*WHAT FOLLOWS ARE MY OWN THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES AND HAVE NO REAL WEIGHT IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD. THEY ARE MY OWN ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND MY RELIGION AND COULD BE ENTIRELY WRONG*
I was talking with a friend of mine a while ago. Since I'm muslim and he's a science-tist (essentially an atheist who believes only in the laws of science) we frequently get on the topic of God and religion. What all of our arguments boil down to is the "leap of faith": that I believe God is the cause of all physical phenomena, the Creator of all, and he believes that everything is a result of physics.
And then he said something I, at the time, didn't have a full answer for. I said that we can't "prove" God exists in a physical way because we don't have the equipment to do it, and he said that science dictates that we should be able to prove all things, therefore, there must be something we could test that would indicate God exists. A result of this is that God must have physical properties and therefore follows laws of physics. If this is the case, God is not omnipotent since He must follow the laws of something that bind him.
Which is a (somewhat) fair assumption. God can manipulate matter and energy, so he must follow some laws of physics. Everything follows laws, the difference, however, the key difference between our physics and God's physics, is that God defined and defines his own physics. That is what keeps Him, logically, omnipotent. It's like when God says:
"He has prescribed mercy for Himself" (Quran 6:12)
Mercy wasn't prescribed for Him by someone else, HE prescribed it for Himself.
So the way I see it, there's our physics, with our laws of motion, electricity, etc. which God created, and then there's God's physics which He created for Himself. Of course then we get into the whole issue of "well, if everything came from something, where did God come from?" and to that I refer you to this hadith:
It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Men will continue to question one another till this is propounded: Allah created all things but who created Allah? He who found himself confronted with such a situation should say: I affirm my faith in Allah. (Sahih Muslim, Book#001, Hadith #0242)
and I add the idea that creationism is part of our physics, but is not part of God's physics. The way of OUR world is that stuff is made from other stuff, but the way of God isn't. I bet though, if we make it to heaven (inshaAllah), God'll explain this discrepancy. I'm sure there's a simple explanation that won't at all involve time moving in a circular pattern and other stuff that would make the mind of the most brilliant physicist melt into a puddle of confused goo.
So, summary:
a) THE ABOVE WAS FROM MY OWN THOUGHTS AND OPINION
b) God defines His own physics and can change it whenever He likes.
c) There's OUR physics and then there's God's physics. Just because we can detect ours doesn't mean we can detect God's.
d) God is the Creator who wasn't created.
I was talking with a friend of mine a while ago. Since I'm muslim and he's a science-tist (essentially an atheist who believes only in the laws of science) we frequently get on the topic of God and religion. What all of our arguments boil down to is the "leap of faith": that I believe God is the cause of all physical phenomena, the Creator of all, and he believes that everything is a result of physics.
And then he said something I, at the time, didn't have a full answer for. I said that we can't "prove" God exists in a physical way because we don't have the equipment to do it, and he said that science dictates that we should be able to prove all things, therefore, there must be something we could test that would indicate God exists. A result of this is that God must have physical properties and therefore follows laws of physics. If this is the case, God is not omnipotent since He must follow the laws of something that bind him.
Which is a (somewhat) fair assumption. God can manipulate matter and energy, so he must follow some laws of physics. Everything follows laws, the difference, however, the key difference between our physics and God's physics, is that God defined and defines his own physics. That is what keeps Him, logically, omnipotent. It's like when God says:
"He has prescribed mercy for Himself" (Quran 6:12)
Mercy wasn't prescribed for Him by someone else, HE prescribed it for Himself.
So the way I see it, there's our physics, with our laws of motion, electricity, etc. which God created, and then there's God's physics which He created for Himself. Of course then we get into the whole issue of "well, if everything came from something, where did God come from?" and to that I refer you to this hadith:
It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Men will continue to question one another till this is propounded: Allah created all things but who created Allah? He who found himself confronted with such a situation should say: I affirm my faith in Allah. (Sahih Muslim, Book#001, Hadith #0242)
and I add the idea that creationism is part of our physics, but is not part of God's physics. The way of OUR world is that stuff is made from other stuff, but the way of God isn't. I bet though, if we make it to heaven (inshaAllah), God'll explain this discrepancy. I'm sure there's a simple explanation that won't at all involve time moving in a circular pattern and other stuff that would make the mind of the most brilliant physicist melt into a puddle of confused goo.
So, summary:
a) THE ABOVE WAS FROM MY OWN THOUGHTS AND OPINION
b) God defines His own physics and can change it whenever He likes.
c) There's OUR physics and then there's God's physics. Just because we can detect ours doesn't mean we can detect God's.
d) God is the Creator who wasn't created.
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