This is a problem that needs much explanation especially since certain modern Muslim apologists, wanting to answer Christian charges against Islam and at the same time not being intellectually strong enough to state the case of Islam in its true perspective, have claimed that indeed Islam has no need of mysteries, miracles, original sin, and just about everything else which is 'supernatural' from the Christian point of view. Islam is presented as if its conception of man is the Cartesian rational man left to his own reason who, however, instead of becoming a ddst or agnostic as in the West somehow becomes a Muslim. This view, however, is not at all true because although Islam is based on the primordial nature of man and his intelligence rather than will which has become warped after his fall on earth, it nevertheless believes that revelation is absolutely necessary. Without the aid of God man cannot discover by himself the way of salvation, the 'Straight Path'.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 27 November 5, 2012
Man needs revelation because although a theomorphic being he is by nature negligent and forgetful; he is by nature imper-fect. Therefore he needs to be reminded. Adam, the first man, was also the first of prophets.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 27 November 5, 2012
The Quran calls those who have gone astray from religion as those who cannot intellect, 'la ya'qilun', those who cannot use their intelligence correctly. It is very significant that the loss of faith is equated in Quranic language not with the corruption of the will but with the improper functioning of intelligence.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 26 November 5, 2012
Let me sum up Einsteinian religion in one more quotation fromEinstein himself: 'To sense that behind anything that can be experi-enced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whosebeauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeblereflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.'
The God Delusion On page 26 November 5, 2012
So, was he a deist, like Voltaire and Diderot? Or a pantheist, like Spinoza, whose philosophy he admired: 'I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings'?
The God Delusion On page 25 November 5, 2012
Let's remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of cre- ating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non- supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.
The God Delusion On page 25 November 5, 2012
ecumenical
The God Delusion On page 23 November 5, 2012
He has no theistic beliefs, but shares the poetic naturalism that the cosmos provokes in the other scientists I have mentioned.
The God Delusion On page 21 November 5, 2012
terrible and frightening label.
The God Delusion On page 13 November 5, 2012
nineteenth century, when John Stuart Mill was already able to say: 'The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.'
The God Delusion On page 13 November 5, 2012
Chapters 1 and 10 top and tail the book by explaining, in their different ways, how a proper understanding of the magnificence of the real world, while never becoming a religion, can fill the inspirational role that religion has historically - and inadequately - usurped.
The God Delusion On page 12 November 5, 2012
There are many people who know, in their heart of hearts, that they are atheists, but dare not admit it to their families or even, in some cases, to themselves. Partly, this is because the very word 'atheist' has been assiduously built up as a
The God Delusion On page 12 November 5, 2012
Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagineno suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts,no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinianwars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jewsas 'Christ-killers', no Northern Ireland 'troubles', no 'honourkillings', no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecinggullible people of their money ('God wants you to give till ithurts'). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues,
The God Delusion On page 10 November 5, 2012
The Word of God in Islam is the Quran; in Christianity it isChrist. The vehicle of the Divine Message in Christianity is the Virgin Mary; in Islam it is the soul of the Prophet. The Prophet must be unlettered for the same reason that the Virgin Mary must be virgin. The human vehicle of a Divine Message must be pure and untainted.
Ideals and realities of Islam On page 48 January 1, 1970
