These are usually excuses rather than reasons. There are causes for belief that usually remain unexamined. The fact is that few people have experience of Allah and this leads to rationalisation. Or people mistake their own opinions, the results of their own inadequate capacities for perception, for objective truths.

But apart from this the critic has not understood the concept of Allah either, or does not want to understand it because it would involve him in a disciplined life when, in fact, he wishes to indulge his own whims and desires freely.

Reality does exist and it is the Absolute and fundamentally One.

OMNISCIENCE of Allah.

Suppose it is the time just prior to the creation of the earth. For the sake of a rough estimate, we'll say this is six billion years ago. At this point, does Allah know what sins Bob Smith of Chicago Illinois is going to commit in July of 2001? If the scope of what Allah can see, and what Allah knows is unlimited, then surely He knows what Bob is going to do, and knew such things six billion years before old Bob was even born! That being established, suppose that before the first human is even created, the following HYPOTHETICAL discussion takes place between God and one of his angels:..........

This is naiveté. He assumes that Allah is a man. In fact, Allah is described as all pervading consciousness. (6:104, 8:47, 57:3).

If all things have causes then the future is already in the present and present in the past. If Time is a dimension then all of it can be seen at once. Serial time arises only in a limited consciousness.

The writer persists in applying faulty logic though it has been pointed out several times that a logical argument depends on abstracting from experience, defining concepts, and selecting appropriate premises in order to draw any conclusion one wishes according to motives. That is why there is always controversy among rationalists and science was invented to overcome this.

If Allah knows everything Bob is going to do, then it is as if he is pre-programmed, and the events of Bob's life are obviously predetermined. If Bob's life if predetermined, he cannot be considered guilty of any "sin" he "commits."

Guilt like the idea of free will refer to inner psychological experiences. From an external point of view there are only causes and effects, actions and consequences. Some of the causes are within the individual e.g. genetic and those acquired from experience. The teachings of religion are also causes. From the scientific and Islamic point of view there cannot be "causeless" events. The spontaneous events are attributed to the Quantum Field which underlies and pervades all things - these, in Islam, are also the Will of Allah.

If the entire history of life, past, present, and future, was predetermined, then it would seem that free will and an eternally omniscient Allah are wholly incompatible.

Light is both corpuscular and wavelike. But your logic would make one exclude the other.

There is no free will - it not only implies something causeless but also unreasonable and uncontrolled. There is freedom in the sense that several different possibilities exist but each needs a cause. Whether you "choose" this course of action or that, it will still have a cause. We are agents of the Universal process. To be an agent of Allah directly implies that we are led by the Spirit within (which refers to whatever is the fundamental force in the Universe from which the others derive.)

The very idea of prayer is totally absurd in the light of Allah's alleged omniscience. What are you praying for? If a farmer in Afghanistan prays for rain, he is wasting his time.

If you consider the Islamic Salat you will find that it is addressed to Allah and asks for spiritual benefits. You could say that it is a form of self-suggestion, self-modification and self-reinforcement. But at a higher level we see that we are connected to the rest of the Universe and interact with it through all kinds of forces - electronic, electromagnetic, mechanical, chemical, biological, psychological, social and spiritual (whatever is the most fundamental force). We affect and are affected by the environment at all these levels.

Another problem with Allah's alleged omniscience is that it contradicts His attribute of Omnipotence. It is totally illogical to claim that a being is both all-knowing and all-powerful. If Allah, six billion years ago, knew everything that would happen after that point, for the rest of eternity, then He would be limiting Himself - He could not alter this.

If someone was omnipotent then if he decided that ten years from now he would build a house then he would know that the house was built.

But the atheist is assuming a certain nature of Time. If Time were something that passes then there would be no past and no future. We would then not be able to remember anything nor plan anything. The fact is that the past and future exist in the present moment, and the capacity to perceive it differs between people. It is part of the Quranic thesis that an instant for Allah may be like a thousand years or 50000 years for man - i.e. Time is relative.

As George Smith put it, "If God knows the future with infallible certainty, he cannot change it - in which case he cannot be omnipotent. If God can change the future, however, he cannot have infallible knowledge of it prior to its actual happening - in which case he cannot be omniscient." [Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God, (1989, Prometheus) p. 74]

Muslims do not go by the opinions of George Smith or anyone else, but by revelation or personal experience. His argument is an abstract intellectual one which depends only on formal definitions and rules and not on facts. It suffers from the limits of human reason.

The argument can be reversed:-

If Allah can create the future whatever it is then He is Omnipotent. Since He has created it He knows it. If Allah knows the future with certainty then He is Omniscient.

(1) Allah is omniscient, i.e. He knows all things.

(2) Allah is omnipotent, i.e. He can do all things.

(3) Allah knows everything that He will ever do after this point [from 1].

(4) Allah can do anything He pleases, at anytime He pleases [from 2].

(5) Allah can change His mind about what he planned to do [from 2 & 4].

(6) If Allah can change His mind, and do something different from what he originally planned to do, then He did not originally know what He was going to do. If Allah knows everything that will happen, then He cannot change it.

Given the relativity of time this argument is nonsense.

As Allah is all-pervasive (Omnipresent) or is the Fundamental Reality (the mind as it were in which all things happen) then whatever happens is known by Him and done by Him.

No these logical sophistries do not impress us. We know about human limitations. We know that knowledge advances; theories about the world which existed in the past have been superseded; things which were thought impossible in the past have become possible now; The Mechanical model of the Universe was replaced by the Steam Engine model and then by the relativity model and now by a Quantum model and so on.

ALLAH AND OMNIPOTENCE

As was just shown, the concept of omnipotence contradicts the concept of omniscience, thus for Allah to be truly omnipotent, He would have to be limited in knowledge (as odd as that may sound).

Logical arguments can be contradicted by reverse arguments.

The contradiction of omnipotence and omniscience aside, there are other seemingly irreconcilable problems with the concept of an all-powerful deity. What can Allah create? If He is omnipotent, then He can create everything and anything. This is where questions that theists hate comes in. Can Allah create a four-sided triangle? Some theists, including Muslims, have argued that this is an unfair question, as we are asking Allah to create something in a way that is totally opposite to its definition. Regardless, this shows how human beings can limit what Allah can do by way of our own definitions. It is my opinion that "Allah," or "God" is an ambiguous sound that was created by human language, and because of this He/She/It can be limited through human language.

There is no end to this naiveté.

Allah has created Laws. These not only imply that things have causes and consequences but that they have order and regularity and therefore, limitations. These limitations refer not to Allah but to things. Things are recognized and distinguished from one another because of these limitations. The existence of this Universe and the things in it does not imply that other Universes cannot exist with different sets of Laws.

The atheist confuses imagination, and what is worse, verbal definitions, with realities. It is precisely because of fantasy that we come into collision with reality and suffer and we have to learn to be objective.

There are certainly three sided, four sided and many-sided objects in reality. This person speaks of four-sided triangles when, in fact, it is a human definition that tri-angles are three sided. If human beings wanted to define a four-sided object they would use the word quadrilateral.

There are things that are even impossible for Allah, hence Allah's powers are limited, thus Allah is a limited being. Then, to take a page from theist arguments, one might ask "who put those limitations on Allah?" I think from here one could understand that limitations are simply given and defined by the eternal laws of the mathematics, the universe, nature, et cetera, and there is no reason to assume limitations and rules must have a source. Thus cosmological and design arguments become worthless, but that's an entirely different conversation.

This is nonsense. We do not think that the Universe is simply given. Its existence has to be explained. The problem is this:- Why should anything be as it is? We know that things are constantly arising and disappearing and each defined by certain limits which distinguish it from others. We must assume a Field of All Possibilities with Infinite potentialities from which things come. The Universe has limitations owing to laws as the atheist admits - somethings are possible and others are not. Therefore, we ask: Who put those limitations on the Universe. It is Allah with no limitations. It is the ultimate assumption. He is the source of all things, that which is possible and impossible in current laws. It is Allah who puts limitation on things. That is what creation means. There may be other Universes with other Laws.

There are no Eternal Laws of Mathematics. The only thing that we need to assume is One and Addition (Allah and his creativity). Multiplicity flows from this. Then we define 2 as 1+1, 3 as 1+1+1 and 4 as 1+1+1+1.

It follows from these definitions that 3= 2+1 because 3= (1+1)+1 i.e. we substitute 2 with 1+1. Similarly 4=3+1=2+2=2+1+1 because we substitute the symbol by the definition.

These are, of course, the manipulations of the human mind, and the human mind is a product of nature, ultimately of Allah.

But the fact is that you cannot cross a four meter wide stream by using two meter planks of wood even though 2+2=4. You have to do other things. Even that which the mind can conceive must be further limited. Conversely, the mind which can transcend the physical limitation, also exists.

In July of 2000, physicists, ended a conference on Superstring theory at the University of Michigan with a session called "Millennium Madness," choosing 10 of the most perplexing problems in their field. On August 15th, the New York Times ran an article titled "10 Questions to Ponder for a Millennium or Two," which covered this conference, and one of the questions was as follows:-

"Are all the (measurable) dimensionless parameters that characterize the physical universe calculable in principle or are some merely determined by historical or quantum mechanical accident and incalculable?"

Einstein put it more crisply: did God have a choice in creating the universe? Imagine Allah sitting at His control console, preparing to set off the Big Bang. "How fast should I set the speed of light?" "How much charge should I give this little speck called an electron?" "What value should I give to Planck's constant, the parameter that determines the size of the tiny packets -- the quanta -- in which energy shall be parceled?" Was He randomly dashing off numbers to meet a deadline? Or do the values have to be what they are because of a deep, hidden logic? These kinds of questions come to a point with a conundrum involving a mysterious number called alpha. If you square the charge of the electron and then divide it by the speed of light times Planck's constant, all the dimensions (mass, time and distance) cancel out, yielding a so-called "pure number" -- alpha, which is just slightly over 1/137. But why is it not precisely 1/137 or some other value entirely? Physicists and even mystics have tried in vain to explain why.

This relates to Allah's alleged omnipotence because one wonders if the laws of the universe are created, or simply given. Can the allegedly omnipotent Allah control and manipulate the laws of physics, mathematics, et cetera?

As we see there is no reason why Alpha should be as it is, given the assumption that there is no intelligence behind creation. If there is originally no intelligence then, of course, it cannot arise either. The fact is that it does exist. It is also a fact that Alpha is as it is. This can easily be incorporated in the idea that "Allah can do as He wills". What is more, it allows for the existence of an infinite number of Universes, which might also interpenetrate, where Alpha is different. Indeed, we can say that all these Universes together form an ultimate reality, and we see only that part of it that our intelligence makes accessible. There may be other creatures with different kinds of intelligence to whom other aspects of Reality are accessible.

My favorite example has always been that of the two stones. If a person has one stone, and then adds a second stone to his collection, he will have two stones. No more, no less. This is because in the physical world, 1+1=2. Could Allah escape this fact? Or is even He subject to the laws of mathematics? If Allah had one stone, and added another stone, is there any way He could end up with more or less than two stones? Could He do so without cheating (i.e. creating new stones, breaking the stones, making stones disappear, etc.)?

We are back with definitions and with the way we perceive things. That is how Allah has created us to see and think. In fact all things are connected together by means of forces. Fundamentally, they arise from One.

ALLAH AND INFINITY

Is Allah an infinite being? What does this mean in light of the claims of other religions with regards to anthropomorphism? The great Pantheist/Buddhist thinker Brett Neichin was once asked by a Christian if he believed Jesus was God. Neichin, who was not, and to this day is not a Christian, replied that he indeed felt Jesus was God, but he also felt that the Christian asking the question was God, that he himself was God, that the chairs and table were God (not Gods), et cetera. Muslims might consider the opinion of some Mushrik Pantheist/Buddhist named Brett Neichin to be pointless, but it does relate. As Neichin himself once put it, "when you point to something that isn't God, you've just limited God."

The Islamic position is not pantheistic and not anthropomorphic. Allah is the Creator and not the thing created. The former is unlimited and the latter has limitations. That which is created is subject to space and time and has a beginning and an end. But the ultimate Absolute Reality is self-existing and Eternal.

One could give an analogy - The Universe and all things in it are like ideas in the mind of Allah. Some of these ideas exert some constraint on each other which is experienced as inertia or materiality by the entities. The ideas are not Allah. Ideas have form and are recognized by form and all forms exclude each other. The Reality, Allah, underlies the surface differences.

If Allah and His creation are totally separate, one would wonder where Allah ends and His creation begins. A truly unlimited being would have to be all encompassing, and everywhere.

Correct for once. He is all encompassing. All things arise from Allah and return to Him. This is like the waves in the sea. But to mistake the wave for the sea is rather silly.

If Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus) was not Allah, then Allah was/is limited. If the current Agha Khan is not Allah incarnate, then Allah is limited. We have found a spot where divinity is not present: it is in the flesh of the current Agha Khan (the spiritual leader of the anthropomorphist Isma'ili sect of Islam). If Allah is at point X, and the body of the Agha Khan is at point Y, then Allah is limited. It is that simple.

There are different degrees of consciousness. To suppose that the superficial perceptions at a lower level of consciousness are equal to the perceptions deeper levels of consciousness is absurd. That is why there are 7 heavens or levels between Allah and the earth.

The concept of Allah being unlimited is also weakened by certain aspects of the Islamic literature (particularly certain ahadith). In Sura al-A'raf, we have Moses speaking with Allah upon a mountain (Sinai?). Why is it that Moses would have to go to a certain spot to meet Allah? Is Allah limited, and at a given spot?

Some more naiveté. Some places are certainly more conducive to spiritual experiences than others. Apart from this going up a mountain may be symbolic for ascending the ladder of consciousness. Indeed, such an ascent inwardly can be facilitated by an equivalent external action.

We find in the Qur'an and ahadith, thus if Allah is sitting at a given point, at a given time, He has very physical characteristics, and is limited. It would seem that at a later time Muslims have tried to reconcile and reinterpret these curious passages.

Intelligent people know that Allah is comparable to nothing and that the reference to hands, speech etc. is symbolism. The Quran does say that He is all pervasive, the Absolute, One, the Real and not like anything.

PROOF OF ALLAH'S EXISTENCE

Whenever I'm in discussions with Muslims, I ask that they prove the existence of Allah rather than just claiming such.

The fact is the atheist faith in logic is misplaced. He makes reason into God whereas it is a creation. One can prove or disprove anything by using appropriate definitions and selecting premises. Proof ultimately means having an experience of something and this depends on the existence of the capacity for such experience. It also depends on the motives of the person whether he wishes to know or wants to believe something else because it is more convenient. It is not possible to prove the theory of relativity to a moron or a child or even someone very intelligent who does not understand mathematics, nor to one who refuses to look or is otherwise engaged. Even if it is proved mathematically and he accepts it intellectually but has no effect on the behaviour of the person it is useless. This is particularly so in religion.

Apart from this, thinking can only begin from an assumption, something which has been taken for granted. All other things have to be explained in relation to that. Reality exists that is the first assumption. Consciousness exists and the contents of consciousness exist and give us access to Reality.

The basic (and wholly circular) design argument from Muslims goes something to the effect of "if something as complex as life wasn't created by Allah, then how was it made? Did it just pop out of thin air?" My favorite response to such questions is to proclaim that the world, and all things within it were created by three green elves from dimension X. If the three green elves didn't create the world, do you assume it just appeared out of no where? The problem is the same: you are simply asserting that the world is designed and that Allah (or the 3 elves in my case) is the designer. This is not a proof. Based on that, we know that not all things need a creator. Regardless, don't assert that Allah is the creator; prove it! The design argument does nothing of the sort.

This favorite argument is not a revelation, it is not believed or confirmed by anyone, and it assumes that intelligence exists. One could ask "Who created the green elves" and so on until one comes to something self-existing. If that is your idea of "green elves" then you are merely using another name for Allah in order to deceive yourself.

We certainly do know that things which exist (they have structure and are forms of order) have causes.

Some of the more intellectual Muslims I've encountered have tried to run the cosmological argument. It is actually the same argument, only instead of saying that life's complexities point to Allah, it is argued that everything points to Allah. The argument is that every thing has a cause, and it is impossible to have an infinite regress of causes (this assertion has yet to be proven), and thus Allah is the first cause (another baseless assertion).

This is more nonsense. Everything is explained by relating it to something else. Ultimately all things must be explained by relating it to something which cannot be explained in terms of anything else. Scientists are looking for a Unified Field Theory which will explain all physical phenomena in the Universe. But if they find it then this will not be explicable.

Allah is Infinite. Suppose you have an infinite line of causes, then you choose a point on it. Below it is the known and above it is the unknown and it extends to infinity and represents the Knowledge of Allah. Then if our knowledge increases we raise the point and we have obtained the knowledge from Allah.

Quickly, I'd like to explain why Allah's existence can never really be proven, short of Him actually revealing himself. To set an example, I'd first like to offer what I call "the argument from presents" for Santa's existence: (1) If there are presents under my tree, Santa Claus exists. (2) There are presents under my tree. Therefore, (3) Santa Claus exists.

This argument is perfectly valid.

Allah does reveal Himself by (a) the existance of the Universe (b) the existence of human faculties for consciousness, conscience and will (c) the possibility of receiving revelations and by sending Prophets who receive them. These are experiences and require no logical arguments.

They are also corroborated by other revelations.

Despite the fact that it is a valid argument, this is not a proof for Santa Claus' existence. To understand why, one would need a basic knowledge of sentential logic. I'll try to quickly explain it here. Let P stand for "there are presents under my tree," and let S stand for "Santa Claus exists." I will now construct a logical truth table for all the possibilities:

P - S >--------- - T - T, T - F, F - T, F - F

These are all the possible "truths" for these two statements. Now note the second line. It is possible for presents to be under my tree, and it is also possible for Santa to not exist. Thus, according to sentential logic, P does not imply S. That is the reason that the perfectly valid "argument from presents" does not prove Santa's existence.

If you define "presents" as "coming from Santa Claus" and you define "Santa Claus" as "anyone who gives presents at Christmas". Then the argument is valid. So we reject your logic.

So I have shown that the atheist arguments and opinions are worthless.

A sincere gut feeling is not proof of anything, as many people sincerely believe many things, and many of these sincere beliefs contradict one another. Many people living in Christian dominated countries (including yours truly) have had experiences such as Jesus coming to them in a dream, telling them that he died for their sins, and is God, the son of God, et cetera, thus if sincere gut feelings or amazing transcendent experiences are some sort of proof, these sorts of things discredit Islam, and prove Christianity.

Certainly there are illusions, hallucinations, delusions, fantasies and dreams. These things must certainly be distinguished from real experiences.

But even real and common experiences may be interpreted differently by different people according to their cultural backgrounds. There is a difference between the experience and the way it is interpreted by the intellect and the way it is formulated in words. The difference in interpretation or description does not invalidate the common experience.

Experiences are not confined to external sensory data, but feelings also provide information and there are insights and inspirations.

Somethings not directly experienced, are consistent with the totality of experiences inner and outer. It is this consistency which should be properly called faith. People are aware of this to different degrees. But it is also true that this totality has disintegrated into several separate systems by reason of which people display different personalities and opinions in different situations.

However, the advance of science depends on external experience (the gathering of data and the confirmation through experiment and observation) as well as on insight and inspiration and on the consistency of the system of ideas.

ALLAH'S SIGNIFICANCE

The more I ponder the existence of a God, be it the deity of Islam or any other respective faith, the less sense any of it makes.

What is the significance of Allah, and how does this make any difference in one's life? Buddha was once, according Hinayana and Mahayana tradition, asked by his disciples if God existed, to which the Buddha replied something along the lines of "who cares?"

That something is not understood by someone is no proof of its falsity, nor is his statement a proof of the truth of what he says, or that he is aware of his real condition, or that he is able to describe it correctly.

Buddha was probably talking about the naive concept of God such as the one that was common in his day and as this atheist has. What he said was:-

This naive understanding of things, and then rejecting it instead of improving one's understanding is rather stupid.

You fear fire and falling down from great heights. Is it coercion or intelligence to avoid them. The scriptures are speaking about realities not human whims - of consequences according to Law. It makes no difference whether you ignore the law or curse it - truth is truth whether you like it or not.

The third and final reason to serve Allah, assuming He exists, is simply for the sake of doing it. Christians "serve" God as part of a "relationship" they have with God; out of love for God. Just the same, it would seem some Muslims, though not claiming to have a relationship with Allah, express deep love for their respective deity. That is perfectly all right, but what does that have to do with anyone else? I think this hi-lights a simple fact that human beings form relationships with or interact with other beings for only three reasons: (1) To gain something. (2) To avoid pain, suffering, or punishment. (3) Out of simple respect for that being. This is the case with all beings, from our pets, to other humans, to our respective deity (assuming we have one). Therefore, Allah is no more different from any other being in the grand scheme of things. You love Allah, and I love my cat and my girlfriend; and if Bill Clinton threatened to have me killed for disputing the legitimacy of his claim to the presidency, I would not think of him as an honorable or merciful being.

The difference is that Allah is the Ultimate Reality whose purpose the Universe and all things serve. The fact is that we are dependent on the materials, processes, forces and laws upon which we and the Universe are built. Their welfare, development and fate of the individuals depends on how they adjust to Reality and serve this purpose. This is the ultimate Objectivity whether or not people can understand or believe it or not. The Love of Allah and the desire to serve Him as His agents is a built-in characteristic which people, owing to mental attachment such as greed for objects, have lost. The worship of Allah is to heal and restore man, to actualize his potentialities.

People are also interdependent and affect each other.

CONCLUSION

Allah's alleged attributes are both illogical and incoherent.

Most Atheist do not do any thinking themselves but regurgitates the common opinions of other atheists. Those who advance the arguments are very few in number. The rest seems to read and accept only that which conforms to their desires and ignore anything that might contradict them. They tend to be like armchair scientists who are satisfied with speculation and talking wisely rather than involvement and doing any work of observation, experimentation, calculation in and application. Their opinion can, therefore, be dismissed as irrelevant and futile.

However, the article is valuable in that it enables answers to be given and informs Muslims of what kind of intellectual problems can be encountered and how to solve them.

This discussion was meant to explore the existence of Allah, and what proof there is, if any. But I think theists offer circular arguments.

The atheist does not appear to have understood.

His idea of proof is rejected. It is superficial. Verbal manipulations are not proof of the reality of things. The self-consistency of Experience is. But even this is judged by whether it leads to adjustment to reality - Allah is the final judge. To interpret this is modern language:- That which leads to adjustment to Reality prosper and that which does not is destroyed. That is the reality. The experience of it is true when it corresponds to Reality. A verbal description is useful if it corresponds to experience.

All verbal arguments become circular in the end. This must be so if Reality is fundamentally self-existing. Consider the argument employed by Newton:-

Assumption:- Everything continues in its state of uniform motion in a straight line unless a force acts on it to change it.

Question:- How do you know that a force exists?

Answer: By the fact that it causes a change in motion.

Now substitute the word "force" for God.

The only difference is that there are many different forces and this enables us to make some scientific investigations and manipulations, But the concept of God covers them all as the source of them all, and enables one to adjust to reality in a self-consistent manner.

Here is another circular argument:-

Question: How do you know that logical thinking is valid.

Answer: I can prove it logically.

This is not logically valid because it is circular.

But consider another problem:- Do you believe that the scientific description of the world is close to accurate? Do you think that it is this description which causes the Universe to conform to it? If not, then there must be something X which causes the Universe U to conform to the Description D. This idea is, in fact, incorporated in the formula "Allah created the Universe by His Word (or Command or with Truth)."

I have not made excuses. Rather these are very basic atheist arguments being applied to the existence of Allah. Furthermore, I am not pushing a belief, rather I am pushing a non-belief. The reasons for this disbelief were already given, in part, in this thread.

Pushing a Non-belief? Why? Non-belief means either uncertainty or belief in the opposite. It is reasonable to say I do not know or I do not understand or I am not aware. But the belief in the non-existence of something is rather absurd.

It is a basic tenet in most religions that the spirit of God is in man and gives him consciousness. That is to say, a human being with consciousness (con = together sciousness = awareness) ought to have some awareness of the unity and self-consistency of the experience of Objective Reality. This awareness has been atrophied owing to entanglement in superficialities and illusions e.g. desires, sensual objects and word. These basic atheist argument are, therefore, excuses or simply rationalizations.

But quite apart from this, even on scientific grounds, thinking requires causes and motives. To construct an argument you do have to define your terms and select premises and string them together so as to lead to a conclusion. In science, a theory is constructed through inspiration (or whatever the pattern making mechanism in the brain might be) and then attempts are made to prove it mathematically or logically. Then it is tested by observation and experiment - i.e. experience corroborated by others, and its consistency with other experiences. It is rejected or modified if experience contradicts it.

The capacity for experience and insight or inspiration certainly differs between people. But science advances because of the accumulation of the results of inspiration. The Prophets also have inspiration that is corroborated by the experiences of other people and the self-consistency of the system of experiences. The notion of Unity is integral to this.

But if the mind is caught up, imprisoned, fixated on the forms and on words which are obviously different from one another and mutually exclusive to different degrees, then the sense of unity is lost. This is a psychological problem. But even so the very existence of reason and logic and the desire for explanation implies that human beings, having formed separate concepts, are now trying to reunite them by looking for relationships.

Many people must have come across the argument that if all things have causes then your arguments and opinions have causes; therefore, their truth or falsity is irrelevant. If, however, your opinion are freely arrived at by a process of free thought (as this Atheist proudly claim for himself) then it is arbitrary and has no connection with facts. It may be the result of fantasy or prejudice, but these have causes. It follows that an opinion or argument is ultimately only valid if it leads to adjustment to Reality.

No matter how sincerely one may believe that they have experienced Allah, it is not worth any thing at all. Many people have very deep experiences that could very well be fictitious, and often are (such as alien abductions, meeting Jesus in a dream, et cetera).

Have you not understood the reply? How would you establish that something is true except by experiencing it?

Experience is our only link with Reality. Even that is an interpretation by our minds. Reality as it is, apart from experience, cannot be known. What we know is the affect of events on our consciousness, and this depends not only on the events but also on the nature of consciousness. This differs between people. It is true that people can have illusions, delusions, prejudices, fantasies, and hallucinations. They have to distinguish between these and objective experiences. But these are recognized only because of contradictions of experiences. Truth is, therefore, verified in four ways:- (a) By repeated personal experience of the same thing. (b) By confirmation from others who experience the same thing. (c) The consistency of the experience within a system of interlinked experiences.(d) by the disciplines which enhance observation and consciousness. The discipline may entail the use and understanding of a special conceptual system, the application of certain procedures, methods, techniques and practices, a certain ethic and even the establishment of certain surrounding conditions such as laboratory, office, market place, place of worship and so on.

Let me also quote a verse in part...[al-Baqarah 2:108] "...he who takes unbelief in exchange for belief only strays from the right path."

Similarly, Christians and Jews can find the following in Psalms 14:1...

"Amar Naval B'Libo 'Eyn Elohim!'" "The fool says in his heart 'there is no God!'"

All of these types of verses are cited by the respective believers, but it is fallacy as it insinuates an argument along the lines of "God is real, because my book says so." How do we know your book is telling the truth? "Because it is the word of God." Kind of circular in my opinion.

When you read a text book on Science do you assume that the ideas in it must be accepted because the book says so or because they are true about the Real world?

The verses in the scriptures exist like a sign post pointing to something. You are required to look at what they are pointing to. If you create negativistic arguments instead of trying to understand what is being said, then, of course, you will have achieved what you desire, but not what the scripture is trying to do.

While this is a very good example of modern theist attempts to combine spiritualism with science, it never confronts the points I brought up. It seems as if you were agreeing with me that the concept of free will is absurd in light of Allah's alleged omniscience. Still, I doubt that is the way others will see it. Are all things the will of Allah? If so, what does this say of free will? If not, how do we interpret free will in light of Allah's alleged omniscience? Or is free will, like guilt, something imaginary, something that merely refers to "inner psychological experiences?" However, if there is no free will, how can we claim we have choices?

Yes according to Islam Allah is omniscient and there is no free will. (this idea is also absurd from a scientific point of view). All power belongs to Allah. Will is an attribute of Allah and we acquire it by surrender to Allah.

But this kind of formulation is not very well understood in the modern scientific and technological age and that is why I try to explain it in more modern language. It is consciousness that gives us knowledge and, therefore, apparent choice. It is like putting a marble into a bowl. The bigger the bowl the greater is the "freedom" of the marble to move. But obviously, all the different alternatives it has require the appropriate cause or impulse, and each trajectory excludes the others. It is possible for human beings to do A, B, C, D etc., but each requires a cause.

It has often been pointed out that fundamentally nature does not conform to the tendency of the logician for dichotomies. The axioms "A is A" "Either A or not-A" "Nor both A and not-A" are not facts about nature but instructions how logicians should think or use words. But this instruction will not work at the fundamental level. Light, for instance, is both wavelike and corpuscular. It depends on the context or experimental condition as to which of these is a better or a more useful description. This applies to the question of will as well. What is meant by "free will" is really self-determination or autonomy, that is the ability to act according to causes which are within us (hunger, memories etc.).

This is not a proof, instead this is an unsupported assertion. "Allah created laws" is baseless on the grounds that you have not proven laws are created, and furthermore you have failed to prove Allah exists. Your argument is wholly circular.

As long a you think in terms of words and concepts instead of the realities they stand for I do not think any communication is possible, especially when no attempt is made to understand. I do understand your position having been there for many years, but one does have to move on. One is born dependent, then one grows up and wants to assert one's independence and makes a dichotomy between "I" an "not-I", but then a time comes, if one is not stuck in a groove, when one realizes the inter-connectedness and inter-dependence of all thing, and finally affirms oneself as part of a greater whole, and some can get further and identify themselves with it and surrender.

A far as I can see, I have answered all points, but you are still leading us into a circle, to points I have already covered. It seems a waste of time going over the same thing over and over again because some one cannot or will not see or accept it.

Do not Laws exist? Is the existence of the Universe not dependent on these? Was it not the case that the Universe did not exist before the Big Bang? Or to put it psychologically, is it not the case that before the child becomes conscious of the world, the world does not exit for it?

Also, as I originally pointed out, we can limit what Allah can do with our own definitions. Four sided triangle? Impossible, even for Allah.

I already answered that as follows:-

This is wearisome. I have already answered this.

You do like words! And mistake them for realities! So you are using the word "Purple Unicorn" and "Space Aliens" for the ultimate causes of the existence of these limitations, for Allah, or else if you are referring to something else by these words then you are inventing your own theories which no one has corroborated and are inconsistent with experiences.

Regarding the sea analogy, the wave is part of the sea, just as Jesus, Sa Baba and Agha Khan would have to be part of Allah, part of divinity. Thus to prostrate before Agha Khan is to prostrate before Allah, just as diving into one of those waves is the same as diving into the ocean.

Are you trying to be deliberately blind? This was already answered:- We do not regard the forms that are limited in time and space and qualities as Allah. Allah is limitless. Nor is the arm, leg or belly a human being. When these are separated they are also dead. But when connected then they are agents of that human being.

It does not mean that God is like a man with hands and feet etc. or that their consciousness and creativity are equal to that of God. These, of course, have limitations.

Connected with this, I might as well introduce another idea at the risk of being misunderstood:- If God is described or defined as something limited or understood as such, then Islam is Atheistic. The concept of Allah should not be confused with that of God. Allah is that which is described in the Quran.

The Quran mentions Allah's throne. This is a physical throne that Allah sits in (al-A'raf 7:54, Yunus 10:3, ar-Ra'd 13:2, al-Hadid 57:4). Now, you may claim this is only symbolic; that Allah does not literally sit in or mount this throne. However, sura Hud 11:7 gives this throne a point of origin, stating that it was, at least for a time, above the waters. .......

There may be a centre to the Universe, a Black Hole, as there is a centre of the Solar System and a centre of the Galaxy that may be referred to as the "Throne". The "Water", as also in the Genesis 1:2, and other religious scriptures, is used symbolically. There are, in the Quran, many references to water in a spiritual sense as causing resurrection or regeneration. Moses came out of the water; the fish which swims in water is a symbol for Jesus and so on. "Water" refers to the ground state of matter, aether or space-time or quantum field, from which and in which thing arise. Human being, like other organisms, are born out of water, and life came out of the sea. So yes it could refer to something concrete.

No. Each faculty in man has its own uses.

(You might ask: what is the heart? It refers to the core of a person's being and, therefore, to a combination of feeling, thought and action - to awareness of experiences, conscience and motives. It is referred to as Gnosis in some literature, but this concept has been lost in these days of emphasis on words and technical language.)