All that transpires is God’s plan

THE letter by T Markandan ( POST, August 23-27) refers.

The source of all “religious-writings” or beliefs isn’t always automatically our creator, as most people think. The Greeks and Romans made up their own statues, paintings, fables and folklore. They started calling these their “gods”. If “heaven” was their final goal after death, how were their statues or paintings going to provide it? So, to your question, “Are there other ‘gods’ in the universe?”, the answer is no. The guidance of God, that came to all His prophets, have always strongly forbidden idol-worship.

“Yawm” (plural:ayyam) was used in early Scripture to denote 1 000 years, 50 000 years or even a 1 000 million years. Its translation into English shouldn’t therefore be restricted to a “24-hour day” only, but also “age, era, period, aeon, epoch”. The “Heavens and Earth being created in 6 days” in the Bible, is therefore believable.

In the Qur’an 21:30 – “heavens and the earth were as one unit of creation, before We clove them asunder”, supports the “Big Bang theory”. Q21:33 – “and the Sun and the Moon, all celestial bodies swim along in its rounded course” confirms orbital paths. These are just two of more than 6 000 verses from a 1 425-year-old Holy Book.

The earliest known artist, who painted most of the Hindu “god-pictures” is Raja Ravi Varma. Within his own lifetime, he couldn’t have had each and every “god” to “still-pose” for him. He would therefore have painted them how he perceived them to be”. God created man, birds, animals, fish and trees, how “He perceived them to be”, ie in “His own image”.

So where was God when 19 died in a horror crash? He was in Heaven. All things happening everywhere, all the time, is always in His knowledge. He is Omnipresent and Omniscient. It is His plan, not ours.

It is His design to take away two souls per second anywhere in he world. He also grants life to four babies per second anywhere, of any race or colour. SHUNMUGAM APPADURAY

Hillary