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Is God Indifferent?
How can one logically tackle this question?
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7 Replies
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Is God Indifferent?
updated 2 years, 11 months ago
4 Members
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7
Replies
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Since He is taking care of everything , accounting every action, managing a grand court to reward and punish the people for their deeds, will bestow eternal blessings upon the ones who passed His test, He cannot be indifferent.
His apparent silence on pain in this world is the part of His scheme of results which He will show in the hereafter.
Still whenever and wherever He likes, He changed the course of normal actions to produce desired results as we see in the story of Musa and Khidr in sura Kahaf
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Your explanation is not scientific. I am looking for a verifiable explanation.
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After some research and deliberation i have found an explanation:
God is not indifferent like the law of nature or the law of cause and effect.
The law of nature is running the universe but that is not self-aware or conscious ie it is constant and consistent and therefore it does not change anything or make choices. If that was the case, we could never have developed any reliable technology — what if the natural laws and resources we are using to fly our plans change mind in the middle of the flight?
If that is true then who is making all the design related decisions e g which animal will look like what and which flower will have what colors?
Here on earth, it’s only homo sapiens who are designing stuff and delivering it thru the resources the Creator has given on our disposal. That includes a variety of material, energy and natural laws. Without human intervention those elements cannot deliver the stuff we have developed on the planet like cars, computers etc.
Similarly, without God’s role as the designer and innovator, the mass, the energy and the natural laws of the universe can’t produce anything.
This above theory proves that God is continuously intervening in the universe and taking care of the affairs at the planet earth by ordaining His Will to tools and resources He has created in the universe including Homo sapiens. The way God communicates with humans is thru dreams, ideas etc that we all witness every day.
The above is more of a rationale evidence but yes I agree theologically speaking we can say God also intervenes thru sending revelations, answering prayers and helping thru angels like Khizr AS or angels who fight in wars to change the course of things where needed.
Any views?
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What you have written is similar to Quranic argument so I think you are in right direction.
However, this way of rationalizing may raise question, what human does, donot take million of years to happen then why God who is all powerful take long time to make things happen? -
Your original question didn’t state that you were looking for a scientific explanation. What do you call a scientific explanation anyway? What’s the basis for why a scientific explanation is more reliable than a common sense explanation based on inference?
“who is making all the design related decisions e g which animal will look like what and which flower will have what colors?”
This explanation is far from scientific – there’s plenty of science out there that concludes that there are no design decisions required – things in this universe are simply evolving based on the laws of physics.
“without God’s role as the designer and innovator, the mass, the energy and the natural laws of the universe can’t produce anything”
The conclusion that you draw is correct, however, I don’t think that you have really looked into the physicalist explanations of the universe in much detail. They explain all of it without God – it’s another story that their explanation has gaps and is based on conjecture.
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I am looking for a logical or scientific explanation that can make sense to non-believers as they wont accept a theological answer.
What I know is that the physicists have discovered a subatomic particle Higgs Boson less than a decade ago that is responsible for creating mass (out of the energy the big bang emitted, I guess). For that reason it was nicknamed as “God particle” by the media for having found the “creator”. This not much relevant to our topic.
However, probably the age old ‘natural selection’ discussion would be more relevant here. The hardcore atheists like Richard Dawkins base their argument on some “defects” or “imperfections” in natural designs to prove that it’s the random natural selection and not a conscious “intelligent designer” behind the design process.
Even if the design process is automated through AI kind of programming embedded in the natural laws, the question remains unanswered that who has taught the AI what to design and what not. Whether the design is perfect or not depends on the purpose for which something is created. Since atheists don’t believe in any purpose of the creation so they can’t say if natural designs are fit for purpose or not.
To find the answer to my original question if God is interested in humans at all we need to figure out how the world would be if there were no prophets. Religion has given us the basics of social sciences and moral values (e.g. equity and excellence) as the foundation stone for a civilized society that is essential for advancement in physical science as research and development needs huge collaborative efforts and complex ecosystems. If there were no prophets, it would have taken much longer to humans to figure out the social values and common grounds necessary to build social systems required to make scientific break through or design innovative products. There was also a risk that humans got extinct premature by killing each other without having innovated what we see now or what is going to come in the future. Why would God (or the intelligence behind the “natural selection”) would bother to help humans to excel in innovation if He is not a conscious and self aware entity and interested to get what humans are designed to deliver on Earth?
Does it logically prove yet God is not indifferent? Any thoughts?
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“I am looking for a logical or scientific explanation that can make sense to non-believers as they wont accept a theological answer.“
Once again you have changed the question. Earlier there was nothing about non-believers. Secondly, you didn’t respond to my earlier question: what do you call a scientific explanation anyway? If you’re referring to a logical explanation, what’s the basis that a theological explanation is illogical? If by theological explanation you mean blind faith, then please understand thar Islam doesn’t require blind faith in God. It argues on the basis of empirical evidence and intellect (logic) to ascertain God’s existence. Why is that not scientific enough for a non-believer?
“I know is that the physicists have discovered a subatomic particle Higgs Boson less than a decade ago that is responsible for creating mass (out of the energy the big bang emitted, I guess)“
This is not the correct understanding of Higgs boson. The conversion of energy into mass was explained by Einstein much earlier through Mass–energy equivalence. The discovery of Higgs boson supposedly confirmed that the universe is filled with an energy field (Higgs field).
Unless I understand what is it that you’re trying to achieve here and why the response provided by Irfan sahab above is unacceptable, I can’t really be of much help. As a side note, I would like to suggest though that if this question is to respond to atheism (more precisely physicalism), then the best approach is to first sincerely understand their viewpoint before trying to prove them wrong.
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