I usually get into discussions with folks about God, and many a times, some of them will go, "It's called faith." And so I thought I should respond to this "argument" and the next time I get into it, I'll just paste this to them. :D
I don't think we should rely on "faith" being our excuse for believing in God. Why? Because "faith" can be the answer to ANYTHING. When Muslims claim they've discovered some scientific discrepancies in the Bible, some of us go, "OMG! How can ANYONE accept that religion then?! OBVIOUSLY, Islam is the right religion, since it's FULL of Science! SubhanAllah! All anyone has to do is read the Quran!" etc.,etc. We don't realize that just as we use the pretext of "faith" to defend our belief in God, the non-Muslims whose books are supposedly filled with scientific "mistakes" ALSO believe that their belief in their religion/God is a matter of faith and faith alone and that they need nothing else to "prove" their belief.
Similarly, Hindus can simply say, "How dare you call the Gods/Goddesses I worship 'mere idols'?! They're our GODS! They mean EVERYTHING to us; they're the REASON we live; they're the first thing we think of in the morning and the last thing we pray to before we sleep. This is faith. And it's OUR faith. And it's important to us."
So, if we're really gonna say that "it's a matter of faith" when we're questioned why we believe in God, we should also remember that ALL people are on the right path then because for them, just like for us, faith is just that important. It's "faith" that guides us towards whatever Path we've chosen, or whatever Path that has been chosen for us by our elders/parents/scholars/whoever.
Dear Qrrattugai,
ReplyDeleteI am new to your blog. I am simply blown away by your really remarkable effort for bringing out different perspectives on Islam. And the fact that a Pukhtun woman is rising up to this challenge is making me not only completely flummoxed but proud as well!!
Just a quick comment...
What was the point of your blog post? "I don't think we should rely on "faith" being our excuse for believing in God" by stating teh aforementioned are you saying that we should rely on something else to believe in God? Have you read Richard Dawkin's arguments if you are trying to allude to 'logical' arguments as the basis of belief?
Do you think it makes sense to believe in a personal God intervening in the world through prophets and revelations?
Regards
O. Yousafzai
ozie.khan@gmail.com
Thank you again, O. Yousafzai, for dropping by and for commenting!
ReplyDeleteYour encouragement is highly appreciated; so thank you for that as well, wrora!
The point of this post is this:
Most Muslims, when questioned about the existence of God, will eventually say once they've run out of reasons for their belief in a God, "Look, it's faith, okay? You either have it or you don't. If you don't have faith, you don't believe in God. You gotta have faith if you wanna believe in God."
So, my response to such Muslims is:
"If it's all about faith, then anyone -- and I mean ANYONE-- can use the same 'reason' for their beliefs as well. Hindus, for instance, beleive what they believe because that's what faith means to them; faith leads them to believe and value their religious beliefs, just as faith leads YOU to believe in the type of God you believe in. If this is really the case, if everything's just based on faith, then all religions are correct because ultimately, it all comes down to 'faith.'"
Get what I mean?
Basically, I don't buy the whole idea of "faith" as a good enough reason to believe in God.