It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
-Francis Bacon

Firstly, I recommend this essay from a writer who is more articulate than I am and who shows the philosophical shallowness of "New Atheism" and its predecessors https://jaysanalysis.com/2018/08/16/new-atheists-refuted-logic-presupposes-ethics-metaphysics/

Personally I don't want to talk about this.

Anyways, atheism leads to nihilism. It also leads to moral relativism as atheists themselves admitted in this thread where, amazingly, I was told "moral relativists have a basis for morality".

To boil things down- atheism gives a person a pass to do whatever they want. Many atheists love to give psuedopious lectures on being "good without God". There is a book called Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age by Seraphim Rose which talks about this as being sort of an early stage of atheism.

If you become an atheist, when you first become an atheist and you have a sort of shallow atheism, the strangely pious-sounding talks on "good without God"- they make sense as a way to justify one's atheism and to soothe oneself. Of course I promote what I believe. Pretty much everyone does. However, I want to help give people an alternative to materialism. I do what I do because I want to please God. I follow my beliefs, just like anyone does (although as far as I know religious people are the only people who I see calls to ban from merely representing their point of view on the forum- apparently people assume a priori that religious people are idiots and that our points of view both lack validity- and need to be silenced... lest anyone be taken in by our supposedly validity-lacking points of view, I suppose).

However, people have trouble not believing in God even if they try not to believe in God. I forget which movie it was but in one of Zizek's movies (I think either the Pervert's Guide to Ideology or Guide to Cinema) you can see Zizek of all people talk about how hard it is to be an atheist and claim that people are naturally believers in God.

Now this is incredible, seeing as how Zizek is from an atheist family. He is not the first generation, as his parents were atheists. And he grew up under Communism from what I understand.

So here you have a guy.... who would have been well over 50 years old at the time of whichever movie it was where he said that... who is at least a second-generation atheist... where was this guy's "religious indoctrination"? Why would he have made such a statement? Why would have been led to??

I wasn't given "religious indoctrination" as a child. I wasn't raised to be religious. I was at the masjid and a guy told me how his family was not religious. I knew a super devout Christian woman- also came from non-religious background.

Look at Russia, for example. Decades and decades of Communism- yet today it's Christian????

"He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was sceptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother’s knee. That illustrates what the psychoanalysts so much emphasise—the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times." - Bertrand Russell discussing Kant in "Why I am not a Christian".

How then would we explain Zizek? Zizek would have imbibed atheism at his mother's knee. Same with Russia. Russell's explanation can't make sense of religion in a world where the West is post-Christian and where religion has been marginalized and believing in religion makes a person seen as an idiot- and yet religion persists. Constantly, with the rise of science and technology "religion is obsolete" and always it is heard how religion is just about to go away. I bet there were people in the latter half of the 19th century who were saying the exact same thing. People are perenially saying that... yet religion refuses to die.

Furthermore- who did Russell cite? "The psychoanalysts". Psychoanalysis has long been discredited. So Russell seems to be throwing out the possibility of God- on a basis which has long since been discredited.... psychoanalysis is long gone..... but belief in God is still here.

I want to make a few points. You folk should be intelligent enough to understand the concept that "the medium is the message" and you folk should be intelligent enough to understand that this medium is not really sufficient for this sort of issue. So I want to make a few points very briefly and for sake of brevity I don't think I'll be able to go as in depth as I'd like.

"For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity. Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion... It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others. Nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects."

-Francis Bacon

As far as I'm aware, I'm the only Muslim on this forum. I'm not looking for or expecting validation. I think this forum is mostly hostile towards religion- which is sad as it goes against the spirit of what philosophy is supposed to be about. Philosophy at least in theory is supposed to be a disinterested quest for truth. Yet the atheists presuppose their philosophy is correct and that only their side is valid- and should be heard. If the truth is on their side, I don't understand why they want to use censorship and don't want open discussion.

Atheists are caught between two things. On hand, they are given an incentive. An atheist might give one of those strangely pious-sounding lectures on "good without God" for PR purposes- but beneath the surface- they know: atheism gives them a license to do whatever they want. They might deny this for political reasons- they know, though. This is the inescapable conclusion of moral relativism which they don't deny atheism leads to.

On the other hand, atheism leads to the conclusion that life is meaningless. Hence atheism's suicide problem https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/atheism-has-a-suicide-problem_us_5a2a902ee4b022ec613b812b http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/Thread-Why-Do-Atheists-Have-the-Highest-Suicide-Rates .

From a Muslim perspective, suicide is completely off the table. Suicide for a Muslim is completely off the table as the consequences are terrifying. However, from an atheist perspective, it can't be shown that suicide is wrong (or that anything is wrong).

I read Why I am Not a Christian when I was 12. I read that a long time ago. The God Delusion, some other stuff too.

The stuff is shallow. The article at the beginning shows you how their arguments are shallow and the guy is better at explaining things than I am.

You look at something like The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James and you look fluff like the Russell essay... people like James are playing chess while people like Russell are playing checkers.

The two take completely different approaches to epistemology. Types like Russell expect knowledge to fit neatly into their preconceived post-"Enlightenment" frameworks... for themselves they've already rigged the game in favor of materialism and then they applaud materialism when it wins a game where the rules were pre-set in its favor. And then they think this leads them to "truth".

Russell's approach is two-dimensional and shallow in comparison to James' approach.

These materialists want everything to fit into their preconceived framework and reject things not on the basis of whether or not they're true but whether they fit into the preconceived framework. This is no way to search for truth.

Materialists literally cannot think outside of their preconceived framework. Islamic epistemology or the epistemology of The Varieties of Religious Experience.... these epistemologies are literally unthinkable for them. They think the epistemology handed down from the Enlightenmennt is the only conceivable epistemology and can't conceive of other epistemologies, much less evaluate them.

They want you as a theist.... they want you to show them some sort of quantitative data, some sort of statistics which will show them God exists.... they want God to conform to the "Enlightenment"... and then want to reject God because God doesn't conform to the "Enlightenment"! This is a very simple people.

They can't even grasp the epistemology of the Quran! They are literally stuck in a narrow, Western, "Enlightenment" epistemology and can't imagine any epistemology beyond it- thinking their epistemology signifies a sort of "end of history"- not even knowing what's beyond it!

I know atheism inside and out. I studied that stuff when I was 12. I am well aware of their epistemology and I grasp their epistemology but they don't grasp or understand mine. They literally can't think outside their preconceived, narrow epistemology. They want to tell me theirs is better but haven't grasp mine. They want to tell me Mounds tastes better than Almond Joy... but I've tasted Mounds and they haven't even tasted Almond Joy.

I go more into detail about this in a blog post https://entranceofcave.blogspot.com/2018/07/where-is-your-proof.html

The atheists don't know what's outside of their epistemology. They're like the prisoners in Plato's Cave, have no idea what's outside the cave but will try to lecture a person who's been outside the cave regarding what's outside the cave. The person has been outside of the cave, walked outside and he saw things themselves. But simply walking around and obtaining first-hand experience of what's outside the Cave is "unscientific". These cave-dwellers, they've got down the measurements of certain shadows, they've calculated the exact measurements, even timing of when certain shadows appear.... how dare this man go off something that doesn't fit their framework! Who does he think he is?! The audacity! They "know" a priori that whatever the truth is- it must fit their framework! Their framework is prior to the truth for them. Who knows why.

I sat with some Christians. They had traveled as missionaries. I listened to them talk to each other about how more weird, supernatural stuff seemed to take place among Third World people. Scientism expects them to have charts and statistics for their beliefs, as scientism acts in a fashion very reminscent of colonialism and expects everyone to conform to itself. As soon as I can see proof that truth necessarily must fit the framework imposed by Scientism, insha'Allah I'll accept that framework. Scientism has zero respect for direct experience. It behaves like Chico Marx in Duck Soup when Chico tells that woman "who ya gonna believe me or your own eyes?". So apparently I might get banned simply for believing my own eyes. Anyways, those Christians were right and what they said shows they really had experience with what they were talking about.

My family is not from the First World. I mean you look at Africans, for example... hardly any Africans are atheists. I don't want to portray the Third World as one homogenous thing as it's not.... but hardly anyone from Third World backgrounds except I think China if we count China.... pretty much none are atheists. These people are not idiots. A lot of these people have experienced stuff. When I talked to a friend from Africa about a supernatural experience I had- she knew exactly what I was talking about and she explained to me that people in her famly had had similar experiences. People in my family have had strange experiences. I have zero intention of talking about certain things. I don't think I could be an atheist if I wanted to be. I've had weird experiences that I don't want to talk about. There's certain things I'm not supposed to talk about. I'll give another example insha'Allah- I know a guy from Egypt. Also a guy from Indian background. I talked to the guy from Egypt about that same supernatural experience- he instantly knew exactly what I was talking about and he had seen some stuff that was similar. The guy from Indian background- same thing. He knew instantly what I was talking about. I'm not an idiot. I might try to give you some abstract arguments but I don't believe in the Unseen on the basis of some abstract arguments... I know it exists because I've seen some things. It's strange to me that I even have to explain this stuff. I mean because for the people I know... if I talk about this sort of stuff, they know what I'm talking about. I only mention people besides myself to illustrate- I'm not the only person who has dealt with certain... experiences. William James done wrote a whole book on the subject.

I just find it shocking that people can still believe in materialism. It's hard for me to relate to. I understand the position frontwards, backwards and sideways, I grasp it but... it's a discredited position. I want to say this- I think William James was lowkey a New Ager (I am completely against that stuff) before the term was popular. But such already existed even at that time. Look at Helena Blavatsky and look at the rising interest in spiritualism which was a big thing at that period. I don't like writing about this. I want to close this in a minute. I want to return to a subject I touched on previously. Atheists on one hand get a sort of license to do whatever they want, on the other hand experience a crisis of meaning. Epistemology in actuality doesn't work the way Westerners think it works. The standard Western epistemology is bogus. I just wanted to mention that... anyways... your heart matters. The cleanliness of your heart matters. If you are an atheist- how important is the freedom to do whatever you want? A person whose heart is darkened and stone will not understand... a person whose heart is pure will not be satisfied with atheism and want a way out- will crave for there to be a God (and thus justice as without God this world is one of injustice and there is no justice for people). I wish to speak to such a person if such a person is reading. You may have been taught a Western way of thinking.

If atheism conforms to your desires, perhaps you won't want to leave atheism- so as not to leave desires. I hope you are not like an animal. The "Enlightenment" is so "enlightened" I might get banned if I think outside its perspective, as having an alternate view is deemed unacceptable by its guardians.

My desire is to show that there is a way out for the atheist who is not a follower of desires and that there is a way out if a person wants to pursue it.

Denying the Unseen is silly. To deny the "supernatural"?! I cannot help but find it absurd. What people think of as the "supernatural" is so accessible and so a part of reality... I could teach you how to access it. It isn't hard. It's very easy. Yet you have people... even old people!... who deny it. You don't see the Unseen but the Unseen sees you. May Allah guide you.