God - Well, I do not think of God (or Allah) as a human-like figure with hands, face, nose, eyes, mouth, etc. I just primarily understand him as someone (or something?) who is conscious and intelligent and has created the universe along with all the natural laws that has led to our evolution. Also, one of the beliefs that I have is that the universe is like a giant computer, and God is like a master program behind the universe, and this "program" also has a mind (or consciousness). He doesn't talk to everyone or a large group of people at the same time, but he has picked certain people (known as prophets) as his "communication channels" to send his information to the rest of the world. I think that He also updated his information from time to time by 'over-writing' the previous scriptures (i.e. the Bible and Torah, for example) in a similar way as it often happens to data in a computer. I think that's why there are so many similarities between the scriptures in the Abrahamic religions.
That being said, you guys are probably very puzzled at reading what I just wrote, or maybe laughing right now, but I have a lot more to say about this idea (specifically about the "universe as a computer" idea and how this relates to my religious beliefs and my understanding of the nature of God), but I'll post them in a different thread once I finish writing it. Hopefully in the next week or two when I have more time. And then maybe you'll get a chance to beat up my little ass all you want to. Hehe.
Soul - I don't really know what the soul is either, but I think that it is more likely to be something inseparable from the mind and body. It can't exist by itself. Maybe it is the source of my consciousness, or something that makes me feel that I am me (and not someone else), or the source of my I-ness, but I'm not sure. Furthermore, the Islamic view is that it is not just the soul that goes to Heaven or Hell, but the entire body does as well, because the Quran says that resurrection is a physical process as it says "Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers" (Surah 75:3-4). And from a computational perspective, I think that physical resurrection might be something like a real-life 'reversible computation' which restores our dead bodies to an earlier state.
Heaven and Hell - I have never seen them nor been to those places, so I cannot describe them nor do I know how it feels like to live there. However, I don't think that the existence of heaven and hell are that improbable as many of you may think it is because even in theoretical physics there is the idea of extra dimensions and branes that are not visible to us. These 'other' places may contain heaven and hell and perhaps many other things (which are unknown to us). And in my belief, our actions and our beliefs in the present life determine whether we go to heaven or hell. Also, I think that our lives might have been programmed as a game, a very selfish game, where the winners go to heaven and the losers go to hell. According to Islam, our actions are being recorded in a book and they are being counted as points on a scoresheet which makes it sound more like a game.
However, obviously, there are many more important questions to answer such as:
What is the reason for believing all this stuff? Or what is the evidence?; Why are there so many different religions each claiming to be the true religion?; Why would an all-knowing and a merciful God send people to Hell for eternity just for not believing in a particular religion?; If God did communicate to prophets, then why aren't His messages clear enough so that His believers don't misinterpret them?; Why do people find contradictions in the scriptures if God is perfect and all-knowing?; Why doesn't He show a clear proof to everyone?; Why did he create so many people with disabilities?; If He is good and all-powerful, then why are there so many poor and hungry people in the world?; Why does He allow good people to die by natural disasters, accidents, and other unexpected things?; etc. These are questions that I'll address in the thread that mentioned earlier as they require a greater amount of evidence and explanation.
That being said, you guys are probably very puzzled at reading what I just wrote, or maybe laughing right now, but I have a lot more to say about this idea (specifically about the "universe as a computer" idea and how this relates to my religious beliefs and my understanding of the nature of God), but I'll post them in a different thread once I finish writing it. Hopefully in the next week or two when I have more time. And then maybe you'll get a chance to beat up my little ass all you want to. Hehe.
Soul - I don't really know what the soul is either, but I think that it is more likely to be something inseparable from the mind and body. It can't exist by itself. Maybe it is the source of my consciousness, or something that makes me feel that I am me (and not someone else), or the source of my I-ness, but I'm not sure. Furthermore, the Islamic view is that it is not just the soul that goes to Heaven or Hell, but the entire body does as well, because the Quran says that resurrection is a physical process as it says "Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers" (Surah 75:3-4). And from a computational perspective, I think that physical resurrection might be something like a real-life 'reversible computation' which restores our dead bodies to an earlier state.
Heaven and Hell - I have never seen them nor been to those places, so I cannot describe them nor do I know how it feels like to live there. However, I don't think that the existence of heaven and hell are that improbable as many of you may think it is because even in theoretical physics there is the idea of extra dimensions and branes that are not visible to us. These 'other' places may contain heaven and hell and perhaps many other things (which are unknown to us). And in my belief, our actions and our beliefs in the present life determine whether we go to heaven or hell. Also, I think that our lives might have been programmed as a game, a very selfish game, where the winners go to heaven and the losers go to hell. According to Islam, our actions are being recorded in a book and they are being counted as points on a scoresheet which makes it sound more like a game.
However, obviously, there are many more important questions to answer such as:
What is the reason for believing all this stuff? Or what is the evidence?; Why are there so many different religions each claiming to be the true religion?; Why would an all-knowing and a merciful God send people to Hell for eternity just for not believing in a particular religion?; If God did communicate to prophets, then why aren't His messages clear enough so that His believers don't misinterpret them?; Why do people find contradictions in the scriptures if God is perfect and all-knowing?; Why doesn't He show a clear proof to everyone?; Why did he create so many people with disabilities?; If He is good and all-powerful, then why are there so many poor and hungry people in the world?; Why does He allow good people to die by natural disasters, accidents, and other unexpected things?; etc. These are questions that I'll address in the thread that mentioned earlier as they require a greater amount of evidence and explanation.
