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Rationality
requires
belief in God
It is a common perception in
the (post?) Christian world that 'faith' or 'belief'
is irrational; that a matter of faith is one for which
there is little or no evidence. To the Muslim this seems
quite absurd. In Islam people who disbelieve in Allah
and in the prophethood of Muhammad can only do so out
of ignorance or out of wilful denial of what is evident
to them as clear as seeing:
Say thou: "This is my way: I do invite unto Allah
on evidence clear as the seeing with one's eyes, I and
whoever follows me: Glory to Allah! and never will I
join gods with Allah!"
Qur'an Surah 12 Verse 108
For the Muslim, belief in Allah forms a foundational
requirement of rationality and belief in Muhammad as
the prophet of Allah follows from applying the rational
mind to the evidence of his mission.
There are many ways in which we may describe rational
thinking. From the world view of Islam there is good
thinking and bad thinking and 'rational' thinking is
nothing more than morally good thinking. Someone who
strives to do that which is right in the way he thinks,
who is sincere and avoids self deception, someone who
seeks the truth, avoids biases and prejudice in his
opinions, who seeks knowledge from all available sources,
someone who reflects on what he sees and always looks
for explanations and doesn't accept that things are
as they are simply without any reason, someone who tries
to avoid any contradictions in his understandings, such
a person is rational and such a person is one who seeks
to think, learn and decide in a morally good way.
If someone tries to do what is morally right they are
already acknowledging that there is a moral good to
achieve. Such moral value only exists if existence as
a whole achieves something morally good, i.e. if existence
has a purpose.
If you think that existence as a whole has no purpose
and achieves nothing, then it follows that whatever
you do in life achieves exactly nothing as well - your
life would contribute no value to existence.
There is no moral good in doing what your own desires
find good or what your family or nation finds good.
The only way what you do achieves a moral good is if
it achieves something towards the purpose of existence.
Every good that can be achieved is either instrumental
to the purpose of existence and therefore a true moral
good or it is false good and worth nothing.
The core of all value and purpose to existence is commonly
known by the name Allah or God. He is the ultimate purpose
to existence and the achievement of what is morally
good equates to getting closer to Him. Allah is more
than we can ever fully understand but in order to have
morally good thinking it is essential to believe in
Allah in some sense whatever name we use for Him.
It is also essential to reject as having any hold over
us anything or anyone who asserts that a good can be
achieved without it being instrumental to the purpose
to existence. i.e. without it being for the sake of
Allah.
A person who has amoral thinking or immoral thinking
acknowledges that there is no inherent value to the
way they think and will see no problem in changing the
criteria by which they decide to accept or reject conclusions.
Whatever definition of rationality could be used there
is, for such people, no reason why they should accept
it. If being rational by some definition leads to conclusions
they don't like then they can just change the definition.
In extreme cases there can never be enough evidence
and strong arguments for them to accept a statement
as true, they just continually move the criteria of
what constitutes for them convincing evidence and argument.
Being rational means being a moral thinker.
Being a moral thinker means believing in Allah.
Only the irrational disbelieve.
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