Quran and age of Universe

If you just ponder at your own creation and death, you will be able to find the answer. The truth is that you may already know the answer but you are just trying to deny the life after death which is an unseen thing and can also be proved with logic very easily only if you are sincere to yourself.

If you mean that everything around us point towards a Creator then your stamen is fine but if you mean that everything id God then that is a very flawed concept for many reasons.

A creation can't be a creator and vise versa. If I make a table, I have to be outside the space and time of my creation (the table) and I can't become table. If this is true with man made things, it is definitely true at a much larger scale with it comes to our Creator and all of His creations.

God is all knowing and we are not, God is eternal and we are not, God never makes mistakes and we do, No one can see the God but everyone can see us, ...

I guess it all boiled down to one basic question which is how you define God. I suggest write down your own definition and attributes you may think of and then read/ try to understand all attributes of God given in Quran.

Your interpretation of God is definitely on the narrow path.
God is 'ever' creating - For 'perfection' is incomparable - Without 'imperfections'' presence.

And 'that' which 'is' was/is not born to 'nothing' - It is ALL born of God (Source).

Do you agree with this premise : Where Ego dwells not, God thrives?

God is in ALL.
But ALL is not aware of this.
Because Ego (Gods' design) is the necessary 2nd opinion that stabs at Gods' creation and allows for perfections' reflection.


Perfection is only achieved by the recognition of imperfections' effect/s.

I do agree with most of the thing you said in this reply but my point was very simple that creator and creation are two separate things and they can't be one.



I 100% agree with this. That's why in my previous posts I mentioned that existence of God is one of the easiest things to prove. Compare to what we make after centuries of research to what God has created, perfection vs imperfection and it convinces a person that there has to be a higher power and that power has to be one and only because everything is universe has a harmony in design.



This is true as well and supports Quranic narrative which is very recently discovered by science.
Quran Says




This is an excellent quote and in too deep in its meaning. It focus on one of the fundamental issue which is ego and a true Muslims has a continuous battle against his/her own ego along with other battles like temptations of this world and battle against Satan. A true believer is the one who has no ego and pride. Quran says at several places that Allah dislikes those you are self deluded and show off. Satan was thrown out of paradise because if his arrogance and pride, he thought he was superior than human beings and he refused to prostrate to Adam when Allah ordered him. Adam ate from the forbidden tree and did make a mistake but there is difference in attitude of both Satan and Adam. Satan never repents because of his arrogance and Adam did repent and was forgiven because he preferred to stay humble.

Arrogance/ ego comes in many ways and one of those is to be a narrow minded person and refusing to accept the truth even when it is as clear as day light.

Seems like we are talking two different things. I see God in all of his creations but creation remains creation and never takes place of God.

Anyways if that's what you believe, I will have to disagree respectfully.

Would you equate 'Satan' to 'Ego' and 'Adam' to 'Atoneness' (Pre Satans' (Eden-intervention)?

Wherever I see 'Ego' diminished, I see God reaching out.
ALWAYS!

From Muslim point of view, every Muslim is in a constant battle against three things:
1. Satan.
2. Nafs (one's inner self)
3. Temptations of this worldly life.

Most people understand the battle against Satan and worldly temptations. So I will not go into details on these two and will only focus on Nafs.

Nafs is that part of Ruh (soul) which is handled by an individual. Nafs is one’s inner self. In the Quran, Allah has described three main types or stages of nafs. An individual can go through all three stages at one point in his life.

The three stages are:
1) Nafs al Ammara Bissuu (The Nafs that urges evil)
2) Nafs al Lawwama (the Nafs that blames)
3) Nafs al Mutma inna (The Nafs at peace)

To better understand the concept of Nafs, we can compare it with Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality in which he states that there are three inherent components in one’s personality –
    a) The id
    b) The ego and
    c) The superego

Nafs al Ammara Bissuu can be defined as the id. This is the animal stage of nafs in which a person’s actions are governed by his emotions and are mostly evil or harmful for the soul. A person cannot control temptation when in this stage. According to Freud, id is raw, savage and immoral. This stage of nafs is guided by the pleasure seeking principle. It does not consider right or wrong and only takes into account the satisfaction of desires.

It is mentioned in the Quran:



The Nafs al Ammara Bissuu is guided by earthly desires and passions.

Nafs al Lawwama is the second stage of nafs which comprises of the Freudian concepts of ego and superego. It is a self-critical stage during which an individual reviews his actions. Good deeds are thought upon and bad deeds are rejected. The ego here acts like the haram (unlawful) police. It decides which desires to fulfil and in what way. The superego is the ethical aspect of personality which considers only the right action regardless of the reality or consequences. The ego is one which decides what is to be done with a desire. Thus, Nafs al Lawwama is the stage of conflict and the stage of decisions in which the good actions win majority of the times. In this stage, the nafs is also referred to as the soul that blames, as is mentioned in the Quran in the following verse:



This stage of nafs shall be the one which blames an individual for all his evil actions on the day of judgement. Most people fall under this category.

Nafs al Mutma inna is the highest and purest stage of nafs which perhaps Freud never dealt with. In this stage, our desires are at rest and one knows what is right and finds no difficulty or conflict of interest while performing the righteous deeds or actions. An individual is content with his worldly life and focusses more towards a better hereafter. This nafs is referred to in the Quran in the following verse:



Ibn Al-Qayyim has mentioned: The nafs is a single entity, although it’s state may change from Nafs al Ammara Bissua, to Nafs al Lawwama, to Nafs al Mutma inna which is the final aim of perfection.

Striving towards the best and the purest stage of nafs is to have total faith in Allah, be content with your worldly affairs, not be dissatisfied etc. All this can be achieved step wise by defeating the 7 evils of nafs, i.e. –

(1) False pride
(2) Greed
(3) Envy
(4) Lust
(5) Backbiting
(6) Stinginess and
(7) Malice

Nothing can be achieved without Allah’s help. One needs to keep making dua to Allah to have control over our nafs along with working to conquer each evil.

The Prophet Muhammad PBUH said: 

The problem is that people's motives cannot be known for certain. They might say that they have a religious (or non-religious, for instance ideological) motive for their actions but sometimes this is just an excuse for power lust. They would just find another excuse if religion did not exist.

The most murderous ideology of all times must be Nazism, and it didn't need any god to justify itself.

I guess they even found trees, fish scales and pizzas with "ALLAH" magically written on them...

That does not prove anything.

I was referring to proven scientific facts such as Human Embryonic Development, earths atmosphere, expanding universe and big bang theory etc.

How do you feel about life before conception?

Fifteen billions years of non existence then less then a hundred years before non existence once more.

Strange is it not that no one seems concern or fearful of the billions of years of non existence before birth but are very concern an fearful about some afterlife period of non existence.

The following is from a novel by Arthur C Clarke by the name of the fountains of paradise.




Could not agree more with Clarke alien probe statements as it flown by the solar system in his story.

The whole concept of a all powerful god is a dead end as far as understanding the working of the universe.

When we wish to have electric power we turn to Edison and such men not the god Zeus with his lighting bolts.

It was not praying to Zeus that resulted in our understanding of lighting bolts but instead a man flying a kite.

Your questions demand little detailed answer because our life is not as simple as coming into existence through birth and ending with death. Let me go over the Muslim view of creation of mankind and then I will go into different stages of life as described by Quran, Sunnah and explained by Muslim scholars. A lot of these are matters of unseen and I will not be surprised if you don't believe them. That's the reason I asked you to only ponder upon your own creation and death only. Anyways let me explain creation of mankind and different stages of our lives:

Creation of Mankind
The first Man's (Adam ) body was created from sounding clay. His companion woman "Hava " was created from Adam's rib. All his descendant's bodies are created by sperm of man and ovum of women. Jesus (Prophet ISA) son of Mariam (Mary) was created by Allah's word (Be and it is) like Adam but in Mariam's womb. Jesus was a human prophet and not son of God. He was not crucified but taken up alive (Holy Quran).
Allah breathed into the body of man part of His spirit called (Ruh) Soul . When the soul enters the body it becomes alive. When this soul is withdrawn from the body it dies and the body decays, putrefies and is eaten by microorganisms. Every day man experience temporary death at night when he sleeps and resurrects when he wakes up. Allah keeps his soul in a safe place during his sleep. Allah has appointed angels as guardians to the right and left side and allowed Satan to disturb humans. All these facts are described in Holy Quran.

Stage 1. Life in Lau Ho Mahfuz.

Allah created all the souls of the descendants of Adam and Hava who were predestined to come to this earth. Everything about the universes and our soul before and after creations are documented and recorded in the tablet (book) board in heaven (Lau Ho Mahfuz).

Allah once asked all the created souls, "who is your Lord?". All the souls said "You are our Creator our Lord". But souls forget the covenant when they descend to the earth. Some have faint or vague memory of Allah (God) in the inner core of the heart. At times of life threatening danger man will automatically shout "Oh God !". But who is that God? If no one tells him he will not know. At that time they usually do not address false gods. They usually point up to the heaven and say Almighty God meaning ALLAH.. If they say that many times they will forget false gods. That is the inner instinct of Humans.

Stage 2. Life in the mother's womb.

The soul is sent down to this earth into the body of fetus developed in the mother's womb and the fetus becomes alive. The fetus was swimming in the amniotic fluid inside the uterus like a fish. It does not breathe air. The fetus was fed by the blood through the placenta of the mother and supplied to the body of the fetus by means of umbilical cord. In pregnant women there is no menstruation until the baby is born. Do we remember how we lived 9 months inside the mother's womb?

Stage 3. Life in this world.

At the fetal age of 36 to 40 weeks (pregnancy) the baby is born. The baby breaths the first time and cries. Whereas the nurses, friends, parents and relatives laugh, are happy and praise the baby. When the same baby become old and dies, the relatives and friends cry. The newly born baby is clean, innocent , free from sins, grows, develops , learns and is brought up in Muslim families or in non-Muslim families. The soul in the baby forgot Allah and the promise (covenant) given in the heaven that Allah is his Creator and Lord.
All souls have to taste death. When the soul leaves the body, relatives and friends cry. The soul of man will be extracted by the angel of death either gently or roughly when the time is ripe. Therefore this stage 3 is very important testing ground for human being and next stages depend on how we lived this stage. Did we recognize our creator and followed His commandments or did we just ignore all the signs and followed this material world and our desires.
Stage 4. Death. 
After the soul is drawn from the body Allah keeps it in a place called Alam Barzaak. Good people's soul are kept in a good place and bad people's soul in a bad place until the Judgment day arrives, when everything is destroyed except Allah. There will be resurrection of all Mankind
Stage 5. Resurrection on the Judgment day. 
All souls will get up from the graves. Obedient souls will go to paradise for ever. Disobedient souls will go to hell for punishment. Those who ignore or reject or refuse to believe Allah and who worshiped false gods rather than Allah, The Creator , in this world , will go to Hell forever in the next world.
Stage 6. The end stage for disobedient soul is to enter Hell fire.
Stage 7. The end stage for obedient soul is peaceful to enter paradise in the form of new creation with different forms. Allah said that it is easy for Him to do so (Holy Quran). In paradise they will be free from sickness, illness and will at all times be healthy, clean, peaceful and satisfied with provisions, no ageing, to dwell in forever. This is because Allah is satisfied with the soul who is obedient to His Divine laws and the soul is also satisfied with Allah.

Did you forget the 72 virgins/houri for the men at least?

Oh well it all fairly all standard for religions including the threat of hell for non believers.

A posteriori, you can find all these discoveries alluded to in the Quran, just like I can "see" Jesus on some slice of pizza, but you can't tell me what the next big discovery will be, just by reading the Quran...

It works like this: scientists do the hard work necessary to discover some stuff, then as soon as they get to know about it, some religious nuts read into their scripture and lo and behold, they find the discovery pretold in there, somehow...

Funningly enough, they can never tell tomorrow's discoveries by reading scripture, but you bet they can "predict" past ones... :-)

The hate toward Jews over the centuries had been base to a great degree on Jews being Christ killers claims IE the Nazis actions toward the Jews did have a religion components or excuse.

Germany being a mainly Christian nation at the time.

There are many future predictions in Quran such as how this world will end, description of hell and heaven, life after death. This will all seem funny to you until it is proved.

Description of hell and heaven in Quran is a blessing. You and I are already warned about the unseen and it is our choice to follow or not to follow. It is just like an example of a deadly disease. Doctors tell you that if you go through a particular treatment you can be saved and if you decide not to go through treatment you can die. By saying that doctors are not threatening you. They are showing you both sides of the picture and it is up to you if you want to be treated or not. Similarly, Quran has told what hell will look like. It is up to you to believe and be saved or not.

Oh so you think the Nazis killed 6 million Jews because the Jews once killed one (1) Jew called Jesus. Doesn't make much sense...

Nazism was premised on the social interpretation of Darwinism by Ernst Haeckel, who conceptualized scientific racism. Nazism therefore came from science, not from religion.