Lesson 1: Why “God” is not a god.

Simply put we have been taught that religions are a good thing. That, if you believe in a creator of the universe and a conscious, intelligent, omnipotent-omnipresent, and eternal entity that is aware of all we do, then you have to select from the plethora of choices. You have to join club and worship in order to follow this “God” you will need to worship “Him”. Why?

I believed in a creator that everyone calls God. Capital “G” so not be be confused with the other “gods” but there is only one God. Yet, in reality, there aren’t. We have a multitude of gods from the indigenous people of every land to the Greek and Roman gods, the Indian deities that merge human and animal characteristics.

This was always confusing. Still I choice a “religion” at the age of 16 myself. I used logic because I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt. In one creator. I figured Islam would be my main choice cause of it’s strong belief in that idea. Not to mention that it was more recent than Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism. Plus they had a book that is supposed to be unchanged.

When reading the translation of the Quran some verses resonated so much with me that I would have tears in my eyes and others, well, I wasn’t even sure how to believe them. I was working of the assumption that it was all correct.

So when I came to find out that the famous line that is claim to be followed by all Muslims of “No god but The God” or “Not god but Allah” was wrong, it was a confusing concept.

See the actual meaning of “La” means “No/not” and illah means god/deity. but Allah. So whatever “Allah” means will not be a god or deity. It is simple it is straight forward but simple does not mean easy.

Just like if you introduce yourself and you say: “Not Mike but …” you would logically know the next thing can be anything except Mike. Not even “The Mike” would make much sense. It would, at the very least, have to be a different name or thing.

So what is Allah. You can take a look at this article for an in-depth understanding of the word but essentially it is not a name at all but rather a title. It means something akin to sustainer/unifier.

Once I had accepted this it opened up a few questions and points of reflection.

If our creator is not a god we we need religious rituals like prayer, fasting, circling temples?

No. I will go into religion in my next post in more detail because this is a topic that is so intertwined with Islam that it’s akin to operating on a tumor within the brain or heart of a person. It doesn’t sit at the surface it has been strategically place in a way to make removal difficult for most people.

Why wouldn’t god have a name?

People curse the names of god and blaspheme against god. It is misguided rage from people who are often good because they believe they are following the rules. They were taught somethings, as was I. Something I blindly believed. Something that we were taught would be enigmatic and only for those who reached a certain level. These are they lies they use when we come across a contradiction in our understanding. Clever arguments are used to “patch” the hole in our understanding.

For instance. How is three one in the Trinity? The simple straight forward answer would be it isn’t. Instead we have clever arguments about water being in 3 states and this trinity being akin to the same thing. That would be great but even water does not maintain 3 states in the same moment. It’s clever but the answer is simple. Three is not one. Once you accept that you can look for the right answer.

If Islam is not a religion then why do muslims call it a religion. How is it supposed to be different from a religion? What would make it different from a religion?
I will have to be extremely brief but the idea is not too hard to understand. Our creator does not need our “help” in the form of worship, bowing, praise. Practices such as circling a building or fasting for “God’s Sake” are not required.

You can say thank you to a person to show appreciate but if you throw yourself on your hands and knees that would be considered excessive. Yet we do have to channel our appreciated and we are instructed to do so by helping one another. It doesn’t matter what religion, culture, color, race, gender or other division you chose to believe in you can help them. That is was builds the bond between us and our creator.

How can we believe in the other prophets if they have contradictory messages?
They actually don’t. They all say the same things. As stated above. We are one people with one creator. Help one another. No need to worship. Our creator’s message never changes. (Often mistranslated as the Quran is “protected” or cannot be changed.) We know there are multiple versions of the Quran so this cannot be true.

How do you know what you say is true?

I have used my reason and understanding to realize that some concepts resonate, naturally, with me and some do not. So I decided to take away everything with uncertainty and keep what I was certain of. From that point I would only add what could be a certainty. If I was wrong I would simply remove it. It goes against religion to accept things in parts but I was already messing up in that aspect anyway and thought I would instead treat this as a sort of science experiment. I was determined to find truth above convention. That is, incidentally what has always brought me success in other aspects of my life so why not use this process where it was the most important?

I am not telling you what to do. You can make up your own mind. What I can share is what logical guidelines I am following.