Is there a creator?- shortened

Is There a Creator?- summarized from www.proofofislam.blogspot.com

First of all we need to agree on the correct way of coming to an answer (our criteria) as people use different criteria to answer this question and hence arrive at differing conclusions (such as feelings, dreams, science-empiricism, morality judgments [e.g. god is good and wouldn't allow all this evil in the world if he existed], blind faith etc.). Science cannot even begin to answer this question as it's methodology is limited to dis/proving theories/hypotheses which must be observable in the natural world- no one can observe 'God' in a test-tube!

What is proof that is good enough that everyone will accept? What can we find truth in? Truth is what cannot be denied. So ask yourself - What is it that nobody can deny?
No one can deny the reality in which they live in. We accept it all the time as we function within it- no one dares ignore it when doing an action! (do you exit the room using a door or through a wall?)

Now that we've agreed what we can agree upon, let us move onto the burning question of our existence. The question that we are asking is where did we all come from? Now, you can answer this in a shallow way and say "my parents" which does agree with the reality- but it also ignores other parts of it too (where did your parents come from?). Now in a question like this which is the most important question in life as it will shape your identity and what you do with your life- you don't want to make any mistakes. So you don't want to leave any bit of the reality out when you examine it. In a question like this, you need to include all of the reality so that there is no room for error.
We can thus categorize the whole of the reality into three: mankind, other life, and the entire non-living universe.
So the question is: where did it all come from?

If we study all of these things we will find that none of them have the ability to create. In the context of this discussion by 'create', we mean 'to make out of nothing' as this is what we are asking. We do not mean 'manipulation' of existing elements as in cloning or reproduction (which manipulates sex cells already present). If anything in this universe was able to create itself (or for that matter other things) then we should be able to perceive such phenomena in our reality- however this is not the case. (Have you ever walked down the street and into a lamppost that just came out of nowhere after creating itself?) No scientist has ever discovered any living or non-living object creating anything else or itself.

Some may try to argue however that the universe needs no creator because it in itself is self-created or has always existed and we were not around at its time of self-creation to witness it and so cannot exclude it as a possibility. As part of this argument that the universe just always existed, they imply that in fact the universe itself has got the ability to create itself because it goes on for infinity occupying an infinite space with no restrictions to it- in effect just growing and getting bigger from nothing!
This argument can easily be tackled in a number of ways.
To begin with, the universe itself is just the sum of all of its celestial bodies as well as the life forms that we can perceive within it. So if all of these bodies have no ability to create then the universe too by definition of what it is -has no ability to create! (Five apples plus five apples will always give you apples and never can you get oranges from adding as many more apples as you want!).
Secondly, David Hilbert the famous mathematician discussed this and concluded that absurdities arise when an infinite sum of finite things (such as the celestial bodies within the universe) is assumed. In order to understand this, imagine if you will an infinite sum of marbles. If we were to halve the marbles then both halves would be equal to infinity. In fact any fraction of the infinite sum of marbles would equal infinity. This then produces an apparent contradiction that the part is equal to the whole. Further if we were to take three marbles out of the infinite sum of marbles then the remaining marbles would still equal to infinity. But the 3 marbles that have been taken out would be a fraction of the overall marbles. Yet this contradicts the principle we established earlier which is that every fraction of the infinite sum of marbles would equal to infinity. Yet the three marbles do not equal infinity. Thus something cannot be infinite and finite at the same time, because of this and many other contradictions it is absolutely clear that the sum of finite things must be finite. And because the universe is made up of finite bodies within space, and because we can measure parts of the universe which are finite distances then the whole universe is finite even though it be very large indeed!
Thirdly, no scientist could ever prove using hard facts that the universe has no bounds. How would you measure it?- by sending out a pulse and waiting for the response (like they do for measuring the depths of the ocean) or by sending a satellite probe to the edges of the universe and waiting for it to report back- however we would be dead by the time any of them came back if the universe was infinite- and this would still not indicate infinity as it could just mean that the universe expands further than the time it takes for us to measure it! so it would be speculation (and theory) to say that the universe expands to infinity. However, what we do know from reality is that within the universe nothing has the power to self-create. So if we have to choose reality or theory which are we to take? (If you are to cross a road which thought would you use -built on reality or theory? reality tells you a car will hurt you if it hits you and speculation/theory would be that the driver will swerve out the way).]
Finally when they say the universe arose from a Big Bang and is expanding they inherently admit it is finite in size, otherwise it could not expand! The universe is large, but is still a 'finite' space. There is nothing in reality which is infinite. No matter how hard we try, man is unable to find anything infinite around him. All we can perceive is the finite and limited that has not the power to create.

This leads us to therefore conclude that if everything in our reality has no ability to create itself (or indeed other things), then all of our reality must have been created by some thing unlike anything we can perceive! This being is what we call the creator, or ‘Allah’ in Islam.

The fact that we cannot see it or "empirically" measure this creator (as the scientist's modus operandi will seek to do) has no bearing on this, as the scientific methodology of investigation is limited to only things which are observable- however the creator is clearly not perceivable by any of our five senses (i.e. we cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste it). What we have used to discover the creator is our everyday ability to think rationally (based on reality). It is similar to the one who hears a knock on the door and thinks to himself, "something must be behind that door because from reality, doors can’t knock themselves”. Also, it is irrational and absurd for us to attribute qualities to describe this creator as some philosophers do (e.g. God is good/love)- as we cannot perceive it. This only leads to incorrect assumptions which causes the purity of our thinking to be lost. All we could know about it – is what it chooses to tell us. (Likewise, you couldn’t describe what was behind the door- without the ‘knocker’ giving you some information of its description)

We can now start to ask the questions that would lead on from this such as- Has this creator communicated to us why it created us and what will happen when we die? And how can we even identify its communication-if any! (Which is another discussion for another article)
It is only with this type of certainty built on reality and not speculation that a Muslim can build his life so that he is sure about everything he does. And it is this gift of the mind that differentiates us from animals, that allows us to progress properly when we use it in the correct way to build our thinking on reality rather than doubt and speculation; and then allows mankind to bond together in society producing a great civilization based on real answers!
"When a finger points to the sky, only a fool stares at the finger!"