The most common assumption people make about God, is that He must be similar to us; if you can’t smell it, touch it, see it, hear it, or taste it, it doesn’t exist, they say!
So, to refute this mistaken belief, a student ; probably of average intelligence, but a religious one… told his atheist professor; I can’t smell, touch, see, hear or taste your brain, therefore, it doesn’t exist; in other words, the professor must be wrong.
It’s the same mistaken belief which allows many ordinary thinking people to dismiss God, all too easily; But, remember, if you want to learn the Truth, maybe you have to think differently; “outside the box”; after all, we’re talking about the nature of God not your uncle Jack; your very human (though odd) uncle who could just be in the toilet at the moment, if he’s not around. Probably, if you can’t see your uncle Jack, he is in one of three places, the kitchen, the toilet, or the bedroom, meeting one of his innate desires for either, food, relief from constipation, or sleep! Rather, he might even be hiding behind the house, from his little nephew who always wants him to play scrabble.
The second most common assumption people make when faced with the question of an afterlife is “there are forces, or beings which are outside of the control of even God”; ghosts, poltergeist, or souls condemned to roam the unseen spheres of another plane; stuck between this life and the next who “never move on” or “can’t move on” for some reason (usually to do with a guilty conscience, or some horrible wrong done to them by some loathsome other).
The wrong assumption here is that, there are great forces outside of nature, or outside of God’s own power. These ideas are often held by people who believe in a supreme God, but who have learned from their upbringing, either popular culture i.e. television, or movies; or through questioning ignorant others about the existence of such phenomenon as spirits, aliens, or the nature of the devil or Satan. For example, they believe that “if” ghostly apparitions appear with great frequency all over the world, these must be “restless” souls roaming around seeking vengeance, or peace, which they can never get.
In Islamic tradition, when Allah made Adam and Eve, the first humans, the Jinns were already in existence. They are creatures made of fire, which Allah in His infinite wisdom created before he created mankind. Allah also warned Adam and Eve about their avowed enemy, the Satan; or Iblees, as he is known in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. While there are many other devils who do as Satan bids them, there are other jinns who do not listen to him, but follow what they were commanded by God; they do not approach humans or harass them; but keep to themselves, and worship God, live in communities of their own, and believe in an afterlife; those of them who are believers. In other words, the spirits believed to be ghosts are not spirits but creatures made of fire (although we do not generally see them), who are also responsible for their actions in their present life, and will be judged on their actions in the next life, similar to human beings. They possess ‘free will’ and so it follows, they also are accountable to God for their good and evil deeds.
One of the basic Christian beliefs is that the devil somehow has great power; due to this wrong assumption, Christians believe that there is much evil in the world, and that the devil can “harm” innocent humans. The fact is that no one, not the devils, nor Satan, nor evil humans can do anything to anyone else without God’s allowing them to use their own free will. God can prevent any evil from occurring if He wishes to do so, and He is All Seeing and All Knowing, and all Capable and All Aware. There is nothing in the heavens or on earth that doesn’t occur just as what has been written. This belief in the Divine Will, means that Muslims do not fret over what has happened of evil to them, even disaster is faced with stoic acceptance and strong faith in God’s wisdom. True, this takes a certain amount of faith, and also Islamic beliefs; knowledge of God’s true religion.
The ghosts, aliens, and so on are largely due to belief in what popular culture teaches, which exaggerates the existence of such things, or exaggerates their power; just as the Bible has exaggerated the power of the Satan; children see “Casper the friendly ghost” when they are young, and then “the ghost whisperer” when they are older, and get it into their heads that there is some truth to ‘phantoms, evils spirits, or even ‘friendly’ or good spirits, who don’t do much, except make some noise in the house. I had a friend in high school, who once seriously claimed that she heard guitar music being played in an empty upstairs room of her parents’ home. Now, I believe that they probably had a jinn or even more than one living in their home. Empty rooms are well known for inviting Jinn, especially if the home owners are non-Muslims and play music. Or so I figure.
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