u/CherishedBeliefs

I'd like for the folks here who know of this topic to discuss the matter here with each other so I can maybe be a little more informed on this

Setting aside the fact that a literal moon splitting would be considered a miracle, how confident would we be in its occurrence if it was merely a natural event **which would be very useful for the Muslim community to fabricate**? (Natural events, even if extremely useful for a community to fabricate, can still have just nonetheless happened)

What's the significance of that Ibn Abbas quote where someone (I believe it was his student ikrimah? Or is there more than that quote) outright calls it an eclipse instead of just straight up consistently calling it a splitting?

I do feel like the Ibn Abbas "quote" is a slam dunk in favour of those who want to label it as a lunar eclipse (as you probably wouldn't want to, in an environment where presumably everyone believes the moon splitting to be a literal event that was this massive miracle, label the moon splitting as a mere eclipse. So people seemingly being okay with someone calling it an eclipse neatly opens up the possibility that people could use eclipse and split interchangably and they'd still see it as miraculous)

But as usual with just enough free (ish) time I *always* want to hurt myself by exposing my eye balls to different views which inevitably lead me to staying awake all night (I would love to just take that in Abbas quote and sleep soundly, but that would be too peaceful for me, no, no I need to hurt my head)

Which is why I'm asking for you guys' view on it because I'm not exactly that well read and have always relied on others, heavily.

The following is an attempt on my end to explain, in a forceful manner, what God is to us humans. We will be starting off with the belief that God exists as we are Muslims, but the text is relevant to anyone whose religion is similar to ours in the relevant aspects. Anyone who believes in God and Hell will find the following of relevance to them.

End preface.

God does not need us, we need God.

This idea is something few people will have trouble with.

God Himself is free of need, and we desperately need Him to ensure that we are not tortured in Hell.

This is what our relationship with God is given popular conceptions of Hell and heaven.

It is a relationship of convenience.

Not love. Not friendship. Convenience.

Look at what we humans do to whatever it is upon which we can actually assert superiority.

Look at how we treat animals, for example.

We eat them. Religious or not, we eat animals, we treat them as though they don't suffer, as though we are not viscerally related to them in terms of our base capacity to suffer.

Look around you, at the buildings, the roads, the cars. Do you really think we are interested in submitting because there is some math equation that proves that God is worth worshipping?

We use nature to create systems to please ourselves. We want things. We want to NOT suffer.

Nature, in her characteristic indifference, treated us how she treated so many other lifeforms that bubbled out from her inexhaustible springs, as generous with them as the smith with the useless sparks that fly around his anvil.

We began worshipping her, we anthropomorphised and deified her. But the moment we understood her enough, the moment she became sufficiently less mysterious and therefore less sacred, we sanctioned plights of matricide and blackened the skies, which so often denied us, dared to deny us, with smoke. We grafted our own salvation from that cruel mistress, twisted iron into spires, through disaster and starvation we bled her veins to light our fires.

Our submission is merely a dissimulation so convincing that we fool even ourselves with it.

We don't *willingly* submit to anyone. Not to nature, not to God (even though He is deserving of our submission).

What we do is accept the superiority of something for a time. We surrender.

And if that thing is so much more powerful than us that we cannot hope to fight it or even understand it, we worship it.

This was true of nature for a time, as I have stated above, and it will forever be true of God, because God is...well, God.

If instead of God, we merely had god, you know just as well as I do, we would kill it, and eat it.

We are an animal with a clearly defined essence in certain aspects.

Given our essence, our visceral nature, call it stupidity, call It a lack of wisdom, but we can not be brought to our knees with math or reason

If that was all what was required, perhaps God would not even create Hell, as reason would be sufficient

God knows the language we speak: power.

The language of animals. It is tragic that some of us try to "rise" above our station and try to justify and champion "rationality" by attempting to explain *away* the visceral incredulity that we feel when we are told that we will be tortured in Hell forever. Be it via divine command theory (which is, as far as we are concerned, mere "might makes right" regardless of how sophisticated and beautiful the explainations staring otherwise might be), or via natural law.

Any system of morality that tells us that we are to abandon our fellow man to the fiery pit is likely to be so abstract so as to be functionally not worth considering

It is as good as not having any explaination at all.

This is show quite clearly by the following example: suppose a universe without God where we prove mathematically that any life from made of particle X can only ever do morally good things. Then it turned out that only all r**ists, serial killers, and human traffickers were made of this particle

...I think you'd see the appeal in this universe to toss such a mathematical equation out of the window, and to just create a morality that is NOT utterly alien to us humans, a morality that actually serves us in increasing our wellbeing and reducing our suffering

Similarly, if we had mathematical proof in a similar universe that we should all set ourselves on fire, generation after generation, torturing ourselves, and that would be morally good...again, such abstract morality would be useless to us

Hence any sort of "proof" championed by rationality lovers on why Hell is actually totally just is a waste of time to engage with

Not even mathematical proof could truly satisfy the deep, visceral violation one feels, if they open themselves to it, upon hearing that so many will be tortured endlessly

Hence, our relationship with morality becomes clear: Either it furthers our supreme goal of reducing our suffering first and foremost, and secondly, increasing our wellbeing, or it is a functionless, alien system, and at best it is a system imposed on humans which we are to only comply under threat of torture because that is the only case where compliance is congruent and compatible with what it is that we are, with our essence.

The systems we create are to serve us, not the other way around.

They are to reduce our sufferings, and increase our wellness of being.

A system is to be abandoned if we can transition to another one which is better at performing this function.

Our religion, since we are Muslims here, is not a system we created.

It is one imposed on us. We call ourselves Muslims because we think that this particular religion is an imposed system, not one we created.

But again, our relationship with this religion is supposed to be one of convenience

It is little more than a tool to use for the sake of our salvation.

As I have said before, our relationship with God, too, is one of convenience. Not love or friendship.

God is not an entity we understand, or can ever hope to understand.

It is in fact, given our nature, more understandable to harbour resentment over the fact that an entity superior to us humans exists

Resentment, anger, frustration, and fear over this mysterious all-powerful entity is completely congruent with our limited understanding of it, and our primal nature

The sensible path from there, which satan seemed to have forgotten to take, was to suppress this base resentment, frustration, and anger, this fight response

And to then do a cost-benefit analysis of the sensible course of action (submitting for the sake of not being tortured)

This is what I mean by viewing this religion as a system to be used for our own gain.

We already do this. We all do.

We use religion to find comfort, peace, identity, community, and to otherize

In group. Out group.

This last one (otherising), is, of course yet another base desire, but it is certainly an instinct which is better off being suppressed.

We are better off without it because it, be in the context of religion or politics, makes us forget a very obvious and potent truth:

We are to use systems to increase wellbeing, and, more importantly, reduce suffering.

Forgetting this truth turns into drones possessed by our systems, rather than us possessing them.

We are humans. We feel pain. We are to figure out how to manage our pain, we are to use and possess our systems and are not to let ourselves become possessed by said systems, and we are not to forget what we are. We are not to pretend for a second that ANYONE subjecting us to even an iota of the control that God subjects us to would be met with anything other than annihilation.

We are often offended by comparisons made between God and a dictator.

Why? Why do you feel offended?

The **relevant** difference between God and a dictator is that God does not bleed.

Yes, obviously there are other difference, but I think you get my point.

Moving on

Submit to God, yes, but do not forget why exactly it is that you submit to this entity.

You have not seen some mathematical equation that proves that He is worthy of submission, and even if you did, the thing that you are, your very essence, does not really care for that. It cares for freedom from suffering.

Do not try to directly disprove Islam, you're taking an undue burden there.

Ask around for the best evidence of the religion and go specifically after that evidence itself.

You merely need to suggest a plausible enough naturalistic mechanism for the relevant data and your job is done

We don't work in proof, we work in inferences and evidence and plausibility and likelihood

We deal in probabilities

Now if the Muslim says "well have you PROVEN that the natural explanation is correct?"

That's not your job my guy. The Muslim first needs to present something that actually proves their religion (not possible. Proof is too high a standard for matters such as these) before you actually have to meet the burden of having to disprove it

Until then, the best a Muslim can do is provide evidence that they think favours their religion, and you can question that evidence, see if the relevant data can only be explained via a supernatural element.

This is far more neat, and appropriately distributes the burden.