Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Q&A Confusions about the Existence of God
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How do we know that Islam is the right religion? Often science
facts are put forward. But what is the proof of one God? How does it
prove Islam? Now, look,
this is not. So this is very difficult to try to explain this
in a short amount of time. Because when you're trying to prove God to
somebody, there are many different ways of you proving God. And no
one of them works all the time. The reason is that God is a very
complex idea. The belief in God is very complex idea. And different
people have different reasons of why they have a problem with
accepting God. Some people have a spiritual problem. Some people
have a scientific challenge in this regard. So for different
people, there's different reasons. For a lot of people, the reason
why they've stopped believing in God is because they've had a bad
experience, because their parents maybe or a teacher, was abusive,
very cultural. And they would mask their culture in religion and say,
this is religion. But it was not it was Somali culture. It was like
Punjabi culture. It was Gujarati culture, whatever it is. So the
child doesn't understand that the young man young woman now does not
know what is culture, what is Islam? To be honest, the response
to this would be that if there are certain facts, that there are some
theories, certain ideas that make us doubt,
what doubt the existence of God, then the reason they were creating
doubt in us is because we are looking into them as a, as a doubt
creating aspects. And then we're not looking for a response. Our
study is about Islam. If you just read the Quran with a good thought
and reflection, and look at some of the tough series and the
Hadith, and some of the Aqeedah, the belief works, that will give a
good amount of reassurance. Problem is that we're being
exposed to a number of atheistic ideas, because currently this
these few decades, the last two decades or so, this is the first
time in history that we've had mill, we've had overt
we've had overt
atheism, before atheism was always hidden. But because of Dawkins and
Sam Harris and other Christopher Hitchens of the last were very
eloquent speakers. They've caused a lot of people to doubt because a
lot of these people don't have understanding of their religion.
But they listen to these things, because this becomes popular
discourse. And a lot of people are too lazy to go and find out. And
when they do come to the masjid, many of the people responsible in
the masjid, even some Imams, they're not really, they're not
able to respond properly. So that's why I'm saying that it's a
very complex kind of scenario. But the answers are all there. So
that's why what we want to do is we want to deal with this in in
more detail as to what the issue is. Now. How do we know Islam is a
true religion? I mean, the way I would say for me, because I was
born in a Muslim household, so it was easier. However, when I became
mature, I started thinking about things making decisions for
myself, then, I adopted Islam now,
on a acquisition level, it wasn't just because I was born into the
faith that helped me, obviously. But I became curious, what does
Islam say about this? What does Islam say about that? So for
example, for me, if there's any religion, it needs to be able to
answer many, many things. And I put that down to five dimensions.
The religion should not just be about worshipping God, like fire,
you know, rituals. That's not what the only thing religion should
provide. That's one aspect. A religion needs to provide first
dimension of belief. How do I see things? What is the purpose of
this life? What is my outlook? What is
does doo, doo Jin, Do angels exist? What does Islam say about
these different things? Number one, once you recognize the god,
which Islam explains through the Quran and Sunnah, then the second
thing is how do you worship this God? So the second dimension is
worship. First one is doctrine. Secondary is worship. Number
three, a religion also needs to tell you how to act interact, both
on a transactional level,
both on the transactional level and also on a social level, how do
I deal with my neighbors? How do I deal with the environment,
environment, green rights and so on? Right animal rights, how do I
deal with disputes? All of that is third and fourth paradigm third
and fourth dimension, the transactions and the martial arts.
And then finally, the fifth one is, how am I supposed to have my
outlook? How do I deal with enmity? How do I deal with feeling
of hatred?
How do I deal with jealousy? So Islam deals with all of that. Now,
there's some rich teachings of all of these things in the Quran that
we need to access. And there's books written about that. And
there's lectures on these things. This gives us a thorough
understanding. So for me, it just solidified my belief that Islam,
I'm satisfied with it, because it answers all of these questions. So
how do you know Islam is the right religion? You look into it, and
then you, you have to understand what matters to you personally,
and you look for those particular points. And that is, how generally
you understand that proof of God many different types of proof of
God.
It's just, what kind of proof are we looking for right now, you
know, through science through
what you call it, cosmology, the cosmological proof of God, the,
you know, that teleological proof that there's so many different
ways, the logical aspect, I mean, I can tell you one, it might sound
boring. But basically, we all come from something everybody is caused
by something. Right? Now, when you keep going up, eventually you will
get to the first cause, God.
Now, if you want to keep going back to that, okay, if everybody
is created, everything is created by something else, then who
created God?
The profit or loss and said, if you get to that level, you need to
say I will the biller, and you need to just say I believe in
Allah. But let's just entertain that question that if you say who
created God, one option is God to created God, one, you have to go
back somewhere, you have to stop somewhere. You say, it was all Big
Bang, who created the Big Bang, who set up the Big Bang? Because
if you look at the design of the world, it is virtually impossible
that it just happened randomly, because the random possibility is
so minut. It's like I take a bucket of letters, you know,
scrabble letters, letters, just letters, and a is got 300 letters
in there, and I throw it out. And what are the chances that it will
say Bergen is a beautiful city? What are the chances that it would
fall in that particular way to say Bergen is a beautiful city? What
tell me what do you think is the probability here? Maybe some crazy
probability? The zero point is, you know, that is what we're
saying. That's what the scientists is saying that this is how this
world came up. Not all scientists, by the way, scientists represent
believers and non believers in the same way that the general
population does. This was a study that was done in Harvard or
somewhere like that, okay. So essentially, that we need to be as
critical of the atheistic theories as we are of religion, if you want
to be critical, and you will find that at the end of the day. It's
just another claim. I would rather have a claim that works for me for
the hereafter, as well. And that's just not limited to this world.
Because at least then I'm prepared for that. If you just want to go
purely on an objective way. Anyway, I'm going to have to stop
here for