Naturalism and the Value of Human Beings

The claim of atheism to say that God doesn’t exist is not an intellectual position that exists in a bubble. If it claims to be true, atheism falls under some very serious logical implications which it has no way of escaping. As is widely known, most atheists are naturalists that claim that only natural laws govern the universe and that everything can be explained through physical processes as no supernatural existence is true. Then the question must be asked, if everything is a blind natural physical process, then what difference is there between a human and a piece of candy? If I were to pick up a hammer and smash a piece of candy and do the same to myself, according to naturalism, there would be no real difference. The pieces of candy and the pieces of my skull are essentially the same things, cold hard matter, a random rearrangement of atoms and particles. The immediate response that, as humans, we feel pain, have feelings, and intellect, can also be explained away as mere neuro-chemical occurrences happening within our brains. And that human beings are still just cold hard matter, no different from a piece of candy. Put simply, anything we do as humans can simply be reduced to products of purposeless physical processes. The sentimental reality one holds onto so tightly as a naturalist is unjustified as everything including feelings, emotions, or even a sense of value is reduced to blind physical matter and random processes. This forces upon an atheist, and a naturalist by extension, the conclusion that there is no ultimate value to their physical body, their existence, and their purpose. Any insistence on the contrary clearly reveals that the atheist/naturalist is not truly what they claim to be and that naturalism, in addition, is ironically, unnatural. Contrary to atheism and naturalism, Islam places a very distinct emphasis on the value of mankind, in Islam every human being is born with a fitrah, the innate acknowledgment of a human’s worth, and the fundamental moral and ethical truths. A Muslim fully believes that he is born with a purpose that is judged far above the purpose of other existences and that his creator has preferred him over most creations, as Allah states in the Quran:

Now, indeed, We have conferred dignity on the children of Adam… and favored them far above most of Our creation. (17:70)

Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose. (3:191)

Islam readily values those that do good and avoid evil. It contrasts those who obey God and thereby do good, and those who are defiantly disobedient, and thereby do evil:

Then is one who was a believer like one who was defiantly disobedient? They are not equal. (32:18)

Thus, for an atheist/naturalist to truly be what they claim to be, they must readily acknowledge that they are worth no more than the dirt they walk on or the water that they drink. But the fact that no atheist/naturalist could ever ascribe to such a position demonstrates two facts, that every human being is born with a fitrah, an innate disposition which readily acknowledges human beings with purpose and value as mentioned in Islam, and secondly, that atheism and naturalism are by their fundamental principles, unnatural and illogical.

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