Later in his speech, Huxley went on to explain that agnostics haveno creed, not even a negative one. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. . . . Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.
The God Delusion On page 54 November 5, 2012
weakness inherent in it becoming suddenly the recipient of the Divine Word and displaying its frailty before a power which is infinitely greater than man can imagine.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 53 November 5, 2012
The view that I shall defend is verydifferent: agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly inthe temporary or TAP category. Either he exists or he doesn't. It isa scientific question; one day we may know the answer, and mean-while we can say something pretty strong about the probability.
The God Delusion On page 53 November 5, 2012
Many people, especially non-Muslims, who read the Quran for the first time are struck by what appears as a kind of incoherence from the human point of view. It is neither like a highly mystical text nor a manual of Aristotelian logic, though it contains both mysticism and logic.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 52 November 5, 2012
One feels through the shattering effect left upon the language of the Quran, the power of the Divine whence it originated. The Quran displays human language with all the
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 52 November 5, 2012
The robust Muscular Christian haranguing us from the pulpit ofmy old school chapel admitted a sneaking regard for atheists. Theyat least had the courage of their misguided convictions. What thispreacher couldn't stand was agnostics: namby-pamby, mushy pap,weak-tea, weedy, pallid fence-sitters.
The God Delusion On page 51 November 5, 2012
Many Western authors writing about this cardinal question, begin with the assumption—often hidden in veils of so-called 'objectivity' and 'scholarship'—that the Quran is not really the Word of God, a revelation from heaven. Therefore, it must be explained away. Not being the Word of God, in their eyes it must naturally be the work of the Prophet who therefore must have been a very good poet and could not in fact have been unlettered. He must have learned bits here and there from the Jewish community in Medina or the Christian monks in Syria and put them together in a book that appears to these critics as a poor replica of other sacred books such as the Torah and the Gospels.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 48 November 5, 2012
So is James Madison's robust anti-clericalism: 'During almost fifteen centuries has the legalestablishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been itsfruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy;ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotryand persecution.'
The God Delusion On page 48 November 5, 2012
The covenant made between man and God by virtue of which man accepted the trust (amanah) of being an intelligent and free being with all the opportunities and danger® that such a responsibility implies, is symbolized physically by the stone of the Ka'ba.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 46 November 5, 2012
Anothersuggestion stems from the observation that America is a nation ofimmigrants. A colleague points out to me that immigrants,uprooted from the stability and comfort of an extended family inEurope, could well have embraced a church as a kind of kin-substitute on alien soil. It is an interesting idea, worth researchingfurther.
The God Delusion On page 45 November 5, 2012
between God and man, God in His Absoluteness and man in his profound theomorphic nature. Islam bases the realization of this central relationship on intelligence, will and speech and consequently on equilibrium and certitude. It has sought to establish equilibrium in life by channelling all of man's natural needs and inclinations, all those natural desires and needs such as that for food, shelter, procreation, etc. given by God and necessary in human life, through the Divine Law or Shari'ah.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 43 November 5, 2012
To summarize then, Islam is based on the universal relation
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 42 November 5, 2012
I am aware that critics of religion can be attacked for failing tocredit the fertile diversity of traditions and world-views that havebeen called religious. Anthropologically informed works, from SirJames Frazer's Golden Bough to Pascal Boyer's Religion Explainedor Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust, fascinatingly document thebizarre phenomenology of superstition and ritual. Read such booksand marvel at the richness of human gullibility.
The God Delusion On page 41 November 5, 2012
sense a return to the original Unity, to the 'religion of Abraham'. As Judaism represents the law or the exoteric aspect of this tradi- tion and Christianity the way or the esoteric aspect of it, so does Islam integrate the tradition in its original unity by containing both a law and a way, a shari'ah and a tariqah.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 40 November 5, 2012
Whatever miracles may have earned St Gregory his nickname, theywere not miracles of honest lucidity. His words convey thecharacteristically obscurantist flavour of theology, which - unlikescience or most other branches of human scholarship - has notmoved on in eighteen centuries.
The God Delusion On page 39 November 5, 2012
It sought to accom- plish this by its uncompromising emphasis upon Divine Unity and by seeking to return man to his original nature (fitrah) which is veiled from him because of his dream of negligence.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 38 November 5, 2012
History consists of a series of cycles of decay and rejuvenation. Decay comes from the corrupting influences of the terrestrial environment, from the earth which pulls all things downwards and makes every spiritual force decay as it moves away gradually from its original source. Rejuvenation comes from heaven through the prophets who through successive revelations renew the religious and spiritual life of man.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 38 November 5, 2012
But not having a Divine Law to govern the external life of man as well as the spiritual domain, Christianity facilitated this secularization of political and social life and its divorce from revealed principles which in turn brought about the major upheavals of modern times.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 37 November 5, 2012
Only a false idealism could criticize the pro- found realism of Islam, which, instead of envisaging all men as saints and then having difficulty with the many who are far from the saintly life, bases itself on the real nature of man in both his spiritual and worldly aspirations which it tries to channel towards a spiritual direction by comprehending all things in its total scheme based on Unity.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 37 November 5, 2012
Historians of religion recognize a progression fromprimitive tribal animisms, through polytheisms such as those of theGreeks, Romans and Norsemen, to monotheism
The God Delusion On page 37 November 5, 2012
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasantcharacter in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser;a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, fili-cidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciouslymalevolent bully.
The God Delusion On page 36 November 5, 2012
I shalldefine the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed andcreated the universe and everything in it, including us.
The God Delusion On page 36 November 5, 2012
This bookwill advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence onlyas the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.Creative intelligences, being evolved, necessarily arrive late in theuniverse, and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it.
The God Delusion On page 36 November 5, 2012
A stone has no choice but to fall. The force of gravitation is an expression of the Divine Will on the physical plane which the stone obeys absolutely so that in this sense it is 'muslim'. It is the Will of the Creator that expresses itself in what is called 'laws of nature' in Western thought, and everything in the Universe is in a profound sense Muslim except for man who, because of this free choice given to him as a trust to bear, can refuse to submit to His Will.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 33 November 5, 2012
To accept the Divine covenant brings up the question of living according to the Divine Will. The very name of Islam is intimately connected with this cardinal idea. The root 'salama' in Arabic, from which Islam is derived, has two meanings, one peace and the other surrender. He who surrenders himself to the Divine Will gains peace. The very idea of Islam is that through the use of intelligence which discerns between the Absolute and the relative one should come to surrender to the Will of the Absolute. This is the meaning of Muslim: one who has accepted through free choice to conform his will to the Divine Will.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 32 November 5, 2012
Man is presented with a unique opportunity by being born in the human state and it is a tragedy for him to fret away and waste his life in pursuits which distract him from the essential goal of his life which is to save his immortal soul.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 31 November 5, 2012
This means that God gave man the possibility of dominating over all things for to possess the 'name' of a thing means to exercise power over it. Man has the right to breathe the air about him, to eat and drink to satiate his bodily desires, to walk upon the earth.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 31 November 5, 2012
This story demonstrates the Islamic conception of man according to which man participates fully in the human state, not through the many activities with which he usually identifies himself but by remembering his theomorphic nature. And be- cause he is always in the process of forgetting this nature he is always in need of revelation. In Christianity man has sinned, having sinned his nature has become warped; it having become warped he needs a miracle to save him. Through baptism and the sacraments this wound in his soul is healed and by participa- tion in the life and sacrifice of Christ he is saved. In Islam, however, there is no original sin. There is no single act which has warped and distorted human will, ftather, man by being man is imperfect, only God being perfection as such. Being imperfect man has the tendency to forget and so is in constant need of being reminded through revelation of his real nature. Therefore, although the starting point of the conception of man in Christianity and Islam is different the end result is in this sense the same, in that both believe in the necessity of revelation to save man.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 29 November 5, 2012
Here's another weird example of the privileging of religion. On21 February 2006 the United States Supreme Court ruled that a8 church in New Mexico should be exempt from the law, whicheverybody else has to obey, against the taking of hallucinogenicdrugs. Faithful members of the Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniaodo Vegetal believe that they can understand God only by drinkinghoasca tea, which contains the illegal hallucinogenic drug dimethyl-tryptamine. Note that it is sufficient that they believe that the drugenhances their understanding.
The God Delusion On page 29 November 5, 2012
The most profound reason for the need of revelation is the presence of obstacles before the intelligence which prevent its correct functioning, or more directly the fact that although man is made in the 'image of God' and has a theomorphic being he is always in the process of forgetting it. He has in himself the possibility of being God-like but he is always in the state of neglecting this possibility. That is why the cardinal sin in Islam is forgetfulness. It is negligence (ghaflah) of what we really are.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 28 November 5, 2012
