Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Q&A Confusions about the Existence of God

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