"Dawkins Is Wrong. Religion Is Rational"

[FAH1223]

"You believe that Muhammad went to heaven on a winged horse?"” That was the question posed to me by none other than Richard Dawkins a few weeks ago, in front of a 400-strong audience at the Oxford Union. I was supposed to be interviewing him for al-Jazeera but the world’s best-known atheist decided to turn the tables on me.

So what did I do? I confessed. Yes, I believe in prophets and miracles. Oh, and I believe in God, too. Shame on me, eh? Faith, in the disdainful eyes of the atheist, is irredeemably irrational; to have faith, as Dawkins put it to me, is to have “"belief in something without evidence"”. This, however, is sheer nonsense. Are we seriously expected to believe that the likes of Descartes, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Rousseau, Leibniz and Locke were all unthinking or irrational idiots?

In trying to disparage “faith”, Dawkins and his allies constantly confuse “evidence” with “proof”; those of us who believe in God do so without proof but not without evidence. As the Oxford theologian (and biophysicist) Alister McGrath has observed: “"Our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstrating that they are proven.”"

The science bit

Those atheists who harangue us theists for our supposed lack of evidence should consider three things. First, it may be a tired cliché but it is nonetheless correct: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can'’t prove God but you can’t disprove him. The only non-faith-based position is that of the agnostic.

Second, there are plenty of things that cannot be scientifically tested or proven but that we believe to be true, reasonable, obvious even. Which of these four pretty uncontroversial statements is scientifically testable? 1) Your spouse loves you. 2) The Taj Mahal is beautiful. 3) There are conscious minds other than your own. 4) The Nazis were evil.

This isn’'t just about metaphysics, aesthetics or ethics: science itself is permeated with unproven (and unprovable) theories. Take the so-called multiverse hypothesis. "“It says there are billions and billions of universes, all of which have different settings of their fundamental constants,"” Dawkins explained to a member of the audience in Oxford. "“A tiny minority of those billions and billions of universes have their constants set in such a way as to give rise to a universe that lasts long enough to give rise to galaxies, stars, planets, chemistry and hence the process of evolution...”"

Hmm. A nice idea, but where'’s your evidence, Richard? How do we “prove” that these “billions and billions” of universes exist? “"The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language,”" the cosmologist Paul Davies has admitted, "“but in essence it requires the same leap of faith [as God]."”

Third, there are plenty of good, rational and evidence-based arguments for God. You don'’t have to agree with them, but it is intellectually dishonest to claim that they, too, like God, don'’t exist.

Take the Kalam cosmological argument – first outlined by the medieval Muslim theologian al-Ghazali, and nowadays formulated by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig as follows:

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2) The universe began to exist.
3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Whether you agree with it or not, it is a valid deductive argument, a genuine appeal to reason and logic.

Or how about the argument that says the universe, in Davies'’s words, “is "in several respects ‘'fine-tuned'’ for life”"? Remember, the late Antony Flew, the atheist philosopher who embraced God in 2004, did so after coming to the conclusion that “there had to be "an intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical universe”". To pretend that Flew, of all people, arrived at such a belief blindly, without thinking it through, “without evidence”, is plain silly.

For Muslims such as me, faith (iman) and reason (aql) go hand in hand. The Quran stresses the importance of using science, logic and reason as tools for discovering God. "“Will you not then use your reason?”" it asks, again and again. But hasn'’t the theory of evolution undermined Islam? asks the atheist. A few years ago, Dawkins accused British Muslims of "“importing creationism into this country”". He has a point. These days, the vast majority of my coreligionists see Darwin as the devil.

Yet this is a new phenomenon. Many of Islamic history’'s greatest scholars and thinkers were evolutionists; the 19th-century scientist John William Draper, a contemporary of Darwin, referred to the latter’s views as "“the Muhammadan theory of evolution"”. As I pointed out on these pages back in January, “"one of the earliest theories of natural selection was developed by the ninth-century Iraqi zoologist (and Islamic theologian) al-Jahiz, 1,000 years before Charles Darwin"”. And almost 500 years before the publication of On the Origin of Species, the acclaimed Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote his Muqaddimah, in which he documented how “"the animal world then widens, its species become numerous . . . the higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys...”"

Stages of man

There is, indeed, nothing in the Quran that prevents Muslims from embracing evolution. In his recent book Reading the Quran, the Muslim commentator Ziauddin Sardar notes how creation is presented "“as a dynamic, ongoing phenomenon that is constantly evolving and changing”". Sardar points to verse 14 of chapter 71, where “we are specifically asked to reflect on the fact that "‘He has created you stage by stage".

Yet the theory of evolution, whether Muslims accept it or not, doesn’'t explain the origins of the universe, the laws of science or our objective moral values. In short, most of us who believe in God do so not because we are irrational, incurious or immature but because He is the best answer to the question posed by Leibniz more than 300 years ago: “"Why is there something rather than nothing?”"

Mehdi Hasan is political director of The Huffington Post UK and a contributing writer for the New Statesman. His interview with Richard Dawkins for al-Jazeera English can be seen here. This article is crossposted with the New Statesman here


Follow Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mehdirhasan

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-h ... 58000.html

[Based]

"You believe that Muhammad went to heaven on a winged horse?"” That was the question posed to me by none other than Richard Dawkins a few weeks ago, in front of a 400-strong audience at the Oxford Union. I was supposed to be interviewing him for al-Jazeera but the world’s best-known atheist decided to turn the tables on me.

So what did I do? I confessed. Yes, I believe in prophets and miracles. Oh, and I believe in God, too. Shame on me, eh? Faith, in the disdainful eyes of the atheist, is irredeemably irrational; to have faith, as Dawkins put it to me, is to have “"belief in something without evidence"”. This, however, is sheer nonsense. Are we seriously expected to believe that the likes of Descartes, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Rousseau, Leibniz and Locke were all unthinking or irrational idiots?

In trying to disparage “faith”, Dawkins and his allies constantly confuse “evidence” with “proof”; those of us who believe in God do so without proof but not without evidence. As the Oxford theologian (and biophysicist) Alister McGrath has observed: “"Our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstrating that they are proven.”"

The science bit

Those atheists who harangue us theists for our supposed lack of evidence should consider three things. First, it may be a tired cliché but it is nonetheless correct: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The only non-faith-based position is that of the agnostic.

Second, there are plenty of things that cannot be scientifically tested or proven but that we believe to be true, reasonable, obvious even. Which of these four pretty uncontroversial statements is scientifically testable? 1) Your spouse loves you. 2) The Taj Mahal is beautiful. 3) There are conscious minds other than your own. 4) The Nazis were evil.

This isn’'t just about metaphysics, aesthetics or ethics: science itself is permeated with unproven (and unprovable) theories. Take the so-called multiverse hypothesis. "“It says there are billions and billions of universes, all of which have different settings of their fundamental constants,"” Dawkins explained to a member of the audience in Oxford. "“A tiny minority of those billions and billions of universes have their constants set in such a way as to give rise to a universe that lasts long enough to give rise to galaxies, stars, planets, chemistry and hence the process of evolution...”"

Hmm. A nice idea, but where'’s your evidence, Richard? How do we “prove” that these “billions and billions” of universes exist? “"The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language,”" the cosmologist Paul Davies has admitted, "“but in essence it requires the same leap of faith [as God]."”

Third, there are plenty of good, rational and evidence-based arguments for God. You don'’t have to agree with them, but it is intellectually dishonest to claim that they, too, like God, don'’t exist.

Take the Kalam cosmological argument – first outlined by the medieval Muslim theologian al-Ghazali, and nowadays formulated by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig as follows:

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2) The universe began to exist.
3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Whether you agree with it or not, it is a valid deductive argument, a genuine appeal to reason and logic.

Or how about the argument that says the universe, in Davies'’s words, “is "in several respects ‘'fine-tuned'’ for life”"? Remember, the late Antony Flew, the atheist philosopher who embraced God in 2004, did so after coming to the conclusion that “there had to be "an intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical universe”". To pretend that Flew, of all people, arrived at such a belief blindly, without thinking it through, “without evidence”, is plain silly.

For Muslims such as me, faith (iman) and reason (aql) go hand in hand. The Quran stresses the importance of using science, logic and reason as tools for discovering God. "“Will you not then use your reason?”" it asks, again and again. But hasn'’t the theory of evolution undermined Islam? asks the atheist. A few years ago, Dawkins accused British Muslims of "“importing creationism into this country”". He has a point. These days, the vast majority of my coreligionists see Darwin as the devil.

Yet this is a new phenomenon. Many of Islamic history’'s greatest scholars and thinkers were evolutionists; the 19th-century scientist John William Draper, a contemporary of Darwin, referred to the latter’s views as "“the Muhammadan theory of evolution"”. As I pointed out on these pages back in January, “"one of the earliest theories of natural selection was developed by the ninth-century Iraqi zoologist (and Islamic theologian) al-Jahiz, 1,000 years before Charles Darwin"”. And almost 500 years before the publication of On the Origin of Species, the acclaimed Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote his Muqaddimah, in which he documented how “"the animal world then widens, its species become numerous . . . the higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys...”"

Stages of man

There is, indeed, nothing in the Quran that prevents Muslims from embracing evolution. In his recent book Reading the Quran, the Muslim commentator Ziauddin Sardar notes how creation is presented "“as a dynamic, ongoing phenomenon that is constantly evolving and changing”". Sardar points to verse 14 of chapter 71, where “we are specifically asked to reflect on the fact that "‘He has created you stage by stage".

Yet the theory of evolution, whether Muslims accept it or not, doesn’'t explain the origins of the universe, the laws of science or our objective moral values. In short, most of us who believe in God do so not because we are irrational, incurious or immature but because He is the best answer to the question posed by Leibniz more than 300 years ago: “"Why is there something rather than nothing?”"

Mehdi Hasan is political director of The Huffington Post UK and a contributing writer for the New Statesman. His interview with Richard Dawkins for al-Jazeera English can be seen here. This article is crossposted with the New Statesman here


Follow Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mehdirhasan

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-h ... 58000.html

Stopped reading at "I can'’t prove God but you can’t disprove him".

[union]

How wonderful, this Muslim writer embraces the theory of evolution.

[grandpakhalif]

The fock did this guy say, Ibn Khaludun said man orginated from Monkeys

[FAH1223]

Best thing to say to atheists:

"If there was no God, there would be no Atheist."

[Keyblade]

"You believe that Muhammad went to heaven on a winged horse?"” That was the question posed to me by none other than Richard Dawkins a few weeks ago, in front of a 400-strong audience at the Oxford Union. I was supposed to be interviewing him for al-Jazeera but the world’s best-known atheist decided to turn the tables on me.

So what did I do? I confessed. Yes, I believe in prophets and miracles. Oh, and I believe in God, too. Shame on me, eh? Faith, in the disdainful eyes of the atheist, is irredeemably irrational; to have faith, as Dawkins put it to me, is to have “"belief in something without evidence"”. This, however, is sheer nonsense. Are we seriously expected to believe that the likes of Descartes, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Rousseau, Leibniz and Locke were all unthinking or irrational idiots?

In trying to disparage “faith”, Dawkins and his allies constantly confuse “evidence” with “proof”; those of us who believe in God do so without proof but not without evidence. As the Oxford theologian (and biophysicist) Alister McGrath has observed: “"Our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstrating that they are proven.”"

The science bit

Those atheists who harangue us theists for our supposed lack of evidence should consider three things. First, it may be a tired cliché but it is nonetheless correct: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The only non-faith-based position is that of the agnostic.

Second, there are plenty of things that cannot be scientifically tested or proven but that we believe to be true, reasonable, obvious even. Which of these four pretty uncontroversial statements is scientifically testable? 1) Your spouse loves you. 2) The Taj Mahal is beautiful. 3) There are conscious minds other than your own. 4) The Nazis were evil.

This isn’'t just about metaphysics, aesthetics or ethics: science itself is permeated with unproven (and unprovable) theories. Take the so-called multiverse hypothesis. "“It says there are billions and billions of universes, all of which have different settings of their fundamental constants,"” Dawkins explained to a member of the audience in Oxford. "“A tiny minority of those billions and billions of universes have their constants set in such a way as to give rise to a universe that lasts long enough to give rise to galaxies, stars, planets, chemistry and hence the process of evolution...”"

Hmm. A nice idea, but where'’s your evidence, Richard? How do we “prove” that these “billions and billions” of universes exist? “"The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language,”" the cosmologist Paul Davies has admitted, "“but in essence it requires the same leap of faith [as God]."”

Third, there are plenty of good, rational and evidence-based arguments for God. You don'’t have to agree with them, but it is intellectually dishonest to claim that they, too, like God, don'’t exist.

Take the Kalam cosmological argument – first outlined by the medieval Muslim theologian al-Ghazali, and nowadays formulated by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig as follows:

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2) The universe began to exist.
3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Whether you agree with it or not, it is a valid deductive argument, a genuine appeal to reason and logic.

Or how about the argument that says the universe, in Davies'’s words, “is "in several respects ‘'fine-tuned'’ for life”"? Remember, the late Antony Flew, the atheist philosopher who embraced God in 2004, did so after coming to the conclusion that “there had to be "an intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical universe”". To pretend that Flew, of all people, arrived at such a belief blindly, without thinking it through, “without evidence”, is plain silly.

For Muslims such as me, faith (iman) and reason (aql) go hand in hand. The Quran stresses the importance of using science, logic and reason as tools for discovering God. "“Will you not then use your reason?”" it asks, again and again. But hasn'’t the theory of evolution undermined Islam? asks the atheist. A few years ago, Dawkins accused British Muslims of "“importing creationism into this country”". He has a point. These days, the vast majority of my coreligionists see Darwin as the devil.

Yet this is a new phenomenon. Many of Islamic history’'s greatest scholars and thinkers were evolutionists; the 19th-century scientist John William Draper, a contemporary of Darwin, referred to the latter’s views as "“the Muhammadan theory of evolution"”. As I pointed out on these pages back in January, “"one of the earliest theories of natural selection was developed by the ninth-century Iraqi zoologist (and Islamic theologian) al-Jahiz, 1,000 years before Charles Darwin"”. And almost 500 years before the publication of On the Origin of Species, the acclaimed Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote his Muqaddimah, in which he documented how “"the animal world then widens, its species become numerous . . . the higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys...”"

Stages of man

There is, indeed, nothing in the Quran that prevents Muslims from embracing evolution. In his recent book Reading the Quran, the Muslim commentator Ziauddin Sardar notes how creation is presented "“as a dynamic, ongoing phenomenon that is constantly evolving and changing”". Sardar points to verse 14 of chapter 71, where “we are specifically asked to reflect on the fact that "‘He has created you stage by stage".

Yet the theory of evolution, whether Muslims accept it or not, doesn’'t explain the origins of the universe, the laws of science or our objective moral values. In short, most of us who believe in God do so not because we are irrational, incurious or immature but because He is the best answer to the question posed by Leibniz more than 300 years ago: “"Why is there something rather than nothing?”"

Mehdi Hasan is political director of The Huffington Post UK and a contributing writer for the New Statesman. His interview with Richard Dawkins for al-Jazeera English can be seen here. This article is crossposted with the New Statesman here


Follow Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mehdirhasan

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-h ... 58000.html

Stopped reading at "I can'’t prove God but you can’t disprove him".

I can't believe I actually read everything preceding that line.

[AgentOfChaos]

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2) The universe began to exist.
3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-h ... 58000.html

Masha'Allah.

[Based]

Ibn Khaldun was a vicious racist and was probably alluding to Africans.

Some choice quotes:

"The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and proximity to the animal stage. Other persons who accept the status of slave do so as a means of attaining high rank, or power, or wealth, as is the case with the Mameluke Turks in the East and with those Franks and Galicians who enter the service of the state [in Spain]."

"Beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings."

"Therefore, the Negro nation are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated."

[AhlulbaytSoldier]

Does Doctoore Yalaxoow believe in the travel from makkah to masjidul aqsa on a horselike creature?
Abu Bakr aleyhi salaam believed, so am i.

[Adali]

[CilmiDoone]

Best thing to say to atheists:

"If there was no God, there would be no Atheist."

That statement is logically flawed.

[Kabriid]

How wonderful, this Muslim writer embraces the theory of evolution.

It depends on what you mean when you say evolution. If you're talking about Big Bang then the Qur'an doesn't deny the reaction of hyper dense mass and energy which resulted in a explosion that lead to the expansion of universe, that goes on to this day, however the explosion was controlled by God. Infact God started the reaction. In science you don't get something out of nothing, that's preposterous and you definitely don't get a universe controlled by the laws of physics where everything is in perfection by a random explosion controlled by no one. It's illogical.


I don't believe in the human evolution to 100% but I agree with alot of things when it comes to the evolutionary process in general.

[abdikarim86]

^There's a case to be made for Intelligent design or something along those lines
but maybe not the 6 day bible story.

It's interesting though ...recent research that was shown to us in a university lecture.
Evolution is predictable and always takes a certain path without regards to environement.
The argument that it happens according to rules and that it can be predicted is new.

It seriously calls into to question the notion that it's completely random and chaotic.
As Dawkins et al argue, for they have to argue like that to further their argument
of the non existance of God.

If such a notion does turn out to be the most like scenraio (it's all about statistics at the end when it comes to biology)
I don't see how anyone could argue against a Universal creator directing and sustaining his creation with laws


As for the topic, I don't see what the point is of debating with people who fundementally disagree with you.
You'll just tire yourself out.

[James Dahl]

There is no proof either way, you cannot prove nor disprove the validity of a religion. You either choose to believe and have faith, or you don't.

This is like a pair of aliens arguing over what color the sky of Earth is, neither have ever been there or can ever be there, they only heard an account of Earth from a passing spaceship, but that shaceship didn't say what color the sky was. One alien says the sky was purple, the other one says the sky was clearly green. A third alien then steps in and says there is no proof Earth even exists so what are they arguing about.

[Colonel]

I'm not reading that book