1. Belief in the existence of God as well as the need for God is reasonable but not indisputable and universal.
2. If belief in God were so crucial for salvation, God would have made His existence absolutely clear/ obvious.
3. The same goes for believing in Islam. It’s reasonable but not indisputable.
4. If being Muslim were so crucial then Allah would have made the evidence for Islam more concrete.
5. Therefore, faith and articles of faith are not as important as having a good character.
6. Good character/sound morals and ethics is more important because there are some universal morals upheld by all. And all humans agree that we need morals. Whereas all humans don’t agree that we need God! The universal nature of morals implies it’s more crucial than religion.
Or as a facebook critic of mine, Saqib Qureshi, represented the above arguments of mine in the form of a neat syllogism:
1. What matters more for salvation are indisputable claims, not merely reasonable.
2. Theological truths in God and Islam are merely reasonable, not indisputable. Moral truths however are indisputable.
3. Therefore, what matters more for salvation are moral truths not theological truths.
Objections to the above argument
On the God part: A facebook friend of mine, Shahbaz Haider argued that God’s existence too is universally recognized in a way that God as the Necessary Being & Reality of Existence is recognized by all!
His basic argument is: the material universe, although possibly eternal and infinite, is contingent, not absolute, as it derives its infinitude-eternality from a Necessary Being, the foundational Reality of Existence, that is God.
In short: the material universe cannot be the Necessary Being that is the foundational Reality of Existence.
And the reason behind that is, as Shahbaz argues, the universe has a ‘quiddity’: “Anything having a quiddity is a composite of essence and existence, at least. A composite derives its reality from its parts, and cannot be simultaneously necessary in itself, and cannot be pure-being, as pure being cannot have a quiddity, it’s a contradiction in terms.”
Thus, he argues that God being the only candidate for the Necessary Being & foundational Reality of Existence, is actually universally acknowledged, although indirectly, without us realizing it!
My response: The God of theism is not the only plausible candidate for the Necessary Being & foundational Reality of Existence.
Although there is universal agreement on the existence of a Necessary Being & foundational Reality of Existence, there is dispute regarding what that entity is.
An eternal and infinite material universe, although claimed by many, is indeed not the most appropriate candidate as an alternative to the God of philosophical theology. Rather, a more apt alternative to God comes from mathematical physics in the form of an eternal- infinite-fundamental field (FF), a Necessary Being like God, that as the foundational reality spawns everything that exists, including the universe or the multiverse.
So what is this FF? How is it not a contingent entity like the universe? How can it be a Necessary Being like God?
I’ve discussed all this at length in my article #4 under points (9) to (11.f), and in my post on facebook. Please give it a read!
Objections on the morality part: the most common one is that there cannot be any objective morality without God.
Another objection, like the one made by my facebook friend Gregory Mehr, is that there are no universal morals upheld by all. Even murder is not considered objectively wrong by some philosophers, he argued.
As in ‘moral error theory’ that says there are no objective moral truths/values. As also in Expressivism that asserts there are no objective moral truths and all our moral statements are merely expressions of our attitudes. Likewise, Subjectivism posits there are no objective moral truths and our moral statements are merely descriptions of our attitudes. And then there is Moral Relativism which contends that moral truths are contextual/relative/time-place dependent, not universal.
What they are basically saying is: Moral truths are not objective, they are either relative or subjective or merely descriptions or expressions of subjective attitudes/beliefs/ideas.
My response: Despite many philosophers not believing that killing innocents is objectively wrong, it doesn’t equate to them saying it’s okay to kill innocents. If they kill innocents, they soon come to realize the wrong in what they did when someone kills their own beloved ones!
Even immoral people, despite doing evil acts, would concede that morals are needed for order amongst humans when they are on the receiving end of evil perpetrated against them! None can truly go against the golden rule.
The golden rule is at least the one principle of morality or ethics that is natural and almost universal. Theft, rape, and murder are thus intrinsically wrong, because they violate the golden rule.
Hence, none of the philosophies cited above deny the existence of morality/moral attitudes/behaviour! Neither do they deny the need for morality. They deny only the universal/absolute/objective nature of morality.
And yes, morality without God is absolutely possible in at least the form of the golden rule and I’ve written about it in more detail in my academia article wherein I discuss a modified form of the golden rule that I’ve named as the Platinum Rule of Ethics (PRE) as a basis for morality in Godless societies.
Another objection: ‘But to act good just because it’s practically required or effective isn’t morality, it’s prudence’, argued Gregory again.
I say to him: to refrain from doing what’s universally recognized to be wrong (due to whatever reason), for whatever sake, whether driven by prudence or selfish motives, is goodness.
The question arises: where did this sense of morality within us come from?
The theist would say: from God.
The atheist would say: man learnt it through trials and errors over tens of thousands of years.
In any case, the universal nature of at least the golden rule or its various forms is indisputable. Therefore, a bare minimum morality is naturally objective. Therefore, morality exists with or without religion. With or without God.
The vital point: is that morality/moral behaviour exists universally (for whatever reason(s)). Belief in God doesn’t.
Plus, the need for morality (even if it’s prudence based) too is universally recognized. The need for God isn’t.
Therefore, both the existence and the need of morality are, at least, universally recognised. But the existence and the need of God both are disputed.
Hence, God is more disputable than morals. Therefore, God is less crucial than morals.
Supremacism is wrong as it violates the Golden Rule
Propagation of Islam as was practised by the Prophet Muhammad was solely his prerogative as per his special and exclusive status as the ‘Rasool’ of God or the one who embodied unassailable living proof(s) and judgment(s) of God upon his nation (the Arabs primarily, and the adjoining nations, that is, the Eastern Roman empire and the Persian empire, by extension).
Other than his immediate companions, the succeeding generations of Muslims had no divinely sanctioned right to conquer other nations for the sake of Islam. What they did merely reflected the prevalent imperialist- expansionist mindset of that day and age wherein territorial expansions through military conquests was considered normal. That era is over.
Assuming that parts of history compensate for other parts of it, and that the whole of the global Muslim population is one body and the whole of Europe is one body; the Ottoman conquests of Europe have been balanced by Colonialism. Tit for tat done; scale is balanced, and the slate is clean again.
Now, if the Europeans (or the Americans, or the Israelis) carry on with their imperialist policies and mechanisms to control and manipulate the Muslim nations then that’s to be condemned and resisted with full might.
Likewise, if some Muslims harbour this secret desire of taking over the European lands with their ‘Khilafah’ styled political Islam, then that too must be condemned and resisted. Muslims cannot cry over Islamophobia while at the same time fantasize about or work towards making hardline restrictive forms of Islam the dominant ideology of the Western lands, obliterating their local culture and religion in the process!
The current Muslims have no excuse at all for any attempts at conquering other nations by force. The goal now must be peaceful mutual coexistence; not expansion!