08/06/2006
IWDM Study Library
IWDM on Religion and Science 
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

00:00 Speaker 1: Radio audience we bring to you the spokesperson for human salvation, Imam WD Mohammed, Takb?r! 

00:11 S?: Allahu akbar! 

[background conversation]

00:29 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Peace be unto you. As-salaam alaikum.

00:32 S?: Alaikum-as-salaam.

00:34 IWDM: We thank God for our presence here today. We always begin with Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim, that is with God's name the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer. We want to speak to the radio listening audience and our live audience here today on the subject of faith, solid faith. We're here in Homewood, Illinois, again, for the first Sunday address. We are pleased to be together again. We thank God for life, and for the opportunities for a better life. We're living in a time that's bringing religion and science toward agreement as to what is reality. Both religion and science requires faith. We don't think of it that way, because we are not conditioned to think that way. Science is mostly based upon theory. Before science arrives at fact, science has the base or the foundation of theories. We have a scientific world. We have a world that tells us all about the nature of matter, how matter is composed.

02:49 IWDM: I remember as a student and I was private schooled in Chicago, being taught by teachers, science teachers, physics, general science and physics, and if you had those subjects or science, you know that science says that matter is composed of small particles that you can't see with your eyes. And it has gone on the theory called the molecular theory that molecules are composed of atoms. Atoms are composed of charges, and none of this can be seen by the physical eye. So it still remains a theory, and theory means that they can't prove it to the rational mind and physical eye, except upon reference, observing certain behavior of matter, and reference.

04:30 IWDM: Or believing that since these results come when we use these theories, we get certain results, and these results hold up. A person believing in life after death, or the hereafter, or another life, a better and higher life to come, believes in that on faith. But the faithful persons are recorded in scripture and in regular life, our life, as having certain experiences that give them reason to believe that that is reality. That it does exist. The same for the belief in God, it is a belief, it's faith. But the experiences that we have personally as people of faith are as much evidence for our faith and belief in matters of religion as these theories are for the scientific world.

06:12 IWDM: We experience it in our souls, we experience it in our mind, we experience it in our life, we see it happening in the lives of others. Many times we experience it together, two people or more witness the same phenomenon, or the same spiritual happenings in their lives and identify them the same. So what is the difference between theory and faith? The scientist would not have gotten where he got, or where he has gone, and made the progress he has made if he had not had faith, he had to have faith. Faith in what he believe would be the results of faith in what he believed is a reality. So we think of the world and we're conditioned to think of the world as the world of know and reality. Scripture says the whole world is deception, deception. You are not really seeing reality when you are looking at the world.

07:37 IWDM: Now there was a time when man was looking at the world and believing the earth was flat like a table, and that if you go so far you'll fall off the earth. But observation over a long period of time, and experience, and knowledge increased in knowledge brought mankind to accept as common knowledge that the earth is round. And there is some proof that the earth is round. One is given in science, or in the general science courses. Say, if you notice when you're out on the oceanfront, and the ships are coming in toward the shore, toward the bank, the land, the shore, you see the top of the ships first, and then the rest of the ships come into view in time as they approach, which is proof to a rational mind that the earth is round.

08:55 IWDM: Similar proof is given to us in religion to support what we believe in, that there's a God that is not just God over creation, but a living God, an active God, a God that gets into my personal life whenever He wants. This is what the faithful believe in. And we have, I say, as solid an evidence of this as the world of science, as does the world of science. We have to change the way we think. We have been influenced by secular world, science, human claims, man's claims that fascinate us, and escape our mental capacity, in other words, leave us without explanations and make us think that man is a miracle worker. And he is, but he's not the first miracle worker, and he's not the biggest miracle worker. We're talking about solid faith, solid faith.

10:40 IWDM: Both religion and science, I repeat, require faith. Science calls it theory, for religion it's F-A-I-T-H, faith. Humans are born sinless, sinless. There is no inherent sin, period. However, humans have a proclivity toward error or sin, but are not born sinners. There was a time in the history of our criminal studies in the United States and criminology in the United States when it was believed that if you could stop a criminal from having children, prevent him from having children, it would help reduce crime. It was believed that the criminal most likely would produce a criminal, that it was inherent, that behavior was inherent.

12:00 IWDM: It wasn't long, over a period a time that was rejected here in these United States. And they took the position that no child is born a criminal. So here we find religion and science agreeing, coming together, not today, many years ago, religion and science was taking similar positions. If you really are an observant person and you have clear mind, and you think on what the world has done, and think upon what you have read in scripture, the world has just lived scripture. Scripture came before the world. And the world has been living scripture as though somebody gave science, or man of science, his plan for his life. Exactly what has happened is what was predicted. And I could give you many statements from religion, from scripture to explain that and support that. To believe I am born a sinner is to be crippled for life, spiritually and mentally. Every field of knowledge knows to succeed one has to have a positive self-image or a view of the values or the value of oneself as good and appreciated. So the reason why so many people are failing in life is that they have a crippling belief or idea that cripples them, prevent them from performing at their capacity or their ability, because they have been told human beings are born in sin, are born with sin.

14:52 IWDM: Somebody was already messed up when it came to accepting sex. And they were the ones who thought themselves special creation, special creation that they have rejected flesh and pursued religious light and had become another creation above human creation. And they imposed upon themselves as God revealed in scripture, the last scripture, that they imposed upon themselves celibacy. Have nothing to do physically or sexually with a female, and required that of themselves of their aura, that you don't marry women, you're married to the word of God. And that influence is what we see in the belief that man or human beings are born sinful or in sin, born of sin or in sin. This is not something that starts in the Gospel, it starts in the early scriptures.


17:04 IWDM: That if you do wrong, your children are going to inherit it, your children will be punished for your wrong, they will inherit your sin, that's in scripture. But do we understand it? No. We take it literally and we take it to be speaking directly to the matter which it is not. It's speaking indirectly to the matter or to the subject, not directly. No child necessarily has to be affected by the bad behavior or sins of the parents. And we see that in life, we don't need anybody to prove that to us. We see extraordinary children come up in the worst conditions, and from the worst households, and they turn out to be just super. So, we don't have to have anybody prove it to us, we see it in our own life. I don't think most of us bought that, anyway. I think those that can't find a job, bought it.

[laughter]

18:36 IWDM: I think that those that can't follow good leadership, bought it. I think those that can't follow good sense, bought it. But, I think a lot of us never bought it. The human family, praise be to Allah. The human family has human family solidarity, as our destiny. We have to accept the unity of the human family. Man has progressed, socially and materially on this earth, to the position now, globally speaking, that we cannot accept to ignore other nations, other people. Not only do we have to recognize their existence and their right to their own future, as they choose to have it but we have to also recognize that they have a right to share in the wealth of the world. That their lands should be respected as their lands, and our lands should be respected as our land. And we can't run from each other anymore, we can't live economically without each other anymore, we have to work together and cooperate for the good of us all on this planet earth.

20:29 IWDM: These are the realities, this is the reality. This is the reality that was prophesied in scripture, that would come. That things in God's creation were working automatically, both in the material creation and in the human creation, working automatically to bring home the destiny as God intended it to be, not as some nation or we intended to be but as God, the Creator intended it to be. And when we read scripture, we see it plainly unfold in the history of man's material, social and material life. We see history just unfolding. We see it speaking. Yes, speaking in man's material life, speaking in man's social life, speaking in man's spiritual life, in his whole life. We see scripture just speaking.

21:37 IWDM: Here is what was said and look what's happening, huh? What was said is now seen in what's happening in this global community of man today. Some of you doubt faith, you don't want to trust faith, so your faith is weak. And I'm sure a lot of you come from Christian background, and a lot of you are in the audience are Christian, in the radio listening audience, perhaps. And you might recall the preacher saying, quoting the gospel, quoting Christ Jesus, peace be on him, "If you have so much faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can do wonders". Huh? So much faith as a grain of mustard seed.

22:35 IWDM: Now, think about this. In the Quran, also the Bible, these two books say very much the same thing, when addressing major issues of doubt and faith. If you have so much faith as a grain of mustard seed... My father had me... My mother, pardon me, I'm sorry, had me take care of the garden. She had me work the garden. I saw her planting mustard seed, so we could have some mustard greens. Those seeds are so small and light, a little breeze can blow them away, that's how small and light they are. But if you take one grain of mustard seed and put it in your finger, be careful 'cause you will drop it, you can hardly see it, that's how small it is. And you rub it, you'll see its heart, and you look at it, it looks dead. But when you put it in the place where God intended it to go, to have life again, it becomes a big bush. And just one leaf has weight, one leaf of that mustard seed has weight.

24:04 IWDM: If you have so much faith as a grain of mustard seed, that grain of mustard seed looks dead and it's hard. [chuckle] Solid faith. Solid faith. That's the subject, solid faith. Muhammad, the Prophet taught his followers what God revealed in the Quran, "Be together, stand together as a solid wall, as a solid wall." And we stand together shoulder to shoulder as a solid wall when we pray together in congregational prayers. And we are standing upon faith. We take the stand upon faith. And God says, "Look at the heavenly bodies." And both scriptures point us to the heavens for us to observe the wisdom for higher order of human life on this planet Earth. God says, "Observe the bodies that you see in the sky and how they appear to be supported with no props or no supports under them that you can see."

25:50 IWDM: What is that saying to us? That is saying not only your life, your life, but the existence of the material universe. It is existing upon powers that you can't see. The sun, you can't see what's holding it up. The moon, you don't see what's holding it up there. You get a telescope and you look at planets or bodies, material bodies, mass of... Mass... Mass, material mass bigger than ours, planet like Jupiter, and you can't see, looking at them in a telescope, you can't see what's holding them up there. And science tell you of the trillions and trillions of tons, not pounds, in that mass. And that is hanging out there in space seemingly with no support holding it up. That's pointed out to us, that tells us "Trust the God that designed this creation, trust the God that designed the universe. Trust him. You can't explain everything he did. Trust him, he knows. You know not." So look at what he has done and come up with your explanation for it. Now, I know all about [chuckle] gravity, universal gravity, that's what science tells us. But look, when the farmer look up there, he doesn't see any universal gravity. All he see is big, big, big bodies up there and nothing holding them up.

28:00 IWDM: So God's lesson is going to stay no matter what science says. God gives us a lesson. Have faith in the Lord that has designed this world in creation, the way it is designed, too big for your mind to grasp. So have faith in the one that designed it. Go back to your own life, die through your own mind, and live again. So he has made your life like the life of a plant. A parable of human life is a parable of a plant, scriptures. Not one scripture, scriptures, okay? All right. So to live again, the plant produces a soft, moist thing called a fruit. Even if it becomes a crusty thing with a hard crust over it like a nut, a walnut, we got a lot of walnuts around now. If it produces something like a walnut with a hard crust over it, it was soft before it became hard, and then it becomes hard. And it invites you and your curiosity to go inside it, and you go inside it, you find some soft meat. The walnut. [29:34][It's soft and choose nice, nice. And if you put that hard nut in the ground, and it gets the situation that God created for it to have a birth, it will have a birth, the soft will break through the hard. The soft will break through the hard and take root in the earth and it'll spring up not a walnut but a walnut tree with just bushels of walnuts. Ah? That's God's work.

30:17 S1: So you have faith that your little dried up life can have life again, just give it to the plan of God and it will come to life again and spring up bigger and better and more abundant than it was before.

[pause]

30:50 S1: Greed for dominance fears our being human family. Greed for dominance. Hence, since time began this category of power seekers have sought to influence human behavior against family, against morality, against human intelligence. Further, the influence has been designed to set the innocent up for profiling. Meanings can be mean. Do you hear what I said? Meanings can be mean. The expression black was associated with honor, dignity, nobility, etcetera. This meaning was popular in Arabia and in many other parts of the ancient world. Black clothing is worn now and has been worn for centuries and thousands of years indicating respect and sacredness. Black clothing worn by people of faith. Our scriptures reveal to man that night, and I put in parenthesis here,( ignorance and faith, night, ignorance and faith.) Now we know fear too is a darkness, that's blackness. But I'm concentrating on, just these two because these are the two that scripture concentrate on, ignorance and faith. Man was born ignorant and had to learn the world and he had to have faith to make progress in that direction.

33:14 IWDM: Night coming before day. Day, knowledge and the ability to reason. The sacred stone designating the corner and the starting point for pilgrims circumambulating from right to left, doing their pilgrimage at the holy site we call the house built by Abraham and his son. That stone is black in hue that marks the corner, the starting point for the pilgrims, they go from right to left around the house. Muhammad, the Prophet, demonstrating how the pilgrimage should be done called Hajj in Arabic, when he went to this corner he bent over and kissed the black stone. Black must have a good meaning at least in that holy precinct. People have been stigmatized 'nigger'. Nigger of negro. That's where nigger come from, the word 'negro'. Negro comes from Spanish. Negro meaning black in Spanish. Now here is the people that have been made very angry to the point that they have hurt somebody because they were called nigger and nigger and negro means the same, just means black.

35:22 IWDM: And I remember as a youngster, a teenager, having seen boys and men growing up, "You call me nigger again, I'll break your head. I'll break your face if you call me nigger again." Now, I understood it. I understand it because though it's a word that goes back to a meaning we can accept, black, our people are black. We come from the country where our forefathers mostly black. I say "mostly". See, I was raised to think scientifically. So you can't show me a white African-American and get me to call that person black. That's a contradiction of good sense and my early education. Okay. So you can't get me to do that. I'm different. Now I ran into a few like me but there aren’t many. So we stop calling ourselves 'negroes'. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the influence of his great organization, the Nation of Islam, brought us to accept black as a precious and valuable property in the people. I say precious property, certainly, and valuable property, certainly. If God made one people not to be burned up and peel, the skin peeling off of them and getting skin cancer so easily, if he favored the black people with that color and that color has those benefits, we should recognize that and appreciate being black, at least in a hot climate.

[laughter]

37:54 IWDM: Might not help you too much in Greenland or the North Pole somewhere, might not help you too much, but it has great benefits. And everybody's physical features and makeup has good benefits for them in their native land where they came from. Now they come out of there, it might work against them. But not just 'negro', people have been stigmatized 'kike', people have been stigmatized 'chinks', people have been stigmatized 'crackers'; you had something to do with that, didn't you, buddy? 

[laughter]

38:40 IWDM: People have been stigmatized 'A-rabs'. Those people of Arabia are not called 'A-rabs'. They are Arabs. Arabs. But every now and then you might hear those that are troubled by them, they know they are called Arabs, but they won't say Arabs. "Yes, those A-rabs." United States postal worker, I just happened to be near him and he was talking about what was had going on in the news with the Muslims over there. And he said, "Well, you know those little A-rabs." Boy, it took all the control I had to keep on moving and not say something to him. A-rabs. Now here is a nigger picking up the racist way, the racist attitude and the racist prejudice, the racist prejudice. I wanted to tell him, "Hey, you were a nigger just yesterday, buddy."

[laughter]

39:58 IWDM: People have been stigmatized 'Spics'. And the stigmas keep coming. They don't stop. New ones come in, irritate others and they start nicknaming them, start giving them bad names. Our scriptures tells stories of evil, evil conspirators, conspiring to influence human behavior and human interest to position humans to be stigmatized and profiled. There is a small number of evil conspirators who get in powerful positions to educate the public and the public buy their education and become their slaves. Mentally, not physically, become their slaves mentally. They get your mind and they govern your mind and they maneuver you in every area of life as though you are their robot. The conspirators are given different names and charged with seeking to discredit sacred authority and are charged with wanting to usurp the powers of the Lord Creator. That is the evil ones.

42:00 IWDM: Yes. They sought to have a dominance in the world. And they'll seek to have a dominance in the world and to keep that dominance. They seek to keep a dominance and take God's place in the hearts of the faithful. These conspirators in scriptures are charged with presenting themselves as angels of life and sitting on the throne of power in heaven as God. Now, this is scripture so don't have a problem with me. I'm just reading scripture. And now that God has blessed me to be in the position to deal with it or I find it so, so relieving and rejoiceful. Oh yes. Now, dear people, Lucifer is given in scripture. Lucifer, bright and morning star. Lucifer, the scripture says, "Why have you fallen Lucifer?" Now, here is the chief of the evil ones. And he planned his evil on high and was rejected, cast down. So, you see the similar language for these issues in our religion and in the religion of the Christians. The Christians scripture says, "Why have you fallen Lucifer?" And the Muslim scripture says, "Get you down from here." Addressing the same evil conspirator. Yes.

44:23 IWDM: I remember reading before I was really a leader in the community. I think I was a minister but I was not a leader for you at that time, just a local leader. I remember reading a book. I believe that book was by a German, and the book was about us. There are people who work in darkness have seen a great light, have seen a great light. And the book was about slaves, how rational some of them were, and perceptive some of them were. But the book also focused on evil. The element of evil in a good society, in an innocent society. Now, who would think that Lucifer and his friends would establish themselves in the United States of America. And who would think that in a beautiful land like ours with a beautiful ideology, political ideology like ours, a democracy, a beautiful democracy would be chosen by the conspirators and the chief of the conspirators that they should have their kingdom here. Who would think that would happen? Any of us would if you just slow up and understand what they're all about. Why would he go to Jamaica with his big plan? Why would Lucifer go to Jamaica with his big plan? His plan is big. He is looking for the biggest place with the biggest opportunities.

47:00 IWDM: And he likes it that the most progressive place also believe in freedom, and he sure wants to be free. So, he comes over here and he tells all of us, "Be free. Be free from everything. Don't let anything hold you." I know you heard in the early days of scripture that you shouldn't eat pork. Eat everything you want to eat. And I know you heard in early scriptures that you shouldn't drink strong liquors. You drink whatever you want to drink and a little bit is good for your stomach.

[laughter]

48:00 IWDM: Now, you know when something gets so wicked it's funny, that's the devil. Devil will make you laugh at his wickedness, and he'll laugh with you. If he was here he'd be laughing right with you. And he'd be having his... His laughter would be the loudest, to keep you laughing. Every time you stop laughing a little slow, a little low in volume, he'll pick it up, he'll laugh louder to get you up again. "Yeah, don't drink liquor, who in the hell said that?"

[laughter]

[pause]

48:49 IWDM: We must all accept blame for our behavior. No matter how subtle, how powerful, deceitful, Lucifer and his evil ones are, our scripture say "God will not excuse us for our behavior." The Bible says, "Rebuke Satan and he will run from you." Rebuke him means chastise him with strong language. "Speak out against his evil", says "and he will run from you". So that doesn't sound like some creature that we can't deal with. Those words and scripture in the Bible give me courage to do better than him if I have to. And in the last revelation scripture, the Quran to mankind on this earth, it says, "Fight the schemes of Satan, because his schemes, pardon me, for his schemes are weak." He has no power over you except to invite you through your weaknesses, and then you will follow him, the blame is on you.

50:37 IWDM: However, in civilized or civil society, among our fellow citizens are those who accept to be their brother's keepers. So how do we deal with it? We know some people are more vulnerable than others. Some people are more gullible than others, some people are more stupid. But we're supposed to be our brother's keeper. Those who know should protect those who don't know. Those who are strong should try to impart strength to those who are weak. And that's better than trying to work somebody up to faint and fall down and start foaming at their mouth. And they go back home and come back next Sunday for another charge, and the house stay as dirty as it was before, the house stays as poor as it was before, the house stay as stinky as it was before.

51:42 IWDM: I go back to neighborhoods that I was raised in as a boy, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. I go back there today in Chicago and I find the same sight of people with no purpose, men wandering around on the corners, hanging around the tavern, lot of storefront churches. They going in there and get a powerful charge and come right back to the same old nasty, funky poor life. That has to stop, and I don't care how much the preachers or anybody get excited and say, "Oh, he shouldn't do that," I'm with Bill Cosby, all right? I'm with Bill Cosby. He is the moral voice for African-Americans today in these United States.

[applause]

52:42 IWDM: Street style public behavior that want to be seen, want to be seen as vulgar, ignorant, rude, boisterous, confrontational and crazy. We have a epidemic of that in the streets. Our young men and our girls are following right behind them or taking the lead sometime. So what are we going to do? We're going to play with these great issues or take them serious? 

[pause]

53:26 IWDM: If we give ourselves and allow our people, our neighborhoods, to give... To give in to such behavior, then we are actually setting our own selves up to be stigmatized, to be profiled, for bad treatment, for extermination. Yes, for extermination. You don't have to be killed physically, or done away with physically, to be exterminated. Any time the influence and spirit of human life, in the form that it should be in, is not in you any more, you've been exterminated. We can't knock on the door of intelligence and get an intelligent human response from you, you have been exterminated. Yes, we influence, to behave against our own human nature and human intelligence, setting our own selves up to be profound. We are not real people, we are actors. Actors. A-C-T-O-R-S. Actors. The average one has the spirit of an actor that get on the streets and behave in the manner described in this paper. Yes, an actor. Get up and look in the mirror, to see if you're looking according to form, for the act. Huh? Yes? You dress up for it, you even put on expression, got to get that expression. I don't give a... For anybody. And look at yourselves, and want to make yourselves so you can believe that you're really real. I don't give a... For anybody. Got something against the door.

[laughter]

56:19 IWDM: Open the door and pull it back and slam it against the wall. Go out and just knock the, knock the screen door, just hit it in. Knock it, knock it out of your way. We should not accept group collective racial behavior that profiles us for bad treatment and social rejection. The living puts away the dead. Thank you very much. May God give us light, and open our eyes for the light and forgive us our ignorance and our sins against our own light so that we'll have divine mercy and a new chance for life and progress. That's our prayer. Amen. Or as we say it, amin.

57:26 IWDM: This completes our first hour. We want to give salaam, greetings of peace, to our radio audience who are in Mississippi and many places in the South, and growing in the South, and also in the North, and I'm understanding that on the East Coast too, and West Coast, California area, that our radio listening audience is growing. So we wish that you support it, support our radio listening audience, and we hope to speak with you again after our convention, which is 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of September, the Labor Day weekend. So we will, after our convention, we will plan to announce our next first Sunday address live to our radio listening audience and to our live audience here in Homewood, Illinois. I like that, Home-wood, Illinois. Peace be unto you. As-salaam alaikum.

58:48 S?: Wa-alaikum-salaam.

[applause]

58:50 S?: Takbir! 

58:51 S?: Allahu Akbar! 

58:51 S?: Takbir! 

58:51 S?: Allahu Akbar! 

58:54 S?: Takbir! 

58:54 S?: Allahu Akbar! 

58:55 IWDM: Allahu Akbar. God is greatest. Allahu Akbar.

59:04 IWDM: Before we begin the second part of this address to the audience here, we want to invite those who have special announcements, or special words to bring to us today to come forward.
