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Book

On Atheism

Bahaa Fathy Farahat

A book on the questions of doubt that starts from why people leave, not from argument, states every objection in the strongest form its own proponents give it, and where there is no decisive answer says so.

43 chapters · 141,114 words · 204 cited sources · about 15 hours of unhurried reading

This essay is in Arabic. It is not translated — it turns on questions where a translation would change the argument itself, and a machine translation of this subject would be worse than none.

Before you begin

Three things you will not find here, and you may hold us to them · famous figures that are not what they are said to be · and explicit permission to put the book down.

  1. قبل أن تبدأ

Part One · Before the argument

Who the book is for; why people actually leave; the terms defined from their roots; and the rules of inquiry, each fallacy with two examples — one a believer falls into, one an atheist does.

  1. ١. لمن هذا الكتاب، وكيف تقرؤه
  2. ٢. لماذا يترك الناسُ دينهم فعلًا؟
  3. ٣. معاني الكلمات قبل الجدال فيها
  4. ٤. كيف نعرف أنّ شيئًا صحيح؟

Part Two · The arguments

Existence and beginning; the fine-tuning claim as it actually stands; consciousness and morality; the intelligibility of the world. For each: what it establishes, what it does not, and the strongest reply.

  1. ٥. لماذا يوجد شيءٌ بدلَ لا شيء؟
  2. ٦. هل للكون بداية؟
  3. ٧. هل ضُبط الكونُ ضبطًا دقيقًا لتقوم الحياة؟
  4. ٨. الوعي: لماذا يصاحب الدماغَ شعور؟
  5. ٩. الأخلاق: من أين يأتي الواجب؟
  6. ١٠. لماذا يفهم العقلُ الكونَ، وتنجح الرياضيّات في وصفه؟
  7. ١١. الفطرة، وهل يثق العقلُ بنفسه بلا خالق؟

Part Three · The objections

Evil, pain and divine hiddenness; science, evolution and who made God; geography, wars, happiness and the difficult texts.

  1. ١٢. لماذا الشرُّ والألم إن كان اللهُ موجودًا؟
  2. كلمةٌ إلى من قرأ ما سبق ولم يقتنع
  3. ١٣. ألم يُغنِنا العلمُ عن الله؟
  4. ١٤. التطوّر: هل ينفي وجودَ الخالق؟
  5. ١٥. من خلق الله؟ وأليس الأبسطُ ألّا يكون إله؟
  6. ١٦. لو وُلدتُ في الهند لكنتُ هندوسيًّا — أفليس الدينُ وراثة؟
  7. ١٧. أليس الدينُ سببَ الحروب؟
  8. ١٨. أستطيع أن أكون سعيدًا وأخلاقيًّا بلا دين — فما حاجتي إليه؟
  9. ١٩. لماذا يطلب اللهُ أن نعبده؟
  10. ٢٠. نصوصٌ يُستشكل ظاهرُها

Part Four · From a Creator to revelation

If God exists, why does He not show Himself; five tests for any claim of revelation — given to you to weigh ours first; what if you wanted to return; and what no one knows yet.

  1. ٢١. إن كان اللهُ موجودًا فلماذا لا يُظهر نفسَه؟
  2. ٢٢. كيف تعرف أنّ كتابًا وحيٌ من الله؟ خمسةُ معايير
  3. ٢٣. ماذا لو أردتَ أن ترجع؟
  4. ٢٤. كيف تحاور من يشكّ — وكيف تحاور من يؤمن
  5. ٢٥. ما لا يعرفه أحدٌ بعدُ — مؤمنًا كان أو ملحدًا

Part Five · Did God speak?

What the Quran says about itself; how it presents the universe as signs to look at and reflect on; and the claims of “scientific miracles” examined: what holds and what does not.

  1. ٢٦. هل تكلّم اللهُ حقًّا؟
  2. ٢٧. كيف يعرض القرآنُ الكونَ؟
  3. ٢٨. «الإعجازُ العلميّ»: ما يثبت منه وما لا يثبت

Part Six · The letters

Twelve letters and an introduction to them — they argue nothing and prove nothing. One of them is a letter <b>we refused to write</b>, and the refusal is the letter.

  1. الرسائل: اثنتا عشرةَ رسالةً تُقرأ ولا تُتّخذ دليلًا
  2. من ملحدٍ سابقٍ إلى ملحد
  3. من نفسِك إلى عقلك
  4. ردُّ العقل — لِمَ لم يقنعني ما عُرض عليّ، وأين أقف أنا عاجزًا
  5. من الكون إلى الإنسان
  6. من أعماق الماء
  7. من الكتب إلى الملحد
  8. الرسالةُ التي لا أكتبها
  9. إلى من يقول: أرني نصًّا يُختبر
  10. بعد السنة العاشرة
  11. الإلحادُ في نظر العقلاء من الجهتين
  12. اعتذارٌ بلا «لكن»
  13. من كاتب هذا الكتاب — بعد مئة عام

References (204)

Write to us

If you have something you cannot explain, an idea you believe cannot be refuted, or a place in this book you think is wrong — write it. We will look into it. And if your idea refutes something here, we will publish it in its place in the book, with the date and the text that stood before it.

٠ · characters · 40 minimum, 6,000 maximum

Before you send
And five things to know
1. We never publish your name. It appears unsigned unless you choose one.
2. We may remove what identifies you or anyone else — a town, a workplace, a date — and put […] in its place. We remove, we never add, and we never change your words.
3. You may withdraw it at any time without a reason. A code appears after you send — keep it: it is how you check on it and how you delete it, at <span dir="ltr">/write</span>. We cannot recover it if it is lost.
4. We do not store your IP address or your email, and we do not link what you wrote to your account if you have one.
5. We do not publish accusations against a named person, threats, or anything identifying a minor — even when true. That is the limit of what we may publish, not a judgement on your honesty.

This essay is our own composition; nothing in it is attributed to the Qur'an or the Sunnah. What is quoted from a researcher is cited to its place, and where we found no decisive answer we said there is no decisive answer — an essay claiming to settle everything loses its reader at the first point they know is more complex than stated.