Whence Then is Evil?

#128 by kaalchakra,

Is it time for you to use my `shaitan` in Islam argument :)

Zee, these were some of the first things you said that made clear that you knew what you were talking about. Why the heck do I call you ustaad, ustaad? LOL

Ooops, just noticed an error in # 128. Sorry, philo. Here are the two sets of statements:


[God is omnipotent.
God is good.]

and

[God is omnipotent.
God is evil.]

philosopher:

You say good and evil are relative and “Good” is not an attribute of God. I think scholars of Islam do emphasize that God is good and just and these are attributes of Allah. In your concluding paragraph you wrote: “According to the Quran ``latter (the hereafter) is always better than the former`` so for Quran world is temporary and `evil` is nothing but only a ``possibility``. In this way ``death`` which looks an evil to agnostic mind, is the way to find eternal peace. So the the question of evil becomes meaningless even in ‘’non-logical’’ way.” If God is not good then there is nothing to discuss in as much as my article is concerned.

Both Christianity and Islam asserted that this world was temporary and would come to an end soon. We factually know only this world (and only conjecture about the other world, the hereafter) to exist even after 2100 years when its impending end was predicted. One can, of course, shut one’s eyes (if one chooses to do so) and pronounce “evil is nothing.” To one school of thought, the whole world is an illusion.

If good and evil are relative, so is God. The Christian God (God of Love) is different relative to Muslims’ Allah and Hindus’ Baghwan. There are number of other deities also in which Hindus believe. So by this argument also God, Allah, Baghwan and others of its kind “are nothing.”

This is my last post on this subject and I have written it reluctantly because the whole discussion is getting out of hand. If you want to continue this discussion with me, please send your comments by e-mail to me and I’ll respond by e-mail, as I had suggested in one of my earlier posts. Otherwise, this discussion is over in as much as I am concerned.

I had sent you an e-mail through Chowk (since I don’t know your e-mail address); I don’t know if you received it or not. If not, let me know by e-mail, I’ll send it to you directly. It is a commentary on modern logic by a philosopher. There are many sides to philosophy none of which may be very certain without empirical evidence.

Be well,

Mohammad Gill

``scholars of Islam do emphasize that God is good and just and these are attributes of Allah.``

Zee, philo, or anyone else, have Islamic schcolars (not Sufi `scholars`) written much on this subject? Intutitively, it is far more logical to argue that Islam is good, and leads to good, than to worry too much about whether God Himself is good or evil. That seems too sufi (read either nonsensical or deceptive) or Christian (read incomplete).

#127 by philosopher,

Excellent post. Guess you missed the pub today :)

Re: # 128
Re: # 128

kaal ji


((((how can one distinguish between the following two sets of statements?:

[God is omnipotent.
God is good.]

and

[Good is omnipotent.
God is evil.]

Can these be used interchangeably? Just because good exists, it does not prove that God is not evil)))))

well..kaal.. Religion or for that matter Quran has never said that God is ``good`` or evil. As i mentioned earlier that, these are the modes of substance which, we derive from attributes of substance and are infinite in numbers. For example; Omnipotence can accommodate both good and evil at the same time. But before that we have to define `good` and evil’. Both these terms are used in an emotional way which are further responsible for an ethical interpretation of religion, the fallacy that i was once discussing with you.(#282 daughter of hajar). This argument goes like that;

God is good....some part of religion is bad (even if it is one of core principles).
God is greater than the religion so come on guys lets change the religion...God would love it...because God is love....couple of songs in the church with a few candles and that is it.

This thinking was responsible for the decline of Christianity as a religion (both socially and theologically). Now you can understand why Islam is surviving even in the most intense materialism world has ever witnessed.

We label attributes of God as good or bad according to their ((those so called attributes .e.g. mercifull.raheem...compeller..etc)) consequences on our life. in that sense good and evil are not even MODES in the strict sense. These qualities are given by us to certain Actions depending on their implications, which again have relative value.

For example; in human life good means ``following moral laws`` Whereas in God`s case...its God who is the source of all moralities...So any concept of Goodness of God can be understood in the context of God`s primary attributes i.e. ominieverything...etc( if at all you think that logic is relevant there).At the end of the day the problem we will face is, the concept of infinity. So here we go.....even in that case we have insufficient methodology in the form of logic to analyze religious assertion....at the end of the day problem remains there from where it started. .First of all we have to have ABSOLUTLY certain and objective LOGIC if we insist on applying it on religion....And every student of philosophy knows there is NO such logic....but the problem with philosophy is that everybody considers himself a philosopher....If a person is not a doctor he will never say he is a doctor but if a student of philosophy tells someone even a fundamental concept of philosophy ``MR someone`` would never accept that....this is the problem. Applying this logic on religion is just like checking an out of order bus with a medical instrument and that too a broken one.


The question of evil and good (including the one you have raised) and their internal consistency are the result of a misunderstood concept of monotheism (as I have mentioned in my reply to PM in 71) and that is, taking oneness of God, as mathematical oneness. In Mathematics one is the half of two and double of half. We don’t know what kind of oneness of God has…Quran has always mentioned it as the denial ‘’shirk’’(associating partner with Allah).Analogical thinking is not relevant here. So deriving any ‘’abstract’’ conclusion from that ‘’oneness’’ is meaningless and shows the ignorance of the relevance of different epistemological dimension suited to the universe of discourse it is dealing with. Religion itself is an independent epistemology and cannot be understood by only one methodology.

It is simply impossible to understand religion without living in its climate of opinion and looking the entire reality with its perspective. Unless you come at level of ‘I’ to ‘I’ encounter with religious truths ,you will never be able to comprehend them. Religion gives you the methodology to follow and find the truth.

Regards

#132 by freethinker,

I think scholars of Islam do emphasize that God is good and just and these are attributes of Allah.

Bhai ... God is neither good nor evil. God is God. Good and evil are human perceptions ... while God is incomparable to any human perception ... Sir read Surah Ikhlaas.

Zee, Philo

Some people might suspect that you two are creating a new Islam. Or that your understanding of Islam is not any better than theirs or other Chowkies, say, Gill Sahib`s.

That can be easily put to test through # 133.

Actual scholars of Islam (again, not self proclaimed sufis) are unlikely to spend too much time proving God is good. Rather they would see Islam as the ``best`` way to reach God/ find His grace.

With Christians and Sufis, of course proclaiming the so-called goodness of God might be a big issue.


If anybody knows otherwise, it will be great to hear from them.

Re: # 132

well Gill sahib

We both have presented our case. Now its up to the readers`s choice what they find more meaningfull.

Lets agree to disagree.it has been a pleasure to have debate with you. I am really thankful to you for kind response.

I haven`t found that mail...can you please send it on

philo_chowk@yahoo.com

Thank you very much for that.I find words so poor to express how much i am grateful to you for that.

Re:#134 by zeemax on July 9, 2007 12:45pm PT

Thanx mate.....lol to the last line.

Re: freethinker,
``When I see a convincing argument in support of the existence of theistic God, I`ll accept it and share it with other agnostics and atheists.``

Mr Gill,
What do you think of this?

http://www.onecountry.org/e102/e10214as.htm
(Don`t forget to click on the link at the end of the article)

khurram: #137

Although I had said in my last post that that was my last post, khurram has sent something else in my direction, which is the so-called (a new) proof of “The Existence of God?” The article (hyperlinked) itself recognizes that the proof is not entirely new because its essentials had already been formulated by Ibn-i-Sina in the eleventh century. Nonetheless, it is cast in a new logical frame (is it really new?) although it is the old cause-effect formulation. The accuracy of the proof rests on three assumptions which are described simply in the hyperlinked “A New Proof of God’s Existence?” If any of these assumptions is incorrect, the logical structure will collapse.

The number 2 assumption says, “For every system or composite phenomenon, any cause for the system is also a cause for every part of the system. (Every material thing, except possibly the elementary particles of quantum physics, is composite.)”

There was a 30-year long discussion (controversy) on determinism (cause-effect hypothesis) between Einstein and Bohr. Einstein believed in determinism while Bohr said the events taking place in the subatomic world are probabilistic; they are not deterministic. You can only calculate the probability of an event in the subatomic world but cannot say for sure that a certain event will actually occur as an effect of a prior cause.

The research conducted to date has verified Bohr’s point of view. Certain aspects of quantum physics are not very clear in the classical sense and our understanding will probably change when (or if) a unified theory (Theory of Everything) is discovered... Therefore the so-called proof is suspect due to questionability of assumption number 2.

With regards,

Mohammad Gill

Re: freethinker #140,
I guess that is one way around it. To deny causality altogether.

I just saw this `proof` today for the first time and posted it because it was relevant to your earlier post. After I thought about it a little more I realized it has an obvious problem even if we accept causality. The proof says that God(G) must be an uncaused non-composite cause of the Universe(U) because the Universe being a composite system cannot be self-caused.
But if G does indeed exist as a cause of U then G+U make another composite system and we need to look for another cause. So we are back to the problem of infinite regression.

I was glad to realize this because I don`t believe in reducing God to `existence`.

khurram: #141
Thanks for sending the article to me. We all learn from our objective and open-minded analyses of propositions that we come across now and then. I didn`t spend much time in analysing the problem step by step. I noticed the serious defect in assumption #2 and that was it. Be well,
Mohammad Gill

Philosopher

I have a request for you, my friend.

Before the question of whence evil? must come the question of what is evil? Gill sahib won`t even get into that other than portraying evil as the opposite of good. :(

You have a gift for putting across basic islamic insights in most logical fashion. And Islam probably has the best and clearest understanding of evil.

Could you take out a little of your time to write a note on what evil is from Islamic point of view. It will be very helpful.

Thanks in anticipation.

Gill writes <<< The research conducted to date has verified Bohr’s point of view. Certain aspects of quantum physics are not very clear in the classical sense and our understanding will probably change when (or if) a unified theory (Theory of Everything) is discovered... >>>

Actually this hypocrite is confusing between probabilistic causation at the subatomic level because of the consciousness factor (necessitating the God factor which he is denying wile affirming this) and the structure (that is quite deterministic I might add) that emerges on larger scale levels.

That said, can you remove your damn photo from the front page of this site, it has been there for weeks, advertising a long gone article. Just because you happen to be the damn editor of Chowk does not mean you can advertise yourself and censor other much better written articles....