Asalaamu alaykum (peace be upon you)!

Okay my story:

The Beginning:

When I started debating atheism some years ago, i was confident that belief in God was true, and this doubt never overcame me. But when you continue debating with people of another way of life, you gradually have to see arguments from their perspective – so I would try to be neutral and focusing on their perspective, hearing their arguments (and often aggression). Gradually I reached a stage where I started having doubts. I’m sure most of you have experienced this.

The thing which stuck out for me the most – which I believe is the pivotal point between believers in God and atheists, was that Atheists could never give a satisfying answer as to why the planet Earth was in the right place, at the right time, and in this state for millions of years to support the different forms of life. When this was asked, they’d simply reply that we are only experiencing life: “if it wouldn’t exist in that way, we wouldn’t observe it.” This is known as the “contra-antropic-principle“. But that seems like a fancy way for saying, “It is like that because if it weren’t like that then it wouldn’t be like that.” Well yeah, obviously, but that still doesn’t make it any less miraculously that it is like that, and not any other of the million less favourable ways.

In other words, atheists are willing to reject the possibility of God being there, simply because they didn’t want to open their mind to that possibility. So instead of desiring to believe in God, they were willing to believe that our Universe was the one which luckily produced life on a planet Earth, after billions of other ‘attempts’ in other previous Universes for life (again, this was something they were willing to accept without being 100% certain that other Universes exist outside or before this one.)

In simple terms: they aren’t willing to open their mind to the possibility of an Intelligent Being outside this Universe, but they are willing to accept anything other than that. (it’s scary to accept a God if you know you’ll be responsible infront of Him on a Judgment Day. So it seems easier to just reject the possibility of Him existing, right?)

[Note: Kufr (disbelief) in arabic literally means ‘to Cover’ a truth or the possibility of covering a truth with falsehood, or darkness. Anyone who does this is a Kafir (Coverer/Disbeliever)]

Arguments:

They would then give me counter arguments like; God is a complicated being, so it’s even more harder to imagine such a Being being outside of this Universe. That made some sense, but such people weren’t even willing to accept the possibility of any type of God existing outside of the universe, yet they were willing to accept all other possibilities which seemed less plausible.

This lack of open mindedness on the side of many Atheists I encountered made me realise that most of the people I debated (usually abit older than me) were not really sincere individuals, often they just liked to follow what everyone else followed to feel they were part of a group. In simple words, Atheism had just become a cult following for youth who didn’t have a religion to unite them. This is exactly the same claims atheists put forward against religion in the first place!

Open Mindedness to God:

Throughout this entire experience, I still kept my mind open to God. The neutral state the human should be in when being a true seeker is to keep your mind open to both options, this shows you’re sincere. So that includes calling out to God (Allah, the Originator of the Universe) for guidance ‘if He exists’. This is the real neutral stance all truth-seekers should have when confused.

So I would search for answers, and I would also wish. It’s in human nature to make wishes to God anyway so why not, even if you’re not sure, atleast you have some hope.

Hamza Tzortzis Argument:

Anyway then one day I heard an argument put forward by Hamza Tzortzis which seems quite convincing. After that, I kind of realised that this makes alot of sense, and it really put my heart at ease.

The argument was as follows (in my own words) – 3 steps:

1 – No Infinite Universe/Multiverse:

– There has to be a First Cause (there can’t be Infinite Universes or an Infinite Regression (going back) into infinite. Why?

– Infinity might make sense theoretically, but it doesn’t make sense practically, because if we go ‘back’ in Infinity ‘past’ Universes (or Multiverse), this Universe would not have come into existance at all (13.5billion years ago – a limited time ago).

In other words: Imagine you’re standing in a line, with infinite amount of people standing ahead of you.

Will you ever get your turn?

The same way this universe would never get its chance to come into existence, if infinite universes were ‘before’ it.

2 – a First Cause is needed

This made alot of sense to me, it actually justified that a ‘First Cause’ is needed. This First Cause which is outside the limits of this Universe or Multiverse.

3 – the Quranic Description matches this best

And this is what Allah (God) tells us in the Qur’an:

Say (O Muhammad): He is Allah, the One (without a 2nd), Allah the Samad (Everything depends on Him and He depends on none), He does not have children, nor was He born, and there is none (Kufuw): equal or similar to Him. (Quran al Ikhlas 112)

So the First Cause had to be:

– a Being – who has Control (ability & power),

– who has Knowledge and Understanding (intelligence)

– there is none like Him (who is outside the Universe, outside its physical laws)

This removed my doubts about God, and the First Cause (instead of an Infinite Universe/Multiverse).

After this I realised that my confidence in the Atheism paradigm was shifting back more to Theism (belief in God). This made it easier for me to feel thankful to God.

Note: Remember I said that Kufr is to ‘cover’ the truth in darkness? Well the opposite for Kufr is Shukr in Arabic, Shukr means to be ‘Thankful’. My life was much more pleasing, more at peace, because emotion is a big part of everyones life, humans want to be thankful. So I thanked God for guiding me back to happiness and tranquility.

Holes in Atheism:

Now after this I started to find alot of holes in the Atheism belief system, alot of gaps in the Abiogenesis (life coming from non life) hypothesis. So it became clear to me that Atheism was just as much of a fairytale as they consider religion to be! Because Atheism isn’t science, Science is purely neutral. Atheism is a belief system consisting of sometimes blind faith of especially past events and even future ones! Just like religion is.

I’ll introduce you to more details of these holes in the Atheism Paradigm, and what things convinced me of Islam being true in future posts, inshaa’ Allah (God willing). 😀

Please share your stories in the Comments section, we look forward to reading them 🙂

Your brother,

Abu Yusuf