A Filter of Logic

When Faith Blinds the Man

I do not remember how old I was when I got to Badway mosque in Tanta for 1st time. Seeing the claimed foot print of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) there, down to the box where they displayed it, was the box of donation, despite my young age, I did not swallow it at all. The feet was overtly odd, the transverse dimension of it does not match longitudinal dimension to be of human foot, plus the curvature of foot is absent, more than any known degree of flatfoot, a man with such a foot will definitely suffer from severe instability standing and walking. This is apart from the size that will be surely not less than fifty something. I think if Leonardo da Vinci with his known studies of human anatomy through corpses dissection wanted to fake this sculpture he would have made something highly convincing compared to this stupid piece. Moreover, what is the origin of the piece? I meant the claimed origin? It is supposed that prophet had a foot print over the Dome of the Rock only, and it should be still there, and even this story is not supported as a miracle by Quran verses. But he was not definitely walking all time on the rocks barefooted to live prints to us as memories. Then, we know the Prophet was of middle stature, and his feet must match such a stature, can't be as big as the one who faked this imagined.

Did it stop at this level, No. Seeing the photos and videos of Virgin Mary in Zeitun in the 60s of last century, I laughed loudly saying "Ignorantly fake". To the amazement of my surrounds, who were all very impressed with what they saw, they wondered and I replied "whoever the ignorant who fake this, he has forgotten that the halo around the holy family faces, was an artistic symbol to symbolize holiness and the enlightened soul they had, it is originally a pharaonic art and was conveyed to Christianity through Coptic art. Now, he is making the Virgin appearing with a halo around her head as if it is a part of her. And even if her head is lighting, it will be simply lighting without this circular symbol. And why she is taking the exact shapes and positions of icons and with the same garments? Whoever draw these icons was imagining and symbolizing" others around me seemed to be astonished for a while, then they started talking, they had never been out of the usual framework of "don't kill everything thinking about it" and the other vague statement "not everything we can't understand is wrong, sometimes just we can't" and so on and so forth.

A third event happened during a visit to Manfalout monastery, with my friend Khalid, visiting the corpse of "Anba Lucas the Knowledgeable" who died in 1965, it was supposedly to be miraculous with his body unchanged since then. shown to visitors in a glass box. During the way to the monastery, everybody was talking about how life looks his mouth specifically. Stepping into the room. Looking on the face of the corpse, on the mouth specifically, it took me like 3 minutes to figure out the wrong thing. The gums are merely pink, but God pink color in gums comes from blood flow only!!!, minutes after death it turns white and shortly after it starts to darken. Then the teeth is glossy, shining like alive man, but this gloss of teeth is not something relate to its material, our teeth gloss with the saliva, a living man with absolutely dry mouth will not have it, then how regular it is, how symmetrical? Sorry monk, whether you had an artificial teeth fixed before you die, or simply the faking clerics fixed to you later on to increase the impression of your visitors. Nothing here is miraculous, the rest of the body was simply in a state of slow decaying, the humidity inside this glass was Zero. I am sure the visceral organs are 100% gone and the abdomen is burst, this is why he is dressed in this complete opaque satin dress. Yet, in another 50 years there will be no soft tissue at all, the monastery then will remove the body, maybe after he will visit one of the monks in a dream and ask him to rest his corpse in peace. What applies to "Anba Lucas" in Manflaout applies to another corpse in Damietta of Saint Beshoy, same legend, same tricks.

How many times you hared about the miracles of martyrdom in Afghanistan? It was my first time hearing about it when I was 13. At this early age, and upon reading a book named "Miracles of God in Afghan Jihad" I started the skeptical era in my life, that seems to be everlasting, standing like a mind-filter that is always on. The author of the book is quite famous, he is Abdallah Azzam, one of the premium class terrorism philosophers, and here is some of his delusions, A martyr shakes his father's hand 3 days after his death, wounds of martyrs sending lights and perfume scents after their death, their nails and hair grows for years after death, birds offer an umbrella above the mujahedeen protecting them against Russian air forces, Russians claim they are attacked from 4 directions with American machine guns while mujahedeen were in one direction with manual guns (of course now we know this is true as American troops were really in the other three directions), and finally he tells about the winged angels fighting with them hand by hand. Today, having all cards on table, we knew these mujahedeen to be trained by CIA officers in Pakistan, armed with USA armies, under Saudi finance and with Egyptian Saudi volunteers support. Some of these mujahedeen were Ayman Zawahry and Osama bin Ladin!!! So, it was not miraculous at all. And whoever can swallow all these miracles of Afghan, can he explains why we do not hear them now? any new blockbuster miracles against US troops? I guess no, at least not that sophisticated and numerous. You know why? because US today stays on the other end, so does Saudi Arabia, so unfortunate to Afghan, there are no sponsors or media advisers today, they lost all their allies except their own cultivated opium that stands as the keystone of economy in this claimed Islamic state. In the image here we see the real Jihad now, the one that proetcts the cultivation and commercialization of opium harvest.

I believe in God, and believe his almighty is omnipotent, but does this mean miracles to happen everyday? For me it is big NO, simply because God created this universe with a built-in system to run. He created it with the roles of nature and physics. Any break to this system must have a very good reason and very rare circumstance to happen, because God, the creator of universe will not ruin its roles. But for some mindsets, miraculous events are very important to silent the doubts and fears they have, as their faith is not logically based, it is based only on emotional faith, they need emotional boosters very frequently.