I have witnessed a number of debates about whether God exists. When these take place in a formal gathering, the vote at the conclusion of the debate is often no indicator of truth: usually the side that organised the debate will win the vote simply because they invited a greater number of people in the audience. That audience usually has made up their mind about an answer before attending.

We ought to note that indeed I too have come to a conclusion about this question, but while hearing the debate I try my best to be sincere.

What I find particularly amusing is that I inevitably find myself on the side of the atheist. The arguments given by them are often much more logical and rationally based than those of the “God squad”.

While some may think that they “don’t need to prove that God exists, they just ‘know it’”, there are many reasons for anyone to ask this question, and indeed the Qur’an demands that we have rock solid certainty in our beliefs, constantly referring us to the real world for proof of His (swt) existence.

Such a discussion took place soon after I first embraced Islam (though it always seems more pertinent to say that Allah embraced me). The Student Union’s Krishna Consciousness Society at Uni had organised an event with a lecturer from the University of Cambridge. It was billed as a battle of minds: the Hare Krishna Priest and the atheist academic, both arguing their case on the existence on God, with the head of the Debating Society presiding. A few brothers and I attended.

The topic was laid out: Does an all good, all powerful God exist?
The flaw was immediately obvious to us, though apparently not to the audience or the speakers.

The Priest went first and stated that the Vedas - a collection of 5000 year old Sanskrit scriptures - were explicit in their proof of God. It was a simple process: You simply had to perform an experiment, the details of which were given in these books. You would then know for a fact that God exists and that He is all good and all powerful. The books gave various meditation techniques, but his recommendation, and the recommendation of his Guru, was to practice one particular type, Matra Meditation - chanting - which was best suited for people who live in this era, the Kali Yug.

His challenge: Do it and see, saying “You can’t taste the honey by licking the jar”.

The Lecturer began his speech by restating the question, but this time with emphasis, showing that he had understood the weakness of the argument formed by the Priest: “Does an all good, all powerful God exist?” All he needed to do was show that there was significant evil in the world, and proceeded to do so, giving numerous examples. He then offered two possibilities: either God is impotent and unable to change the disgusting situation of the world, or this deity was in fact not all good. In either case, a disabled or vindictive god was not worthy or worship and more than likely did not exist.

Imagine the frustration in my mind, and that of the brothers with whom I was attending. We already believed in God, but could not agree in the least with either speaker.

As the arguments were passed back and forth, the Priest claimed that each of us has a soul, and that our souls are a part of God. He said that when we die, we are either reincarnated or our soul returns to God and becomes rejoins with Him.

The audience was given the opportunity to ask questions, and the brother sitting next to me raised his hand and said

“My question is directed to the priest. You said that our souls are part of God and that when we die, they can rejoin with God. However, the sum of any number of limited things is limited. If what you are saying was true, we could only conclude that God is limited, and hence cannot be All Powerful. Could you please explain this contradiction?”

Oh dear, the Priest had been decked…

He responded by saying

“It is not God that is limited, but our senses. We are making this judgement based on our own limited minds, while the subject matter is too vast to be appreciated in that way. Only the experiment that I have described will allow you to become aware of his existence”.

Thankfully it wasn’t just me that could see that he did not answer the question, or that it I would have to use the same limited mind to perform his experiment. The brother was wriggling in his seat with his hand raised, desperately wanting to prove what the speakers could not, but time was up! The customary vote took place, and despite all the evidence to the contrary, the audience decided that an all good, all powerful God existed.

Sadly, I would have agreed with them, except that the arguments put forward were so poor that I found more in common with the atheist. SubhanAllah. The proof of God is such a simple point to explain, which makes it even more saddening.

Given the common background I previously shared with the Hare Krishnas, one of the brothers was worried that my belief in Allah might have been shaken by attending the debate. He could not have been further from the truth: Things like this only serve to highlight the strength of the Islamic ‘aqeedah.

Wa Allahu ‘alim