God is a Metaphor

``` if you

were born in a christian or a jewish or a hindu family what would you have believed in?

most muslims that i met never understood the meaning of the holy book they believe

in...how sad...don`t you think people need to understand the book they would like to follow

in their life and discover the right interpretation````

Dear Dr. Sohail

I try to believe in the truth. The Islamic definition of the muslim is to say this:

Allah (God) is one (most logical acceptance of a fact)

Muhammad is the prophet of God (again most logical historic conclusion)

Now I am a muslim.

I belive in jesus. Now i am a muslim again.

I believe in Einstein and admire him dearly. and there is much more to belive in . Again I am muslim (simply put a believer in truth). That is the effort for all of us. Find truth and believe in it . Or atleast be near to the truth.

Eienstein The Genius has this to say to us who could now only read him...

(I have no idea where my ideas come from).
(knowledge is limited and Imagination encircles the whole universe)
*He realised as always a marvelous genius he was that God exists and he had a very defined idea about God sometimes much the same way a Muslim reasons).

So Dr. Sohail you donot have to find reasoning of God from a theologian. Read Einstein you would find ample and rich hints.

```````my request to all believers in GOD is to share with me their encounters with GOD...being a

student of human psychology i have a great interest in such mystical encounters....if they

did not have any encounters that means that their belief is based on a blind faith...````


Dear Dr. Sohail,

I did have elobrate and a bit out of usual encounters and shades of exposure. Though it is quite complicated than to be simply put here. WHat I can say is that I have a greater understanding about the philosophy of life. Though suffice to say: Imagination is an encounter to God in open day light anytime at any place.

You are right that some have blind faith and it is upto me and you and like ones to explain to such individuals the philosophy rather than confuse them by suggesting that God is the creation of our mind.

There is a stark difference between creation and realisation. Muhammad realised and not created God. Hence all the prophets of God (some critical analysis may tell us the definition of prophets ) realised the existence of God (as I defined subtly in earlier posts) not created God.

However many do try to create something of God out of things which is illogical. Thus to end the confusion which still entails us regarding a simple realisation, Muhammad and earlier prophets made a very humble request to beilive in One God (one force) and tried to argue that they themselves are only humans and only a mode to realise the fact that Allah exist.

ALlah says in Quran: There is everything where you can have the proof of Allah.

Yes some minds can see beyond what may an average eye see in it surroundings and find the patterns of his abstract being in a more eloborate and astonishing manners.

It is much similar to your experiences that you mustvehave `realised` that climate is changing, you have realised that like any other human or living organism you age, you have realised that fire can do many jobs, you have realised many and many more........But indeed it would be unfortunate if you have not realised that what simple message of truth some one of the most humble and kind people realised and worked all life to let the others know sacrificing everything they pertain: time, power and resources.

Or you would like to realise it yourself. Then seek it in your own way. Donot create God for yourself dr.Sohail and make an effort to realise it on your own turf which indeed would be if i may say a better scenerio rather getting confused yourself while trying to help out some less logical individuals.

We can have further discussions . Best

Re: # 181
dear mamoon...thank you for your keen interest in the article. you have raised a number

of questions in your letter. i have no idea what mohammad meant by...allah....i am not an

arabic or islamic scholar. i know there are polytheistic traditions...monotheistic

traditions...and secular traditions...abrahamic tradition that mohammad followed was the

monotheistic tradtion

i am of the opinion that one can have

.... a religious attitude towards life....and have a blind faith in one`s religious tradition and

believe in a creator and prophets and consider holy books as divine revelations....

since there are not only different rather contradictory interpretations of scriptures

associated to GOD they cannot all be true

....a secular attitude towards life....based on history and science and philosophy ,,,,and

consider different religious traditions as part of mythology....and accept scriptures as

wisdom literature....after reading quran when i read old testament i was amased how many

stories were similar....now i realize that they are all part of middle eastern tradition.

....joseph campbell shared in his books that there are seven mythologies that different

cultures have created and in each culture there are different names for that GREAT

MYSTERY that we cannot understand rationally and logically...in middle east it was called

ALLAH....in other cultures that muystery has different name.

i am just presnting a theory...you do not need to accept it....

maybe you can read my dialogue with khurram in this discussion...that might clarify some

of the questions you are asking.

my request to all believers in GOD is to share with me their encounters with GOD...being a

student of human psychology i have a great interest in such mystical encounters....if they

did not have any encounters that means that their belief is based on a blind faith...and if

they were born in a different culture then they would have accepted the faith of that family

and culture as most people die with the same faith as their parents had....i think time has

come that we critically challenge the faith we were born in....what do you think? if you

were born in a christian or a jewish or a hindu family what would you have believed in?

most muslims that i met never understood the meaning of the holy book they believe

in...how sad...don`t you think people need to understand the book they would like to follow

in their life and discover the right interpretation. i read interpretations of maulana maududi,

ghulam ahmed pervaiz, abul kalam azad and many more and they all had different

interpretations.....now i realize that in wisdom literature different interpretations is a

positive thing but if you want to make a law then we all need the same interpretation. now i

believe that religion needs to be a private affair and state law needs to be based on secular

and humanist priciples so that all citizens have equal rights and privileges.sincerely sohail

Dear Dr. Sohail,

I have a question for you.

Allah in Arabic is a combination of two words. Al which means what is and lah which means what is not.

Muhammad (PBUH) didnt say God, Kuddah etc neither did Jesus of Nazreth. You must know that in times of jesus or before , Roman kings used to claim they are son of Gods. So God was more of an empror and ideed a metaphor.

However elah and Allah have entirely different connotations.

So my question is do you know what Muhammad meant when he said `Allah is one` . What was Muhammad really referring to?

Allah is a very specific word a phenomenon never to be used for idols or even persons. None ever claimed that ``I am Allah``. As the word which means what is and what is not (every thing) can simply be not used. It is very defined expression and at the same time very simple expression and definition of God which is quite different than the representaions you put forward to defend secular athiesm. Since you are writing articles not purely on psyciatry, are you not delving into a bit of philosophy. If you are, then why would you present an argument based on misunderstood notions and cleche`s as if you are being part of the same confused audiences you in the first place wanted to help out with this article.


Thanx

Re: # 178
dear imransuhail...did i read it right that you called me...biased, stubborn and ignorant.

how sad. i respect your views even if i disagree with you....sincerely sohail

If God is a metaphor, idol-worship is also a metaphor. It is not the pure stone that one worships but the spirit of god in the cut-stone that has a metaphorical connotation.

There is a story. Vivekananda asked an atheist king to spit on a photo of himself. The king could not do it. The photo is after all just plain paper. Yet, that paper carries a spirit (an image) and that is the mataphorical truth.

I liked this artile.

V.S.Gopalakrishnan

Do you think the miracles performed by the prophets, and the scriptures they got from God are lies?

How do you explain scriptues telling people about many unknown realities years and sometimes centuries before human intellect developed to the height where it could understand and vrify these phenomenons?

How do you explain the constant failure of humans in meeting hte challenge of the quran to produce a chapter like it? How do you explain that some human could write a book so high in literary standards that is still cannot be explained or reproduced by the highest scholors of that language?

The science people refer to for showing that religion and God arent real itself is always based upon unprovable or unknown assumptions. One cant prove or exen explain what ``charge`` is yet people use electricily. Amost in every century some great so called established laws of science take a turn and are proven to be wrong. Using such flawed and incomplete tools to dismiss the idea of God which is but natural in people is just an expression of being biased, stubborn and ignorant.

no offense brother but the truth is what it is :)

Re: #175 SaimaShah,

Et tu! Chowkie #1!

``God ....is a name for what we do not know``

What does this mean?
Is it something like this.....
We don`t know what causes earthquakes. So we say God causes earthquakes. Later we find out what causes earthquakes. So, we don`t say anymore that God causes earthquakes.

Is that what you mean?

Re: # 175
Dear Saimashah...thank you for your thoughtful comments. When you use the word `spirit`

are you using it as the essence of human beings or as a separate`entity` that existed before

birth and will survive after death. What do you consider the basis of your life choices...your

own experiences and your own truth or faith in religious doctrines presented by prophets

hundreds of years ago as their truth? thanks once again....sincerely sohail

Enjoyed this deeply. What I`d like to add is also that no matter whether we see ourselves as believers or unbelievers, agnostic or atheist, we create God. It isn`t just the prophets who create God, but we all do. God is not just an abstract idea of an external entity, it is a name for what we do not know. How we react to the unknown, with what courage we face uncertainty, how we do it, is our definition of God. The definition of a personal God, overlooking our lives, (like an icon on our desktop) helps to connect with our deepest sense of self and consciousness. Religion is delightful because it is like a riddle to solve the great mystery of life--which is a gigantic puzzle about the nature of physical, mental and spiritual reality. I hope that before I die, I am one step closer to experiencing my true self. I know that it does not lie within this body, but somewhere close, like a computer program is distributed between interfaces and memories, I too am distributed in the various experiences of mind, body and emotions. Perhaps spirit is the synergy between these. To find ourselves is to find God. Different religions have a different myth but the connecting feature is spirit. There are many such ideas and features e.g.:
1. Spirit
2. The idea of goodness
3. The idea of sacrifice
4. The idea of being irrevocably connected to God.
5. The experience of love
6. The sense of separation from the True One

Re: # 173
rf786...thanks for the appreciation....sohail

Dr Sohail,

Great article, thanks

Re: # 171
dear foggy1....can you share your belief about GOD.....and HIS/HER role in your life and

how your philosophy is different than the belief of family and community you grew up in....

sincerely sohail

Regarding your article God is a Metaphor, true, I too learnt metaphors in language class, English language to be exact. Not from psychiatry books, and never from psychology books. Though why should you make it seem as if ” concrete” was directly opposite to a “metaphor”! There could be variations of softer image in the “ concrete “reality . However a metaphor does take away the heavy weight from such words like “ faith” and’belief’! If you take away the ‘concrete’ way of looking at certain higher thought; faith and belief start flying around like mere clouds around a simple ‘metaphor’! Now I’m really interested in the use of “abstract Thinking” as a measure of mental and emotional maturity. Really now there otta be a proper psychological test to ascertain whether a patient can take it. I mean if a patient is really mature and Can take it when he is told the truth about say, a fatal disease! Just See how people blindly follow the demands of modernity. They all wear a certain “positive-ness” and as if it is a fashion they challenge the Doctor, “ C’mon Doc, tell me how long do I have to live!” and the doctor just as main stream, honestly tells the patient how short he is expected to live. Then the carefully cultivated veneer of being positive, collapses. The patient is a nervous wreck. Each sign and symptom is that of impending death. How many deaths will such anxious patients die! ? Such patients who we couldn’t see through behind their apparent maturity modernity and even responsibility, attitude? Imagine what-happens to the family who depend upon such personalities, life has such a flat effect when such charming personalities, crash and agonisingly go into oblivion....

Aricle with some brief exposition of abstractness but sufferred from pshycological dilemma of falling fr the same trap mr.Sohail accused less abstract minds fall for when they try to literally interpret God and his doings.

God is on average a largely misunderstood cleche and not strictly a scientific metaphor. Only if linguistic diversification is an outcome of metaphor, indeed then word god is a metaphor symbolising a phenonmenon.

Unfortunately Law, legal or social, follows law of averages. If every one is so logical to understand the abstract philosophy of God and not only that but act in the society with utmost coordination and good faith, no authoritarian cleche`s and interpretations to the Man`s intellectual contact to Nature (GOD) be needed.

As a researcher one needs to look into patterns to understand the emphasis on theology in older times which ended up being one of the key contributions to human society and its developments (I am talking about prophets: again a metaphor in the context of this discussion).

Now if athiest believes in nature in contemprary times he believe in God (the misunderstood cleche cum metaphor). Nature is an expression which brings more such Words, expressions and feelings only to define the abstract phenomenon in a different yet more scientific manner.



The expressions ``Messenger of God`` or message of God sounds the same as law of nature or natural event.

Now God /Nature does not work in complex and mostly contradictory manner but human society does follow exactly such trends. Less scientific mind or a scientific mind but a politically twisted mind may manipulate, complicate, misrepresent or confuse simple ideas for some self interest. A quality exercised by most human beings irrespective of power or no power, and this is just one of the practices of futile complexities, just as a matter of routine, one may witness every day.

I listen to Bulle shah, and his poetry shows that his abstract understanding about life was something of extraordinary stature and exceptionally well defined. He was a philosopher of extreme logic. Now if every human being reaches this level I agree with Mr. sohail humans would not need to practice less abstract, much defined, many times repressive and mostly confined ways to reason nature.

I agree these days scientific innovation has helped many of us to have a well developed understanding of GOD. But first only few could benefit but most still live in repressed environments where explaintions of their plight are merely utterances of confusion not only by the repressed ones themselves, be it the repression of mind or body, but the confusion entail socalled doctors of the system too.

So in my view believing in nature is again believing in the metaphor God, which is a philosophy of life, rather than an identity, but mostly embracing the new cleche/and less of a metaphor than GOD is understadning the secrets of this universe and our own existence though in a less abstarct manner than what some thing a poet like Bulle shah would believe in.

So let us not confuse God the metaphor while trying to make a comparison of philosophy and ignorance, and our behavioral constraints which makes many of us less logical sometimes consiously and sometimes unconciously.

sattar:
i get mad-retarded in those moments, i can`t even think straight, let alone to call up my imaginary buddies from childhood. (but i got you)