depressed about verse 51:49

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- abbuke
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depressed about verse 51:49
OP - November 08, 2014, 07:06 AM

Hi
I don't know how to get out of my anxiety and would like to hear your comments on it.

I used to think I'm no more a muslim but every time when I come across an apologetic argument or quran & science I feel depressed about what if I'm wrong. This time it is with that verse 51:49 which tells that everything is created in pairs.
It made sense with a reference to particles and anti-particles, and I fear God will send me to hell if I don't believe again in Islam, whereas there is a little hint here which might be traced to quantum physics :(
I know how I could be sounding stupid. I try to convince myself otherwise thinking that maybe every particle has their anti-particle but things doesn't equate to particles and there isn't the pair for the Earth or the Moon for example. But then I ask to myself what if everything in this verse means every particle?
I'm helpless and obsessing over this possibility, and I don't want to spend the rest of my week over that
(here it is: http://quran.com/51/49)

Thank you.
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Reply #1 - November 08, 2014, 08:16 AM

Well there are a lot of things that are not in pairs. Plants which are sexual. The sun which is a one of billions of different stars, the moon. Just calm down and think. I don't know if that helped. Forgive my ignorance.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett
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Reply #2 - November 08, 2014, 08:21 AM

If you look in any shoe shop window now, you will find they are not in pairs! It is the habit to show the same style of shoe in different shades for the left and right foot. I also understand that shoes until recently were not made differently for different feet!

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Reply #3 - November 08, 2014, 08:45 AM

I'm honestly kind of surprised that one would get hung up over this verse. When I first read this one, I just assumed it was talking about organisms in different sexes (not always true then, either, but whatever) or more abstractly, just about the balance of the world. It never really occurred to me that it was meant to be so literal and applied so widely that one only had to find a few unique things to throw a wrench in the gears.

Unfortunately, you're going to need some time to stop being anxious over hell and Islam. Apologists will sit there and look at an apparent contradiction or evil in the Quran and do a ton of mental gymnastics or use intellectual dishonesty to explain it away, often using pseudoscience to lend credibility to their ideas, or employing scientific theories that not only will the layman not understand or be able to refute, but the apologist making the claims won't even actually understand, as is the case with this one undoubtedly.

Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? Interestingly enough, I first heard the term from another Muslim apologist in my youth. But it's very often true that the simple answer is usually the correct one. When I read 51:49, it sounds to me like it was the unremarkable observation of something an old man in the desert would make about biology over a thousand years ago, just like much of the Quran is little more than the plain observations, complete with errors and oversimplifications you'd expect from a casual observer of that time, about nature.

Anything more spectacular and scientific than that didn't come from the Quran. It came often from non-Muslim scientists who, notice, typically do not convert to Islam after these apologists claim the Quran "predicted" the discovery because the evidence for it is so painfully forced and flimsy, and then distorted just enough until it can be crammed between the lines of the Quran's passages.
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Reply #4 - November 08, 2014, 08:46 AM

My socks are not in pairs. Where the fuck do they go!?

No free mixing of the sexes is permitted on these forums or via PM or the various chat groups that are operating.

Women must write modestly and all men must lower their case.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?425649-Have-some-Hayaa-%28modesty-shame%29-people!
- INcePtion
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Reply #5 - November 08, 2014, 08:56 AM

Ever heard of organisms that reproduce asexually?
- Hash Brown
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Reply #6 - November 08, 2014, 08:58 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5OoR0Qjrlo
This may answer your question, Jedi. haha

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett
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Reply #7 - November 08, 2014, 09:12 AM

Fairly sure that verse was just about the humans and the animals reproducing in pairs. There are so many things that reproduce asexually. hell, if you wanna be technical, only twins are 'made'(born) in pairs. Humans are sexual animals exist individual of any possible mate(s) and all of them are born that way. If you want to talk on an atomic level, I did some research and I found something which completely nullifies any argument that this was based on particles and anti-particles, this:

Quote from: http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/antiparticles.htm#.VF4jRPmUcnc
When one antiparticle interacts with an equivalent particle, an enormous amount of energy is given off in the form of electromagnetic radiation or its equivalent photon particles.

Quote from: http://m.teachastronomy.com/astropedia/article/Matter-and-Antimatter
If there had been exactly equal numbers of particles and antiparticles just after the big bang, they would have all disappeared in pairs, leaving a universe filled with only radiation! Thus, there must have been a tiny excess of matter over antimatter in the very early universe. For every hundred million antiparticles, there must have been 100 million plus 1 particles.

Hence, the particles and anti-particles could NOT have been 'made' in pairs.

I'd suggest looking more into it as if you're really that interested, as it is an interesting topic, and I hope I've helped with your anxiety.

أشهد أن لا إله
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Reply #8 - November 08, 2014, 01:28 PM

Quote from: lua on November 08, 2014, 08:45 AM

Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? Interestingly enough, I first heard the term from another Muslim apologist in my youth. But it's very often true that the simple answer is usually the correct one. When I read 51:49, it sounds to me like it was the unremarkable observation of something an old man in the desert would make about biology over a thousand years ago, just like much of the Quran is little more than the plain observations, complete with errors and oversimplifications you'd expect from a casual observer of that time, about nature.

It is not the simplest answer which is correct. It is the one with the fewest assumptions. God is an assumption. So if one were to look at evolution and theistic evolution the view with the fewest assumption is base evolution. Theistic takes the assumption of God which is used to create more assumptions such as "guided", "design", etc. A correct answer can be complex and explain a lot or simple with very little explanatory power.
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Reply #9 - November 08, 2014, 01:30 PM

A-ha! I'll be sure to word it that way from now on.
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Reply #10 - November 08, 2014, 01:43 PM

Quote from: abbuke on November 08, 2014, 07:06 AM
Hi
I don't know how to get out of my anxiety and would like to hear your comments on it.

I used to think I'm no more a muslim but every time when I come across an apologetic argument or quran & science I feel depressed about what if I'm wrong. This time it is with that verse 51:49 which tells that everything is created in pairs.
It made sense with a reference to particles and anti-particles, and I fear God will send me to hell if I don't believe again in Islam, whereas there is a little hint here which might be traced to quantum physics :(
I know how I could be sounding stupid. I try to convince myself otherwise thinking that maybe every particle has their anti-particle but things doesn't equate to particles and there isn't the pair for the Earth or the Moon for example. But then I ask to myself what if everything in this verse means every particle?
I'm helpless and obsessing over this possibility, and I don't want to spend the rest of my week over that
(here it is: http://quran.com/51/49)

Thank you.

As many have pointed out the vast majority of "things" are not created in pairs. The cells in our bodies are "things", in fact each is a life in itself. These are not in pairs nor require 1 of a pair to reproduce. The verse clearly reflects knowledge of the time before we discovered forms of life which are microscopic. It shows what humanity during the 7th century thought and how limited this view was using our basic senses. If anything the verse shows either that man made it or God is completely clueless about it's own creation.
- justperusing
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Reply #11 - November 08, 2014, 03:45 PM

^ What they said.

abbuke I'm telling you, please take some time off from worrying about this all the time. You are young and you don't have to have all this figured out at once. Nothing will happen to you if you take a week or two to just relax and clear your mind. It is hard to see crappy apologetic arguments for what they are if every time they crop up you feel the need to absolutely disprove them.

I know you are worried about the whole hell thing. It is logically impossible to safeguard yourself from hell with any belief system since if you believe in Christianity you risk Islamic hell, if you believe in Islam you risk Christian hell, and if you're anything else you are hell bound anyway. There is no way to cover all your bases. This should make you question why an all-knowing and good God could possibly set it up this way.

Perhaps if it makes you feel better you should pray to God or some higher power and lay down your fears, concerns, and reasons why you don't believe. If there really is a God, he would then know what you are going through and if this God has the slightest bit of compassion in him then he would help give you answers or reveal himself to you to clear it up. If nothing happens and you continue to disbelieve, you can rest assured knowing you earnestly asked for truth and there was no God to help you find it.

"I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
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Reply #12 - November 08, 2014, 03:53 PM

In the meantime, here are some scientific "proofs" that the King James Bible is the word of God. I bet you will see right through them, but they are no better or more convincing than the ones for the Quran.

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Scientific-Proof-of-Bible.php

"I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
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- cosmicdancer
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Reply #13 - November 08, 2014, 04:51 PM

Quote from: abbuke on November 08, 2014, 07:06 AM
Hi
I don't know how to get out of my anxiety and would like to hear your comments on it.

I used to think I'm no more a muslim but every time when I come across an apologetic argument or quran & science I feel depressed about what if I'm wrong. This time it is with that verse 51:49 which tells that everything is created in pairs.
It made sense with a reference to particles and anti-particles, and I fear God will send me to hell if I don't believe again in Islam, whereas there is a little hint here which might be traced to quantum physics :(
I know how I could be sounding stupid. I try to convince myself otherwise thinking that maybe every particle has their anti-particle but things doesn't equate to particles and there isn't the pair for the Earth or the Moon for example. But then I ask to myself what if everything in this verse means every particle?
I'm helpless and obsessing over this possibility, and I don't want to spend the rest of my week over that
(here it is: http://quran.com/51/49)

Thank you.

I always think the best way to deconstruct fears is to face them and look at them logically.

Let's say what you say is true. That God left this little nugget of future science to make people believe in Islam.

Now let's say that like most people on this planet when you look at the Qur'an you judge it by a whole load of criteria. i.e.

1. The miraculous language claim? If you don't know Arabic you have no way of knowing if that is true. If you do then you can draw your own conclusion. imho certainly not.

2. Does Islam's whole premise make any rational sense? Believe in a God you can't see and a religion you can't prove or you will be eternally tortured by having your skin roasted of repeatedly.

3. Can a being be "Most Merciful and be a cruel torturer?

4. Is geography (where you are born and to whom) a good basis on which to send people to eternal torture or eternal bliss.

5. Why is God always so scary and angry? Could it be because it's easier to get primitive people to do what you want that way?

6. Scientific miracles. Not yet found one that was convincing. Most are laughable.

7. Now even if that pairs thing was correct - is it unreasonable that many people would still doubt Islam given the whole picture?

8. Is it reasonable that a supposedly Merciful God would torture someone without end because he found Islam unconvincing, even after seeing the "miraculous" pairs verse.

9. Last but not least - not everything is created in pairs!
- gal_from_usa
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Reply #14 - November 09, 2014, 01:17 AM

Matter and anti-matter particles don't actually exist in a perfect balance of pairs. They should, theoretically, according to our best current models of the early universe, but they don't. If they did, nothing would exist except a tiny amount of residual energy from their destruction, because when matter and anti-matter collide, they annihilate each other. So there is a slight imbalance of matter:anti-matter. Scientists don't yet know what caused this imbalance, but something made it so that while the decaying stuff of the big bang should have devolved into equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, it didn't. So basically, no, particles do not exist in pairs (although we don't know why).

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #15 - November 09, 2014, 01:38 AM

Some great advice up here in this thread abbuke. Take time to read and understand all of it, for your own sake.

Here's something else to keep in mind: There is no such thing as hell.

The concept of 'Jahannum' (hell) was based on a valley at the base of Mount Zion in what is now Jerusalem where ancient tribes used to perform human (including children) sacrifices, animal sacrifices, and executions of people they didn't like.

The idea was incorporated into Jewish mythology, then in Christian mythology and then into Islamic mythology.

It is essentially no different than believing in or fearing ending up in the realm of Hades. It is literally a myth.

There is no such place as Jahannum as described by these religions (a torture chamber in an afterlife) because the leaders of these religions were using a place (Gehenna aka Valley of Hinnom) that was a real execution spot that people feared, and then exaggerating it and mythologizing it to make people follow those religions out of fear.

Besides all the logical and rational reasons that many others have given here, remember that the place you are afraid of is an old archaeological ruin in some part of some middle eastern dump. That is all. All that fear is just fear of an illusion that those of us who were raised in Abrahamic myths were indoctrinated with.

Read this wikipedia article: Gehenna in full, and its sources referenced at the bottom. Arm yourself with knowledge and fear of the unknown will no longer be your master.

"Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
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Reply #16 - November 09, 2014, 02:04 AM

I think hell did take off as a concept though by the time the book of Revelation was written at the end of the 1st century. Revelation mentions a Lake of Fire that the Devil and the Beast are cast into where they are tortured forever along with all unbelievers, drunkards, murderers, etc. I wonder if the doctrine took off because the Christians were being persecuted and burned under Emperor Nero, so they just turned it around and decided that the Romans who persecuted them would burn too, but worse than what the Christians endured because it would be forever.

"I moreover believe that any religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."
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Reply #17 - November 09, 2014, 05:57 AM

Its very likely that It is passed on to Quran from the Talmud. But what can we say in response to the possible allegation that Talmud as a commentary book on Tanakh was what was survived from the supposedly actual révélation and that the text talking about gehinnom is deleted from ü
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Reply #18 - November 09, 2014, 06:40 AM

Seeing how important all this shit is why didn't God preserve the torah and gospels like he did the quran.

Could it be he didn't know they'd be lost or corrupted?

Did he not care?

Would it be too much effort?

Or are they not lost or corrupted but just different versions of human myths and fairytales that got changed through Chinese whispers and they have nothing to do with a god if such an entity exists.
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Reply #19 - November 09, 2014, 07:21 AM

Ye I always thought about that as well.

If he could preserve and protect the quran, y not just do that with the first book?

Its skewed logic that muslims dont think about this rationally

"I Knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then." Alice in wonderland

"This is the only heaven we have how dare you make it a hell" Dr Marlene Winell
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Reply #20 - November 09, 2014, 07:35 AM

Don't forget the zabur (psalms) of Dawud (David). Therefore, God fucked up three times.

No free mixing of the sexes is permitted on these forums or via PM or the various chat groups that are operating.

Women must write modestly and all men must lower their case.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?425649-Have-some-Hayaa-%28modesty-shame%29-people!
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Reply #21 - November 09, 2014, 10:08 AM

There's also something called the "Suhuf" of Ibrahim, which God obviously only wanted Ibrahim to read as it's completely vanished.
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Reply #22 - November 09, 2014, 10:26 AM

Why does Allah have an exclusively near-east fetish with his messengers/revelations?

No free mixing of the sexes is permitted on these forums or via PM or the various chat groups that are operating.

Women must write modestly and all men must lower their case.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?425649-Have-some-Hayaa-%28modesty-shame%29-people!
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Reply #23 - November 09, 2014, 11:28 AM

Quote from: Jedi on November 09, 2014, 10:26 AM
Why does Allah have an exclusively near-east fetish with his messengers/revelations?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Z6bMYjlBo
- INcePtion
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Reply #24 - November 09, 2014, 11:39 AM

Great vid Abbu Ali
- cosmicdancer
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Reply #25 - November 09, 2014, 11:56 AM

Quote from: INcePtion on November 09, 2014, 11:39 AM
Great vid Abbu Ali

Thanks.

If you or anyone else haven't seen some of the videos on the CEMBadmins Youtube page then you might want to check them out here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/CEMBadmins/videos
- INcePtion
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Reply #26 - November 09, 2014, 12:10 PM

Ive seen all of them! In fact I was wondering if you guys were making any new videos.
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Reply #27 - November 09, 2014, 12:19 PM

Actually I think doing one promoting "My Ordeal with the Quran" would be a good idea. I could have a few choice quotes.
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Reply #28 - November 09, 2014, 12:41 PM

You definitely should! People will be more tempted to read it afterwards.
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Reply #29 - November 09, 2014, 01:35 PM

An Arab criticising the Arbaic Quran in Arabic? Who'd have thunk it innit???

No free mixing of the sexes is permitted on these forums or via PM or the various chat groups that are operating.

Women must write modestly and all men must lower their case.

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?425649-Have-some-Hayaa-%28modesty-shame%29-people!
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