Some basic Questions about Religion from a total non-believer

[binary solo]

@OP. Firstly congratulations on going to the source and not simply taking what is seen in some fundamentalist Muslim communities as being the "true" Islam.

1. Think about it. If God absolutely proved himself such that only the mentally deficient couldn't recognise his existence then where does that leave the freedom for each individual to chose in the most fundamental of all philosophical issues? between accepting God or not, what is right and what is wrong. There's no room for enquiry, debate, growth, learning. No room for opinion. What happens to atheists who have rejected the notion of any God if God really does exists? Well, what happens to a newborn child if they haven't received proper sustenance in the womb? The newborn child isn't punished (in an it is to blame sort of way) for having been malnourished in the womb, but the newborn child does suffer (and for the rest of its life potentially) because it will be born weith diminished faculties (lower intelligence perhaps, physically weak maybe, weak immune system possibly). Malnourishment isn't an either/or thing, there are degrees of malnourishment and even a conscientious, mother might not do everything right. But what's the difference between a newborn child that was somewhat malnourished in the womb vs. one that was exposed to illicit drugs, smoking, high levels of alcohol, HIV virus and environmental toxins? Such a child won't have problems of malnourshment, it will be deformed, retarded, diseased.

2. The one passage from the Quran I've read equating women to land reads to me that you need to be productive with women. So a) make babies and b) take good care of them, otherwise they won't be productive. Think about the analogy, if you don't take good care of your farmland it will fall fallow and you will starve. So the Quran is instructing men (in a culture at the time Islam was established when women were horribly abused) to upraise the status of women in their culture. You also can't take a single passage in the Quran about women in isolation, read all the passages in the Quran about women and you will get the full context of how Muhammad viewed the status and importance of women. The Quran gave women rights that hitherto they didn't have  in Arabic culture. One example is the right to divorce their husbands. That one right forever reversed the idea in the Arabian culture that women were a man's possession. A woman cannot be regarded as a man's possession if the woman can choose to dissolve teh marriagne and live an independant life. Also if a woman can divorce a man it means the man can't do whatever he wants with his wife, because she'll leave.

3. Here you are confusing equality of status (all people are equal in the sight of God) with equality of capacity (everyone has exactly the same talents and abilities all to exactly the same degree). In terms of capacity to receive revelation/inspiration from God, well see question 1 for the answer to that. It's as if you want everyone to be born with the same level of intelligence, the same level of physical strength etc. What determines your "worth" in the sight of God is not what talents and capacities you're born with, but whether you use them to the limit of their potentialities and, more importantly, what you use your talents for. God is like a person and we are like worker ants. To a human one worker ant is like any other in terms of ability, and worthfulness, but to the worker ants there are more capable and less capable worker ants. The differences perceived by the ants between themselves seems vast. But the differences from the view of the person are miniscule compared to what the person is capable of. Consider this too: When the president of the USA sends an envoy to a country to negotiate and convey the policies of the Amreican govt on his behalf does he send one envoy or many? He may send different envoys to different countries at different times, but to one country at one time he will send one envoy. Seems like a pretty sound approach to me.