Thirty nine

some questions of the Rationalists

Who should create the system of life for man?
''How can a religion which always talks of the hereafter bring justice and virtue on earth? Hasn't man taken care of his affaires?
This question is related to some basic issues. What are the things or concepts like truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, right and wrong, moral and immoral? Who are to decide them? Human beings? If human beings, who among them are to decide? Is it each individual? Then won't the decisions of six hundred crore people be different and contradictory to one another? Doesn't such a situation mean that each individual must live according to what his mind dictates? Is it be decided by the society? If so who among the society? Is it majority in the society? In this case as majority are followers of religions, aren't they to decide? If the majority are superstitious they too must decide. Isn't it? Are they to be decided by the rulers? In that case won't truth and justice take the form of the ruler's whims and fancies under dictatorship, totalitarianism and monarchy? If they are decided by the democratic governments would they reflect the interests of the elected representatives? Are truth, justice and laws of the capitalist system equally applicable to socialist system also?
If values are the products of social situations and economic structure as argued by materialistic philosophies and ideologies, then won't people be obliged to accept them, whatever those values may be? Doesn't it mean that one has no alternative except to put up with them, because they have emerged from social situations and economic relationship? If so is there any sense in complaining against them?
If man is granted the right to decide values they will be subject to several interests based on individual motives and differences based on family, caste, region, nationality and such other considerations. So it becomes clear that only God can decide what is really good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and justice and injustice. God can decide them as He is able to see people of all times and of all places equally, because He is the creator of them all. For the same reason the divine values which Islam puts forth before the human race show equal justice to all. Those values are immortal and transcend the limits of time and space.
Moreover, however hard one tries, perfect justice is impossible to implement in this world, and for the same reason there is an inevitable hereafter where perfect justice is possible. The murderer of a person can be punished with death. But implementation of the capital punishment on the murderer will not restore husband to the widowed woman, or father to the orphaned children. Suppose the murdered person was husband of a twenty year old woman, and father of four children and the murderer was husband of a thirty five year old woman and father of two children. A situation where there is a twenty year old widow with four children as orphans is not equal to the situation where there is a thirty five year old woman with two orphaned children. Both the situations are unequal. Hence the criminal laws are only an instrument for ensuring peace in this world. The exact and correct justice is impossible here. Such justice is implemented in the hereafter.
In this world some are intelligent while others are mentally retarded, some healthy while others sick, some powerful and others weak, some in good physique while others are handicapped. Had everything ended with death, the situation in this world would have been totally unjust and unjustifiable. This situation becomes just and justifiable only if duties are assigned to everyone, depending on their capability, and rewards or punishments are given depending on the performance or non-performance of the duties assigned. For this reason God has decided life after death where people will be rewarded or punished depending on their earthly deeds.
Can be eternal rewards/punishments For Brief Life
''Is it justice to receive eternal rewards or punishments for a brief span of sixty or seventy years of life on earth? Doesn't it prove that God is not just?''
The time taken for a deed and its results are not related. A person can be killed in moments. But what about its effects? Its consequence will be long and serious. Bombs can be dropped in a moment. But what about it's after effects? Its consequences last for decades and even for centuries and millions of people may be affected. An interview with questions and responses usually takes a few minutes. But its effects last longer, sometimes to the end of a person's life. The same is true of examinations and their results.
The fruits of a person's work do not end with his life in this world. If a person establishes an institution for higher education its good fruits will last as long as the institution exists. The students who learn there will afterwards teach others. Thus the process of educational transmission goes on and we may lose the count of numbers of the beneficiaries. So the fruits of education enjoyed by all people will also go to the founder of the institution. This is also true of evil. The evil influences others, and those who are so influenced influence yet others and the process goes on and the effects of all these evils will go back to the person who started it. Atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki within moments, but their tragic effect still continues.
Length of life span does not make a good person bad, or a meaner person noble. So there is no connection between the time taken for a deed and its results. Even after one's death the fruits of his work go on continuously. If the deeds were good the fruits will be good, and if they were evil, the fruits will also be evil. So the fruits of a person's work cannot be calculated in his life time. This is the reason why there is no divine trial, judgment, reward or punishment in this world. So for the eternal rewards or punishments in the hereafter, man's life span in the world is enough.
If we must understand God's will and the logic and reasons behind His decisions we must be equal to God or abler than Him. We can't understand them unless God explains. With the limited knowledge and reason He gave us, we may not understand why His actions were so. God is all powerful and all-knowing. Though our knowledge has expanded much, compared to the knowledge of God-who gave knowledge, consciousness and reason to six hundred crore people, - our knowledge is negligible. With our limited knowledge it is vain to seek the justice and logic of the creation of the creator. Even the reason and logic behind the works of the intelligent people may not be comprehensible to the one who is not so intelligent. Similarly the mentally retarded persons may not understand the logic in the work of persons who possess only average intelligence.
Doesn't science, which is able to create through cloning, make God irrelevant?
The act of creation is making things out of nothing. Cloning doesn't do it. It is only a process whereby a part of plant or creature - which are created by God - is taken and processed using the facilities which are again arranged by God. Actually man here creates nothing new. He only takes the existing things and changes their forms into new ones. Suppose a person takes timber from nature - and nails made of iron, and with the help of a tool that is made of both timber and iron he makes a table. No one will describe this work as creation. Hence man who creates nothing new cannot make God irrelevant. Even the man who conducts cloning is one among the six hundred crore people whom God has created with distinctive faces, fingers, hair and blood.
What do you say about human clones?
The human clone's thoughts and feelings, its nature and features and its spiritual condition etc are now unknown and unpredictable. So in the present condition a judgment is impossible. However the social, ethical, legal and other problem that human cloning may raise, can be well imagined. If there is another person exactly like us in our own locality the problems faced by our spouses, parents, relatives and the society will be very serious, and the crises will be severe. Even arresting of criminals will become impossible. If cloning creates such unresolvable problems it is clear that the religion will not support it.
Islamic View on Donation of human organs
What is the reason for Islam not supporting the donation of human organs? Is it because it makes alterations in God's creation?
It is a wrong impression that Islam doesn't permit the donation of human organs. While alive, Islam has never prohibited a person from donating an organ, if the organ is in pairs and only one is needed for life, like kidney. Similarly the transplantation of a dead man's organ with the permission of the relatives into another living person, if it is essential, is also not prohibited in Islam. As there are new advances in medical science, the contemporary Islamic scholars subjected them for study and came up with the view supporting the donation. Islam has prohibited selling the organs for money as well as removing them from dead persons without the permission of their relatives. Like Islam all countries have made them illegal.
Why Islam opposes inter caste Marriages?
Why doesn't Islam support inter caste marriages? Isn't it narrowness of outlook and intolerance?
Family is the basic unit of society. It is formed through marriage. Marital harmony is essential for the integration of the family. For this harmony to be possible, love and mercy should link the spouses. The Quran has stated ''And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): Verily in that are Signs for those who reflect'' (30:21)
Ideological unity is essential to cement the relationship of love. For example a communist will have more affinity and intimate relationship with his friend who is also a communist, than with his own brother who happened to be a congress worker. This is also applicable to other parties. Ideological unity is essential for sharing the warmth of sincere love and for exchanging secrets without any reservation. In Mathematics one and one make two. But in the world of married life it becomes a bigger one. The Quran says: ''They are your garments, and ye are their garments'' (2:187)
''Ye have gone in unto each other'' (4:21)
Married life is the most noble and indefinable experience, where like two streams becoming one, two individuals join together and live like one body and mind. The married life of people, whose faith, views, customs, observations and forms of worship are different and contradictory to others, will not be safe or warm. This will lead to unpleasant situations and unhealthy results.
A person who believes that his ideology is the only path to success in this world and the hereafter, and who sincerely and honestly believes that it is the ultimate truth, will naturally desire his children and other successors to follow his path. If his children and close relatives are to be like him in faith, his wife should also represent and follow the same faith. So ideological unity of the spouses is essential for the integrity of marital life and of the family and also for the ideological commitment of the successors. Mixed marriages will have none of these. For the same reason Islam doesn't agree to inter religious marriages.