How It Is Different To Think God Versus To Think Self

Feeling important is very human. Each of us likes to hear his name called and his opinions listened to. However, it is much different when we think God instead of thinking self. Imagine a group of us are sitting on a large table. Imagine that we all seeing God as we are talking. This will be the way it goes. We will be feeling that God is watching us. We will feel we are united by God, instead of everyone going his way. We will feel that we are obliged to follow the good of God. We will be just, facts-finding and considerate. Instead of thinking how to win arguments we will lay our opinions without demeaning the other side. The good instead of bad spirit will prevail. Each one of us will feel important, very human. But we will be more productive. We will create the consensus that we feel agrees with the just of God and the advance of humanity. Thinking God when we argue is the solution to most of human problems.

Satan's Temptations: Subconscious

Satan tempts man in knowing God and in doing the evil. The human brain works as two zones a subconscious mind and a conscious mind. The subconscious mind as how our brain control our body without human awareness. Examples of these are the autonomic nervous system that control our heart rate, breathing.... The pituitary gland in our brain similarly control most of the glands in human body to secrete the hormones that are essential to our body functions. Subconscious mind also exists at higher level. A good example is human conscience. A lot of times you do the good and avoid evil because you already built this conscience. God sates in Quran (every spirit knew its evil and its good). It did not come out of no where. You decided to choose how your conscience will be. Sometimes it takes you few minutes or more to think to do the good or evil, but more commonly your conscience makes you semi-automatically do the good or evil. Thus you commonly allow less than seconds to Satan to inspire you. Satan does not come to you like this "hi john I am Satan I think the most evil way to handle this matter is so" . He is too subtle and too smart that you may even think every thing is your thoughts. If you think about the people who do very evil things like pedophilia you got to believe in Satan. He knows very well how to make it very reasonable and excusable evil to do, even denying God himself. For a man to rebuild his conscience he will have to come up to the awareness zone of his thinking and rethink before doing anything evil. He will need to repent and go back to God. He will need to understand all the old rationalizations Satan has inspired him with that made him think it is a part of his thought process. It is all natural and brain chemistry and no Satan is one of Satan greatest temptations. Evil is true and good is true. Human conscience can be built by good upraise but is best built by religion. Fear of God is the backbone of faith. It builds the best conscience man can have. When it is built well it feels quite subconscious since you made a strong barrier between you and Satan. You need first to come up to the awareness zone and understand how your brain works.

We Want To See God To believe

God created heavens and earth. He decided to create the best creature for him Man. He created him on the form of his maker and gave him his spirit. God asked the Angels to kneel to Adam as an appreciation to his place to God. They all did except Satan. Satan sin was his envy to Adam. Satan tempted Adam to do the man first sin which is to disobey god. God let Satan, Adam and Eve out of heaven. In earth Adam offspring became enemies to each other. The sin of Satan envy and of man disobedience to God are the ones that Satan tempt man with to fill the earth of animosity and evil. At times when there were no revelation of God man tried to make up a story himself about the creation and the origin of good and evil. There are a lot of things that too much stronger in the universe than Monkeys typing on typewriters (chance) to think of the presence of intelligence and spirit behind the universe. A lot of imaginative stories were created by different religions. The one stands most convincing is the one of the Bible and Quran. Beside being very reasonable and simple story the prophets who were inspired by God to write the Bible and Quran were like one link. They carried the same message of good and evil. The ten commandments were stressed on both Bible and Quran. Many of them came with miracles (in Islam it is the Quran) that attest to the power of God. People wanted the ultimate evidence to see God to become believers which by definition cancel the primary plan of God. The plan is the promise of Satan that he will tempt man and make him follow him (a kind of worship). God allowed Satan to do that except for the righteous who will choose God. People who follows the proper revelation of God deserves his heaven. People who do not do that chose his hell (God is not unjust to people). Except for the prophets and those God chose to put a lot of sufferings including martyrs, it is easy to go to heaven for most of the people. The things allowable in Islam are a lot. It does not ask you to avoid foods except for pork and you do not need to be celibate. You just need to do the good (be a nice guy), ten commandments and to do the five main pillars. These pillars are to attest there is no God but one (God, Al Hashem, Allah) and Muhammad is his messenger, the prayers, Zakat (a percent of your money to the poor), Ramadan fasting and Al hij. Thus it is your choice. To see God to believe it will happen but too late, in the judgment day. The request per se denies God's right to have the plan of our earthy life and testing to humans. No one of us that would have a heaven and would invite other humans to stay forever for free. See when the followers of Moses asked to see God. Quran 2:55 And remember ye said: ("O Moses! We shall never believe in thee until we see Allah manifestly," but ye were dazed with thunder and lighting even as ye looked on.) God did not leave us without proofs (see God existence: proofs and Satan existence: proofs in my blog). I rather have 10% faith than have 90% disbelief and find myself in the wrong side at the time when the belief will be 100% to all of us, but too late to count.

Satan Our Primary Enemy

Satan had deceived Adam and Eve our parents and let them commit the first sin against God. Quran 20:120 But Satan whispered evil to him: he said, "O Adam! shall I lead thee to the Tree of Eternity and to a kingdom that never decays?"
He let them out of heaven. Quran 2:36 Then did Satan make them slip from the (garden), and get them out of the state (of felicity) in which they had been. We said: "Get ye down, all (ye people), with enmity between yourselves. On earth will be your dwelling-place and your means of livelihood - for a time."
Satan continued his work in earth making all of us enemies. Even between members of same family. He made Joseph brothers envoy him and put him in a well. After a lot o sufferings in Egypt God put him in very high position close to the king and he brought his family to Egypt. Quran 12:100 And he raised his parents high on the throne (of dignity), and they fell down in prostration, (all) before him. He said: "O my father! This is the fulfillment of my vision of old! Allah hath made it come true! He was indeed good to me when He took me out of prison and brought you (all here) out of the desert, (even) after Satan had sown enmity between me and my brothers. Verily my Lord understandeth best the mysteries of all that He planneth to do, for verily He is full of knowledge and wisdom.
Satan continues to deceive man to commit sins, be enemy to other fellow man and to say what is wrong about God ( no God, Multiple Gods, blasphemies about God....). Quran 35:6 Verily Satan is an enemy to you: so treat him as an enemy. He only invites his adherents, that they may become Companions of the Blazing Fire.
In the day of judgment Satan will dump man after he took him to the wrong path through most of his life time.Quran 14:22 And Satan will say when the matter is decided: "It was Allah Who gave you a promise of Truth: I too promised, but I failed in my promise to you. I had no authority over you except to call you but ye listened to me: then reproach not me, but reproach your own souls. I cannot listen to your cries, nor can ye listen to mine. I reject your former act in associating me with Allah. For wrong-doers there must be a grievous penalty."
God will reproach us at that day because he had already warned us. Quran 36:60 "Did I not enjoin on you, O ye Children of Adam, that ye should not worship Satan; for that he was to you an enemy avowed?- Thus we have to get wise and understands a lot of evil thoughts and acts are inspired by Satan. He is our enemy and we should take him an enemy. He does not knock our door and say hi I am Satan let me in to deceive you. He enters through our normal thought process and threw an evil idea. When we build well our conscience mostly from religious upbringing we reject early any evil thought that cross our mind.

John Paul II A Man of God

When people came to consensus that john Paul II is a great Pope it was for very good reasons. He stood strong with the solidarity movement in Poland his home country which speeded the collapse of Eastern Europe. He also reached out to Jews and Muslims and he apologized to the persecution of Jews and unjust wars from Christians in the past. He was a reconciliatory Pope and a true man of humanity. BENEDICTVM XVI the new Pope worked very close to him for long years. He came in a very important junction of history both religiously and geopolitically. Though it is a double-edged sword to have a political Pope. The hierarchy of the Vatican now looks quite promising. They lived the era of reach out and reconciliation of john Paul II and they have good feeling of the very dangerous world affairs. A new Pope would be considered for millions of Muslims the voice of reason and wisdom. Unlike politicians whose decisions are a mix of national interest, special interest and spiritual beliefs the Pope answer only to God. We need a political Pope who would speak loud about justice. He should not feel shy to scold all politicians regardless of their faith for the need to create an economic system that eradicate hunger, poverty and epidemic diseases. We need him to open the dialogue with other religions. We need him to be equally vocal of oppression of Christians and non Christians. We need him a voice of God. We need him to reach to Muslims who are expert in comparative religions. We need him to encourage the co-existence of all faiths rather than the deliberate domination and oppression of one faith over the other. We need the Vatican unlike a lot of political establishments to be both just and transparent. We need a Pope that stands strongly with the poor, oppressed and the just.

Sexual Revolution and Moral Degradation.

I was listening to this gentleman on c-span discussing his book. He was explaining that we are almost alike in the west with Islamic values except for sex. We struggled with that for years and we are over that now. I was very surprised to hear that from him. I can understand people can sin at times. But to cancel God law to Moses (PBUH) is a challenge to God. It says to God the law was wrong and we finally discovered that. You can do what you want. In my home I can walk on the walls it is not anyone business. But to say to God the law is wrong we know better, you better be very sure there is no God to begin with. In one of T.V channels an author was discussing her book of how to cheat. The opposite we used to hear people advocates!!. Let me explain below why sexual revolution had led to degradation of civilizations:
1- In old testament at times when there were sexual corruption God pushed people to fight and kill each other, or say he would let them to Satan to do his work. Muslims and Christians are not any different.
2- Sexual diseases over years have affected people and HIV is a new disease that can be traced to few decades ago.
3- Even with contraceptive methods still unwanted pregnancies occur.
4- Parents who have children out of marriage are more likely not to want to have these children. They are more likely to abort them. If they are delivered and when the children grow up they have a lot of conflicts and pain with no feel of love of the fathers who commonly dump them. Compare that with planned conception from loving married parents.
5- Cheating in marriage commonly end in divorce and breakdown of families. Children are the victims of the infidelity of parents. Huge money is lost in the country from broken marriages.
6- Morality is a group work and immorality is infectious so if we are agreeing that sin is the norm we are giving the green light for moral disintegration.
7- Cheating is wickedness and make people also wicked in other morals. It is more common to have people who cheat to be wicked in other areas of their lives. The longer people cheat and the more the widespread of infidelity is the more the disintegration of morality and the collapse of civilizations. Two women who were very wicked and harmed me I found them to be both were long-time cheaters, no surprise, thanks God non were my relatives.
8- Sex for profit became very common and even children exploited for sex.
9- High crime rate is associated with sexually-free societies.
I can understand people can sin at times. But God plan to us to put the mechanisms to prevent sin and how to recover from them. Encouraging marriage and preventing divorces should be the tasks of governmental and religious institutions. To challenge God and say the law is wrong you are simply inviting his wrath. God is just if any of us were God he would have blown up the world long time ago.

Reconciliation Is Always Possible

If the religious prophecies are right it means that starting the year 2012 (12/02012) we all will be one nation and one religion under one King Jesus or Messiah Ben David. This means that we need to reconcile the past. For the remote past that people had forgot or that has no effect on recent generation we say it is history and we do not wake up the sleeping dogs. For recent history that people still have anger about we explore their anger and reconcile their differences. The thing I like about the Israeli they always ready for peace agreement even during military operations. They know we got to live together and many of them believe the world will be one nation and one religion. Most of the enemies of world war II are allies now. This is the human nature to forgive and restart again. Time is a good factor for all of us to forget and heal. There are very good Muslim leaders in history, some are controversial or bad. I usually try not to talk about that since you will only get anger of some Muslims. One who is liked by the Christians and Muslims is Nasir Salah Al-Deen (Saladin). He is the one who was fighting the crusaders. The new movie Kingdom of Heaven is talking about that. The movie is interestingly made by group of agnostics that are the best in their business. He unlike a lot of pseudo-heroes who are making wars for hate or ego was a genuine leader. He united Muslims to fight against the aggressors and made peace with them after he conquered them. He had human touches that they remember him for and he made a treaty with them made them feel good about their religion. He also made it clear that Jerusalem is a worship place and not a battlefield to the three major religions. He will be always remembered as the leader of reconciliation. There were no recent crusaders. Recent American wars are mainly for oil. The only thing Muslims are afraid of is an Armageddon in the Middle East that would destroy the world. Arab/Muslims and Jews should be careful about that. Christians should also be alarmed since the rupture is misinterpreted by some Christians. Reconciliation is what we need now. It is interesting to see the agnostics telling us that. We should be the believers of the three major religions doing that. We all actually need to sit together in very large table that include believers, atheist and agnostics to reconcile our differences and find a new workable world system.
Kingdom of Heaven: Directed byRidley Scott Writing credits (WGA) William Monahan (written by)

The Creation: Islamic Perspective

It is mentioned in the Qura'n that Allah created the universe in six days, the word" days" means phases or long stretches of time to create the universe, and they are not like the days which humans count because the phrase "your reckoning" isn't mentioned in all the verses which talks about the six days of creation. As Allah said:" And He it is who has created the heavens and the earth in six Days and His Throne was on the water, that He might try you, which of you is the best in deeds. But if you were to say to them ( you shall indeed be raised up after death,) those who disbelieve would be sure to say, (This is nothing but obvious magic) (V. 7 Surah Hud)
(Allah it is He who has created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them in six Days. Then He rose over (Istawa) the Throne (in a manner that suits His Majesty). You (mankind) have none, besides Him, as a Wali (protector or helper) or an intercessor. Will you not then remember (or receive admonition)? ) (V. 4 As- Sajdah)
The creation of the geological features of the earth, starting from the earth crust hardening until the existence of humans, took 4.5 billion years according to a study made on the earth age. This means that the age of the universe is (4.5×3)=13.5 billion years, and this number is similar to what NASA( National American Space Agency) discovered lately through using space shuttle with high developed equipments to observe the universe, as it estimated the universe age by 13.7 billion years.
Reference : "the universe and the scientific miracles in Qura'n" By Mansur hasab al nabi
Aljazeera site( NASA announces the age of the universe) Wednesday 11/12/1423 12/2/2003 .
Summarized from The Quran Miracles www.55a.net

The Creation: Christians Prespective.

I am not a theologian or religious reader. I attained my religious faith through reasoning and I am not going to give reason away. There are things in religion that you can reason with but few are not because it is not given to us or it does not matter much to reason with. Example of the first one is where is the throne of God. Examples for the second one are the prayers in Islam 5 times a day and fasting one month a year. One can say it is a reasonable average for prayers and more than one month a year fasting will be a burden in human. Whenever possible one has to reason religion. That is why I did not believe in the Gods of ancient Egyptians despite being an Egyptian. The 6 days of creation are used by atheists to reject the Bible and Quran. We have to reason with them this puzzle. I will lay down here the Christian prospective as I summarized from John Phillips (exploring Genesis) www.apocalypsesoon.org /xfiles.html - 11k - . I apologize for not asking permission from authors for quoting them in my blog since I feel cut off from the outside world. Most news media do not respond to my correspondences. I feel like I am living in an Island.
The author writes: Genesis 1 does not argue with the claim that the earth is very old. It simply states that God created it "in the beginning."
Attempts have been made to reconcile Genesis with geology. One theory is the day-age theory. The "days" of Genesis 1 are viewed, not as literal days of twenty-four hours, but as epochs, or ages, or vast periods of time. Elaborate charts have been drawn up to thus reconcile Genesis with geology. Certainly there is a remarkable similarity between the two.
Another theory is the gap theory. Genesis 1:1 records the account of the original creation. Between the first and second verses of Genesis, theorists postulate a gap of countless ages. In that gap they insert all the ages demanded by geologists, ending with the Glacial age said to be described in Genesis 1:2. The remainder of the chapter is the not an account of the original creation, but of the rehabilitation of the earth as an abode for man.
Another theory is that the days of Genesis 1 are not days of creation but days of revelation: the revelation theory. The days of Genesis 1 are literal days of twenty-four hours, but they are days in the life of Moses. In six days God revealed to Moses the truths concerning creation, and on each of those days Moses recorder the revelation that was given to him. The revelation theory satisfies the Hebraist who says that the Hebrew of Genesis 1 demands literal twenty-four hour days, and it satisfies the scientist who demands long periods of time for the formation of the earth.
Certainly the first chapter of Genesis is remarkable as a statement of fact, no matter how it is viewed. Moses did not write Genesis 1 according to theories of creation current in the schools of his day, even though he was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22). Egyptian myth postulated a primeval ocean upon which appeared an egg. From the egg was born the sun god, and the sun god has four children: Geb, Shu, Tefnut and Nut. From the rivalries of those god-born children of the sun the creation took place. What a blessing Genesis 1 does not begin like that!
Instead we have a narrative that rises like the Himalayan peaks, far above all human creation epics. The Babylonian epic is the story of plot and counterplot amongst the gods, the story of banquets and rivalry and war. The Greek pictured a mythical giant named Atlas standing at the borders of the earth upholding the wide heavens on tireless head and arms. The Hindus thought the world rested on the backs of three elephants, which in turn stood on the back of a giant tortoise, which swam around in a cosmic sea. Genesis 1 avoids all such gross ideas and gives such a remarkable statement of fact that it is the only document coming to us from antiquity that is seriously considered when the origin of the universe is discussed.

Creation: God Versus Chance

All mathematical and physical equations and other laws of science attest the presence of intelligence behind the laws of creation. There is no random creation, even the particles of air that appear to float in random follow precise laws. The complexity of creation makes hard for chance to be this intelligence. An atheist who believe in theory of chance can tell you if a monkey continued to type in a typewriter for million of years he would end by drafting one of Shakespeare novels. I would love to see this monkey so I can hire him as my secretary. Play this game with an atheist show him a chain of keys and tell him no one made it. It is the chance that brought these group of keys to existence. He will tell you that you are either silly or crazy. Do not yield and keep stone faced telling him that what you believe in. As his face change and start to leave you tell him why you would not accept these simple keys could not be found by chance while the very complicated human body did. I challenge an atheist when he feels close to danger or death not to say Oh my God. I attack atheism as thought and not persons. Actually as persons we like them to jump on our wagon so if there is heaven they would join us. There is no religious believers with faith of 0% or 100%. For 0% you need to deny a lot of evidences from both science and religion. During my life when I was facing a lot of frustrations from unjust treatments by other people I would ask God why is that. There were just a lot of reasons to believe in God. I was still believing in his path of righteousness as both true and just. For 100% faith you should have seen God. However your faith goes up when you pray, do the good deeds or think in depth in the intelligence and complexity of creation. At many times it reaches close to 100%. Before my brother died he was religious for his last few years and was still joking to my cousin that whoever dies of them first to come to the other in a vision to tell him if there is heaven. When I was teaching human physiology I found almost everything created for a good reason. Red blood cells to carry oxygen to the cells, white blood cells to attack harmful bacteria and so forth. I did not see monkeys typing on typewriters. Everything is created for a reason. The world was created for man and man was created to worship God and fill the earth with justice and equality. The mind, heart and soul of man have the surge to connect with their creator, too much for a chance. Man created for himself religions when there were no revelations from God. We have the revelations and the words of God in the Bible and Quran. There is no reason not to search for God. If you are looking for his reward, trying to avoid his punishment or more fairly because you think he deserves that read both of them and reconsider your belief.

The Opening Surah: Your Door to Quran

1. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
2. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
3. Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
4. Master of the Day of Judgment.
5. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
6. Show us the straight way,
7. The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.
This surah is red in the beginning of every prayer. It can be followed by a second Surah from the 113 other Surahs. It gives you the way to think about religion. You are recognizing God and because of his great attributes and we will have to answer him in the day of judgment we ought to worship him and seek his help. We have to ask him to show us the straight path so we do not follow those who intentionally left his path or those who were misled in belief. It is the entry or the door that you pass through. It is also a prayer to ask God to help you in understanding the rest of Quran and Islam.

Intentions and Actions: President Carter

In Islam "Actions are judged by intentions". Thus one need to have good action and good intention to have the praise of God. If you lack one of both you do not get the full praise of God. If you have the intention and not the action you get some praise from God. If you have a good action but for a bad intention it counts for you as a sin. President Carter is a very good man from his actions after became an ex-president. When he was a president he had good intentions to the world. However the world conditions were against him from high oil price and high inflation. He faced as well the Iran hostage crisis that he inherited due to the previous bad policies against the Iranians from previous administrations. He managed to pull a historical peace accord between Israel and Egypt. It is very difficult to get inside the heart of each president but you can make good guess by knowing that president. President Bush 43 is quite difficult to read. His likeable personality caused him to survive against all political odds. The world is also very complicated than any time of history. Legacy does not count for us much as Muslims since God sees better than us all picture from inside, outside and from all around.

Humanity The World Primary Religion

Imagine we are in a big crowd from different colors, races and religious affiliations in a big hall. Then all of sudden one of us yelled "people I discovered something very interesting every one of us have one nose and two ears". We may all of us look at him and say what a fool. But he was right he discovered that we all are humans. He wants to say we share the same shape, senses, brains and desires. Our desires about the same: food, sleep, security, freedom to speak, worship and choose the political system, sex, health care, long term care, well being of family and feeling important. We can argue about the priorities of our desires but they are almost the same. It is very possible if not essential to work to have all of us achieve his desires. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the religions of humanity. Most religious people went astray which for me is a certain proof of existence of Satan. They are fighting about religious identity and domination rather than humanity. A new approach of world affairs is to unite through our primary religion "Humanity".

Miracles In Quran: Exploration Of The Space

Humanity's exploration of space was accelerated with the Soviet satellite Sputnik on 4 October 1957, which carried aloft the first man to ever leave Earth's atmosphere: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. On 20 July 1969, the American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human being ever to set foot on the Moon.
In fact, the Qur'an revealed that such developments and achievements would one day be realized. For instance, Allah draws our attention to this in the following verse:
O company of jinn (fallen angels) and human beings. If you are able to pierce through the confines of the heavens and Earth, pierce through them. You will not pierce through, except with a clear authority. (Qur'an, 55:33)
Careful examination reveals that the above verse emphasizes that humanity will be able to move into the depths of Earth and sky, but only with a superior power. In all likelihood, this superior power is the superior technology employed in the twentieth century, for it enabled scientists to achieve this great feat. From www.miraclesofthequran.com

The Party System: Big Failure

George Washington himself was a strong supporter of allowing future generations to have the power to amend the constitution. In a letter written to his nephew 1878: "---for I do not conceive that we are more inspired-have more wisdom-or possess more virtue than those who will come after us". The party system was quite reasonable at that time for the parties to check on each other. However with the unimaginable progress of communications and media we have better system of check and balances. Simply a free independent media that can police itself is the best way for the check and balances. Just put the media everywhere to supervise all the three separate branches of the government. The party system is inheritedly a bad system. It divides and polarizes the nation. It make politicians more concerned with politics than policies. For one party to win the next election the current party in charge has to fail. No doubt a lot of American politicians are faithful to their country but they are pulled by the strong politics of the party system and the demands of interest groups. If we are to spread freedom in the world we have to free the American politicians first. No party system, no interest groups and independent media. The country can easily allocate money for the elections of the politicians and preclude any outside money.

Miracles in Quran: Numbers

In a Statistical Study by Dr. Tariq Al-Suwaidan from the Islamic Gateway www.ummah.net he found the number of times a word mentioned is euivalent to its opposite word. I listed some of his statistics
Arabic (English) times:
Al-Dunya (This world) 115
Al-Akhira (The hereafter) 115
Al-Mala'ikah (Angles) 88
Al-Shayateen (Satan) 88
Al-Hayat (Life) 145
Al-Maout (Death) 145
Al-Rajul (Man) 24
Al-Mar'ha (Women) 24
It is also astonishing to find the word Al-Shahr (Month) mentioned 12 times and the word Al-Yahom (Day) 365
Another miracle is Al-bahar (Sea) 32 while Al-bar (Land) 13
If we add up the total words of both "sea" and "land" we get 45. Now if we do a simple calculation:
32/45 X 100% = 71.11111111%
13/45 X 100% = 28.88888888%
Above is what we know today, the percentages of Water (Sea) and Land in the world.

The Widespread World Poverty

I was watching ex-Prim minister of Britain Mr. Major talking about the poverty in the world in Charlie Rose show. He stated out of 6 billion people in earth 3 billion lives under 2 dollar a day. Statistics showed that 12.5% of Americans are below the poverty line. Millions of people die every year second to hunger and disease in Africa. A lot of people in America do not know how poverty looks like. Let me give you this example. When I was young boy in Egypt in our building of 8 floors has about 50 families most are not rich but getting by and only about 4 families are struggling and other people help them. Now there may be 4 families are getting by and other families are struggling. Struggling means that you are killed every day you do not know if you will have a good meal to your children or you will afford the medicine if they get sick. It is a daily suffering. Fasting in the month of Ramadan in Islam is the best practical example to the rich to feel for the poor. When I was in Medical School in Egypt I usually can predict who will join an extreme religious group. Poverty no doubt is a big contributing factor. There is no excuse to the widespread poverty is the world. We have both the money and the human and the material resources. The inability to use an innovative economic policy to achieve just that result in a great economic deficit in the world economy. We are just wasting the human and material resources that could have been used properly. If you are a caring person or even if you do not care it is for the self-interest of all of us to fight poverty. Poverty is one of the main roots of terrorism. It says to the other side you do not care about me if I got poor or oppressed. You are even positively contributing to that for your own self-interest. In a verse in Quran God recite what the unbelievers said to the messenger "we feed those whom God if wanted could have fed!!". This is our mission in earth is to do God 's work to feed the poor and alleviate the sufferings of other humans. Why God have created all of these sufferings. My answer is simple why should you go to heaven eternally for only few years of suffering in earth. Religions should not be competing for who is more generous to the poor but how we can work it together to solve the widespread poverty of the world. It is not about domination but it is about co-existence.

Morality is a Group Act.

It is possible but difficult when you decide to be honest and kind person and a lot of people around you are not. It is much easier when most of them are so. Morality is a group act. We do not need to be all of same religion but we could be adopting the moralities of our all religions. Unlike moralities of religion that of material world is what make you function well as a social animal. No doubt there are atheists who have a conscience equivalent or better than a lot of religious people but in large part why should you be that conscience if there is no God. It is very difficult to spread morality horizontal much easier if you do that vertical. For example if in the work place you have a boss who is nice you create a good atmosphere for work and most of empolyee will be nice. Most of our psychiatric and physical diseases are due to stresses that we give to each other. It also reflects itself in domestic stresses. Being nice as a boss does not mean that you make a close relation to each employee but to be equally nice and considerate it to all of them. It does not also preclude you from correcting your employee and even occasionally fire them. They will accept that if they felt that is the interest of the job place and nothing personal. The good thing about truly religious person is he is feeling that God is watching him all the time and he wants to meet God's expectations. You do not get that as a social animal. You look more artificial since you do the good to look good and to avoid harm and you do not take more steps to be considerate. In material morality the bottom line is profits it is not important for your boss the wellbeing and happiness of all employee. It is much more important that we be good humans than social animals. All of us will die and non of us will take his money to the grave but the good deeds. To realize that we need to spread morality vertically. We need to have the most moralistic, nicest and efficient people from any religion and no religion to build this moral hierarchy.

Religion and Reason

No one saw God we know God by reason. For same reason we have to examine religion also with reason. There are things in religion that are spelled very well that they do not need more reasoning. Among them the ten commandments, God wrote them for Moses (PBUH) in stones. Except for the Sabbath Christians and Muslims are obligated to follow these commandments. There is freedom to believe or not to believe as well freedom to follow or not to follow. But no one can change the commandments (Jesus: who loves me follow my father commandments). If you read them you find they all are just and very reasonable and give a good moral structure to any community. People will break them, hopefully occasional and no one is 10/10 or 9/10 except the Prophets and Saints. We all can improve we do not know what is the passing score as well what score of a person or of humanity that provoke God's wrath. But for an individual if he has the passing score or his good deeds exceeding the evil ones he passed the most important test in his life. For humanity the passing score of righteousness is a prerequisite to their salvation. As we stand now most of people are conspiring against God some Muslims say I will do what I like and then I will go to pilgrims in Mecca, some Christians believe they are already saved by the blood of the Christ so the earth became full of corruption. A lot of non-believers they believe there is no after life and they will do what they think is morally or say politically accepted in their communities. The problem is not religion but Satan who deceive people in their religion or against a true religion. For extremists Satan makes them overzealous in their religion so they prohibit everything. In Islam it can be said that music is discouraged and even a minor sin. God already promised us forgiving of minor sins of we to avoid the major sins in Quran. So minor sins that particularly cause no harm are less sinful. So if to approach a subject in religion you need to use very good reasoning and know the spirit and wisdom of God. So you can say music if for songs of religions would be very encouraged and is sinful if promoting sex, violence or taking a lot of time that exceeds worshiping. For music that do not interfere with worshipping and is good for the soul there is not reason to believe it is sinful. Contraception is another example that we have to use reason for. At the time of the prophet (PBUH) there were no contraceptive method except for what looks like condoms now and he permitted them. Thus if we have new methods of contraception we ought to reason to use it. It is very surprising to me to see many religious institutions that prevent contraception and meantime do not promote a world plan to fight poverty and prevent AID's. Though I may not be politically correct but I know that a lot of good Christians would not mind my opinion on the celibacy in Church. At the time of Christ there were no nuns or celibate priests and the apostles themselves were married. We have a verse in Quran about the celibacy in Church " and celibacy that we did not impose it in them and they did not keep its righteousness". Abortion in Islam is looked at quite differently. Since virginity should be the role in Islam and both husband and wife having planned sex they both should be prochoice. However the time to choose is before they decide to have sex. It is easy they have many ways of contraception. In this way abortion becomes very rare and have specific indications. Regarding prayer in schools time for prayer to all children every one according to his religion and they even can read but in separate places prayers from their religions. The baseline of all religions morality and kindness should be our common good and not religious identity. For the leading positions the most efficient and nicest are the ones who would be our first choice regardless of their religion or no religion. Thus there are things well spelled in religion that is written in stones or clear enough and there are things that we use the mind and reason for. You can have different fatwa for these things from different Imams. That is why the Hadith after the prophet says "ask your heart even if people gave you the fatwa. There is no contradiction between reason and religion. There is no middle man. You learn from the Imams but ask about the reasoning. If you do that you will be a true believer you used both your mind and heart to strengthen your faith.

Comparative Religion

There is no one that saw God. Most who believe in God do that after reasoning. One uses both knowledge and understanding to reach this goal. Since no one saw God we need to have in addition an act of the will. This is called confirmed belief or faith. Unfortunately, when we start the argument about God most of us has certain faith or even no faith. It is difficult to start from point zero where everything is equally possible. However this what should do or at least try our best to do when we arguing about the subject of faith. When most messengers were arguing this subject they were fought harshly for three main reasons jealous, corruption and closed mindness. The first two are easy to understand, the last one is a little more complicated. When Muhammad (PBUH) was arguing about the presence of one God, the Arab were arguing how it can be one God since they used to worship a lot of Gods. Thus again one has to start the argument that every faith is equally possible: No God, one God, a lot of Gods, A son for God and so forth. I know it is difficult to do that, but a lot of people did that and were able to change their faith. Argument should be in a very civilized way. There is two verses in Quran argue just that "Tell my worshippers to say what is more pleasant, Satan put hate between them in argument" the other verse is " Argue with the people of the book with what is most pleasant". Thus in arguing religions we need two conditions to start at point zero when every thing is equally possible and to argue in a pleasant way. It is quite reasonable to discuss the Islamic faith first since it is the last message and it tells us what God has corrected in Quran for the reality of Jesus. It is reasonable you read the last letter from God that has the correction of what we misunderstood from the previous letter. This has to be better done by people who are expert in comparative religions so we get the benefit of the discussion. Muslim scholars have to agree to accept any criticism put forward to them including: religion of sword, polygamy of the prophet (see in my web Muhammad (PBUH) messenger from God: proofs), Sharia laws.... Thus faith is the act of the will but we all have to be fair and start at point zero when every thing is possible. I am not biased to Islam but the reason tell us you read the last letter and if it is from God we should accept any correction for the previous letter. If we do not do that, forget it each one of us will be arguing his faith rather than discussing the Islamic faith. Quran have the answers to the people of the Book, from any faith and atheists. There is no compulsion in faith by definition faith is your will to believe after you have the required knowledge and understanding. After you attain the faith, for God faith becomes what is in your heart and proved by your action.