DO YOU KNOW

MUHAMMAD?
Peace be upon him

www.knowmuhammad.co.uk
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Why people dont believe?

Why is religion feared?
In simple terms several centuries ago, the clergy and the aristocracy used the powers of the Christian
Church to manipulate the common people into accepting a miserable life for most people and a privileged
life for the few.
A familiar state of affairs, you may think, though its no longer the Church doing the manipulating!
It is because of this abuse of power that today religion is feared as potentially recreating the tyranny of the
past.
Why has religion become a joke?
Religion became a joke primarily due to political and historical reasons related to the abuse of Christianity.
The intellectual arguments provided were incomplete and tended to avoid the issues being questioned.
The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Century was a cultural movement that, amongst other things,
moved to overthrow the oppression by the church and the nobility. The movement was successful to some
extent - but at a price.
In order to undermine church oppression and the traditional ideas that were used by the Church to
maintain their power religious beliefs, the concept of God and the use of reason itself were all
undermined.
With these traditional ideas (which had once been things people were certain of) gone, the only thing
people were allowed to be certain of was that there are no fixed truths in life. So, any intellectual
questioning about the origin of the Universe was sidelined.
Ultimately, todays atmosphere developed such that religion and those talking about religion arent taken
seriously.
How certain can you be about anything?
You can tell from someones behaviour what they are and arent certain about. However much someone
says that you cant be 100% sure that fire exists you can be 100% sure that he or she isnt going to put his
hand on a hot stove and leave it there!
We live our lives being certain enough about some things in the physical world. Fire burns, so we dont
touch it. Cause leads to effect. Something cant come out of nothing. If we didnt believe in these things and
more, we would be paralysed into inaction or burned by going against the evidence before us. Our minds
and ANY arguments our minds produce rely on these things being certain.
Is religion irrational?
This depends on the arguments used. Certainly, there are many irrational arguments forwarded for

various religions - just as there are many irrational arguments for atheism e.g. the universe simply popped
into existence from nothing, without a cause!
But there is a rational argument for the existence of a Creator.
What is the intellectual proof for the existence of a Creator?
We have a companion leaflet titled Does believing in a Creator make sense? which takes as its basis those
observable things that wouldnt be disputed by sane people. It has never been successfully intellectually
refuted and it is not complicated.
Is there a clash between science and religion?
There shouldnt be. Science examines how observable things might work by experimentation. It cant
explore how the universe came into existence from nothing (try doing an experiment on nothing). It cant
explore the meaning of life or the nature of human consciousness.
Science is one part of an intellectual toolkit that includes our general powers of reasoning without which
scientific reasoning couldnt exist.
What if the universe that the Creator has created is full of evil things we dont like?
There are many people whose questioning of the belief in a Creator stops when they decide they dont like
the kind of world that the Creator has made. Not liking something is not an intellectual reason to stop
believing in their existence. If some of us dont like the world then a more intellectual approach would be
to attempt to find out whether the Creator explains why the world is as it is. Whether or not we choose to
like it, the Universe and the Creator exist.
What makes Islam different to other religions?
Islam demands intellectual acceptance as a basis for belief from its followers rather than emotional faith.
That means that being a Muslim because your parents were Muslim or because you like the rituals or
because you had an out of body experience is NOT acceptable as a basis for belief. It is more intellectual
than any other religion in this respect.
Is that really what Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did?
Absolutely! He directed people to use their senses and their intellect, the same thing the Quran directed
people to do.
Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, and the
[great] ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits people, and what Allah has sent down
from the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and dispersing therein every
[kind of] moving creature, and [His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the heaven
and the earth are signs for a people who use reason. [Translation of Quran 2:164]

Isnt it time you know more about

Muhammad?
(Peace be upon him)