My quick bio - Maths/Physics background, PhD Cambridge, Postdoc Harvard Med/MIT. During my 20s I struggled a lot with Islam (my grandad was a Sheikh and it was a very disciplined upbringing, and the "cool" narrative in the science (especially biology) community is that there is no proof of whether or not God is real and so it's pointless to believe in his existence; the idea of religion itself was bewildering and often treated like a luxury for people who don't understand science itself.
Then I learned something hilarious: there is a theorem in Mathematics called the "Incompleteness Theorem". The idea is that any axiomatic mathematical system powerful enough to be "consistent" cannot be "complete": some theories can be true but have no way of being proved. And many mathematicians spend their entire lives trying to prove or disprove theories that literally MIGHT BE IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE. The Riemann hypothesis has evaded proof for almost two centuries, the Poincaré Conjecture for 100 years, the Yang–Mills and Mass Gap, it goes on and on,.
I was taken aback by comments made by people I knew working on solving hundred-year old problems who literally had to stick their heads in the mud and ignore the fact that finding a proof as and goal might ultimately be pointless since those problems might be impossible to solve. They cited that "they just believed" the problem might have a solution and continued to work on it. I concluded that the notion of God in a consistent universe may be true, but impossible to demonstrate with our current limited axiomatic toolkit. And so at the end of the day it comes down to belief.
So the same way scientists choose to believe that a solution to the Riemann Hypothesis or a grand unified theory of physics exists and spend their lives working towards it, we as Muslims choose to believe the existence of God whilst still embodying the scientific method, unanimous proof doesn't necessarily exist nor do we expect it to exist, but that doesn't mean "God is real" is false.
What does this have to do with Islam? Through contemplation, I truly believe that our beloved prophet (A.S) attained the greatest level of understanding, connection and agreement with Allah. Through his own practices we grow closer towards Allah and ultimately we foster the same relationship with him that Mathematicians/Physicists have towards the theorems they spend their lives solving.
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from Islam https://ift.tt/gq0oHTG
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