Science and Philosophy Validate Religious Myths
By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan
Garden Grove, CA
Allah has said: Soon we will show them Our signs in themselves and in the universe that they will know that what the prophets said is true (Ch41 V53). This was proved in the middle of the 20th century by some honest and upright scientists and philosophers. Unfortunately, one has no inclination to understand the philosophical trends and scientific thoughts and their correlation with religion.
This became all the more difficult when Renaissance was hijacked by those who wanted to build a Godless society and became its ring masters. That is why many of these honest thinkers were sidelined. They spoke their conviction not for recognition but as a responsibility.
In the 20th century, our civilization faced a deep crisis as a result of previous mistakes on the part of religious and temporal leaders which resulted in two world wars. While a crisis gives the opportunists to make the best use of it for their personal benefit, it brings out the best in genuine thinkers, philosophers and the scientists. They got the vision to understand what they did not see and understood till then. Einstein saw a fourth dimension to matter, one of tim, and gave his theory of relativity. What is for the good is also potent for the evil! We used it to make an Atom Bomb to destroy the world instead of understanding its metaphysical corollary. Bergson realized that thoughts become a reality (Elan Vital) in this Real time proposed by Einstein in the infinite space of Black Matter. That is why Einstein liked his thoughts more than his knowledge because knowledge is the end of the struggle which thoughts spur. But by ignoring established knowledge and indulging in fantasies we have invited our own decline.
The String theory of Stephen Hawking provided the missing link to the unresolved puzzle of origin, existence and dynamics of matter. He became speechless and motionless after this tantalizing understanding and its implications. These postulates unwittingly paved the way to understand some of the religious concepts of moral responsibility and its absoluteness. This unintended consequence of their discovery is still not talked about much because we have tacitly forbidden the philosophers and scientists from entering the realm of religion and morality.
Noble Prize recipient Abdus Salam, a theoretical physicist, and others through their experiments proved the decaying nature of matter by keeping it away from the effect of gravity and oxidizing forces. This shattered the myth of some old thinkers who thought that matter is endless; our world they thought was there from the beginning, and will always be there. Matter was thus made God with no beginning and no end. Matter they said is khadeem (original) and not hadis (creation). This theory aided those who wanted to create a Godless society to advance their hedonistic thinking and irresponsible lifestyle to dominate the world through it. They used it to deny doomsday, resurrection and accountability as religious myths postulated by the Prophets to scare the people. This world is eternal and we come and go, therefore: Babur Ba Aishkosh Kay Aalam Doobara Neesth; Enjoy this world “Babur” for there is no world after this.
Bergson was the great “Temporalistic and Antimechanistic” thinker of 20th century. Bergeson was rooted in this world but was not mechanical in his thinking. According to him a thought (mental intuition) becomes a living reality (Elan Vital) not according to our mechanistic calculated time and space. It becomes a reality in the real time (dahr) in limitless space. This is the basic point of Bergson philosophy which confirms the religious position on the origin of the universe, which is: That God (Supreme and first Intelligence) wanted to reveal himself and He created the creation by bringing his thought into reality by His word “BE”. Some instead of believing in God as an entity believe in the word “Be” as God.
According to the Qur’an this process of creation of the universe was completed in the limitless space in six days of the real time. The mechanical time was still not in vogue during the process of the creation of the universe. It was all darkness. The sun, the earth, and the moon were still in the process of development and their rotation to give us our days and our nights and our mechanical time had still not started. Therefore, how much of our mechanical time did it take for the creation of the earth and this universe to be complete is only a wild guess which is shamelessly used to set a time table for it that conforms to our world view.
The “scientists” bunk the whole religion citing the impossibility of the world coming into existence in the six days of mechanical time with which they are familiar. They want us to believe in the billions of years in its making not as a Creation of God but as a work of blind natural process. Both the scientists and the scholars of exegesis are trying to prove their scholarship and making their living on an issue which is nonexistent, because time as we know it, did not exist during Creation. They deny The Creator as a Myth and dwarf His Magnificence to advance their world view. The allegorical Six Days mentioned in Scriptures is only to denote the insignificance of the long time (when none existed) in the creation of this universe and everything in it for the Omnipotent God who alone knows the secret of His Creation.
Time as a fourth dimension of matter discovered by Einstein is The Real Time which is called “Dahar” in religious term as against the Mechanical Time (SaAa) which we have divided into minutes, hours, days, years, etc. We blame our failure to live a life of eternity and happiness and the problems we face including death on Dahr (Ch45 V24). Allah says through Nabi SA: Don’t blame time because I am The Time (Ana Ad Dahr, Abu Dawood). Do not blame time blame, your wrong choices; do not blame time, blame the people who wronged you. In other words, God is saying: Don’t think it is time which is killing you but it is My decision to give you a limited lease of existence on the earth for your test. I test you during this time, how you behave (both as individual and as societies and nations) with what I have given you. This determines your life, and not The Time; so be conscious of Me and do the right thing instead of blaming time. We don’t die because we were at the wrong place at the wrong time or we had bad food habits or bad pedigree, or wrong place of birth or migration. All this is predetermined by Allah. This destiny which God has written for us is not His coercion and control over our lives but His knowledge (Omniscience).
Stephen Hawking confirmed the expanding nature of the universe by smaller big bangs in the space. Through the string theory he speculated the way matter is created and changes its shape by the incessant vibration of electromagnetic waves set in motion by the celestial events. String theory of Stephen Hawking provided the missing link to the unresolved puzzle of origin, existence and dynamics of matter. He became speechless and motionless after this tantalizing understanding and its implications. More recently we are talking of a hormone like micro-substance called Boson released by atomic fission as the cause of the creation of matter. The Hedron Collider Experiment conducted in Europe a few years back was to establish it. Now the scientists are planning the same experiment on a bigger scale. Whether it is Boson or String theory that gives us an understanding of temporal existence to all that we see and don’t see, the fact remains that every creation is created by the same Creator whose power and way to create is difficult to fathom. One may read my article “Understanding our Universe” Pakistan Link, April 16, 2010 for more on the subject.
The concept of Elan Vital of Bergeson and Stephens Hawkins theory of creation of matter by string theory together prove the religious concept of life after death if it is interpreted without bias. The Newton’s law of motion about matter which states that action and reaction are equal and opposite is also applicable to our moral life. If we behaved wrong for some worldly momentary gain today it will haunt us later (if we have blunted our sensibilities it is another matter). If we refrained from our temptations of unjust actions and bore some hardship today, we are going to see its good result tomorrow. The difference in the applicability of this third law of motion in whelm of morals is that action is not judged just by the force of it but also by the intention with which it was committed. As we are not aware of the intentions of people we see the immoral actions succeeding because of its sheer force in this world, but in the hereafter God will judge them according to his knowledge of the intentions behind them and do justice with victims of this force.
The commotion set by our hurtful and immoral actions in those aggrieved by them stir the strings of electromagnetic field of the universe to take shape into reality at the appropriate hour in the Real Time. We see the consequence of our evil deeds in this world by disruption of peace and tranquility in the lives of individuals and societies (Ch30 V 41). We will also see them in the life of the hereafter where the oppressed and the oppressor will be in reversed position. The oppressor will be punished and the oppressed will be rewarded. That is why Nabi SA said: Fear the wail of the oppressed for there is no curtain between it and Allah.
On the other hand if we show our grit during a moment of selfishness and resist our temptation to a benefit or a pleasure, and try to do the right thing foregoing the benefit and the pleasure that is not justifiable, then the pleasure of this magnanimity which the magnanimous gets and the gratitude of the vulnerable who was spared from a catastrophe also stirs the electromagnetic string in the universe to reach God and become a reality in the real time and limitless space at the appropriate hour to reward the magnanimous. Allah says that if he had punished us for our irresponsibility immediately no person would be left alive (Ch.35 V45), that is why this delay in seeing the consequences of our actions to play out.
When Allama Iqbal met Bergson in Geneva where he was attending the 3rd Round Table Conference to discuss India’s Independence, they discussed their favorite topic of time. When Bergeson learnt about the Islamic concept of creation, time, etc., he jumped in his seat to know that his concept of Elan Vital is close to the prophetic teachings (Israr O Rumooz By Syed Ahmed Esar). If someone has understood the Supreme as True Time that decides the consequences of his actions, he is still accepting God under a different name.
Those of us who want to build a heaven on this earth without God consciousness and responsible behavior emanating from it are only deceiving themselves. Sensibility of Rev King Junior which was sharpened by the events of history was able to go even beyond to suggest: injustice somewhere is a threat to Justice everywhere. Therefore for us to think that we can live in a cocoon of our pleasure and comfort while the others are suffering the consequence of our unjust actions is not just ridiculous but suicidal.
God gave acceptance to these thoughts of the scientists and philosophers of the recent past to give man an understanding of the origin of matter and its future akin to what prophets had told thousands of years ago under vision from God. We are misled by Satan as he misled Adam in the Garden of Eden with the promise of eternity only to deprive us of our peace and tranquility in this world too. Peace and tranquility will not come to us in a world where God is a Myth and Morality is relative and we live according to our whims and fancies.
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