Occam’s Razor

May 11, 2009, 5:03 am by dc-agape.

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Surāh 87 – Al-A’lā: The Most High

I seem to have missed actually posting this reading of this surāh. I had it ready to post, but obviously something distracted me.

I will start each post on the Qur’an with a link to M Mohammad Ali’s translation of the Qur’an with his commentaries. 

Five topics are brought up in this surāh that I want to talk about.  I will bring one new thought to the first five verses because I have already discussed this topic at length.  Secondly, I will continue to discuss the concept that in religion an arbitrary deity can remove freewill without provocation.  The third topic is how some will receive the message and other will not.  The Qur’an is quite clear that this process will occur and discusses how properly to handle it.  The fourth topic is the afterlife.  I have covered this one in great detail as well in previous posts on the Qur’an, but this one has a new twist which I will discuss in a minute.  The last verse will be my final topic.  I will discuss the messages of Abraham and Moses which seem to be related to the afterlife.

The difference between Allāh creating everything instead of a purely natural cause has no resolution.  Either you believe/fear Allāh or you understand the natural forces at work that cause “creation”.  On numerous occasions I have had a Christian witness to me, during one such case, the question was raise as to why I am here on this earth.  I responded with “Because my mommy and daddy had sex 30 weeks before I was born (yes I was a preemie)”.  Occam’s razor is a much better explanation than a supernatural being for this reason alone:

“When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”

Believe it or not, the Laws of Thermodynamics, Newtonian Physics, and the Rules of the Quantum State are still simpler than a supernatural being.  Our human minds can create mathematical equations that, though complex, can describe and predict every event in the universe.  It is not perfect, and we do not have the technology to describe everything, but I have faith/hope/trust/optimism in the human capacity to ask, seek, and learn.

Allāh/YHWH seems like a fickle being to me.  “Oh look, humans have changed I must change my message to them”.  So the concept that this Being is unchanging yet we are constantly changing makes no sense.  In the 7^th verse which the Muslim faith attempts to correct this condition with the use of abrogation.  This is where Allāh freely takes away past religious messages when he feels like it.  This arbitrary changing the message is forcing people to change or face dire consequences.  How does this lead to freewill?  “Change your entire structure of your society or everyone in it will burn!” is not loving nor is it proof of a consistent Supreme Being.  Nor is this offering freewill to humanity, changing everything that was “taught” by a Supreme Being to something else “taught” by the same Supreme Being leaves no room for those who fear the Being to use freewill.  They must change.

Third, I like how the Prophet describes the uselessness of attempting to spread the message to those who will not believe.  Somehow all the major religions have corrupted this concept into “believe or I will kill you”.  And it is this corruption that leads to the strife and discord that exists today.  So if there is anything that Allāh/YHWH has created in this world, by far the most powerful is the discord between nations.  A discord created by those who follow the “old” messages and those who follow the “new” messages of the same Supreme Being.

Fourth, the new twist to the afterlife is:

87:13 Then therein he will neither live or die.

The commentary of M Ali tells us that only the righteous can “live” and death is a state of complete rest.  So those souls not in heaven cannot be alive or dead.  But if we are not alive, how can we learn and purify ours “souls”?  We must be conscious or the purification cannot take place by our own experiences.  And the only difference between life and death is the state of consciousness.

Lastly, I find it oddly humorous that the Prophet would end this surāh with reference to Abraham and Moses.  Except for the first five verses this surāh is about the afterlife.  Yet the message from Abraham and Moses do not describe the afterlife once.  In fact, the concept of the afterlife for the Jewish faith is of little value.  Both Abraham and Moses were far more concerned with the “here and now” than with what YHWH did with you after death.  Most of the OT is about YHWH meting out punishment during the lifetime of the Israelites or worse within four generations of the sinful “fathers”.

So with these five observations it is difficult for a gay Atheist to see the “Truth” in the spiritual world of Islam.  Much of what Islam teaches has great value.  Unfortunately, much of that value has been corrupted and used to oppress and subjugate the followers, not to Allāh, but to men.  This is not to be unexpected.  When humans are put in a place of power over their peers, power does corrupt.  It has occurred in Judaism, Christianity, and even non-religious States such as China and Russia.  That ability of power to corrupt is one of the greatest “Truths” and one of humankind’s greatest weaknesses.

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