The Oneness of God Part One - Bilal Philips

oh my god and I'm an idiot Mohammed he is godfather messenger from this time to the enemy behind bismillah r-rahman in walking along I had a love comedy let merely the well emulated what a miracle of one I had in the name of Allah the most beneficent the most merciful say he is Allah the one Allah the eternal the absolute he begets not nor was he begotten and there is none like unto Him Salam alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato hamdulillah salat wa salam aerosol allah all praise is due to Allah and may last peace and blessings be on the last messenger of allah this evening's presentation is the first of two lectures on the oneness of god and in this section of the lecture I will discuss the belief in God because naturally before we can look at issues of God's oneness we would need to have concluded that there is a God first and foremost we should know that the belief in God is not something isolated it is something which is quite ancient the anthropologists who have studied human societies all over the world have all come to the conclusion that these societies have a belief in God with very few exceptions so from human efforts in terms of looking at the history of the belief in God it is as ancient as men of course from an Islamic perspective it is even more specific in the sense that with the creation of God and the first man Adam the Christian that God made of the first man Adam the belief in God was given to that first creation but from a practical point of view from the point of view of human research we can say that there is from the efforts of scientists a congenital conclusion that the belief in God is found throughout there so much so that some scholars debated as to whether this is something intrinsic in human beings being inborn that human beings are born with this natural belief in God or whether it is something which is acquired the issue of they say and they refer to it as nature versus nurture of the exceptions we can mention Buddhism in its ancient form known as the Hinayana form of buddhism and jainism these are ancient systems which were supposed to have evolved or developed around the 6th century before the time of Christ but even in these systems though they don't speak about the existence of God they do have a belief that the souls which reach attained a certain height of spiritual development where they become liberated from the body that these souls take on qualities of immortality and omniscience and become objects of veneration and worship so though they may deny the existence of God per se they have given the attributes of God to some aspects of the creation some of the created beings and when we look at the philosophers of the past ancient philosophers we find both Plato and Aristotle amongst famous Greek philosophers who argued logically for the existence of God and it really wasn't until the 19th and 20th centuries after the French Renaissance that you find a body of philosophers proposing atheist ideas ideas that God in fact did not exist and among them just to mention a few we had Philip mainlander who's a German philosopher who died around 1876 and in his principle writing the philosophy of redemption he stated that the world begins with the death of God actually he was the first to address the issue in this way and all who supported his ideas became known as the death of God philosophers and this philosophy being the philosophy of the death of God any case he states that the world begins with the death of God since God is a principle of unity shattered in the plurality of the world and a principle of joy denied in the law of suffering which dominates the world we also find it see a Prussian philosopher who died about 1900 he supported this idea proposing that God was nothing more than a projection of man's uneasy conscience and that man was the bridge to the Superman he had this idea of a human being who became beyond the normal human being as we know him for himself ultimately some of the attributes that we normally attribute to God jean-paul Sartre French philosophy of the 20th century also claimed that God didn't exist because according to him God is a country in terms the idea of God according to him is a projection which man must make being what he is from these beginnings coupled with Darwinian teachings we find atheism or the idea that there is no God spreading on a scale much greater than it had ever been known in history in fact out of this we found Russia and China along with Albania tagging tagging on holding as their state religion atheism but though this is taught and was taught as the main foundation of education with regards to man his existence and the universe most people who went through the system memorized what they were told from the statements of Marx angles etc repeated these four examinations but within them their self themselves they did not deny God's existence because it went against their very nature and as such with the crumbling of Russia the Russian state and Albania and China to a certain degree you find a huge rise in religious fervour amongst the people once again with regards to the Koran and atheism what we find is that there are very few verses in the Quran which deal with this belief in God because of the fact that there were very few who held this position in one particular chapter of the Quran known as a tour which is a 52nd chapter we find the basic presentation or the logic present logical presentation of why the disbelief in God is illogical wherein God says I'm holy commingle Aisha in a moment Harlequin to the 35th verse where they created from or by nothing or did they create themselves and in the 36 verse I'm hollow Kusama wat suan autoblog bal my opinion or did they create the heavens and earth indeed they are uncertain these two verses summarized the basic three argument for the existence of things without resorting to God the first states that the creation came into being from nothing or by nothing itself spontaneously and this approach violates basic reason if somebody were to say that on some occasion while they were walking in the park looking at the ducks in the pond they just saw a duck appear on the water out of nowhere not flying and landing or having being submerged and came out but just appearing there on the surface of the water no one would accept this why because it is illogical that this duck would appear from nothingness all of our human experience indicates that there are causes there reasons things come from other things they don't just come out of nothing however this line of argument as obviously illogical and and ridiculous as it is when put in simplistic terms is a lion which is being used by modern scientists if the atheists among them we have for example fred hoyle who advocated what was known as the steady state theory which for some time was a rival to the big bang theory in it in his theory he argued that matter was constantly coming into being and he said this is a quote from his writings the most obvious question to ask about continuous creation is this where does the created material come from it does not come from anywhere this is his answer material simply appears it is created at one time the various atoms composed composing the material do not exist and at late and end at a later time they do this may seem a very strange idea I agree that it is but in science it does not matter how strange an idea may seem so long as it works that is to say since the idea can be expressed in a precise form and so long as its consequences are in agreement with observation it is acceptable it was Hoyles argument of course when he brought out this this theory and his explanation for this the existence a number of known atheist sirs amongst the scholars also rejected this idea because as they put it this was opening the floodgates for religion because it was violating the main principle of science namely that nothing comes out of nothing now we this idea however in spite of the fact that it was rejected in the case of Fred Hoyle those who argue the Big Bang Theory most say that the Big Bang began from a concentrated point of matter matter was in a very concentrated form then this initial explosion took place where it started to expand you know throughout the universe most scientists when asked where did this original concentrated portion of matter come from they will say that is not a question of science and leave it right others among them the affirmed atheist will say it came from nothing like oil it just came into being and as we said when we look at the existence or when you look at the arguments for this these ways of coming into existence on a simplistic level the human intellect rejects it so no matter how much scientific jargon may be placed around it it doesn't change the fundamental ridiculousness of this type of argument the second basic argument is that human beings or creation created itself this is even more ridiculous because to create something that being or that thing which is creating must already exist right if this world created itself it means the world had to already exist before it created and for this world to be created it had to not exist so you end up with a and an argument which is self-contradictory so the idea of creating oneself or the world creating itself is one which has to be canceled from the body of arguments as being totally illogical the last argument that the world was created from or by something which was already created is the line of argument which states that matter really was eternal it had no beginning because if we say that this creation we call it see for creation see one that it was caused or created by another creation which we call C - and that C - was created by another creation which was c3 and we go on infinitely right this is the argument that there was no it is from infinity we cannot we're not going to identify a starting point because something which is created will need something else to create it so if everything goes back eternally this line of creators goes back into eternity then what in fact we're saying is that nothing should exist because if creation number one cannot exist unless creation number two exists and creation number two cannot exist unless number three exists and then so on then it means if we go back and we cannot find a starting point then it means that there is no cause for our existence now it means nothing should exist but the reality is that things exist existence itself is proof of the falsehood of this line of argument it is an ancient argument you had amongst Greek philosophers those who argued also that the earth was eternal matter is eternal the earth is eternal it's just another expression of the same concept but this is the most popular belief today that it was mattered this which was always which was eternal which by accidental bouncing into each other the early atoms or neutrons or whatever bouncing into each other started you know the process of life going and even if we accept that matter was eternal and we think of the accidental argument for things to come into being which then lets us accept that molecules bouncing around eventually formed you know bigger molecules and these bigger molecules ended up forming the precursors of life you know DNA RNA it's at receptor eventually forming the first cell and the first cell you know eventually developing cell walls and crawling up on the land and you know this whole scenario which they have of how life came about it is it is something which is more fantastic and more mythical than anything found in the religious books explaining how human beings and how the world got here it is in fact another religion which has its own explanation of human beings this world that we live in why we what we're here for we're not here for any real purpose this is just the evolutionary principle you know evolving things for the better without any direction yet having direction and what we can say ends up being the God for those who reject God is the God of chance the God of chance because when we ask these people who don't believe in God we ask them you know why it is that you have a good life and other people have a bad life you've got a good job so-and-so that's a bad job they would say it was my good luck why did he have a bad job because his bad luck and if you look through his whole day from the time he or she wakes up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night you'll see everything happening throughout their lives as being a result of good luck and bad luck so ultimately their God is the God of chance good luck or bad luck and in modern times especially in the from the 50s onwards we have and we had another phenomenon developing amongst people who rejected the concept of God but try to find another way to explain the way things are and to give meaning to life here and that was the belief in the flying saucers the UFOs as one a couple of University Professors Benson Saylor and Charles Ziegler professors of anthropology they published a book called the Roswell myth which is Roswell is the this town in New Mexico where a flying saucer was supposed to have crashed nearby in 1947 and supposedly the American military covered it up and there were some little aliens and you knows from this the myth about flying saucers developed on a large scale and fine till today this year last year number of movies books and things being put out about Roswell so they said at the core of the Roswell myth is a secular way to give the universe meaning this myth becomes a secular way to give the universe meaning and humanity every a renewed place at the head of the table not only are the sky is populated with superhuman beings but their visits are evidence that we are interesting Seiler said that the Roswell myth is an effort to put enchantment back into nature after human beings had removed God from creation nature just became blind forces in a desire to give it meaning again this belief in the UFOs took off and it became so much of a religion that we know last year some fifty-yard members of one of the UFO cults committed suicide so that they could spiritually rejoin or join up with the spacecraft that was hiding behind a comet which was passing through our solar system at the time the fact of the matter having looked at these various arguments is that the belief in God is the logical belief and it is the disbelief in God which is illogical now with the Atheist thrust in the 20th century belief in God became classified as irrational this was an irrational belief going against reason and it is reason according to them we dictate that God doesn't exist however if one looks at their arguments one can only conclude that it is logical to believe in God and in fact illogical to disbelieve and it is on those who disbelieve to prove not on us who believes to prove that God exists it is on them the disbelievers to prove that God does not exist because it is their arguments which are in fact illogical logic tells us that where we see design there is a designer and this is the most common argument presented in the Quran where Allah invites the creation to look at the camels at the the mountains how they are set up how they're organized etc to reflect that there has to be an organizer behind this it's not going to be there and with this type of structure etc without there having been an organizer that it would happen by chance by accident when a person walks on a beach and they see a footprint in the sand the first part which comes to them is not that the the waves of the sea have come up onto the sand and sunken into the sand creating the impression of a footprint how amazing that is no this is not the first thought that comes to a person's mind the first thought is that somebody walked here the ancient Arabs used to say that camel dung indicates the camel meaning that when you're walking out on the desert and you come across a piece of camel dung you don't start reflecting how this camel dung appeared here did it come out of the sand somehow some things in the sand created I don't know you see camel dung you assume a camel walk by this is logic this is reason and if we can do that with camel dung and a footprint in the sand the human being who is far more complex far more intricate to assume that he came into being that this world came into being by accident is as foolish as that person standing on the desert wondering where this camel dung came from so the questions that does God exist or does God not exist this question is really one raised by those who deny their very nature deny logic deny reason everything around them points to the existence of a creator for them not to accept it is a deliberate denial of that knowledge which is within each and every human being the reason which God has given them they have become irrational this is why the real question for us or for human beings is not so much is there a god or isn't there God but who is God this is the big question this is the question that has puzzled human beings over the ages because we said the vast majority of human beings believe there is a God but the question is who is that God and we find in the various societies various communities tribes nations etc a variety of answers as to who is God now the essential difference between all of these answers presented by the various religions and systems and the answer given by Islam is expressed in another question did God become man did God become his creation because when we look at the arguments of all of the various systems that believe in God but have different answers as to who is God we find that the vast majority of them all believe that God at some point in time became his creation either he became a man or he became an animal or it became some aspect of his creation the Sun the moon whatever and it is really only in Islam that we find the answer is no God did not become his creation God is the creator and everything besides him is his creation he is not his creation nor is his creation him those who argue that God became a man that God became his creation usually argue from the point that God is able to do all things because when we talk about God we talk about certain attributes which we give to God that God is eternal is without beginning without end he is all-knowing all-powerful etc and he is able to do all things and this is a part of Islamic belief it's repeated throughout the Quran in so many places in LA ilaha ilallah coalition pedir Allah is able to do all things so those who argue that God became man and once we say that God became a man we would argue that why do you want to stop there and became a man when I'd say became many men or became animals etc cuz once you open the door that God became a man this is open the door for God to become his creation in whatever form people choose to perceive him they argue that God is able to do all things so why couldn't he become a man now for those who take this question superficially they would find that they were forced to accept this argument yes if God is able to do all things then why couldn't he become a man but the fact is that when we say that God is able to do all things we're not talking about things which make God less than God make God no longer God we're talking about when we talk about God is able to do all things from the Islamic perspective it means all things that are in keeping with his attributes of being God all things which befit him as God and excluded from this our water called the absurdities all of the things which would make God less than God for example if we say that God is without beginning to then ask can God be born is an absurdity because we already said that God is without beginning so to ask can God be born contradicts the basic belief that one has about God but according to the argument that God is able to do all things one would have to say yes he's able to do all things though he is without beginning he can be born but this is ridiculous similarly we know that God one of the attributes of God is that he's eternal without end and again to us can God die it's a ridiculous question but those who want to include everything in God being able to do all things would have to accept the fact that yes God could die though inside themselves it is illogical it goes against reason similarly to say that God became a man that God became his creation is absurd because God is the creator God is the Creator for him to become his creation creation is in need of a creator so it means that God would become his if God became his creation he would then be in need of a creator he could no longer be the creator and whoever created him that's who God is not him so we see that the argument that God became a man is an illogical argument it goes against reason it goes against Revelation true revelation confirms that God is the creator and he is not his creation he does not become his creation he did not become his creation and he never will become his creation so in summing up the presentation this evening which addresses the oneness of God the belief in God we said is logical and it is in fact illogical not to believe in God the existence of the belief in God in the vast majority of tribes around this world no matter how primitive so-called primitive they may be confirms that it is something essential to human beings it is a part of their created nature to realize and to understand this to know that God exists and Greek philosophers of the past argued from pure logic that God exists the arguments that God doesn't exist are not only ridiculous they also represent a small element of individuals who reject reason and have sought to propagate the idea that there is no God to perpetuate or to develop a system this was the Atheist systems known as communism and systems of the like this was a part of their own arguments for explaining a future which they proposed a mythological future where a new human being would arise out of this communist system who would be angelic this new human being would only take from the fruit of the labor of human beings what they needed and they would work according to their ability this was the Communist man the ideal the dream that they had and it was a myth it never came into being and the communist systems have fallen apart and religion in these areas have reasserted themselves belief in God is logical it is affirmed by everything we see around us human experience confirms that wherever there is something having a design there was behind them or behind that thing a designer the question as I mentioned is not so much as is there a god but who is God was God his creation did God become his creation will his creation become God these are the questions that Islam answers with a emphatic no the Creator God is not his creation everything that exists is by his will it was created out of nothing not by nothing but out of nothing God by his command created things from nothing and it is an inability on the part of some human beings to fathom this act of creation which led them to believe that this world is an extension of God when they looked at human beings and they saw human beings creating from things which already existed and they said well okay in the beginning was God and then God created then he must have created things from himself so you have the Hindu belief that people are in different castes the top caste the Brahmin caste was created from God's head the bottom caste the sudras were created from God's feet and other cows were created from different parts of his body you know this is their concept but the fact is that the creation of God when God creates is unique and different from human creation we create by way of manipulation we manipulate what is already there this table was created from wood which was from a tree which we didn't create the tree was already there we have manipulated it and made a tree from it a table from it this is how we create but God being unique in his characteristics as he's unique in the sense that he has no beginning and all of his creation has a beginning he has no end and all of his creation comes to an end he is unique in his creation he created things from nothing so this basically summarizes the initial presentation concerning the oneness of God in the next segment we will look in more detail as to the concept of God in Islam God in his oneness known as tau eat and we'll pause here to give you all an opportunity to raise any questions you'd like to raise and the papers I think are available to you last time we extended the talk a bit longer and you had a much more limited time to ask questions so hopefully this time you'll have a better opportunity salaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa hamdulillah or salat WA Salam Rasul Allah all praise is due to Allah and may Allah's peace and blessings be on the last messenger of allah a question if God created us in the heavens and the earth then who created god this is a common question asked by non-believers this relates back to the the concept of creation having its cause in creation that if we accept logically that there had to be a being that started the process going that being cannot be a part of the process itself if the process of creation things created from other things is traced back to a starting point this the one who started it could not himself be a part of that process meaning that he was also a created being otherwise you are then going to look at one before who created him and you say ok he started it but he is the part of it then who created him so you were caught back into that cycle of going back eternally to an original cause so for everything to make sense for us to exist here there had to be a beginning point a beginner and that beginner could not be a part of the process of creation himself he could not be a created being and this is why we say who created God is an illogical question because God for him to be the one to start the whole process going had to be uncreated once you die on judgement day do you get to see God it is believed according to the teachings of Islam that those who enter paradise will see God those who are judged evil and will be punished in hell will not see God couldn't the UFOs be proof of God's existence God states that everyone both on earth and in the sky prays to him well the point is that existence has been explained to us the beings of existence the world has been explained to us there is another world parallel to ours known as the world of the jinn about which the Quran speaks and about whom Prophet Muhammad may God's peace and blessings be upon him gave us details if from the evidence of the UFO sightings etc there are in fact incidences which are not explained away and the vast majority of what has been cited as UFO sightings etc have been shown by scientists etc to be false either mistaken sightings of weather balloons and you know inversions ball lightning a variety of natural phenomena create some of these sightings for Kong sightings but if in fact there is an element among them which has some reality to it then the world of the Djinn is an easy enough explanation we don't have to go to other beings beyond those that have already been identified in the Quran and the Sunnah why do you refer to God as he when he can't be his creation oh this is a common question asked about why God is referred to in the Quran and the Bible Jewish Scriptures as he in the male form and the reality is that in the Semitic languages everything is either male or female it may be male and female literally or it is male and female by convention according to Arabic the son is female the moon is male the table paella is female the chair Corsi is male so in an Arabic terminology as well as in Hebrew you would refer to the table as he and the chair as he but you don't mean literally that it is a male and a female here this is just by convention and that being the language meaning that there is no it there is no term neutral term for things that are neither he nor she when God revealed himself through scripture in Hebrew and Arabic and in previous scriptures we can speak specifically about the Hebrew and Arabic scriptures when he revealed himself from the scriptures he revealed himself using the pronoun he as opposed to the pronoun she' because if he would use either he or she and since the order in which he had created things was such that the male would be dominant the male would had the family would had societies etc as a general rule I mean of course there are exceptions but as a general rule males dominate the head societies they had families so he chose the pronoun which indicated the person or the personality of greater dominance we do not in Islam conceive of God as being a male people are like sheep just because our predecessors so-called believed in a god convinced me with hard evidence or what hard evidence is there to prove to me that there is a God well this is a the type of individual about whom we spoke who I would ask instead to prove that there isn't a god common sense logic reason points to God's existence it is not for me to prove to you that there is a god it is for you to deny what is obvious around you to argue that there isn't a god how do we explain the inequities and sufferings in this world this is part of the expression of those who denied God's existence that since God is good then why should there be suffering in the world whether it should there be evil again this comes back to what we perceive as being evil whether that perception is correct or whether it isn't our perception is limited based on our limited knowledge we may perceive something to be evil when in fact it is good evil which takes place in this world which could be classified as pure evil not relative evil occurs only from the beings that have free will from human beings where a person intends to do evil and they commit that act of evil otherwise the things around us where we see natural calamities no accidents misfortunes taking place these things we may perceive as evil but after some time we may find in them good at any rate even the evil which is which is perpetrated by those who choose to do evil having been given the free will by God even for that evil to take place it is by the permission of God if God is not a part of his creation does this mean that God is a spirit from the Islamic perspective we do not hold that God is a spirit in that the spirit is itself created God is not a part of his creation he is not composed of the elements of his creation he is unique in and of himself as Jesus highly regarded in Islam yes Jesus is regarded as a prophet of God who was born of a virgin and who performed many miracles and who was not crucified or resurrected but who was raised up by God and who would return in this world as a part of the signs of the last hour of the last times of this world and he would reaffirm the teachings which he brought which were Islam submission to one God and he would defeat the Antichrist and those who invited God's creation to the worship of the creation instead of the worship of God you is it possible at the Big Bang Theory something coming from nothing can correspond with a large statement couldn't fire : that is B and it is and this is the beginning of all things well as I said the Big Bang Theory starts with matter it doesn't start with the creation of matter so it's not really related to God's command to be for matter to come into being yes this is in accordance with God's command to be Big Bang Theory really explains the existence of of matter in motion as it is now it's supposed to explain it you know as the particles of matter expand to the universe why stars are moving in certain directions and these type of things this is what it tries to explain but it doesn't really explain you know as the majority of scientists will attempt it doesn't explain where that matter which was compressed in the first place came from that's a question sort of in another direction altogether what is the importance of the cap you are wearing on your head this is uh just because I said the last time we had some questions which were out there and we didn't get a chance to answer them we'll try to put in everything this evening is it's enough meaning is it from the way of the Prophet may God's peace and mercy be upon him opinion seems to be divided well it has no special significance in Islam meaning that the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him was not known to wear a cap by itself nor did he instruct his followers to wear a cap by itself what we do know is that it was the common practice in Arabia to wear a turban on their heads and he instructed his followers to wear a cap under their turbans to distinguish themselves from the pagans so the wearing of a cap is not in and of itself a religious act in that we have what may be called a prayer cap like the Yarmouk of the Jews where they have a cap that they wear for prayer and unfortunately we do find some Muslims taking this cap in that same way you know especially places like India and Pakistan at the door the door of the mosque when you first come in there will be a pile of caps there and people put them on as they go in to pray take it off as they leave so it has become it has taken all this kind of significance to them but in fact this is not correct we have no prayer crack cap in Islam however if a person wears it as a means of distinguishing himself you know it's a part of of Muslim culture to wear particular types of caps and we do so to distinguish ourselves to be known as Muslim then it is in keeping with the Islamic principle wherein the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him invited us so encourages us to distinguish ourselves from the non-muslims in the society in which we find ourselves how do you explain the homology and DNA between the different species and the similarity of anatomy for example between humans and apes because the person who seems to have accepted the Darwinian argument that you know similar structures indicate some kind of biological relationship however there is a beetle known as the rhinoceros beetle it's a bug right a black bug and it has on the front part you know the head horns which looks something like a rhinoceros so they call it the rhinoceros beetle no one in his right mind among scientists biologists would say that there is a relationship between this rhinoceros beetle and a rhinoceros though there is a similarity in the shape so the fact that God has created all of the living beings with a common DNA structure with variations from it in no way indicates that one evolved from the other that is rather that's the theory that is the way of explaining this similarity which isn't necessarily the only way of explaining it one could say for those who don't accept God that it is by chance you want to go by chance okay it's by chance that we have a similar structure as in DNA as as certain other living beings and that by chance we have hands with five fingers and monkeys have hands with five fingers by chance if you want I mean of course we would say that God has created the monkeys with hands that have some similarities to ours but the fact that they were created with this similarity does not in any way indicate that we evolved from them just as our rhinoceros beetle didn't evolve from the rhinoceros when we say that God created man from clay do we mean clay in the sense of what we find on earth there are authentic narrations where in the Prophet Muhammad SAW Solomon related that man was created from different portions of clay from different parts of the earth and when we look in clay we know that clay is made up of elements the elements which make it up clay and it's described as moist clay that means clay with liquid water in it and the elements of water that are involved in it etc we can say that man is made up of these elements it doesn't mean that we are balls of clay walking around today if you pour water on us you know will dissolve no I mean though we originated from these elements in the sense that our initial creation was from it now we have taken on our own form and scientists will tell you if we take the human being and you boil him down you know grind up his bones and everything and separate the allottee you can put him into a number of different test tubes you know so much of calcium so much of carbon so much of hydrogen so and you can list it all together these are the elements of course the factor of the spirit this is something else but physically speaking the human body can be broken down into elements and these elements fundamentally may be found in the earth if we can see that the concept of one God is a logical necessity doesn't God ever feel lonely is that why we were created well this is not one of the explanations that was given by revelation I mean human beings have come up with such explanations I know there is a forged false tradition which describes God as being a hidden treasure and he desired to be discovered he was lonely so he created human beings to discover him but this is nonsense this is not issue of loneliness this is a human characteristic as God has told us lays a committee he shade there was nothing like him he doesn't suffer from the negative characteristics which we have loneliness is not considered to be a positive characteristic it's a negative it represents a weakness because when we don't have people around us when we're used to having people around us we feel a loss we feel at a loss so we have a need and a desire to have people around us that is a weakness God doesn't have any weaknesses and this is why the argument that some Christians used to explain why God became a man that he wanted to know how humans felt you know so he became a man and suffered as they suffered not to make this ultimate sacrifice I mean it talks about this God in this way where God didn't know so you had to become a man to find out what it was like to be a man well we don't accept these kinds of explanations because we believe God to know all things nothing is hidden from him he doesn't have to become a man to know what it is like to be a man what do you have to say about people who believe in God but are uncertain about religion who do not think it is necessary to pick a religion well such people are fortunate in that they do have the belief in God but that belief is incomplete it is incomplete because it implies that God created this world and did not communicate to his creatures that he just created the world and let it carry on by itself what is the importance of belief in God if it is if it is not going to affect our lives is not going to to be a part of a way of life it was just an idea like the ancient Greek philosophers argued yes there is a God but beyond accepting that there is a God this had nothing to do with the rest of their lives it is just a logical argument now such a belief as I said is deficient because if God if there is a God and God created us then we have to believe that there is a purpose behind creation if we on our lowly level do things with a purpose and we consider those who do things without a purpose as being insane we have them treated then to consider God as having created this world without a purpose is ludicrous and if there is a purpose for God to have created us for a purpose and not reveal that purpose to us again would be inconceivable be pointless what is the point in there being a purpose and creating us without knowing what that purpose is if we send the child to school now we don't tell the child what they're supposed to do at school are they gonna do what they're supposed to do at school no they all go and play they will enjoy themselves if there is no purpose defined for them then they will be lost and God who would believe is all-wise all just all-knowing all merciful all kind created us for a purpose and he revealed that purpose through the prophets whom he sent to mankind down through the ages and their message is one message that of worshipping God alone and not worshiping his creation in your opinion right do human beings deny the existence of God they deny the existence of God because they don't want to deal with the responsibility if God created us and he created us for a purpose then it means that there are some obligations here for some things we need to do this is why it's easier to think of God as being chance good luck and bad luck because you don't have any obligation to chance whereas once you think of us being a creation of God that there is a purpose it's such a that it means that there are some things that God wants from us some things that we will have to do whereas a person who doesn't want to have to deal with that whole issue chooses then to deny God's existence that is the ultimate step or the second step is to say okay I believe there is a God but he didn't tell us what he wants from us if God is fair why do bad things happen to good people this is the same idea that we discussed earlier which is related to the issue of relative good and relative evil in fact prophet muhammad may god's peace and mercy be upon him had informed his companions that those who suffered the most who had the most calamities in this life were the prophets then those most like them that when God sees strength in a person's faith he tests him more to build that faith when he sees a person's faith weaker than the tests are less the T sign is coming again let me see if we can need is a quite short is the will of God different to the will of man yes well the rest of the questions are pretty long so I guess we'll have to save them for our next session subhanaka low hum hum decay eyeshadow la line and stop Fiona to Blake

Channel: Digital Mimbar

Views: 27,437

Rating: 4.8143458 out of 5

Keywords: oneness, allah, islam, muslim, muhammad, trinity, triune, christianity, atheism, deism, agnostic, monotheism, catholic, shirk, tawheed

Id: nlo8AHhPvFI

Length: 73min 11sec (4391 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 04 2007