LENIN COMMANDED HIS COMRADES,
"DO NOT THINK, OR ELSE YOU WILL BELIEVE."
The world to which we're connected is composed not of matter, but perceptions. Because this fact knocked the foundations from under materialist philosophy, its ideologues are very uncomfortable and try not to think about it, even recommending that their colleagues not think about it either. Chief among them is Lenin. In Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, a book he wrote a century ago, he warned that materialists should not think about this subject, else they might become "caught up" in religion:
Once you deny the objective reality [that is] given us in sensation, you have already lost every weapon against fideism [reliance on faith alone], for you have slipped into agnosticism or subjectivism-and that is all that fideism requires. A single claw ensnared, and the bird is lost. And our Machists [an adherent of Machism, developed by the Austrian philosopher Mach, one of the leaders of modern positivism], have all become ensnared in idealism, that is, in a diluted, subtle fideism; they became ensnared from the moment they took "sensation" not as an image of the external world, but as a special "element." It is nobody's sensation, nobody's mind, nobody's spirit, nobody's will.1
As this quote shows, the only thing materialists can do about the "real nature of matter" is to avoid thinking about it!-the clearest indication that the myth of materialism derives its strength only from people's self-deception.
WARNING
The chapter you are about to read reveals a crucial life secret. It should be read attentively and thorougly, for it is concerned with a subject that is liable to make a fundamental change in one's oulook toward the external world. The subject of this chapter is not merely a point of view, a different approach, or a traditional philosophy. It is a fact which everyone, believers and non-believers, must admit to and which has been proven by science today.
The Important Reality that Invalidates Materialism
At the root of the Communists' nightmare of anguish throughout the 20th century lies the Darwinists' materialist creed. Blindly accepting materialist philosophy, Communists regard everything as composed of matter only, rejecting the idea that human beings have spirits. In the same way, their adoption of Darwin's theory of evolution led them to qualify human beings as no more than "advanced animals."
This and the following chapter will explain why this ideology is unsound. First off, we'll consider a very important reality that invalidates the very foundation of the materialist dogma that regards everything as being composed of matter. The second chapter demonstrates Darwinism's invalidity from a scientific standpoint, showing that human beings have always existed on this Earth as humans-distinct from animals-and have a spirit and consciousness God has given them.
First of all, let's take a short look at the system of thought that holds matter as absolute, denying the existence of anything else. As a result of this flawed logic, materialists reject obvious existence of God (surely God is beyond that) and cannot conceive that all things continue to exist by God's will. Materialists' warped philosophy stems from this flawed conception, and is described in the Qur'an (23:37) as the materialists themselves might express it:"What is there but our life in this world? We die and we live and we will not be raised again." Another verse (30:7) describes the great error of these people who deny God and the afterlife: "They know an outward aspect of the life of this world but are heedless of the hereafter."
Why did materialism fall into this error, which gave rise to such flawed conceptions? One reason is that never in their lives have they realized a very important reality. And not being aware of it, they believe that their entire lives are limited by the material world. Therefore, their entire relation to the world is dominated by ambition. In the following pages, we will reveal this important reality, of which godless people are unaware.
The Real Face of Matter
We are about to demonstrate a reality that invalidates the roots of materialist thought: not a philosophy or ideology; but a technical reality that everyone inhabits whether he knows it or not, which has been proved by various branches of science. If approached with care and sincerity, without prejudice, it is very easy to understand. This reality can be summarized like this: "All material existence that form us and our environment is a totality of conception. The concept of what we call "matter" is like a dream, conceivable only as an image in our minds. We can never have any connection with its original that exists outside us."
The "reality behind matter" is not formerly unknown and only newly discovered. Throughout history, God has sent apostles and other deeply aware, thoughtful people to proclaim this reality, which is alluded to in a number of verses of the Qur'an and plays a key role in interpreting still other verses. Texts containing portions of these individuals' proclamations have come down to us today; while various degenerated forms of the true religion-whose original revelations have been distorted-have sought to preserve this reality as a mystical secret.
One can find this reality in surviving texts of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism and Christianity. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato (especially in his Allegory of the Cave), the Eleatic school of philosophy, and a number of the thinkers who followed them all expounded one aspect of this question. In later periods, it has been related and taught by people who, under the influence of differing viewpoints and various interpretations, have thought about it deeply and arrived at the truth.
Those who claim that matter is the one absolute principle of existence, tried to cover up this reality. But George Berkeley, the Irish theologian and philosopher, raised this question again in the 18th century and in so doing, changed the world of ideas after him.
Because materialists-especially Bertrand Russell, the most passionate spokesman of this school-could not refute Berkeley philosophically, they attempted to insult and slander him. Even though Russell was the most representative thinker in materialist circles and the strongest defender of this view, he couldn't disregard this truth. In The Problems of Philosophy, he admitted that: "Berkeley retains the merit of having shown that the existence of matter is capable of being denied without absurdity, and that if there are any things that exist independently of us, they cannot be the immediate objects of our sensations."124
However much Russell might claim the opposite, in his statement above, he basically could not deny this reality, but even openly states that he accepts it.
Actually not only Russell's outlook, but the entire materialist philosophy is about to collapse. As we step into the 21st century, modern developments in physics, quantum physics, astronomy, psychology and anatomy and other branches of science are deeply discomfiting those who espoused the old materialist view of the world. The study of fossils and research conducted in areas like genetics have caused the theory of evolution to collapse. Research in optics and psychology have helped solve the mystery of our cognitive system; as a result of advances in astronomy, the Big Bang theory-proposing that the universe and matter had a beginning-has become generally accepted. Research into atoms and sub-atomic particles has turned classical physics inside out, proving the theory of relativity- that time itself is relative.
Countless scientific discoveries have confirmed the existence of God and His eternal sovereignty over the whole universe, leaving with no recourse those materialist thinkers who represent fanaticism and prejudice. Their powerlessness also continues today. On television, in schools, and at lectures, we encounter scientists and thinkers who feign ignorance of the fact that we can't get in touch with the external world, that our experience is composed of perceptions felt in our brain; and proceed not to inform people of the truth, even behaving as if it did not exist. But ignoring the truth is no solution. Let us examine this reality a little more closely.
What We Perceive As Outside Is Actually Inside Ourselves
Stimuli such as light, sound, smells, tastes and textures from objects assumed to exist in the external world are carried through nerves to sensory centers in the brain. All these stimuli consist of electric signals. During the process of sight, for example, light rays (photons) radiating from the exterior world reach the retina at the back of the eye, which transforms them through a series of processes into electric signals. These signals are transferred along nerves to the center of vision at the rear of the brain. Thus, the colorful, bright, three-dimensional world is perceived within this center of only a few cubic centimeters.
The same process also enables the other senses. Tastes are transformed into electric signals by cells on the tongue's surface. Smells are transformed into electric signals by cells in the epithelium of the nose. Special sensors lodged under the skin transform impulses of touch (such as feelings of firmness or softness) into electric signals, and a special mechanism in the ear transforms sounds in a similar way. All these signals are sent to respective centers in the brain, where they are finally perceived.
To clarify the point, assume you are holding a cup of coffee. Receptors under your skin transform the cup's hardness and heat into electric signals and send them to your brain. Simultaneously, the coffee's strong smell, its taste and dark brown color all become signals sent to the brain. The clink when the cup touches the table is perceived by your ears and sent to the brain as an electric signal. All these perceptions are interpreted in the relevant brain centers, working harmoniously with one another. As a cumulative result of these impulses, you sense yourself drinking a cup of coffee.
Anyone who sits in a room, watching television or dining with his family, experiences a great miracle, even though he is unaware of it. The image of four surrounding walls is, in reality, within that person's brain.
That being the case, are you in the room, or is the room inside you?
Most people are unaware of this great truth, assuming themselves to be sitting in a room, watching television or chatting with their family. Those who do grasp this fact, on the other hand, pretend not to understand this miracle, since they fear it. Yet this fact of which they plead ignorance is undeniable, confirmed by science. Stimuli reaching the eye from the room's four walls, the pictures or paintings on them, the television, carpet, furniture, and light on the ceiling are all transformed by the retina's cells into electrical currents, then transmitted to the visual center in the brain. A person perceives the image of the house, which he thinks he is in, in a tiny space in the rear of his brain.
Never in his whole life can he move outside this space; never can he see another image, apart from the one on the "screen" in his head. He can never hear a sound apart from those transmitted to his brain. A person lives out his whole life within this small, bony room.
Everything we see around us is the work of electrical signals producing an image in our brain. To explain this more clearly, imagine that you are looking at the bowl of fruit on a dinner table. When light rays from it reach your eyes, several operations come into play: The rays, converted into electrical stimuli, are transmitted by nerves to your brain's visual center. In this way we can say that we see "fruits of various colors," as can easily be found in any biology or physiology textbook. But what is most amazing is that the visual center is a place of complete darkness. Actually there is no screen in the brain: When electrical stimuli come from the table, no image is formed in the visual center. When we say we see the table and the fruit on it, we are actually seeing electric signals transmitted in total darkness.
Here we meet a fact.
What we call the visual center is composed of fat, protein and nerves. It cannot perceive incoming electrical signals as images by these. In that case, who is it that sees the electric signals in the darkness of the brain without the need for eyes?
This is what materialism, with its lying attempts to explain everything in terms of basic matter, can never understand. What leads materialists definitely into a blind alley is an extraordinary reality thatmost people cannot conceive of. In the darkness of our brain is a being that need no eyes to see a table clearer than one projected on the finest television-three-dimensional, life-like and indistinguishable from the original.
What sees this perfect image is also what separates human beings from animals and all other animate and inanimate things is the Spirit that God "breathed into" them when He created them. In the Qur'an (15: 28-30), God reveals the existence of the "spirit" in these words:
When your Lord said to the angels, "I am creating a human being out of dried clay formed from fetid black mud. When I have formed him and breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration in front of him!" Then the angels prostrated all together, every one of them.
Copies Indistinguishable from the Originals
Miraculously, the perceptions of the spirit are completely the same as reality. Despite the fact that the spirit has nothing to do with material originals, but only with electrical signals reaching the brain, it sees shapes and colors and feels hardness and texture, just as they are in reality. So clear are these impressions that he's convinced that he's seeing and touching the original.
For example, a swimmer in the sea's cool, blue waters is actually immersed in a great miracle. He thinks he is swimming in the water, but has never emerged from the darkness inside his brain. From the moment he entered the water, every stimulus entering his body is immediately converted by the cells into electrical current and transmitted to his brain. At this point, something miraculous happens: the spirit, with no arms or legs to stroke with or feel the wetness, senses that water is touching his skin and buoying him up.
However, the person never has any connection with the color of the water, its temperature, and the sound of the waves-all these things are inside the human brain. A person really has no connection with the original of even his own body that exists in the external world; but only perceives electrical signals from inside it. Even though this miraculous reality is taught in schools and written about in textbooks, many people are not aware of this extraordinary reality; and most of those who are aware of it do not want to understand it.
The Reality that Materialists are Afraid to Understand
In light of this extraordinary and exciting knowledge, consider that all the material things you know in this world-your house and belongings, spouse and children, your parents and colleagues-are perceived as images that occur in the darkness of your brain. Has it ever occurred to you that you are fixed to an image that occurs in your brain, you can never see the outside, you can see the things listed above only in your brain and you can never get outside this small world?
If the materialists-who deny the existence of the spirit, believing that matter is the only reality-accepted this obvious truth, they would have to throw aside all the principles and goals on which they've based their lives. Angered by this great miracle, they have resorted to many methods to attack it and made irrational claims to obfuscate the facts. Some materialists pound tables with their fists or kick walls to convince themselves that matter is not a perception. Other materialists may claim that a bus hitting someone is no mere perception, but objectively "real." They want to escape the understanding that all feelings of pain from the impact are already perceptions formed in the brain; the victim has never been in contact with the "actual" bus. Again, all the sensations of the blow are perceived in the darkness of the brain, by the human spirit.
The Huge Trap into Which Materialists Have Fallen
Materialist philosophy has always existed throughout history. Very assured of themselves, materialists revolted against God Who created them and maintained that since matter had no beginning nor end, it couldn't possibly have been created. Denying God out of their arrogance, they took refuge in matter which they held to have the only "real" existence. So confident were they in their arrogance and denial that they believed that no argument put forth could ever disprove it. That's why the facts regarding the real nature of matter surprised them so much. Suddenly it destroyed the very basis of their philosophy-matter, on which they based all their lives-and left no ground for further debate. They saw the material world, in which they so blindly believed in, trusted and relied, taken away and could do nothing about it. Since no human being actually sees the reality of matterthat exists outside us, hears real sounds, or smells genuine scents, how can we talk of materialism?
One of the attributes of God is His plotting against the unbelievers, as stated in the Qur'an, verse (8: 30):
They plot and plan, and God too plans; but the best of planners is God.
God entrapped materialists by letting them assume that matter exists and in so doing, humiliated them in an unseen way. Materialists grew arrogant against God by relying on their possessions, status, rank in society. They revolted against God by being boastful (surely God is beyond that) and adding to their unbelief by relying totally on matter. Yet, they were so lacking in understanding that they failed to realize that God encompasses them. In the Qur'an (52: 42), God reveals the state to which unbelievers' thick-headedness leads them: "Or do they intend a plot [against you]? But those who defy God are themselves involved in a Plot!"
This is most probably the biggest defeat in history. While growing arrogant of their own accord, materialists have been tricked and suffered a serious defeat in the war they waged against God by devising a monstrous thing against Him.
In another verse (24: 39), God says: "But the disbelievers, their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing." Materialism, too, becomes a "mirage" for the rebellious when they seek to depend on it. Just as stated in this verse; they find it to be an illusion. God has deceived them with such a mirage, beguiling them into perceiving this whole collection of images as real.
All those eminent professors, astronomers, biologists, physicists and others, regardless of their rank and post, are simply deceived and humiliated for having taken matter as their god. Assuming a collection of images to be absolute, they based their philosophy and ideology on them,and involved themselves in serious discussions. They deemed themselves to be wise enough to offer an argument about the truth of the universe and, more importantly, adopted a so-called "intellectual" dispute about God, Who explains their limited intelligence in the Qur'an (3: 54): "And [the disbelievers] plotted and planned, and God too planned, and the best of planners is God."
From some plots, it may be possible to escape. But there is no way to avoid God's plan against the disbelievers. They can never find a helper other than God. As God states in the Qur'an (4: 173), "They shall not find for them other than God a patron or a help."
For materialists, realizing this fact is no doubt the worst possible thing, because it leaves them all alone with God. Thus, they understand that God is always with them and He encompasses all things. With verse 74: 11 of the Qur'an, God calls us to remember that each human is, in truth, totally alone in His Presence: "Leave Me alone, [to deal] with the [creature] whom I created alone!"
This remarkable fact is repeated in many other verses:
And behold! You come to us alone [individually] as We created you for the first time: you have left behind you all [the favors] which We bestowed on you. (Qur'an, 6: 94)
And each one of them will come unto Him on the Day of Resurrection, alone. (Qur'an, 19: 95)
In another sense, these verses state that those who take matter as their god have, nonetheless, come from God and will return to Him. They have submitted their wills to God, whether or not they wanted to. Now-however unwilling they may be to realize it- they await the Day of Judgment, when every one of them will be called to account.
The Importance of the Subject
It is of the utmost importance to understand correctly the secret beyond matter explained in this chapter. Mountains, plains, flowers, people, seas—briefly everything we see and everything that God informs us in the Qur’an that exists and that He created out of nothing is created and does indeed exist.However, people cannot see, feel or hear the real nature of these beings through their sense organs. What they see and feel are only their copies that appear in their brains. This is a scientific fact taught at all schools of medicine. The same applies to the book you are reading now; you can not see nor touch the real nature of it. The light coming from the original book is converted by some cells in your eyes into electrical signals, which are then conveyed to the visual center in the back of your brain. This is where the view of this book is created. In other words, you are not reading a book which is before your eyes through your eyes; in fact, this book is created in the visual center in the back of your brain. The book you are reading right now is a “copy of the book” within your brain. The original book is seen by God.
It should be remembered, however, that the fact that the matter is an illusion formed in our brains does not “reject” the matter, but provides us information about the real nature of the matter: that no person can have connection with its original. Moreover, the matter outside is seen not just by us, but by other beings too. The angels God delegated to be watchers witness this world as well:
And the two recording angels are recording, sitting on the right and on the left. He does not utter a single word, without a watcher by him, pen in hand! (Surah Qaf: 17-18)
Most importantly, God sees everything. He created this world with all its details and sees it in all its states. As He informs us in the Qur'an:
… Heed God and know that God sees what you do. (Surat al-Baqara: 233)Say: "God is a sufficient witness between me and you. He is certainly aware of and sees His servants." (Surat al-Isra’: 96)
It must not be forgotten that God keeps the records of everything in the book called Lawh Mahfuz (Preserved Tablet). Even if we don't see all things, they are in the Lawh Mahfuz. God reveals that He keeps everything's record in the "Mother of the Book" called Lawh Mahfuz with the following verses:
It is in the Source Book with Us, high-exalted, full of wisdom. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 4)… We possess an all-preserving Book. (Surah Qaf: 4)Certainly there is no hidden thing in either heaven or Earth which is not in a Clear Book. (Surat an-Naml: 75)
They said "Glory be to You! We have no knowledge except what
You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise." (Qur'an, 2: 32) |
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