Islam: Religion or Ideology, an essay by Imam Zaid Shakir

[Zeeshan]

You may find the following link interesting that explores the connection between Islam and panentheism.

http://www.panentheism.com/Pages/0000112.html

[cluster11]

Originally Posted by mona
...

I have a question for those that think Islam and evolution and/or the Big Bang can go hand in hand. Does that mean it is not necessary to 'believe in' Adam and Eve in Islam?

My take on that is - Religion (i.e. Islam in this case) deals with the philosophical understanding of events while Science deals with the actual facts. A somewhat simplified parallel between the two could be a non-fiction book vs. a song. Compare a critically acclaimed biography of Dr. Martin Luther King to the song "Pride" (also about him). The later item is probably more popular and has an eternal message that most can readily connect to; while the former is more informative and detail. Neither is wrong or at a conflict with each other.

Of the 5 most populous religions (Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam) I would say Islam is the youngest and most concise. Since it addresses so many topics in such a short form, drawing literal parallel on specific topics like the origin of human beings would be a tough task. In the vast evolutionary history of humans are we to compare Adam & Eve with our oldest & closest known ancestral species millions of years ago or with the Homo Erectus from a later era that truly distinguish our upright features? Or do we consider the Homo Sapiens tribe of a few hundred from 80,000 years ago somewhere in Africa that directly links todays 6 billion humans? Maybe even the first city/village of the Neolithic era could be considered as the origin of modern mankind.

But no matter where we start we can't in any scientifically possible way verify the events of the "garden" and the forbidden lust and the fall from grace of our first ancestor as narrated in the Holy book. So for me, believing in "Adam & Eve", a singular event that describes some fundamental nature of human psyche, is in no way contradicts the evolutionary journey of mankind that we are continuing to piece together with the help of science.

With regards to "Big Bang" there is an easier answer. Everything that science deals with in our universe started after the Big Bang. We have been able to get at least some information about the very early stages of the big bang, up to and less than a millionth of a second. But there is no known framework yet that can deal with the history prior to the big bang as it is outside the realm of what we call "Physics". Since religions (Islam included) deals with the creator of such a universe and the Big Bang event; a scientific research of God is out of scope. In short, believing in science would be a subset of believing in God, IMHO :-).

[Nafi]

I like the above post, its fairly in line with my thinking.

[Zeeshan]

Originally Posted by mona
here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jYUL7eBdHg

Basically, the question posed to 'Dr' Zakir Naik is, if you want to be able to build mosques in non-Muslim countries, why, in a Muslim country such as Saudi Arabia, won't they allow churches or temples to be built? And his ridiculous answer basically consisted of saying, 'think of it in a school situation. If you were to ask three prospective teachers what 2+2 is, and one of them answers 3, the other 4 and the other 6, you wouldn't want to employ the two teachers who got the answer wrong.' And in some ridiculous sort of extrapolation that I don't fully understand he goes on to say that it's the same for Muslims who know that they are right in their beliefs and therefore must prohibit the teaching of anything wrong (such as one would prohibit the teaching of 2+2=3). Of course he defies all sense of logic and reason along the way. Btw, just know that I'm getting his answer from the translation, and although I'm not proficient in hindi, I know enough Bangla and have watched enough Bollywood movies to be able to figure out that the translation is accurate. Also in the comments section people are claiming that the video is edited, but it doesn't seem like that to me.

On a side note, Radiohead are very close to God-like for me, and they said that 2+2=5, so I'm going with them.

Lol great, applying Bollywood learned Hindi language session for decoding spiritual truths!

Well, as far as I know Radiohead concerts are filled with drug users so yes, in their realm 2+2 may indeed equal 5. And as for the revolting video, do NOT even get me started. It's disconcerting to see someone of his nature being the vanguard of religious mainstream. And I always find it funny when someone uses math examples, as if, citing mathematical examples somehow equals the ultima Thule of Knowledge and we should all bow down to their "truth"; this is manipulative at it's best. With given time one can even set up Bhagavad Gita axiomatically. Not to mention that even in that closed system where we isolate such abstract concepts as 2+2 we are only dealing with limited knowledge as we do not know what base we are talking about and the fact that using quantum logic as first introduced by Birkhoff and von Neumann where de Morgan's law 'breaks down', one could just as easily show the schizophrenic tendencies of so called mathematical "truth."

Too much gadum gudum gadum.

[One World]

Originally Posted by ZeeshanM
.... With given time one can even set up Bhagavad Gita axiomatically. Not to mention that even in that closed system where we isolate such abstract concepts as 2+2 we are only dealing with limited knowledge as we do not know what base we are talking about and the fact that using quantum logic as first introduced by Birkhoff and von Neumann where de Morgan's law 'breaks down', one could just as easily show the schizophrenic tendencies of so called mathematical "truth."

Too much gadum gudum gadum.

^^^

And all my life I thought 2+2 = 22

[Electrequiem]

Originally Posted by ZeeshanM
Agree except for the last part. I used to have a Pakistani friend who could somehow find parallels in Islam with Spinoza-esque god. My lack of Quranic knowledge however gets in the way of trying to do so the same but I have vague memories of him using passages from the Book and showing how it can be similar to panentheistic religion and even Buddhist philosophy.

That's all well and good, but it's still not MAINSTREAM - which was one of my qualifiers brahhh.