (Chandrasagar), he explained that he is uncomfortable discussing it because he didn’t want me laughing at his beliefs. Ok so were his beliefs laughable ? I don’t know, he didn’t share them, but from reading Sherlock Holmes, I knew that Hindus had a very large number of Gods and Godesses and that each God had a different purpose. I also knew just by reading the news that they made statues of their gods, and that one of them looked like an elephant. Okie dokie, although I had to admit, its not any more ridiculous than a stealth God.
The Ismaili Muslim (Salman) did not want to discuss religion with me because he did want his faith to be weakened ! Surely, if it was true, then it would survive a little discussion.
Finally, I moved to Jordan. Here I enjoyed what goes for faith among our wonderful cab drivers where they would have the Quran playing at maximum volume, and at the same time the meter would be running at twice the normal rate, or they will take you on the “scenic route”. At work most of my coworkers pray, yet some don’t have a problem lying or cheating the company immediately after finishing their prayers.
So that is how to create an atheist (perhaps agnostic) in 30 years. Don’t try this at home. The sum of what I’ve seen religion do to my world, and the way it has made people behave has been negative, and I think we can do much better without it. So why should we play nice if we don’t get to go to heaven in the end ? Because it feels good, and with a decent upbringing it just comes naturally.
Note to Qwaider: You theorised that real atheists aren’t vocal about their beliefs, the problem is that this violates the first rule of atheism: There are no rules, we make our own.
44 Users Commented In This Post
Posted from
11-3-2007 at 23:30:40
Haha! A deliciously polemical post!
I think I asked most of these questions as a child, the most nagging one being: “how can there be enough room in heaven for everyone who’s died since the year dot?” This lent much credence to the notion of reincarnation, which in turn has been most vehemently condemned by those who are most religious in my circle.
It’s also worth noting within the Christian faith the number traumatised by Catholic convent educations; both my mom and best friend have since turned atheist due to the harsh punishments meted out by the nuns.
Sometimes too much of a good thing can go bad, I suppose.
Posted from
11-3-2007 at 23:50:39
But hey, feel free to believe whatever you like to believe. Not all atheists are as forward in their ideas or voice. Many are “Atheists as a fashion” ESPECIALLY in Jordan ..
Note to hani
This post has so many contradicting factually inaccuracies to the point that It will take even longer to comment on it!
For example. Earth is 4.5 billion years old (true) Humans (in their current form) have been around for the last 20 to 40 thousand years. Abraham is thought to have existed at around 11 thousand years ago, Ishmael his son with him came the domestication of the horse. Moses Ibrahim’s great great great grandson existed 5700 years ago
Now what happened for people before and around? Well, there were plenty of profits to fill these gaps. Before Ibrahim there was Noah, Idris and other prophets.
The rules is, no message, no punishment.
Anyway, that’s just one point.
Posted from
11-3-2007 at 23:50:41
OMG!! I dare not comment! sho elly mza3lak enta bas! :P
Posted from
11-3-2007 at 23:52:55
“Heaven as wide as the heavens and the earth” That’s only the width!
Can you try and comprehend this with 1500 year old minds?
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 00:01:08
Layla, Atheist or not, I think your mom did an excellent job raising you.
Qwaider, feel free to correct any inaccuracies. The dates aren’t mine, they’re encyclopedia Encarta’s, but I don’t think the exact number makes much difference to the point here.
I think I’ve written enough to show that I’m certainly not trying to be fashionable.
Chika, I really am a happy person, pessimism doesn’t imply depression anymore than piety implies morality. Fear not, Commenting or disagreeing is not Haram ;)
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 03:45:16
qwaider thats news to me that Ibrahim was around around 11,000 years ago, since all those dates are based on the Jewish genealogy which is confirmed in the Quran
the dates add up to 6000 years no matter how you look at it religiously
so yeah try bridging that gap and adding in the few giants mentioned in religious texts and you have a very nice leap of faith
as for being vocal ? i think thats not entirely true. anger can be bottled up so much and when you see how things have been messed up just because some are so fixated about themselves being the one and only truth you are bound to speak up sooner or latter
but on the other hand true or not is based on how much of it is thoughtless ranting and this certainly wasn’t
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 08:47:09
hehehe
It’s good to see the history that led you to become the atheist you are now. I don’t blame you at all and I am not one to judge either. We’re born and raised in different circumstances and we ended up at the opposite end of the spectrum, but what I know that no one is better than the other and having a religion or not doesn’t not exclusively make a person better or worse rated in terms of morals, ethics and personalities.
I especially don’t like it when a fellow Muslim passes judgement on someone else and says “omg you kafir” or “you are definitely going to hell!”. I mean, (inset obscenities) ya (insert more), who are you to judge? No one knows where they end up (heaven or hell) so how can you be so sure on where you’d end up?! They SO piss me off.
And in case this was all a big fat lie and there is nothing but worm food - I look on the bright side of things. You atheists have nothing to worry about and I lived my life the way I wanted to. So no harm either way!
PS: People of all religions should just stop waging war because it is nonsense really. I find it bewildering when religions teach peace and every follower is anything but that
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 09:23:31
hmm kj i know you had a good will while writing the comment, but saying that your are religious and at the same hand saying that others who believe in what you believe are ignorant and bigoted. when it’s so clearly stated that pretty much anyone that doesn’t believe in islam after the arrival of its message is definitely going to hell for a long long long time atleast is slightly confusing to me.
So does that mean you don’t believe in that part ?
and its the biggest PR stunt that claims religions teach peace, not to instigate hatred towards a specific group (although they do) but to claim after every major message that it is the one and only truth and even better pick a chosen ppl and then go back on it is pretty much asking for it
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 10:04:25
bambam,
Yes it is stated in the Quran and I believe that. But one of the first things they teach us in Islam is that we shouldn’t be the ones who pass judgement. I believe there is also a hadith that says that whoever says to another he is a kafir then he becomes a kafir himself/herself. The Quran states who is what and the consequences but this isn’t for us to start accusing people.
Sorry if it sounded like I didn’t believe in it. I should have been more clear.
As for the peace part, it is a PR indeed if you look at it that way. Peace is a very subjective term like love and hate so I don’t think I qualify to be a mufti and preach on what peace is and how it should be propagated. What is important for me as KJ is that I should be at peace with myself and the people around me.
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 12:18:19
Agreed, and when I gave my examples, I was trying to illustrate just that. Morality is independant of religion at least the way human beings observe religions.
I had this discussion with some of the religious people I know. It went soemthing like, what if you were just kissing the carpet 5 times a day for nothing ? What if you were sitting there praying and no one is listening ? What if you were fasting and not getting any thawab ? What if this is a lie several thousand years old were all the evidence is gone and only the hearsay remains? Shudder !
KJ, you’re doing a good job with that. I have yet to see you being hostile.
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 14:40:02
Hani, regarding the worm food discussion:
I will try my best to put in as many answers as I can remember, because I myself went into numerous such discussions with atheists and believers alike.
A firm believer doesn’t occur to him that such a possibility exists. When you bring to him or her this information, they almost always zone out for a few seconds. In these few seconds, they go through the OMG what if Hani is right phase. I myself had a lot of those in the past few years.
I mean, let’s be frank here. Speaking strictly in terms of actions (3ibadah) and the time it takes to perform them, you can sum up the time it takes to make wudu2 5 times, pray as many + sunnah if needed, read some Quran when person has time, etc. How many hours a day, a week, a month, a year? That’s many hours my friend. Imagine what you could be doing (or if you’re lazy, not doing) during all those hours.
Of course, that aside, imagine if all these prayers are unanswered and have nothing to do with anything. I mean let’s face it, believers and non-believers all have the same life issues: Money and food shortages and kids and bosses and a million other things. So now you’re telling them all this supernatural support isn’t present?
Oh my!
All this goes through the person’s head in that second. And it is up to that person to either embrace it or refute it, and if refuted it would be either out of stubbornness and fear or because that person genuinely believes that there is more to this life than its current coat of paint.
You’d also have those people who get aggressive verbally and assault you with accusations that would render them faithless.
I guess the sect of people I belong to is those who believe because they can actually see things working in one way or another. Whether this is because it is the actual truth or because we have been brainwashed irrecoverably, I myself really don’t understand why there shouldn’t be a God.
Note I am not talking about religion. Just the God part.
As I was saying, I can’t not see why there shouldn’t be a God. As for the who created God part, I won’t give you the same “you shouldn’t ask this” response. I will just say I honestly don’t know. My mind cannot grasp something more. And I have the choice to tell myself that our limited mind is what created God for us to justify our existence, or I could say there IS a God but my current state of mind and human evolution I cannot fully understand God but faith in God is enough for me (yes I do believe in both creation AND evolution).
So in the end, I tell everyone, live and let live. Why argue about who is right? Who is wrong? Why so adamant on converting everyone into a believer or atheist or scientologist or whatnotologist? Will it make me of a hire social standing? Will demeaning and the vanquishing of other people justify your existence?
The only thing that justifies your existence is your soul (if you believe in the soul) or the “you” that you define yourself in. That’s it. Just accept others as you’d like them to accept you, live and let live.
I mean, really, how boring will it be if everyone was the same! Just accept the differences and live people. You’re making life shorter killing each other over nonsense.
Right?
I mean, the Quran says “lasta 3alayhom bi mosayter”… which I have read the interpretation as being addressed to the Prophet, as God telling him that you can only advice but you cannot force.
Enough preaching your beliefs people. They’re for you to keep. The world is difficult to maintain as it is and there are people who are dying from hunger for us to be too concerned now on whose God is the right one.
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 15:57:26
hmm since talking about what i think about how creationism and evolution are incompatible, how god can’t be separable from religion, and how the burden of proof for god is the same as the burden of disproving the gods of other religions. and all the other things that u mentioned KJ are in posts under religion in my blog i wont go over them here :P
and as for the ip …. u have something called a light widget installed ? i would turn that off till you can figure out how to disable it for the public
the reason atleast personally for me that i can’t really stay too quite when a moderate is telling me to live quietly, is that that attitude of moderates to try to live their lives peacefully regardless of the bane that it causes others that makes me pissed off. you are too afraid to take a stand against anything beyond the norm and get bullied by the extremist of both sides and then call up the misery of the world, which “god” surely is well aware of, and pray so that others people and things maybe be able to do something about it
that attitude that its someone else’s problem and the utter complacency and the high susceptibility to turn extremist is what really gets to me :)
and thanks seriously for actually holding a discussion and i apologize if i was a bit too confrontational … just wanted to give u a rzn why thats all
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 16:47:37
what a fantastic conversation !
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 17:40:54
Bobby, I’m glad you like it.
The beautiful thing about religion for me is that there are no experts, we are all human, and have an equal knowledge as to the nature of God and how the universe was created (that is almost none).
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 18:54:24
Qwaider, I think you and Bam-bam made my point for me. My source says 4000, yours says 11,000, Bam-Bam’s says 6000. the point is we have no idea, and neither do any of our combined sources. I am skeptical the Abraham described in any of them existed.
So if such a simple fact is in dispute, why not all the rest of it ? It is ancient history. Even the history of the last 50 years has many contradictions, and inaccuracies, can you imagine how many sources the information from 4000+ years had to go through to reach us, and how many hidden agendas ?
I am simply surprised to see people who are skeptical about what is written in a newspaper printed yesterday, believe verbatim every word from a book several thousands years old.
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 21:22:36
To be honest with you Hani, I enjoyed the first exit “Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse” link much more than what is presented or discussed here today.
Posted from
11-4-2007 at 22:28:15
11. Religion serves more to divide the human race rather than unite and has always done so. Palestine is the perfect example. If it wasn’t for the 3 religions which tried to fight over it, its people would have long ago followed England’s example where the Normans and Saxons went from conqueror and conquered to a single people.
–Hi Hani. Don’t do that! Only Americans and Israelis that are trying to lie to the world about how insufferable the Palestinian Muslims are and how incompatible Judaism (and Christianity) are to Islam say that there is no peace in the Holy Land because of religion. There is no peace in the Holy Land because the U.S. wants to dominate the region by appointing Israel as their trustworthy pit bull in the region. And, there is also no peace in the Holy Land because Israel has stolen Palestinian land and created a Palestinian diaspora that can only dream of going home. It doesn’t have anything to do with religion.
Posted from
11-5-2007 at 00:37:29
Wasim, I’m glad you enjoyed Mickey, we try to cater to all levels here :P
CSS, Its certainly not the only reason, but it’s one of them. I’m not gonna deny it because it happens to agree with US foreign policy. I just pointed out how it stands as a barrier to the problem solving itself over time through inter-breeding. You can also look at it another way. If there was no Judaism, there wouldn’t have been any promised land, and the jews may not have come here, but that’s just me and my strange ideas.
Posted from
11-5-2007 at 00:49:39
But the barriers didn’t exist before the state of Israel was created. Most Palestinian Jews and Christians that I know remember a time when there was peace and a common respect for the religious beliefs of others.
There are definitely divisions now between all three faiths but those are for the most part constructs of the occupation regime and it’s main funder. The attempts at dividing Muslim and Christian Palestinians for example is so blatant and disgusting. You have the Israeli regime making it easier for Palestinian Christians to acquire the various permits that they need to open business, build homes, add on to their homes, etc., meanwhile the IOF puts every obstacle possible in the path of Palestinian Muslims that want to do the same.
In the end, the IOF allow the Christians a bit more economic freedom (tiny bit more) so then Muslims resent the Christians, etc. Classic attempt at divide and conquer, but, I don’t think it’s working.
Posted from
11-5-2007 at 05:36:55
If I had the choice, I would have gone with Wordpress. See, such things are so simple here. But for my blog (which I wrote from scratch) I have to write it also from scratch!
Lets see if TEData-Jordan folks are going to show up as Egypt on your blog :)
Posted from
11-5-2007 at 10:17:42
can i seriously use a mattock here !
and i forgot to reply to that 6000 4000, 11,000
the reason i go with 6000 is that its the lower estimate while 10,000 is the bigger estimate and thats for the age of the earth, the significance of abraham is that there is no dispute about the numbers there from a religious perspective and across the religions, which is about 2000 years so that would bring you the 4k years ago that abraham was here
and by the way, humans as far as science and evidence is concerned been around for about 200k years (DNA evidence in africa) with fossil evidence at around 130,000 and thats a long long GAP
Posted from
11-5-2007 at 13:09:13
Bam-Bam, indeed that’s too large gap to get an exemption, and go directly to heaven ! I mean we’ll be lucky if humanity survives another 1000 years.
Posted from
11-6-2007 at 22:42:54
Very well thought out and well written post Hani (the marketing part was genius). Don’t forget that Eve is the reason we never got to stay in heaven and that fossils are put on earth by the devil to test our faith.
Posted from
11-7-2007 at 00:00:16
Thank you Dana.
Speaking of Eve, I forgot one of the important points.
One of the reasons all religions vilify sex is that it is instant gratification. It lessens the effect of the carrot on a stick (heaven) that is supposed to drive us. Bugs Bunny would tie a carrot to a stick, and dangle it in front of the horse he is riding in an attempt to motivate it to keep chasing the carrot. The horse can thus be directed in any direction, and never realizes that they’re never going to get the carrot. Who holds the stick ? The pope, a mufti, anyone claiming to be an authority on religion. Guess who’s the horse ?
Posted from
11-7-2007 at 11:19:41
The other side is Hell. This is similar to the monster mothers tell their kids about to scare them into doing what she wants. Do this or the Bogey Man will come get you. Of course the Bogey Man never comes.
Posted from
11-7-2007 at 12:22:08
Equating believers to donkeys isn’t very civil ;) but good metaphor regardless.
Posted from
11-7-2007 at 12:42:36
Indeed, it isn’t the donkey’s stupidity I was emphasizing, just that they’re only focused on the carrot, and that in real life, someone else is moving the stick, and that someone is usually exploiting them. It is at the heart of Islam and Christianity that every action you perform is supposed to be for your permenant afterlife, not the current world. Who moves the stick holding the carrot ? The pope, the mufti, anyone claiming to be an authority on religion.
Posted from
11-7-2007 at 12:54:53
Changed the donkey into a horse so that the metaphor is more accurate, mind you Bugs Bunny only rode donkeys :)
Posted from
11-7-2007 at 14:08:32
Dude you don’t have to change the metaphor (but I appreciate it), I’m quite open minded and won’t be voodooing you anytime soon (I make a good liberal lOOOl)
Thing is Hani I can’t not agree here, a lot of people are just considering the afterlife but from my understanding of Islam I have to work for this life and the next. Roaming around to focus only on the latter is ridiculous and frowned upon among puritans - but there are so many muftis now demeaning every single person in the Friday prayers and make us feel like shit at how unholy and worthless we have become. Which I think is wrong. This is why I like the khutbas in Syria because (at least the mosque I go to) the khateeb tells us on the life of the Prophet and some nice stories for us to take morals from. He doesn’t demean us and make us feel worthless.
The states of religions now is horrible because they’re being constantly attacked, and the reaction of the religious people is just like a cornered mouse: They get irrational, violent and the bigot starts.
Posted from
11-8-2007 at 00:25:36
Sorry for the delay. Not sure what in your comment triggered my anti-spam.
I did not mean the metaphor to be offensive, and you pointed that part out, so I could remove it, I appreciate your help.
I know what you mean about some of the Friday Khutbas. I especially don’t like it when the guy starts crying. When my mom is visiting, she tries to make me listen to Amr Khaled on Fridays, I find his speeches entertaining and informative, although I only listen for educational purposes. Oh and to keep Mama happy :)
Posted from
11-9-2007 at 02:09:57
amazing post. I really envy you for experiencing all those religions.
As you said, God (if he exists) must have a phD in marketing :P.
All your points are valid points that I’ve asked myself. Although I can not agree or disagree with you as all of us lack the proof to the existence of god or not, I made peace with myself after reading about Pascal’s Wager. (try wiking it ;) )
It basically boils down to this:
1- If god exists and you worship him—-> Heaven
2- if god exists and you don’t worship him—->hell
3- if god does not exist and you don’t worship him —>good, you lived your life and didn’t waste it
4- if god does not exist and you worship him—>nothing…other than the fact that you wasted a couple of minutes doing prayers which might have been good in making you feel better or in raising spirituality or morale
So choices 1,3,4 are + while 2 is -. don’t you think you’d be safe believing in God even if he does not exist? (remember, neither we have the proof that God exists nor we have the one that proves that he does not exist).
have a nice day
Posted from
11-9-2007 at 16:55:14
It’s such a comfort to know that there are others in similar situations as myself… Having grown up around stout believers who wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire had I expressed my true beliefs, I came to fear expression of my atheism. I guess I’m more of an agnostic, because I’m perfectly willing to believe something exists, but I don’t know what it is.
Religion has always been an “opium of the people”, in my opinion, and a patronizing way of instilling good behavior in the face of a patriarchal character. The details of religions and their rites aren’t important… It’s what people get out of them. If my friend is a true believer of whatever religion and it has made him a better person, why begrudge him of it? It’s when those beliefs are used to create an “us or them” attitude that I start to have problems.
Thanks for this post.
Posted from
11-9-2007 at 23:58:38
hamza are you trying to hoodwink god ?
cause thats exactly what pascal’s wager boils down to
Posted from
11-10-2007 at 01:00:39
Hamza, first i want to thank you for inspiring me to reach a conclusion. I was subconciously thinking about Pascal’s wager all day at work, and after much deliberation, while I respect Pascal’s logical approach. I think his model is just too simplistic to accurately represent the problem.
See Pascal lived in the 1600’s and as far as he and everyone around him was concerned, there was only 1 true religion Christianity (although several variations of it).
If God really needs to be worshiped, then it will want to be worshiped a certain way, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any need for messengers, books, talking burning bushes, and what have you. Just beleivers or none-beleivers. Hence if you are worshiping it incorrectly you will go to hell anyway. So if that is the assumption, any way you put it most people on earth are going to hell.
Muslims say Islam is God’s religion. Christian’s say the same. etc… So what religion does God follow ? They can’t all be right since their rituals and traditions differ. It can’t be that silly.
So I submit, if I make the following assumptions:
A1. God, Heaven, and Hell Exist
A2. God is good
Then
God cannot need or require to be worshipped because a good God would not want most of its creations to end up in hell.
Living with A1 and A2, one can make their own system of moral behavior. Really, its not that hard to tell right from wrong, I don’t need some guy with a collar, or a turban to tell me.
If A1, and A2 are right, then I go to heaven, if they are wrong then I doubt there will be any afterlife, but at least I wouldn’t have lived my life kissing carpets and kneeling to statues, but was instead true to myself.
Posted from
11-11-2007 at 22:04:08
Hello Hani,
I read your article, and I searched to get you answers to your question, does Allah exist? I belive of that, but I needed to get you scientifically answers, I searched, found over the net some silly stories about a student lived in the west and was discussing with his prof. Another disbeliever who was asking another questions, but I found the answer between all these articles and others, Yes, Allah does exists, and you know this deep inside, else you didn’t search for him, you want to know him better, but you don’t know how, you are seeking faith inside, but again you have contradicting thoughts, I don’t want to argue this, but I want to get you an example:
Why we don’t search for hoammatohootoehhle in anywhere in the globe? and we don’t ask our self’s about? You know why? Because it doesn’t exist, nobody is asking for that doesn’t exist, always we asked and search for the existings. This is my reply to you.
Posted from
11-11-2007 at 23:42:55
Issa, so you’re suggesting God must exist because we consider its existence. Interesting, but I don’t agree.
Premise: X only exists if one or more people care about it.
Then: Once expectant parents cease to care for their unborn fetus , they may abort it since it ceases to exist, but this violates both Islam and Christianity.
and what the heck is a hoammatohootoehhle ?
Posted from
11-12-2007 at 08:58:24
Hani, no, I didn’t mean that “we consider then exist!” I meant that internally with our compass that guide’s us in this world for the unknown, and we trust to this, and scientifically not explainable, it guide us that there is Allah, who created this mighty expanding world, this is why we always search to get to know this God, in Islam “Allah” and BTW, if you notice I use “Allah” to give you indication about what next “Islam is the truth”, and this is why I gave you the example of “hoammatohootoehhle” which is my self don’t know what the heck is it!!!, you will never ask yourself about things that doesn’t exist, you ask your self about the existing things but not fully covered to you, and BTW again, Allah is the creator of marketing science as well, because there is a role in marketing it says:
Show some of the product, curiosity will get people to seek the whole product, or buy to know what is it, in Software world you get demos to buy the full version, in real live Allah showed us some signs of his mighty to search for him and believe in him without seeing him. If we saw Allah then there is no meaning of worshiping him because we will worship him because we are afraid and we know that he will punish us immediately, but uncover him will give the people the chance to show their real internals.
Posted from
11-12-2007 at 09:30:27
Thats totally cool, I mean, i respect everyone’s point of view, as long as they don’t ask me to believe in some ancient galactic alien called xenu who stacks people around volcanoes and kills them using hydrogen bombs :P
Posted from
11-12-2007 at 13:27:54
golly Issa, the reason you don’t search for whatever that is is because you haven’t been bombarded with his name ever since you came to this world. and if that was thor that you have been bombarded with since birth you would have accepted thor instead.
So on to ask you about the next leap of faith, what makes you believe that islam is the truth ? is it because it says so ? you were born in it ? or because you don’t particularly know any other option fully and you have been brought to look down on the other religions as not so true? and why pray if “god” is Omniscient in the first place ?
and i agree with bakkouz SCIENTOLOGY FTW that thing rocks ! although i think they were protoplasm special edition uber bombs bakkouz
why is this post still alive and i still check it ??! !
Posted from
11-13-2007 at 01:39:41
Wow, an internal compass ? Sorry, I didn’t come with one of those !
Again, I disagree. If I wasn’t born with millions of people aorund me beleiving in God’s existence, I wouldn’t question it. Before you say that is the point, there are also millions of people who don’t beleive in its existence.
Ok, so if this was a demo, my point remains, it wasn’t very well executed for a supreme being. Why demo so many products which have the same purpose.
Actually, many preachers (Muslims and Christians) make speeches about how we should do just that. Fear God and his punishment, and that this should motivate us to faith and taqwa, and if God were to show itself, we wouldn’t have been killing ourselves over who’s right all these years. So it has been cowardly of it not to do so.
Posted from
11-13-2007 at 01:44:59
Bakkouz, indeed, the biggest indication Scientology is a scam is that they ask people who join to give up their money and posessions to the church.
Posted from
11-13-2007 at 09:40:00
Bambam, I guess you would think that I inherited Islam so this is why I think so, no, the other way round, my family are Muslims true, but we always had that discussion that I’m taking it over, I read and I read about religions, I know how to discuss with other religions people, If you noticed my previous posts, I didn’t mention anything from Quran or Sunna, because I know that these will not help the discussion since Hani is refusing the whole all in all.
For you Hani, as well I see you loosing the point and trying to redirect the speech, toward me, no, have the courage to answer in a logical way instead of just turning roles, I always discuss with you the E=MC2 theory, and I proof to you that if mass reached light speed then the time effect will be 0, and the mass will be infinite, keep this theory in mind, and you will know you and all other bloggers and posters, that Allah is faster that light speed, and then there is no impact for time over him, and he is infinite.
Posted from
11-13-2007 at 15:28:13
did all my questions get answered by “i answered those somewhere else”.
i seriously feel like i just read a fortune cookie, am leaving this to u hani :P
Posted from
11-14-2007 at 00:15:14
Not sure what you mean by turning roles, but logical answers require logical questions. Faith isn’t about logic, more like philosophy. There is no right answer, because of insufficient information. I didn’t really understand what you mean about the speed of light.
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