Religious Dogma vs The Quran

Criteria for Informed Action

There is no other realm of learning in which information is subjected to as much abuse as “religion”. For whatever reasons, students of “religious” doctrine are expected to unquestionably accept “religious dogma” which violates every standard of wisdom and reason. There is nothing which is left unaffected by this trend. Despite everyone’s free access to the “sacred” textbooks of their respective “religions”, many believers suspend their own understanding of what they read in the texts and accept the interpretations of their clergy, even when these interpretations contradict the “scriptures” before their very eyes. The interpretations of the clergy are substituted for the true meaning of the “scriptures”.  We are thus conditioned to distrust and dispute our own understanding of the “scriptures”.

This is not a rare condition. Most of us are taught (and accept) quite spurious information when it comes to the field of “religion”. Here wisdom and reason do not apply. Most of us are taught (and believe) that the “scriptures” relate to our “spiritual” development as humans; therefore we do not look to our “religious” doctrines for practical guidance in our everyday lives. We develop our societies without the practical guidance of our “religious” teachings and fit our “religious” behavior into the “legal” confines afforded us. In our practical, day to day existence, our “religious” teachings become secondary information.  Correspondingly, we exist in a schismatic mental state concerning “religion” throughout our lives.

This writer has no idea when or where the idea of “scripture” being “spiritual” originated. Every “religious” text ever studied was presented as practical guidance for daily life, as additional information to the knowledge humans already possessed. In all cases, “scripture” presents itself as a correction of the information that individual human lives and societies are built upon. However, because its high standards often contradict accepted social norms, “scriptural” dictates are relegated by human society to the sideline of “religious” doctrine. This is tolerable, since “religion” has been redefined in contemporary society to be nothing more than a “collection of personal, spiritual beliefs”. We can “practice” our “religions” so long as we do not disturb the social order by so doing.

The Quran upsets the whole applecart because it demands its followers build their daily lives according to its declared principles and instructions.  Allah’s Book does not tolerate being sidelined, labelled or given a back-seat. It makes its message super clear to all readers. The message is practical and multi-faceted. It is not a “spiritual” treatise, nor will it allow anyone to treat it as such. It handles physical and metaphysical issues with equal poise and balance.  It demands that those who believe in it should read and understand its message and practice it daily, despite the sentiments of the unbelieving society. The Quran constantly appeals to “men of understanding” to ponder over the signs of Allah that surround them. It unceasingly appeals to the wisdom of the individual believer, not emotional zeal, to sustain Faith and follow the commands of Allah. It creates in a believer an educational relationship between the Creator of Everything and His devotee, culminating in the awareness of and surrender to the opinions of Allah about human life and actions. It refuses to be pigeonholed as a “spiritual” treatise and clearly beckons to all users as a beacon and criteria for informed, practical action in a misinformed world. It stands out as an inflexible, indisputable standard in a world full of dubious standards. Because of its incessant challenges to the wisdom of its readers, the Quran will never be clumped with other “religious” dogma which litter the path of humanity and distract humans from their ultimate destiny. It cannot.

The Need For Revelation In Human Life Today

 

How Much Longer Will We Reject Allah's Program?

 In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful:

"We sent not a Messenger, but to be obeyed, 

In accordance with the Will of Allah.."

(Quran 4: 64)

Humans require information to build and format their lives in the Earth environment. Without information we cannot function appropriately. Throughout the written history of mankind, we see that it is the knowledgeable people who attain leadership and prestige in society. Even in the era of the hunter-gatherer, it was the more proficient hunter-gatherers to whom everyone turned to ensure the survival of the community. In the current era, the management of communities and countries is trusted to politicians and not to “average” citizens who are uninformed about “political” affairs. School systems are an integral part of every “civilized” society in the world and no progressive civilization would dare think of ignoring them. Yet human society has ignored the most necessary information for its survival.

Modern society is obsessed with earthbound, material development and pays minimal attention to metaphysical development; a necessary component for balanced human development. What passes for “education”, particularly in Western countries, is a concentrated philosophy of purely material acquisition, to the detriment of the human soul. It totally ignores the existence of Revelation, Allah’s gift of true knowledge to Humanity. Its focus is entirely materialistic with no acknowledgement given to the purpose of human life or to any responsibility to our Creator.  No thought is given to the information presented to humanity by the prophets of Allah throughout the ages. The wisdom of Revelation has been completely cast aside in this “educational” system. The products of this type of “education” are arrogant people who equate social “progress” with only material development. They have a perverted view of other people and of themselves. While appearing to be “sophisticated”, they mistakenly weigh human value in terms of material possessions, not personal characteristics, thereby perpetuating the hostility of today’s social environment.

Attempts to replace Allah’s commands with Man-made laws have miserably failed throughout all recorded human history. Unceasing hostilities within and between countries are directly related to the abandonment of the wisdom and justice expounded in the Revelations of Allah. The blind obstinacy with which humanity continues to cling to its failed philosophies and reject the implementation of Revelation is reflected in the continuing world-wide collapse and destruction of countries and social structures. Human society everywhere is becoming increasingly more hostile and the cries for peace are growing louder every day. Without acknowledgment of Allah’s laws by human society, the unbounded oppression of the poor will not cease. Until humans decide to collectively accept and implement the laws given by Allah in His program for human life on Earth, there will be no solution to the ongoing crises.

While there is no objection to material wealth, its blind acquisition has led to environmental crises in all countries around the world. Given the inter-connectivity of Earth’s resources and its life-forms, imbalances in any one area affect all areas in one form or another. World-wide climactic disturbances have been traced to ignorant material development in many parts of the world. Materialists will not acknowledge the destruction that their activities are causing to Earth’s environment because it means putting limits on their quests for and methods of acquisition of Earth’s resources. Their activities have already polluted the air we need to breathe, the soil we need to produce food and the water we need to drink to sustain life.  Yet they continue to blindly pollute our rivers and the very oceans that sustain our world in the never-ending quest for material development. It is time for humanity to take heed of the Revelations of Allah or perish by its own hands.

The Destructive Nature Of Atheism

 In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful:
"Those before them (also) rejected Revelation, 
And so the punishment came to them from directions
They did not perceive."
(Quran: 39 : 25)

Ignorant societies reject revelation but create and nourish a dearth of conflicting philosophies in the name of tolerance. Most of these philosophies are not only useless, but deliberately destructive in their objectives. Take, for instance, the philosophy of "Atheism": the claim that there is no God. While pandering to the ego of its practitioners, it unleashes on the rest of society the most unsavory characteristics of Human degradation and negates the basis of Life itself; worship of the Creator of the Universes and all lifeforms and gratitude to Him for His Beneficence. It instills in its supporters the crudest form of ingratitude and irresponsibility to God and Man and allows them to unconscionably violate every social edict for their own benefit.

"Atheists" have no basis on which to build their lives. Without the acceptance of the idea of a Creator of the environment, they constantly misunderstand the concept and purpose of life and humanity's relationship to the rest of Creation. Without a concept of responsibility and gratitude towards an Omnipotent Master of the Creation or respect for His Revelations, they degrade the very environment and resources which humanity needs to survive. Without a deep-rooted understanding of the inter-connection and interdependence of all life in the Universe, they create blindly destructive and deeply conflicted social systems. Using arbitrary values such as race, skin color,material wealth, etc., they discriminate against and classify other humans into haphazard classes. With blind bravado, they unceasingly challenge the very forces that make life possible here on planet Earth, thereby creating a life of conflict in an otherwise welcoming environment.

Put in proper perspective against the backdrop of the Universal environment, the very concept of "atheism" is ridiculous beyond belief. Notwithstanding the obvious miracle of human existence in the first place, only a fool (no matter how "educated") would ignore the intelligent planning that matches humans with Earth's nurturing environment. Our very existence here on Earth, given the myriad of inhospitable universes that we now know surround us, is way beyond the computations of mere Chance, despite what die-hard atheists would have us believe. Today's atheists may be unaware that they base their philosophy and entire lifestyle on a speculative treatise by Charles Darwin, an English geologist from the 1800s. He only lived 73 years in the Universe, but had the audacity to propose theories of the origin of all life-forms on Earth. His theories were adopted by the so-called "scientific" elite of his time and became the bedrock of atheistic philosophy. Given the speculative nature of "higher education" and the irrational teachings of the Christian Church in his time, it is not difficult to understand the atheistic embrace of his theories in Europe.

The modern atheistic movement was itself a knee-jerk reaction to the violent, irrational dogma and stranglehold of the Christian Church in Europe. As is so common in ignorant societies, it began as a "fashionable" concept among the "elite educated" and, over time, trickled down to the "uneducated" masses as a "scientific" philosophy. Atheism became a badge of honor for "educated" Europeans because it was based on "scientific" research as opposed to "religious" dogma of the Church. Nobody paid any attention to the glaring inconsistencies in the new philosophy nor the untenable assumptions made by it. As long as it opposed accepted Church dogma with "scientific" terminology, proof was inconsequential. Atheism thrives on "obfuscation"; diverting attention from proven fact. It's signal triumph was convincing society to accept inconceivable aspects of time, such as assigning events to billions and millions of years before they could happen. This allowed the advancement and acceptance of irrational postulations, surpassing those of the Church! These speculative assumptions slowly crept into Western education and increasingly became established as "scientific" facts, leading to the befuddled mess we accept as education today.


Bolstered by its success with the masses, atheistic thinkers continuously seek definitive methods for crushing the stranglehold of the Church over Western society. Atheism was promoted as a triumphant signal of freedom from the domination of irrational Church Dogma. The battle is no longer surreptitious, but openly engaged. In America, atheism gained a significant legal foothold in the educational system in 1968 and has been furiously gaining ground ever since. No public school in America is beyond its influence. Americans are largely unaware of how deeply this philosophy has pervaded the social and educational fabric of the society. As recently as 2005, the theory of evolution, the flagship of atheism, won another legal victory over the Christian educational concept of Intelligent Design, a Bible-derived construct, placing atheistic philosophy on equal footing with all of America's Christian philosophies.

Atheism is a force created by the deviations of the Church and it is fed by its lust to destroy its creators. As long as its Christian detractors confront it with their adulterated reinterpretations of the Bible and continue to lie about revelation, they will lose the entire war. Atheistic philosophy has so deeply infiltrated America's educational system that children are being stripped of their relationship ties with their own family members. Kids killing their parents is now commonplace. Kids are being effectively deprived of any sense of purpose or future, resulting in increased suicides and killings among children. Without a relationship with God, humanity has no reason to exist; no purpose for seeking excellence. America's continuing social decline is proof of the destructive effect of atheistic philosophy and its derivatives. With its Christian philosophy proving useless, Islam is its only hope because atheism cannot obfuscate the clear message of the Quran:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful:
"Allah! There is no god but He - the Living, Self-subsisting, Eternal.
It is He who sent down to thee (step by step) in Truth, the Book,
Confirming what went before it;
And He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus)
Before this, as a guide to mankind.
And He sent down the Criterion (of judgement between right and wrong).
Then those who reject Faith in the Signs of Allah will suffer the Severest Penalty;
And Allah is Exalted in Might, Lord of Retribution."
(Quran: 3: 2-4)

The Contradictions of Life

No Resolution Without Allah

Human life is full of obvious contradictions. History has proven that the only sureties in human life are decay and death. Immediately following our birth, we all begin a slow process of decay that culminates in our demise. Despite this obvious pattern of life, we turn a blind eye to the process and engage in building material cocoons in attempts to prolong our physical lives and defeat death. Our medical establishments dedicate themselves to seeking ways and means of cheating death and preserving our physical bodies. Our technological industries create gadget after gadget in search of the “next big thing” to resolve our problems. “Science” has been “close” to finding answers to our social problems for centuries.  Yet invisible forces relentlessly continue to ravage our bodies from the inside out in incomprehensible ways, destroying every vestige of power we think we possess. Even our acknowledged “wisest” philosophers succumb to these forces and have no defense against their relentless assault. 

Throughout the history of human existence on Earth, we have recorded the rise and fall of human civilizations. All of them battled and failed to overcome the mysterious forces that relentlessly lead us into reluctant decomposition over the length of our existence. Wealthy nations fared as dismally as poor nations. Yet, despite all these records, human beings, as a species, continue to instinctively crave material possessions and this earthly life with all its contradictory promises. Impressive “intellectuals” and “philosophers” have spouted “their” resolutions to humanity’s problems for centuries to no avail. Esoteric philosophies have fared no better than “radical” ones in attempts to create “Paradise” on Earth. Yet human society continues to promote and grasp at shallow, ignorant, intellectual trends, each making unattainable promises. We stubbornly and contemptuously reject the obvious solution to our dilemma because it is too simple and “unscientific” for our taste. It clashes with our inflated opinions of human “independence” and “autonomy”.

The futile “war “on aging is noteworthy comment on the folly of human society. Humanity has chosen to accept illusion over reality. Millions of dollars are thrown away daily in pursuit of the fountain of youth to halt the march of time by people who know the effort is futile.  Man’s inhumanity to Man is a continuing testament to ignorance. Wars of domination and aggression are becoming increasingly more destructive to our living environment as individuals try to impose their dominance over others for greater personal material gain. Corporations have now replaced governments in the quest for dominance, overtly destroying the remaining semblance of human consideration for financial gains. Our very global environment is now in blatant jeopardy of destruction by those who seek to fashion it into their earthly paradise.

Allah, out of His boundless Mercy, has voluntarily shown us the way to live in this earth environment. He has told us through His Revelations and prophets, if we want to listen, the realities of this stage of Life. Man’s prolonged search for a workable philosophy to produce peace and happiness on this earth is futile unless it embraces wholeheartedly the instructions of Allah. Man, with all his ignorance and arrogance, cannot devise such a philosophy without the input of the Creator. We do not have adequate information to independently create this philosophy. We cannot control the invisible forces that exist and influence the universal environment.  To benefit from and in this stage of life, we must accept the Creator’s educational information.  Human society has continuously rejected Revelation and the prophets of Allah out of pure arrogance and human history is littered with the unsavory results. It is time for us to quit the fallacy of thinking we don’t need Allah’s guidance in our lives and societies. As a noted individual once cautioned: "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Isn’t it about time that thinking men and women everywhere abandon the conjecture of Man and return to the guidance of Allah?

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The Muslim Mindset Towards Life

 

The Final and Complete Message To All Mankind

Life is a series of unforeseen events with which we all must contend when they happen to us.  According to a well-known saying, “the best laid plans of mice and men do sometimes go astray”.  We all encounter these moments. We even have a name for them: “Murphy’s Law”. Although we know that these moments will occur throughout our lives, many of us react to them as if they shouldn’t happen to us. We have coined terms for these events which imply that we view them as unnatural phenomena. We speak of people having “good or bad luck” or “good or bad fortune”, thereby relegating the process of Life to the whims and fancies of irrational Chance. 

The Muslim mind knows differently. By the Mercy of Allah, through His Quran, Muslims have been taught that Allah controls everything that happens in our lives. The concepts of “chance”, “luck” and “fortune” are frowned upon as fruits of ignorance. Every Muslim knows that nothing happens in the Creation without the knowledge and design of Allah, The Creator and Master of All things. In the Muslim mindset, there are no accidents or misfortunes; only tests from Allah for which consequences and rewards are predetermined.

The Quran informs every believer that human life is constructed in this fashion. It also informs us of the correct response and attitude to adopt when we each face these events in our personal lives.

“In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful:

Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger,

Some loss in goods or lives or the fruits of your toil.

But give Glad tidings to those who patiently persevere –

Who say, when afflicted with calamity: ‘ To Allah we belong,

And to Him is our return’ – they are those on whom descend blessings

From their Lord and Mercy; and they are the ones that receive guidance.”

(Quran 2: 156 – 157).

It is only ignorant folk who misunderstand the relationship between Man, his Lord and his Life. In their view, God (Allah) is some sort of glorified servant who must give them whatever they need when they request it. He must protect them from the unwanted events of Life or face their indignation and wrath.  If He does not perform as they wish, they “punish” Him with disbelief and disobedience to His commands. They reserve for themselves the right to question, modify and reject any of His instructions that go contrary to their desires. In their misguided view, they consider themselves essential to His existence and not the other way around. That explains why “atheists” take pride in their professed denial of His existence. They demand that He “proves” His existence to them before they will acknowledge Him.

The Islamic attitude to life leaves no place for such arrogance and stupidity. By acknowledging that Allah is the Only Creator of all things (God), Muslims recognize who is the Master. We understand that we are dependent on Him, this universal environment belongs to Him and He has the authority to tell us how to behave in it. Every conscious Muslim understands that his personal life is a daily event presented to him for his development by His Lord and not a product of Chance. We understand that it is unacceptable to disobey Allah’s instructions in any form and that no good can come to us from such action. That is the reason that we hold His Messages to all mankind in such high regard, especially His final message, the Quran. It is also the reason that we hold the prophets as behavioral exemplars, especially Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). We know that “from Allah we came and to Him is our return” and that is enough for us. Whatever calamities or joys befall us each day, we accept it and persevere because Allah has already informed us to expect it. Allah and His Prophet spoke the Truth.