Atheism – Proclaiming Success or Failure?

Personal Distress:

Something that I read and love to share.

“At the time Napoli was upended by the performances of the comedian Karlinija. A man asked a famous doctor to prescribe him medicine for depression. The doctor advised the patient to attend some of Karliniga’s shows. Later, the doctor was surprised that the patient was Karlinija himself.” [1]

The author also said:

“Truth seekers and skeptics may visit psychiatric clinics, while believers and atheists do not. A believer searches and finds, while an atheist neither searches nor finds. A third type still searches but does not find. Without the Creator, life turns into a mechanism; it becomes lifeless. If I say that I went to the metro station early in the morning and took a metro, arrived at the university, attended my lectures, and then returned home, these events are not suitable for a novel or a short story because they lack elements of good and evil. Throughout history, novels and short stories never lacked these two elements. They are the basis of human existence and the secret behind the assignment.”

The assignment mentioned by the author is the deep feeling inside the human soul that drives him to do the right and avoid the wrong, then finds judgment and punishment.

The journey of truth seeking:

Non-believers claim that everything in life has no intrinsic meaning, and we are all free to find the meaning of everything by ourselves in the way we want to lead a fulfilling life. Denial of the purpose of our existence is self-deception. They convince themselves that there is a purpose for life by pretension.

They act as if we are children who play the role of doctors, nurses, mothers, or fathers. We can not achieve happiness unless we find our purpose in life.
Imagine a person who involuntarily found himself on a luxury train in the first class with a luxurious, comfortable, and top-of-the-line experience.

Would he be happy on this journey without having answers to the following questions?

How did you get here? What is the purpose of this trip? Where will this train go? If these questions are unanswered, how can he be happy?

Even if he enjoys all the luxuries available at his disposal, he will not achieve real and meaningful happiness. Will the delicious meal offered on the train make him forget these questions?

This kind of happiness is temporal delusive contentment which he can achieve by willful disregard of these questions. This case is similar to the false ecstasy caused by drunkenness that leads to destruction. He will not achieve real happiness unless he finds answers to these existential questions.

John Locke says:

“If human hope is exclusive to this world, and if we enjoy life in this world only, it is not strange or illogical to search for happiness, even at the expense of parents and children.”

Among Being and Nothingness:

Creator deniers believe that light is not affected by time, but they disagree with the idea that the Creator is not subject to the laws of time and space. The Creator exists before everything and after everything, and none of His creatures can encompass His knowledge.

Many of them also believed that the communication between connected particles remains when they are separating. Still, they did not accept the idea that the Creator communicates with His servants wherever they go. They believed that they had a mind without seeing it, and they refused to believe in the Creator without seeing Him either.
Some of them also refused to believe in heaven and hell and accepted the existence of other worlds they had not seen.

Even though science has let people believe in things they do not see, Mirage is an example; they believe in it and accept its existence but do not believe in a creator because they cannot see Him. After death, physics and chemistry will not benefit humans; science promised humans nothingness.

The main difference between an atheist and a believer is that the atheist considers the believer backward for believing in something he does not see. The believer believes in what elevates his status and elevates his position, but the atheist believes in physics and chemistry, and the belief in nothingness lowers his status.

Creator’s Existence:

Things do not happen without a cause. Based on this fact, there is a belief in the existence of a Creator for the universe. Coincidence is not a “main cause” but rather a secondary result that requires the presence of other factors such as time, space, matter, and energy.

These factors must be available for something to be formed by chance. Therefore, the formation of the universe is not a coincidence. The word “Coincidence” cannot explain anything because it is absolutely nothing.

Realizing the Truth:

Science changes, and therefore believing in empirical material science that is subject to change is useless. Every now and then, new experiments are conducted and new theories that refute the theories that preceded are discovered. We still have a problem. Even if we assume that all scientific theories are proven and accurate, some of what we consider to be science are still theoretical.
Experimental science nowadays glorifies the discoverer and disregards the originator.

As an example, suppose a person walks into a room and discovers a beautiful painting, very meticulously painted, with incredible order and symmetry, and then lets others know about it. The people get impressed with this man who discovered the painting and they forget to ask the most important question: “Who painted it?”

Humans are impressed by the scientific discoveries of the laws of nature, space, and matter to the extent that they forget the creativity of the Creator who created them. Scientists did not invent these laws, they only discovered them. It was all created by the Creator.

A human cannot refute the existence of the writer merely because he knows the book, they do not substitute each other. Science discovered the laws of the universe but did not set them, the Creator did.

Believers believe in science and some of them have higher degrees in physics and other sciences, but they know that these laws and discoveries have a great creator that created them.

Materialists are proud that material science has discovered the laws that God created, but science did not create these laws. Scientists will have nothing to study without these laws created by God. On the contrary, faith is beneficial to the believer in life and hereafter.

Once a person gets severe flu or high fever, he wouldn’t be able to serve himself and bring a glass of water. How can he give up his relationship with his Creator?

William James says:

“The tumultuous waves of the ocean never disturb the calmness of the deep benthos, nor disturb its security, and likewise a man whose faith in God is deepened, his faith and tranquility is not disturbed by temporary superficial fluctuations. A truly religious man refrains from worrying, he keeps his poise and is always ready to face whatever circumstances the days may bring.”

Why Religion?

Hans Schwarz, the Professor of Theology, said:

“Although the science is critical, it can be used as a tool for destruction just as it is used in construction. As then, comes the role of faith, clarifying that the practical experiment cannot have all the answers.”

He also said:

“Faith and knowledge need each other, and scientists should admit that they often use faith to be able to understand the deep relations between the natural phenomena they observe.”

Schwarz sees that scientists do not have all the facts and answers they claim. Continuous questioning is evidence and especially for those investigating the origin of life. Whenever they reach a conclusion, it gets contradicted by another on another day.

Questioning the origin of our life and the purpose of living is one thing that science cannot answer. Instead, it has given the turn to metaphysics to provide the answer. The Hiroshima accident and other disasters that occurred because of scientific inventions have caused science to lose its innocence. Karl Jaspers, the philosopher, along with others, have called science a legend.

We can conclude that it is impossible to answer the questions about the origin of life, purpose, and ethics of life and maintain scientific development unless the conformity between science and religion is achieved.

Learning science can help Humans create a rocket, but it cannot help with letting them taste the beauty of an art painting or value things. Science cannot help humans with acknowledging the evil and good. We know from science that a bullet can kill, but it cannot help us realize that it is wrong to use it for killing others.

Albert Einstein, the famous physicist, said:

“Science cannot be a source of ethics, there is no doubt that there are ethical foundations for science, but we cannot talk about scientific foundations for ethics. All attempts to subject ethics to the laws and equations of science have failed and will fail.”

Emmanuel Kant, the well-known German philosopher, said:

“Ethical evidence for the existence of a deity has been established under justice. A good person should be rewarded, while a bad person should be punished, and this shall never take place except on the existence of a superior origin that reckons every person for his deeds. Also, the evidence is established in compliance with the capability to gather virtue and happiness, for they can only be gathered under who is Super Natural, which is All-knowledgeable, All-Powerful. This superior origin that overcomes nature represents the Deity.”

The honor of worship rather than the humility of sin:

Indeed, if we don’t worship our Creator, we will end up worshipping
something else. The human heart will either be attached to an earthly
materialistic matter that he/she is striving to reach or attached to the Creator.

Hence, our desires might enslave us without realizing it. On the other hand, attaching to God Almighty and the hereafter frees us from being enslaved to other things. The Creator has the right to be resorted and refuged to.

Many people get attracted to fame and fashion. Also, social media attracts people excessively and exaggeratedly. It has a significant role in broadcasting concepts that call for focusing on inferior matters and distracting people away from priorities. All this leads to a troubled, unhappy life filled with suffering.

Also, some social standards and family pressures force us to consider inherited traditions that drive us away from our role in this life and our duty towards religion.

Faith is a Responsibility:

The belief in the existence of a Creator is a commitment. Faith makes the conscience vigil and urges the believer to hold himself accountable for every action no matter how small or big it is. The believer is responsible for himself, his family, his neighbor, and even for the passerby.

He makes an effort and uses all the available means then puts his trust in God. I do not think that this is one of the characteristics of the opium addicts that believers are stigmatized by today.
The real opium of the people is not faith but atheism.

Atheism calls for materialism and disregards the relationship between the people and their Creator. It urges them to enjoy the moment by rejecting religion and abandoning responsibilities and duties regardless of the consequences. It urges them to do what they like while ensuring their safety from worldly punishment. Atheists believe that there is no sergeant or divine account, and there is no resurrection. Isn’t that really a description of addicts?

Higher Status to Oneself:

Sharing a read:

“If a person commits a crime, the accused’s lawyer seeks to prove intent, although the crime occurred from a materialistic perspective, and the criminal confessed, but the law intervenes to find out the intent and ask to know the state of the criminal’s mind during the commission of the crime.
Here we consider the self in a higher status than the abstract material fact.
We do not really judge the events that happened in the world, but we judge what happened within the self.
This reflects the initial contradiction between the human and his world. Ethics must have a value that is not measured by abstract material standards and is not subject to natural laws.
The authentic morals, moral behavior, sacrifice, ideals, asceticism, celibacy, and altruism, are either meaningless or have meaning in the existence of God.”[2]

On the Day when neither wealth nor children will be of any avail:

“Today during the Coronavirus crisis, we see dead people whom no one knows about, along with elderly homes filled with lifeless, anonymous bodies. Nobody knows anything about people who die on the street.

Others have money and are waiting for treatments; they began to sacrifice the elderly for the sake of the young ones. Patients race for hospital beds. This situation presents a scene that is similar to specific scenes from the Day of Resurrection.”

The corona crisis caused some people to drop symbols from their hearts; they used to pin their illusions on these symbols. These symbols resulted in fake deities that they used to worship instead of worshipping God The Almighty. Indeed, whoever used to worship money ended up not benefitting from it.

Whoever used to think that his physical science could save him was wrong because it did not save him. Whoever used to plead through stones and idols eventually kept a distance from them because he was scared, they might inflect him.

We often hear about priests who urge their followers to take refuge in God directly and avoid coming to them. The light of “There is no God except Allah the One true God” is seen all over the world.
Undoubtedly, such situations push human beings to take refuge in God and turn to Him.

Below are the words of the Prophet Muhammad in their best meaning:

“If you ask for anything, ask for it from Allah Alone, if you seek for help, seek it from Allah Alone.”

I remember what a Spanish elderly told me one time; he said:

“In the West, we worship neither God nor Jesus. We worship women and money.”

Although he said it jokingly, what he said was true. Indeed, I can remember what he said now, while the Westerns say: O God, Myself.

In this life, we have no choice but to accept the Creator’s call to believe in Him and submit to Him, and we have no other choice. Either existence or non-existence, in order to gain the good of this world and the hereafter, or we are satisfied with the world, so we will perish, and our fate will be Hell.