Reflection II
A post I would like to dedicate to Professor Richard Dawkins
One of these days, I watched a video where Richard Dawkins debated with Mehdi Hasan, a British-American broadcaster, about whether religion is good or evil. The video lasts for over 40 minutes; I will not summarize the discussion in this post. Still, I would like to focus on one question that Richard Dawkins asked Mehdi Hasan about how he, as a professional broadcaster, could believe that Mohamed stepped on a winged horse, called Buraq, to which Mehdi Hasan proudly said he believes in it. The winged Buraq horse served Mohamed to fly from Mekka to Jerusalem, where he ascended to the seven heavens and met other prophets, like Adam and Jesus, all during one night, according to Islamic sources. The focus point of this post will be to reflect on how miracles in religion are things that their believers are not open to question. Instead of questioning what can neither be studied nor examined for a Muslim to form an opinion about his belief, I will defend the idea of discussing what can be checked, like inconsistencies or controversies found in the Quran and Hadith (the traditions).
Miracles: why are they so powerful?
Miracles hold a broad spectrum of interpretations humans have given to unusual occurrences or events. For example, if one person misses a flight that later crashes into a mountain, they might consider their weak timing a miracle, which is why the person is not part of the tragedy. Changing from perspective, the flight crash is a disaster for all the passengers who died and for their families and friends. Believers in a deity usually interpret this occurrence of one person staying alive as God saving them, but the reflection of why He did not save the 170 other passengers is not to be questioned.
There are also miracles in the form of stories and scriptures for which it is expected to believe in them, like believing that Jesus raised the dead or Mohamed rode the winged Buraq horse. People who grow up in an environment with an image of God that is merciful but also cold in his justice in a very mysterious way, tend to be scared to question religious sources. Being surrounded by the idea of an inconsistent God is why good things are understood as a gift from God, like a student graduating, and bad things as a form of punishment, like falling from the stairs. Not being able to see the cause-effect approach of things, but always covering it with the idea of God giving or taking away something, is why there is always an emotional approach to events. God's presence in every process that takes place is a mindset that we refer to as occasionalism. This way of processing events in daily life is one of the many ways that religion pollutes the human's natural ability to process information logically. It is such a strong way of indoctrinating God's presence that questioning anything about Him means questioning a supernatural being that is only as far from you as your own blood vessels are, as Muslim scholars would teach children about how far God is, by also referring that He encapsulates the whole universe at the same time.
Someone who has been fed for years with this mentality will not be open to questioning God's work and his most beloved human, Mohamed, for whom He created the universe. A believer questioning miracles also means questioning God and His power to perform miracles and any occurrence that does not fit inside the laws of physics, which is the highest form of disrespect towards Him. Their God, Allah, who is merciful but also cold in his justice in a very mysterious way, as referred to above, means they should fear falling from stairs with the possibility of being paralysed for the rest of their life, having a car crash, or having a health condition as a result of God's curse for questioning Him. This might be another important reason why many people believe in the scriptures instead of choosing to question them. The events, as they are, have their natural cause, but not for a Muslim, whose God is present everywhere at any time. If you ever fall from your bed at 5 AM, it is because you had a poor position when turning around, but for a Muslim, it might be a sign and a gift from God so that you would wake up at the same time for the morning prayer. This is just an example of the approach I discussed above.
Occasionalism
Questioning God's power to cause miracles any time means He's also very present to punish that thought instantly. Any unlucky event that occurs, whether the person questioned God or not, will be attributed as a punishment if the person would effectively question God. This position is mentally even more exhausting than a vicious circle, where in the vicious circle one always takes steps that constantly affect each other without being able to break the process. In such a mentally draining position, the individual stays in a vicious circle, but this time with an awareness that the exit is just there by choosing not to use it for existential and survival reasons.
Questioning miracles is questioning God: the wrong order of discussion
With this being said, asking a question about the irrationality of miracles has the same effect on a believer as asking how they can believe in God. Both are uncontrollable, unverifiable, and based on their faith. In my opinion, miracles are a topic that should be questioned lastly in a discussion between an atheist and a believer. It is unproductive and not open to do some research together to form an opinion, unlike Mohamed's traditions and the Quran, which can be a more productive discussion as they are open to doing research.
This order of questioning can be the beginning for a Muslim to approach Islamic sources with an unbiased position because most of them grow up with the same biased stories that are enough to keep them in the Muslim community. Once they discuss Islam with an unbeliever who studied the parts of Islam that most Muslims didn't, they can start to realize what the atheist is trying to say. At the end of the day, both sides should keep respect for the belief system of their research partner, as long as it does not promote unnecessary fear, sexist approaches or explicit ways of organizing a society with laws that do not have a progressive character. When one is open to processing neutral information about his/her religion, by placing their religious bias aside, the belief in miracles will, depending on the believer's choice, crumble when other topics in their belief system no longer give satisfactory answers.
Conclusion
Discussing with someone who does not have the same belief system as you can be challenging, as there is little intersection where ideas of both sides cross each other. However, we can find on both sides the possibility of research when it comes to things that can be researched, such as reading the Quran as it is. When it becomes clear that the Quran is not the word of God, we further don't need to understand Mohamed too much when it comes to realizing whether Islam is the true religion of humankind, because when someone realizes that the Quran is the work of humans, Mohamed turns into a historical character and his prophet title turns into another number on the list of those who claimed to be a prophet throughout history. Based on the fact that many Muslims who leave Islam do so when they do proper research on the traditions of Mohamed and the Quran, which they have not been taught in their traditional Islamic upbringing, shows us the importance of questioning step by step. A discussion, starting from certain moral questions and traditional controversies, can bring a believer and an atheist closer than when miracles are questioned. At least, there is space and possibility to form an opinion for both sides. Only then, a Muslim can understand why atheists ask them nothing else but to read the Quran and research Islam.
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Link discussion
Dawkins on religion: is religion good or evil? | Head to head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Xn60Zw03A
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