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Quote by Salman Ahmed Shaikh

“It is correct that not all beliefs are true. Some are mere superstitions. A belief can be true or false. If we cannot prove or disprove God from scientific method alone, then we need to evaluate a belief by using other faculties other than physical senses, such as logic and philosophy. If a concept dates back to history, then we ought to evaluate history and archaeology. If the concept is written in a book and millions of people attribute their held views to that book, then one is ought to read and evaluate information in that book. Curiosity demands this continuous probing from a person who is interested in seeking reality, knowledge and truths.”

Quote by Salman Ahmed Shaikh

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Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World

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Salman Ahmed Shaikh

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“From the perspective of science, take the unprovable proposition that there exist unobservable fairies beneath the garden. When the human rationality would understand that this is an unobservable proposition, it would employ other faculties to probe it further rather than relying on experiments or physical senses. For instance, ask who believes that fairies exist beneath the gardens. If none, then we do not need to find an answer to an irrelevant hypothetical belief as to whether it is true or false. If someone does believe in unobservable fairies beneath the garden, we need to see what question it answers for him/her and what is the source of this answer? This kind of logical probing will be done to all kinds of beliefs, whether it is existence of unicorn or tea pot orbiting around some distant planet. It should be clear that how probing unobservable claims can be debunked through logic and rationality, whereas science on its own cannot resolve unobservable absurdities definitively.”

“When we see an orderly thing and reflect on its origin or existence, the questions like who created it, how it was created and why it was created come to mind. Atheists want to replace the question of who with chance for primordial matter and skip the question of why. How something comes about is an important part of reality. It comes under the domain of science to seek answers to that. But, that does not mean that the answer to ‘how’ alone tells us the complete story and also answers ‘Who did it’ and ‘Why’.”

“For validation of knowledge about something, seeing something is not necessary. We use inference to know about things we have not seen, but which nevertheless are considered as true by inference. We would infer that someone put book on table if it was lying in cupboard when we last saw it. If we see an infant crying in a stroller in park and is unattended, we would immediately search for the parent or attendant who would have accompanied the infant to this place. Inference can be used to derive valid knowledge about unseen concepts whose physical manifestations can however be observed like gravity, for instance. We know that dark energy and dark matter, detectable only because of their effect on the visible matter around them, make up most of the universe. We knew black holes exist even before we observed them through a visible image in 2019.”

“Science has made us truly amazed at how we exist through fine- tuned balance in numerous variables. The natural question is for what purpose? Can aspiration of getting a due reward for right conduct is possible for everyone? Can absolute justice ever be established? Is everlasting happiness achievable? Can the outlaws responsible for genocide be brought to justice ever? Can the honest and truthful people who suffer unjust lives be duly compensated, if ever?”

“Big bang proved the premise scientifically that the universe began to exist. Everything that begins to exist cannot create itself. It cannot create itself while not in existence. So, it cannot be existing and non-existing at the same time. It has to be created by something that is not ‘it’. The creator has to be independent of the universe itself. So, the constraints of this universe do not apply to that Creator since the Ultimate Creator is not part of the universe. It is the author of both the universe and its laws.”

“The Ultimate Creator has to be uncreated since it is necessary for the universe to be created in the first place. We find cause or creator for something that is created and that begins to exist at some finite point in time like the universe which came into existence 13.7 billion years ago. The Ultimate Creator did not come into existence at some finite point in time. It is ever-existing. This God is not the ‘scientific conjecture of god of the gaps’ which fits in the novel for pages that are not found in the novel. This God is the author of the whole novel and the programmer of nested loops within loops. He is not the pixel of the painting or a brush or a colour or the painting itself. It is the painter. It is not the laws of physics or theorems of mathematics alone. It is the source of these laws and theorems. Isaac Newton aptly said that gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”

“Even many of the scientists who present themselves as atheists or agnostics are comfortable with a non-intervening concept of deity which brought the laws of physics and primordial inputs in existence in the first place. It is the concept of god espoused by William Paley, Voltaire and Spinoza. Nonetheless, this line of thinking is inconsistent with human curiosity. If we believe that there is a God, then we should seek Him. As a matter of fact, God has communicated to us through His messengers and the last two messengers, Jesus (pbuh) and Muhammad (pbuh) have lived in the daylight of history. Qur’an is the God’s words with us which explains the purpose of creation. Instead of assuming God as a watchmaker, mathematician, master equation and a pilot who starts engine but turns the machine to autopilot, it is important for us to be consistent with our curiosity to seek God. We should not avoid it simply because of not willing to have responsibility.”

“As per monotheistic religions, Allah, the Supreme Being, created all living and non-living things in the universe. This universe had a beginning and this is a fact which is endorsed by physics. This universe cannot be its own creator since it began to exist at some point in time. It cannot create itself into existence while being in existence already at the same time. As part of the cosmos, are we our own creators? James Clarke Maxwell who formulated the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation is quoted to have said: “Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent, it must have been created.”

“The question of who created the Ultimate Creator is not valid since the Ultimate Creator is not a creature and needs not to be created. For someone to be the Ultimate Creator, He has to be someone beyond the constraints of this world and nature. If the premise is that the Ultimate Creator created everything and nothing exists independent of His will, then, the logical conclusion would be that He has to be an independent personality outside of the universe and have no constraints of laws governing this universe.”