> Abdul Fatteh Miracles?? Are they proof enough?

[Hassan_Abd_Allah]

Assalamu 'Alaikum, Eid Mubarak and how are u everyone :D Hope your Eid was as good as mine :-)

My question basically is placed thus. We know that God gave evidence for His claims (messages). In order to do so He shows signs, like Staff turning into snake etc. Now my question is, is this miracles or signs proof enough?

I would disagree for a number of reasons...first off, Miracle is something which is against the natural laws. However, since Human knowledge only describes how stuff happens, but not why they happen, therefore anything else would have to be considered as weird and shocking as a supernatural event. (Yep I plagarised this for Brother Abdul Fattahs site :-] )

so Philosophically, how are these miracles any better than the common natural phenomena?

Secondly, A miracle only makes one decide as much: "this is from a higher source than the Humans." However this doesnt necessarily imply that these signs are from God, they can be from any other higher source of which we are not aware. I know its a unfalsifiable assumption, but it really doesnt prove that God is responsible for the miracles, just because they are beyond the reach of human understanding. They can be from any other "higher source", such as intergalactic aliens or whatever.

The reason I directed this to Brother Abdul Fattah is, I saw in his site, in the "my story" section, that he was convinced that the Qur'an couldnt have been the product of human beings or intergalactic aliens or anything, the only sensible answer was God. Id like Him to expound this a bit more.

Also, since the matter is drawn, Id like to know from Brother Abdul Fattah that what did he find in the Qur'an translation, being an atheist and an unbiased person. In short, what, in your opinion, is so great about the Qur'an? There are miracles like scientific facts and prophecies and literature and all that but what really is there in the message of the Qur'an? Please explain, Im sure it will be good for my (and other ppl who read it) faith inshAllah :-)

Assalamu 'Alaikum

[salman]

first, the distinction need to be made between different types of miracles: textual miracle, the Qur'an, and other miracles (i.e., splitting of the moon).

The whole argument is actually based on lafzi/semantic difference. It also depends on the context in which this argument is brought forward. Different wording need to be used depending on which kind of miracle you are talking about. In general, however, when we say miracles, we say they are from God not that they are from a higher source.

This argument first assumes that one fact is already established between two parties: there is a Creator. If they do not even agree on this part, what is point of this argument: introducing miracles!? Even if it is proven that miracles are from God, the atheist will reject and say "I do not believe there is a God and this is just another natural phenomena" or whatever. Thus, unless it is agreed upon that there is a God and He sends His Message, then this point will make sense otherwise it is mute.

In order to conclude that a 'such and such is from a higher being, meaning other than humans', the person need to prove that this higher being actually exists. If one say "miracles" could be from aliens, for example, then he/she needs to prove number of things:
1) aliens do in fact exist
2) they have some sort of obligation/purpose to do this - i.e., why are they doing this
3) their purpose actually fits the reasoning behind miracles and creed of the believers

Actually, this whole argument is nothing but duplication of "why God? why not something else: i.e., flying spaghetti monster". So it pretty much boils down to how do we understand the Creator, the Higher Being - the difference is who is this higher being. When we talk about this, we need to go back to scriptures, which we say they are from this Higher Being, and understand Him how He has described Himself. Otherwise, there will never be an agreement, you get my point akhee?

So it is running in circle unless you acknowledge the difference of understanding God and bring them on our turf.

Lastly, even if agree with them that the miracles are natural phenomena, then they need to prove that such natural phenomena have already taken place or do take place on regular basis. Otherwise, on what basis you are arguing? How many times have aliens already caused these miracles? How many times the scriptures have been revealed as a result of a natural phenomena? You get my drift?

and Allah knows best

PS: it is important that you bring your arguments wisely and use proper wording and try to counter their counter argument in advance to polish your arguments so that you do not get cornered.

[Umm Marwa Mustafa]

My question basically is placed thus. We know that God gave evidence for His claims (messages). In order to do so He shows signs, like Staff turning into snake etc. Now my question is, is this miracles or signs proof enough?

Is there anything which indicates that such events which corresponded to the mentality of the people at the time is not sufficient?

[Hassan_Abd_Allah]

Assalamu 'Alaikum wa Rahmatullah dear bro Salman, its wonderful to hear from you :-)

When I wrote my previous message I was at my cousins place and was kinda in a hurry. So Id like to expand it a bit more now :)

First of all, let me expand my argument about the higher source other than Allah thing:

premise one. Miracles explain that there is a higher source than humanity.
premise two. This higher source need not necessarily be God, it can be any other higher source.
Conclusion. Therefore there is no proof that miracles ARE from God.

such was the argument. However Thanx to brother Salman its a lot clearer now.

Previously, I got the idea that the two were parallel assumptions, none greater than the other. But i forgot the premise that there is proof for one and none for the other. Therefore "God sent the Miracles as proof" is weighty in evidence, while Any other source than God sent it is baseless, unfalsifiable assumptionn. So Ockham razor can shave of the second option and we can safely conclude that God sent the miracles.

About the point about the existence of miracles in the first place: I understand brother Salman's argument to mean that what we acquire from empirical evidence is the truth. This is exactly about which I had doubts. Like since we have no cause for anything (least we cannot find one) then why does it matter if we do observe a certain thing or not? We cant explain why the staff turned into a snake, however can we explain why, under normal circumstances, WE DID NOT?

So if we say that empirical evidences are not axioms or self evident truths, we cannot really prove the miracles to be miracles. So I am going to need a little more philosophical help here.

Is there anything which indicates that such events which corresponded to the mentality of the people at the time is not sufficient?

Why yes. If we assume that since we do not know WHY things happen and only HOW they happen, then why should we question ourselves "Why did the staff turn into a snake" and not "Why did it not turn into a snake before?" So the logical deduction at this point would be, everything that happens is wonderous, therefore there are no such things as natural laws and every action is a miracle. Looking for parallel assumptions here. help?

Jazakallahu Khair.

P.s.: These are not arguments from the Kuffar, its something I myself had doubts about. :-)

[Abdul-Fattah]

Originally Posted by Hassan_Abd_Allah

Assalamu 'Alaikum, Eid Mubarak and how are u everyone :D Hope your Eid was as good as mine :-)

My question basically is placed thus. We know that God gave evidence for His claims (messages). In order to do so He shows signs, like Staff turning into snake etc. Now my question is, is this miracles or signs proof enough?

I think some people will always disbelieve even if there are concrete undeniable evidences. So in the absolute sense of the word, no there is never proof enough. There is however, proof enough for people of understanding ^_^

I would disagree for a number of reasons...first off, Miracle is something which is against the natural laws. However, since Human knowledge only describes how stuff happens, but not why they happen, therefore anything else would have to be considered as weird and shocking as a supernatural event. (Yep I plagiarised this for Brother Abdul Fattahs site :-] )
so Philosophically, how are these miracles any better than the common natural phenomena? The reason I directed this to Brother Abdul Fattah is, I saw in his site, in the "my story" section, that he was convinced that the Qur'an couldn't have been the product of human beings or intergalactic aliens or anything, the only sensible answer was God. Id like Him to expound this a bit more.

What these supernatural events do, is they validate that the prophet (peace be upon him) was not a madman or possesed (like some of the polytheists claimed)

Secondly, A miracle only makes one decide as much: "this is from a higher source than the Humans." However this doesn't necessarily imply that these signs are from God, they can be from any other higher source of which we are not aware. I know its a in-falsifiable assumption, but it really doesn't prove that God is responsible for the miracles, just because they are beyond the reach of human understanding. They can be from any other "higher source", such as intergalactic aliens or whatever.

Here it's all a matter of plausibility. Which story adds up, what makes most sense, which explanation raises fewest unanswered questions, which explanation has no inconsistencies or logical fallacies, and so on.

Also, since the matter is drawn, Id like to know from Brother Abdul Fattah that what did he find in the Qur'an translation, being an atheist and an unbiased person. In short, what, in your opinion, is so great about the Qur'an? There are miracles like scientific facts and prophecies and literature and all that but what really is there in the message of the Qur'an? Please explain, Im sure it will be good for my (and other ppl who read it) faith inshAllah :-)
Assalamu 'Alaikum

Well, the Qur'an has a combination of qualities, of which each individual is already amazing, but all of them combined are quite breathtaking. What stroke me the most, is not the scientific knowledge apparent to it, but the psychological depth. I would read one verse concearning a topic, and my mind would go process that verse, and possibly make deductions from it, then the next verse I read, was almost as if it had anticipated what deductions I made, and responded to those deductions. And this didn't just happen once or twice, I got this feeling all the time when reading the Qur'an for the first time. almost as if it was "fine tuned" for my mind specifically. Of course I know that this isn't the case, and many other people claimed the exact same thing. So that means it was writen in the preces amount of balance between general- and people specific, that it still fits all, but at the same time responds on an individual level.

Albert Einstein once said: I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

The feeling that Einstein got from studying the universe, is the exact same thing I got from reading the Qur'an even though you cannot understand its full depths at first, you realise that it is indeed deep and ordered. I'm not sure if I managed to explain the gist of it. It's all kind of hard to put into words.

[Umm Marwa Mustafa]

Why yes. If we assume that since we do not know WHY things happen and only HOW they happen, then why should we question ourselves "Why did the staff turn into a snake" and not "Why did it not turn into a snake before?" So the logical deduction at this point would be, everything that happens is wonderous, therefore there are no such things as natural laws and every action is a miracle. Looking for parallel assumptions here. help?

1. Assume what?
2. The "staff" did not turn into a snake before because God did not will it.

Perhaps you should define the term miracle. I don't understand your points at all.

[amar_labedi]

Assalamalikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu

I really dont understand what discussion is going on here

[Hassan_Abd_Allah]

Assalamu 'Alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu,

Sorry for the ridiculously late reply, but I had my test exams.

Sorry if I wasnt that coherent, I would try to clarify my position this time inshAllah :-)

Is there anything which indicates that such events which corresponded to the mentality of the people at the time is not sufficient?

No, but there is not so much evidence which implies the opposite claim either. Therefore I started this thread to question whether miracles really are proof enough.

The main point Im trying to make is simple. If "Miracles" are "something which is outside the productive capacity of nature" (according to Hamza Andreas, I liked his definition) then this causes a circular reasoning paradox. a) There is no such thing as a natural law, since we cannot prove that natural laws exist rationally, but only intuitionally. So therefore, why would the existence of miracles be any more special or wonderous than what normally happens? Why would the event of "staff turning into snake" be any more miraculous than "staff NOT turning into snake"? Because we dont know WHY either of these events happen.

We know what normally happens because we observe it. But at the end of the day, we cannot rationally prove anything. Thats what my point of clash is. If nothing can be rationally accounted for, then why call a miracle a miracle?

think about it this way:

the apple fell 100 - times
the apple didnt fall - 1 time
why did the apple fall? I dont know, I can only assume
why would I be surprised at number two and not at number one?
even if I am surprised, does this account for proof?
is there any rational evidence that event number one HAD to happen, therefore giving me a reason to be surprised, or consider it a miracle?

Jazak Allah Khair, I think u understood now. Thanx for the replies.

responses to sister ruwaydah:

1. Assume what?

Assume that we do not know why things happen. If we knew, then we could argue that hey this thing HAD to happen at this point for such and such reasons, why did it not happen? And then it could be considered a miracle.

Consider this analogy:

suppose a man made an apple float in midair and called it a miracle.
Now, according to our definition of miracles "anything under the productive capacity of nature" we might incline to call it a miracle, since an apple defying gravity and floating in midair is not within the productive capacity of nature.


Now. Is there any rational proof that the apple "should" fall to the ground? Can we, for instance, explain WHY it fell to the ground every time it did?

The answer is no, since we only know HOW gravity works, not HOW it works.

Since we cannot say that the apple SHOULD HAVE FALLEN to the ground (since we cannot produce a cause) so why should we be shocked when the apple floats in midair, and why should we say "hey the apple wasnt supposed to float"? How can we say the apple "wasnt sposed to float" when we cannot prove why it did?

Summing up, what I am saying is the definition (at least Hamza Andreas's) of miracle makes miracles non-existent. Because since we do not know why nature works the way it does, we cannot draw an outline around its productive capacity(since we do not know why stuff act the way they "should", and since we cant say that the stuff do NOT act the way they do not). Since productive capacity of nature is undetectable, therefore miracles do not exist, since we cannot say whether such and such events really are outside the productive capacity of nature, since we do not KNOW what this productive capacity is.

So either solve this paradox, or give a new definition of miracle.

Assalamu 'Alaikum wa rahmatllah and Jazak Allah Khair for answering :-)

[Abdul-Fattah]

Selam aleykum

Originally Posted by Hassan_Abd_Allah

The main point Im trying to make is simple. If "Miracles" are "something which is outside the productive capacity of nature" (according to Hamza Andreas, I liked his definition) then this causes a circular reasoning paradox. a) There is no such thing as a natural law, since we cannot prove that natural laws exist rationally, but only intuitionally. So therefore, why would the existence of miracles be any more special or wonderous than what normally happens? Why would the event of "staff turning into snake" be any more miraculous than "staff NOT turning into snake"? Because we dont know WHY either of these events happen.

I don't like this definition either way. The definition I would give for a miracle, is an act of God. That means that both natural events, as well as supernatural events are both miracles. And from that point of view, all the questions you raised seem somewhat obsolete. Because from that viewpoint, there is no significant difference between natural events and supernatural events, only that the natural are common and the supernatural are uncommon, but both are acts of God.