Urmonotheismus: Organic Tauheed 3/3

This is the last post on urmonotheismus. If you haven't read the first two posts, I invite you to do so. In this post I will address claim 2 which was "man is born on the fitrah and are therefore naturally monotheistic". We previously discussed the importance of this topic and evidences for claim 1 which stated that other monotheistic societies besides the Abrahamic ones existed independently.

Let's begin

Atheists love to assume that religion is just an acquired idea created by society to explain the world around us. They propose that now that we have science, there is no need for creation stories and no need for a God to attribute everything to. However, a belief in God is not just an intellectual need that they argue has been fulfilled (not), it is innate as our innate sense of morality (bad example?).

You will never -deep down- stop believing that you have a soul, that there is a creator, that there is an afterlife, no matter how much you try and stamp out this instinct, it is 'set in stone'. You should be able to understand and/or relate after watching the following minute-and-a-half-long video below featuring Br. John Fontain.

This is what I'm talking about! Although the man is apparently saying that he doesn't believe in God and that he might have intellectual reasoning for it, in times of crisis he abandons his 'rational' atheism. This means that he wasn't fully convinced with his atheism. There have all been times in our lives where in crisis we call out to a higher power to save us. I have a few questions, do we have an emotional, psychological belief in God, and if so, why? Is this this emotional psychological proof in God more visceral than superficial intellectual proofs? Why does this exist?

Nury Vittachi writes in Science 2.0 in his article, "Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke":

WHILE MILITANT ATHEISTS like Richard Dawkins may be convinced God doesn’t exist, God, if he is around, may be amused to find that atheists might not exist.

Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.

While this idea may seem outlandish—after all, it seems easy to decide not to believe in God—evidence from several disciplines indicates that what you actually believe is not a decision you make for yourself. Your fundamental beliefs are decided by much deeper levels of consciousness, and some may well be more or less set in stone.

This line of thought has led to some scientists claiming that “atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” says Graham Lawton, an avowed atheist himself, writing in the New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since we are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas”.

Furthermore Barney Zwartz writes in his article: "Infants 'have natural belief in God'":

INFANTS are hard-wired to believe in God, and atheism has to be learned, according to an Oxford University psychologist.

Dr Olivera Petrovich told a University of Western Sydney conference on the psychology of religion that even preschool children constructed theological concepts as part of their understanding of the physical world.

Pyschologists have debated whether belief in God or atheism was the natural human state. According to Dr Petrovich, an expert in psychology of religion, belief in God is not taught but develops naturally.

She told The Age yesterday that belief in God emerged as a result of other psychological development connected with understanding causation.

It was hard-wired into the human psyche, but it was important not to build too much into the concept of God. "It's the concept of God as creator, primarily," she said. Dr Petrovich said her findings were based on several studies, particularly one of Japanese children aged four to six, and another of 400 British children aged five to seven from seven different faiths.

"Atheism is definitely an acquired position," she said.

Lastly, psychologist Justin Barrett writes in his book Born Believers:

“Scientific research on children’s developing minds and supernatural beliefs suggests that children normally and rapidly acquire minds that facilitate belief in supernatural agents. Particularly in the first year after birth, children distinguish between agents and non-agents, understanding agents as able to move themselves in purposeful ways to pursue goals. They are keen to find agency around them, even given scant evidence. Not long after their first birthday, babies appear to understand that agents, but not natural forces or ordinary objects, can create order out of disorder…This tendency to see function and purpose, plus an understanding that purpose and order come from minded beings, makes children likely to see natural phenomena as intentionally created. Who is the Creator? Children know people are not good candidates. It must have been a god…children are born believers of what I call natural religion…(end quote)”[17]

Conclusion

I love using long quotes because they take the words right out of my mouth. It seems as though babies are programmed to be believers in God as the causer for everything. Two atheist parents could find their 4 year old coming home and saying, "God is everywhere". Barrett says,"If we threw a handful on an island and they raised themselves I think they would believe in God." . This is the exact position that Muslims have! However skeptics would argue that just because it is an instinct that we should be skeptical of it and therefore God doesn't exist. That's preposterous because this only solidifies the claim of the Hadith, "A child is born upon the fitrah..." and this can even be considered a psychological miracle of Islam! Do you understand how profound this is?! Islam with its concepts of hanif and tawhid truly is a universally accessible, cross-cultural religion with a simple theology and profound implications! Can tawhid within a society develop organically without the aid of a prophet? Why does our innate belief in God persist despite our modern age explanatory power? Can we ever run away from the stamp on our souls from our creator?

Al-A'raf 172:

And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify. (That was) lest ye should say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo! of this we were unaware;

There were messengers who proselytized people to Islam before Mohammad (SAW) to other nations because there existed monotheistic religions and obscure Islamic traditions which were practiced in societies that were not influenced by Abrahamic religions. Humans naturally incline towards theism from birth. Therefore, the Quran's and Hadith's claims are plausible and this serves to strengthen the Muslim's iman. This would also help facilitate an answer to the question of timeliness (which was stated above).

This is the rather abrupt end of this post.

Salam