بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I previously posted a discussion I was having with a physicist friend of mine. You can catch up here. What follows is the continuation of that discussion.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I recently wrote a post about how the medieval church considered drinking to the point of drunkness to fall under the deadly sin of gluttony.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
TIL that getting drunk was considered a sin in Medieval Christianity. Alcohol itself was considered permissible, but drinking to the point of inebriation was considered a subset of the deadly sin of gluttony. The full reddit thread on r/askhistorians can be found below, although I’ll quote the relevant parts:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
A friend of mine sent my third post in the proof for the existence of God series to a mutual friend who is a PhD student in physics. Let’s call him Muhammad. He made a comment in response:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Despite the repeated use of the phrase “there is no proof or evidence for the existence of God,” I would imagine most atheists, and indeed most people, are unaware that there is in fact a technical difference between evidence and proof. Fittingly, the distinction between proof and evidence was initially taught to me in an introductory evolutionary biology course by an ardent atheist professor during my first year of university. My professor used this distinction to justify why she would not be receiving objections to evolution in her class. (Literally, she said that we were not allowed to question evolution or present counter evidence during the lecture, and that she would not entertain it during her office hours.) It was the most bizarre and dogmatic moment I had in my entire education, and I say this as someone who was blessed to study theology in a seminary environment for a year. Contrary to popular opinion, the seminaries are far less dogmatic when it comes to foundational beliefs, as they permit questioning the existence of God and raising objections to the proofs offered.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
As we stated earlier, before we can answer the question “how can I know that God exists?” we must first ask the question “how do I know anything at all.” There are multiple ways that the intellect comes to know, and these modalities (or ways) of knowing are arranged hierarchically. I will go from the lowest form of knowledge to the highest – though this may seem unintuitive to the modern mind, which has been conditioned to see certainty as ordered in precisely the opposite direction. I will sort out these modern confusions as we proceed upon each level, inshaAllah.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Jonathan Brown has written an excellent article on the issue of suicide bombing in Islam and the popular American perception. Very valuable read. Check it out here, inshaAllah:
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Before we can answer the question “how can I know that God exists?” we must first ask the question “how do I know anything at all.” Or perhaps more appropriately, since God is not a “thing,” we should ask “how do I come to know?” As we shall see, all knowledge is ultimately grounded in what is unfortunately called “intuition” in English, but which is more appropriately called “immediate knowledge” or “knowledge by presence” in Islamic philosophy.
In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Especially Compassionate,
I will be taking a one month hiatus to focus on some other pertinent matters. I should be back around mid September inshaAllah with some new, and God Willing more frequent posts. Thanks for your patience and understanding!
In the Name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Especially Compassionate,
This week we will implement a new sunnah of the blessed Messenger, inshaAllah. Each week, we will add another sunnah to our daily routines. You can see the full story behind this idea in the post A Sunnah a Day Keeps the Devil Away.
