God Rises Against Isis

By Mouhannad Moses

Evil is not an entity that exists in one single group of people, in a certain place, or in a particular time. Evil is a phenomenon, a desire, a thought, a philosophy, a means, and a practice that emerged when Adam and Eve broke their covenant with God. Today evil manifests itself in global terrorism, in dangerous philosophical ideals, in scientific hypotheses, and in traditions, cultures, and everyday acts that are not in line with Godbribes, sexual misconduct, abuse, bias, corruption, and inappropriate words and actions alike.

God Rises against ISIS is about God, people, and good and evilit is about life. Jesus said in the gospel of John 10:10, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Author Mouhannad Moses demonstrates this fact in its most intrinsic elements, showing how from history to philosophy, from fiction to science, and from religion to atheism, the two absolutes of good and evil triumph in virtue of their realities. But the only other absolute that determines their prevalence is God.

Take a good look at the world. What do you see? There is too much evil and not enough good. The equation is simple and cannot be falsified; people with God is equal to good, while people without God is equal to evil. The time is now to embrace God and add to the good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973625926

Mouhannad Moses

Mouhannad Moses was born and raised in Iraq, where religion was strict, government was dictatorial, and war was an everyday reality. Disillusioned by the corruption of these political and religious institutions, Mouhannad became an atheist before discovering the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mouhannad converted to Christianity and married his wife after his mandatory service in the Iraqi Army, and he and his wife enrolled in the Christian Alliance Institute of Theology in Lebanon. Serving in Syria as a pastor and there experiencing religious persecution, he and his family emigrated to the United States; he writes about this experience in his book America, Jesus, and Me the Refugee. Today Mouhannad and his family live in Binghamton, New York, where he works as a church planter.

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Copyright © 2018 Mouhannad Moses.

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Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-2593-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2594-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2592-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018904516

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/25/2018

To the faculty of CAIT

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1   Evil Is Bad For Life

Chapter 2   The World Of Man

Chapter 3   God Gave Them Up to Empty Speculations

Chapter 4   How Should We Then Live?

Conclusion

Resources

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would have not come into reality if not for the efforts and the kindness of some of my dearest friends. Jillian Grattan dedicated a great deal of time to editing chapter 1. I’m grateful for her excellent work and suggestions. John Pinzone did wonderful work in editing chapter 2; I owe him my gratitude. P. J. Bogoniewski, a pastor and author, edited and gave great comments on chapter 3, for which I am very thankful. Gary Behrns, a retired French professor at the University of Buffalo, spent many long sessions with me editing and revising chapter 4. I am very grateful for his help and friendship.

Finally, I owe a great deal of gratitude to my wife, Enas, who, despite her busy schedule with school and overwhelmingly busy life as a mother to our three daughters, gave me a great deal of support, assistance, and encouragement to help me finish the manuscript and send it to the publisher.

INTRODUCTION

The famous French writer Alexander Dumas rhetorically pondered the question, How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it. The noted English journalist Malcom Muggeridge shared the same thought but in a different form; he stated, We have educated ourselves into imbecility. Bemoaning two different cultures and contexts, these two writers shared an idea that is indeed not irrelevant. Since the beginning of time, humanity has indulged itself in corrupt, delusional, and false doctrines that have distorted its very image and that of God. Right is wrong, and wrong is right. Questions that were asked in the past are still being asked today as well: Why is evil so prevalent? Why is the world so chaotic? Do we have a free will to make correct decisions? Is morality relative? Where is God in all of this?

Questions such as these, I address in chapter 1. In chapter 2, I present a brief history of time in terms of thoughts and ideas. I characterize the world of man within the framework of culture, science, and religion. In chapter 3, I discuss the solutions and the speculations presented by great thinkers, intellectuals, and politicians. I evaluate their resourcefulness, their inevitability, and their side effects on humanity. Finally, in chapter 4, I present Jesus Christ as the only and the ultimate solution, the one who has the correct diagnoses of our problems, the right answers to our questions, and the cure to the problem of evil. In Him and only through Him, humanity can have the full satisfaction of the mind, the heart, and the soul.

CHAPTER 1

EVIL IS BAD FOR LIFE

It is certainly good to be alive. My parents were happy when I was born—or at least, this is what they told me. Human life doesn’t come out of the ground. Life comes out of a mother’s womb. In the womb, I was first made and my heart took its first beat. It is the warmest place on earth. It is the sacred shrine where I was created as someone special, belonging to a special person called my mom. She cared for me before I was born. She fed me, loved me, felt me, and expected me. She made a vow before God that from the day she gave birth to me to the day that she dies, she will love me and give me her support, time, and energy. She raised me well through ups and downs, and even though I have become a grown man, in her eyes, I am still the little baby she held once in her beautiful and tender arms.

There are times that are eternal, very precious, and unique, times that define who we are and give us a sense and a taste that we can never forget. Of course, like most people, I wish I had the magic to freeze some of these special moments and replay them over and over and over again. Physicists object and say, You need no magic; science will soon find a way to take you back in time and leave you there. Politicians say, You don’t have to worry; soon we will fix the whole world, and you will see the future so much better than the past. Religions refuse both premises and advise me to follow neither science nor politics, but their rules instead. They say to have a beautiful life, you need to put your faith in their belief system, and God in heaven will reward your trust. Atheists laugh and dismiss them all. They say, Don’t be a fool; for there is no god or heaven or hell; there is only you and the life you make.

I am not sure who is right and who is wrong. I am apparently as confused as everybody else. I am, to be honest, in agony to know the truth. I do not want to blame my mom, and I do not want to blame my dad, but I wish they had told me beforehand. Life is not made of marshmallow, nor is it a playground full of flowers and sunshine. Rather, life is a maze that has many paths, and each path has its own tricks and deluges. Life is a picture painted by the strokes of every person, each with his or her choices. Be careful what you paint, for what you put in that picture is inerasable, spatiotemporal, expressible, reflective, and eternal in time.

RELATIVE MORALITY AND NONSENSICAL PROPOSITIONS

How do I start searching for the meaning of life, and to whom do I have to turn? Some have suggested that there is no way to know and there is no access to real knowledge to guide you. They say that everything out there is only language and propositions; it is human utterances and words of nonsense. I may find that to be true, for the brilliant German-English philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said at the end of his book Tractatus Logico-philosophicus,

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.¹

But what is the meaning of actions and deeds? Are we left to random effects? Do we have a say in the matters of this world? Do we decide for ourselves, or is there somebody else who decides for us? Who is in charge? I find it imperative to know, yet to my dismay, some say that it is foolishness. Mortiz Schlick, the head of the Logical Positivists’ Vienna Circle, and a brilliant scientist, said,

It is really one of the greatest scandals of philosophy that again and again so much paper and printer’s ink is devoted to this matter, to say nothing of the expenditure of thought, which could have been applied to more important problems.²

And, yet Schlick was not as adamant as other Logical Positivists. When some were asked about morality and its theories and standards, they commented,

Moral theory is not only futile, it is literally nonsense. Moral claims … are only expression of emotions (or attitudes or imperatives) and so they cannot be either true or false. Any given theory is just one expression of emotion among many, and is not in any legitimate sense truer than the others. In the eyes of Logical Positivists, moral theory is either simply a branch of psychology, or else it is nonsense.³

I wonder if they ever considered revising their position, especially after the death of their dear friend and colleague Schlick, who was intentionally shot to death by a student as he was ascending the steps of the university to teach a class. Did moral decisions regarding life and death ever cross their minds again?

MEANINGLESSNESS, PESSIMISM, AND FUTILITY

I am a believer in the human mind and its strength to reason problems out and to find adequate solutions. There has to be a way to know solid truths that Wittgenstein may never have been fortunate enough to know. For after all, we are only people, and we are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. I am curious what a man of God, such as Solomon, son of David, would say about life and morality. To my surprise, he does not sound like a man of God as much as a pessimistic philosopher. He writes at the beginning of his book Ecclesiastes 1:1–2, The words of the Teacher, son of David, King in Jerusalem: Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.⁴

What does Solomon mean by this? Let’s not judge him too fast. For Solomon, just like everybody else, was a man who sought to find meaning in his broken world and explanation for its suffering. It is true that he was a king and a wise man, but that never made him any different from the rest of us in nature. Rather, Solomon’s position and wealth made him more confused than the average person. He could not quite understand the reason behind his boredom and sense of futility, despite the power and the riches he had. Solomon struggled and reasoned to find answers that could satisfy his soul.

And he wasn’t alone. A contemporary of Schlick and Wittgenstein, the physicist Arthur Holly Compton, also voiced concerns about life and morality. In the introduction to his book The Freedom of Man (1935), Compton addressed the question of free will. The fundamental question of morality, a vital problem in religion, and a subject of active investigation in science: Is man a free agent?⁵ Compton was afraid that if one loses focus regarding one’s identity and goals, then chaos, meaninglessness, and confusion would result. Especially as he contemplated the growing role of science in social, political, and moral life, Compton was convinced that it is within the power of the intelligent individual to decide his or her destiny. In order for life to be peaceful and less troublesome, one has to apply the disciplines of