The more we study the reality of physics and chemistry, the more we learn the truth of who we are and what we are. We learn that we are actively getting help from the environment (specifically Earth) to do anything. I’m not talking just about food/energy/provisions—I’m talking about even the basic mechanics of movement.
When it comes to combat sports, there seems to be a toxic culture of feeling superior just because you can beat someone up, whether that is due to your muscle strength, size/weight or the amount of training/time you put into the work. When they beat someone up in a fight or in a combat sport, the ego is activated—the sense of supremacy and superiority is activated. Yet, when we study physics and chemistry, and when we consider our core inherent property: that all of our strength qualities are simply just things given to us by God—through this, God has given us knoweldge that we really do not posses any right to feel even an atom’s weight of superiority over anything or anyone when it comes to our inherent qualities. We will see that no bragging rights are due whatsoever when we actually evaluate what is going on.
Guns and weapons: not much different than using only your body to win a fight:
There seems to be an understanding that being able to hurt someone with guns/weapons in a fight does not give you as much bragging rights as being able to beat someone up using only your body with no weapons. I will explain here God willing that it is actually identical in that neither gives you any bragging rights whatsoever.
Consider the gun—the force that propels the bullet that comes from the gun is the gun powder: God’s chemical energy. It does not come from your muscles. And this is one of the reasons many feel that shooting someone is not a bragging right. The force that propels the bullet does not come from your body, but from a source external to your body that propels the bullet at these speeds. Now, let’s consider some physics:
Gravity:
“Size and strength”. That’s what matters a lot in fights and combat sports. This is why we have weight classes. Weighing more and being fat gives one an advantage over their opponent, even if both are of equal muscle strength. This is because it takes the heavier person less force to overcome the force of gravity acting on the body of the lighter person; and it takes the lighter person more force to overcome the greater force of gravity acting on the heavier person’s body.
Gravity…a literal external force external to your body from the earth that acts directly on your body to help you against your opponent. It is not your mass that produces the significant force of gravity that benefits you in a fight, rather it is Earth’s mass and the resultant gravitational forces that provide you with the force of gravity acting on your body.
Again, there is an external force, that is not your body, that is actively fighting against your enemy. And in grappling sports specifically, where you need to be able to move your opponent, even pick them up, you are not really fighting just your opponent’s muscular resistance, but also a literal environmental force that is fighting against you and providing that additional resistance you must overcome. And the heavier person doesn’t have to do anything or apply any force to benefit from the gravitational aid—and neither do you. The point of this is to show it is not ‘only your body’ that is being used in a fight, and that it is similar to both of you having and using weapons like guns, and we will explain what this entails later on below.
Another thing worth mentioning is the center of gravity. In grappling sports, they tend to lower their bodies, to lower their center of gravity, to have the forces of earth’s gravity applied at certain angles making it harder for the opponent to move your body. You are basically using literal forces from the environment (not from your body) applied on your body
Consider when a fat person sits on you, or just applies some of their body weight on top of you. What wrath of force are you experiencing—their force or that of the earth’s gravity and its interaction with their body? In wrestling, BJJ and other grappling sports, use of one’s weight and putting it on top of the other person is absolutely critical and that is what can allow smaller people to sometimes defeat larger people in fights: the help from gravity, an external force not provided by you, but from the earth that actively helps the fat person. Consider if there was zero gravity and how easy it would be to move the fat person off of you—in fact, recall that weight is entirely a function of gravity—without gravity, there is no weight—there is no gravitational force for you to have to work against to lift the fat person off of you. This is why fat people can win fights against much thinner people even if the thinner person is stronger: because of earth’s gravity. But if there was no gravity, or very little gravity, the stronger yet lighter person would be more able to win this fight because there are less external forces from the environment to fight against, and fat person is weaker and can’t apply as much muscular forces on you (below, we will even shoot down this idea of muscle strength too as ‘using only your body’ when we discuss God’s 3rd law of motion).
Conclusion: gravity is a literal force provided to you from the environment and not your body, and this force is actively being used against your opponent. You are getting help from the environment. Literal actual help and forces applied on you that work against your opponent. It’s almost like you are wearing an electronic exoskeleton that provides you with additional forces beyond what your body can do to fight against your opponent.
God’s third law of motion:
God has created for us and given us yet another understanding that humbles us. We think that being in a tiny speck in the middle of a vast universe is humbling enough, but God even provides us with laws of physics and their understandings to show how dependent we are on literally everything—and that should be a source of humility for the reverent.
God’s third law of motion, who God has endowed Newton with its discovery (often called “Newton’s third law”) is one such example. Whenever you throw a punch, it is not your body that propels your arm/fist, it is the earth itself. You have to press on the ground with your feet, and then the ground ends up applying an equal and opposite force, and that is what propels your fist forward. If there was no help from the earth, you’d be able to swing your arms, but you wouldn’t be able to swing it with as much force as we can when the earth pushes against us. Imagine throwing a punch while you are floating in outer space, weightless and nothing to push off of—such a punch would be flimsy and nothing like the punch force that comes from the earth pushing against us, in accordance with God’s creation/will.
Thus it is not ‘only your body’ that you are using when throwing a punch, but you are using the environment. Similar to how it is not only your body you are using when you are swinging a sword at someone, it is the sword too (environment), even if your muscles can apply a lot of force on the sword, you are still using an environmental object (not ‘only your body’) to make that effective attack. Same is true with punching, it is the earth that is providing that force, not your body. If you applied your forces in the outer vacuum of space, you would not be able to punch someone with such force at all compared to when we get help from earth in providing us that force that propels us forward in accordance with God’s third law of motion. Consider if the floor was made of a soft substance like pudding or water and whether you would be able to throw a good punch–you need a hard environment/ground to throw a good punch just as you need a hard weapon rather than a soft one to be effective.
Using a sword of knife means you depended on something from the environment (sword/knife) to get this job done. Throwing a punch similarly means you depended on something from the environment (earth applying a force back at you to propel you) and so using a sword/knife is not much different than using ‘only your body’, because in reality, you don’t really ‘use only your body’—you use Earth’s gravity and Earth pushing back at you—or pushing off of something (the ground) in order to lift someone up or punch someone: whether you are pushing off the environment (hard/solid ground) to propel you or whether you are pushing against a tool/weapon to propel it, you are literally using something from the environment to win the fight—similar and analogous to the use of weapons. God has created the laws of physics such that you are dependent on something to even throw a punch–to even walk, to even breathe-in the required molecules to stay alive. That is a blessing from God that should be humbling to anyone who really considers what is going on: you are completely dependent and always using the provisions from God–down to the molecules in the air, the chemical energy in food, down to how much we use of the environment and how we need an external object to push off of to even walk or stand or throw a punch–all of it should remind us of what we are.
Side note: consider what it was like before oxygen was discovered/understood. The people thought breathing was what exactly?–some kind of required activity; the ancient Greeks thought the breath itself was the soul–and that is kind of the origin of the ancient idiom of “we saw the breath taken away from them” when talking about someone dying. They thought the breath was tied to the soul, just an activity that indicates the soul is present–completely oblivious to the fact that the breath is literally taking God’s provisions in the environment that we need to stay alive. God has blessed us with creating us this way and giving us this knowledge so that we should be humble and thankful.
Gravity is the analogy of the gun, God’s 3rd law of motion is the analogy of using hand-to-hand combat weapons
In the above analogies, the help from Gravity is more similar to the gun example (in that an external force is literally providing forces to aid you), and God’s third law of motion is similar to using a handheld weapon like a sword/knife (in that you required the use of the environment and not just “only your body” to win a fight).
The point of this is just to show that no one truly wins a fight by using “just their bodies”. And this should be a reminder that humbles us. There are ‘Sith’ forces in the environment that literally propel our bodies and active ‘Sith’ forces that provide resistance to movement (gravity). It’s like using a gun—forces external to your body propelling something forward. Now of course, some may say, but those in a gunfight who can shoot better are just more capable and superior at this. And this is when we learn that all of our qualities, are simply things given to us by God which we will also discuss later on below.
Now, some may protest that ‘using only your body’ in a fight is using less of the environment, you are only using Earth and its gravity whereas using weapons require more use of the environment. Sure, but in both cases, there is no ‘using only your body’. And worse, this is a moot point since a heavier person uses more gravitational forces from the environment to help them in the fight, a stronger person uses more of a force pushed back at them from the ground to propel them. Moreover, consider a combat fight between and elephant and an ant. The elephant require more use of the environment, more oxygen to inhale, more food, but it still wins the fight—are we gonna say the ant is superior because it uses less from the environment? It doesn’t matter how much of the environment you use, all that matters is how much of the environment your body can use compared to your opponent when it comes to capability of winning a fight–and even this is something just given to you from God–you were just given this quality, you didn’t earn it. Even you being motivated and dedicated, you were just given these motivations/dedications from your genes and environment and the people God made you associate with–you were just given these qualities, you didn’t earn it.
Every dimension humbles you:
Through God’s grace and God’s teachings to us: Literally every dimension we view human physical power/strength, we see there is no right to boast about anything. That all power is with God alone. And the most important dimension is the recognition that your qualities are literally dependent on God entirely and literally given to you by God.
Imagine this analogy: in your mind, you create 2 beings. You decide to make the one on the left larger & stronger, and you decide to make the person on the right smaller and weaker—and as a result, the person on the left boasts that they can beat up the person on the right. What right does the person on the left have to feel proud of themself, you just gave them that quality and if you had willed, you could have made them weaker than the person on the right. All of its strength–its literally something you just gave them, and you could have easily given it properties making it weaker than the person on the right. And it literally depends on you constantly in order to even exist or have/maintain it’s properties/qualities (you have to keep thinking of these 2 beings, creating them in your mind (in reality, they are even dependent on God since you depend on God to even be able to think, but the analogy is meant to show that they “depend on you” just as we depend on God to even exist and to maintain our qualities and we depend on His decision as to what qualities He gives us).
Another analogy: suppose one person who takes anabolic steroids, boasts about being able to beat his identical twin brother who did don’t take steroids despite both of them lifting weights the same amount. But he took anabolic steroids, how can he boast about that? He was given something that made him stronger than the other person—and the other person could have simply taken steroids too. Well, that is exactly how it is with God. Any stronger person simply was given that strength (and the genetic determinants to strength) from God, and God could have easily given that strength (and the genes that make them strong) to the other person. What right do you have to boast about things that were simply given to you?
Third analogy: You give someone $1 and the other person $1 billion dollars. The billionaire then boasts at their wealth, at their resultant social class, and forces the poorer person to work for them humiliating jobs. What right does the billionaire have to boast about their wealth? It was just given to them. The same is exactly the case when it comes to your qualities-your muscle strength, power, speed—all of it are literally just things given to you. You may win combat competitions against other people, but only because God has simply given you more than them. Zero right to boast or feel proud about any of your qualities. And it even gets worse, even if you have worked hard for something—the dedication, motivation, the amount of time you put in practicing the sport—all of them are given entirely to you by God. It is God that gave you the genetic qualities that make you predisposed to being motivated/dedicated in this sport; it is God that put you in an environment and exposed you to people and situations that foster you and make you motivated, dedicated to practice the sport in the first place. And so even your working hard is something God gave entirely to you—whether through your genetics or through your environment or the interaction of both, regardless, it is something God has given to you.
Consider stepping on an ant, or abusing an infant—does that make you feel strong, in control? Does that give you any sense of superiority or power? Of course not, and it shouldn’t. God simply gave you your qualities, gave the ant & infant their qualities. How can you boast about something God simply gave you? Something you didn’t earn? And as we saw in the third analogy below, even what you earn and work hard for, is something God has given you by giving you the genes that predispose you to working this hard, the environment that made you interested in this sport and it is God that fostered your motivation and dedication through it. All things are simply given to you by God.
“What about God, isn’t He boasting all the time in the Quran?“
Wrong. Not at all. God simply is the perfect, the greatest, the most high. Saying the objective truth so that you (humans) recognize who He is, is not boasting. It’s like saying the sun is bright, space is vast, the earth is wide—all are simply fact statements. God is the greatest is similarly a fact statement—an objective reality. But you, you are a contingent being, completely and fully dependent entirely on God, every little detail of your life is controlled by God, your qualities are entirely given to you by God, your relational qualities to other people is given to you and to them entirely from God, you did not create yourself, you are basically a protozoa and even infinitely less when it comes to what you are compared to what God is. And that is the fact statement about you—that you are contingent on God, all your qualities are simply given to you by God, You have zero right to be proud about anything about yourself.
Your identity; The truth of who you are:
God’s identity is that of a Necessary Being whom which all reality is contingent on and comes from. God is objectively the Maximally Great Being, the One who ‘embodies’ the Absolute Perfection, the One who ‘embodies’ the Absolute Excellence. And since nothing is greater or can even come close to The Infinite—there is nothing that can possibly be worthy of worship other than God alone. All things you witness—every impressive thing you witness, all of it reflects God’s glory—and so all praise is due to God alone. When God simply tells you who He is, He is not boasting at all—He is simply giving you the facts; He is simply telling you who He is as a mercy from Him so you appraise Him a just appraisal because this is the only way you can be close to Him.
Your identity, the key component of your inherent quality, is that your power entirely comes from God’s power and is actually God’s power (the weird phraseology here and above because of some limitations in our language to explain this concept). The same with your qualities and your achievements—all of them are given to you by God through the interaction of your genes that God gave you and the environment God put you in and the people God created and made you surround yourself with. You are an entirely contingent being, dependent entirely on God and you were simply given those things from God and thus you have no right to boast about any of this. Your core inherent identity is you are a being that has zero right to boast or feel proud of your qualities or achievements—all of them are simply things given to you by God: this is simply the truth of who you are—the truth of what you are.
The cause of Satan’s fall:
This is such a critical point that I would be remiss in not mentioning it here.
Imagine on the day of resurrection: being in the presence of God. Seeing a maximally excellent being, the most perfect being who ‘embodies’ the absolute perfection and excellence—who is the perfection and excellence. Imagine being in the presence of such a perfect being, knowing that you don’t have His approval. Imagine how critical the approval of your parents, spouses, children, co-workers are or people who are really important to you—imagine losing them and their approval, to the point they completely reject you and won’t even speak to you or look at you. Now, imagine the same with someone who just embodies the absolute perfection and ‘beauty’ and being in His presence and wanting to please Him and have His approval—and caring most about His Approval much more than you care about the approval of people you most care about in this world (all souls inherently are joyed to be with God, all souls intrinsically want God), and imagine feeling shy and guilty for what you had done against Him to the point that you can’t handle His presence and so you run away because you can’t bear the shame. Imagine committing such a heinous crime, the worst possible crime you can think of and having to face your parents, spouse, family and close friends—and the guilt, shame and shyness in speaking to them while being in their presence—and imagine their complete rejection of you. We can’t even imagine how much worse this would feel. God’s approval and love of me is all that I care about, and knowing that He does not approve and does not love me and abandons me on the day of resurrection would by itself be hell. I can’t imagine how bad it would really be when we witness a being who is literally the absolute perfection, such an amazing and perfect being, and not having that being’s approval. It’s a complete loss; there is no greater loss.
God’s approval is something to strive for. And it starts with humbleness and humility; killing the ego. The lack of humility is what caused Satan to be banished from God’s kingdom:
[7:12] He said, “What prevented you from prostrating when I ordered you?” He said, “I am better than he; You created me from fire, and created him from mud.”
[١٢:٧] قَالَ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَلَّا تَسْجُدَ إِذْ أَمَرْتُكَ قَالَ أَنَا۠ خَيْرٌ مِّنْهُ خَلَقْتَنِى مِن نَّارٍ وَخَلَقْتَهُۥ مِن طِينٍ
[7:13] He said, “Therefore, you must go down, for you are not to be arrogant here. Get out; you are debased.”
[١٣:٧] قَالَ فَٱهْبِطْ مِنْهَا فَمَا يَكُونُ لَكَ أَن تَتَكَبَّرَ فِيهَا فَٱخْرُجْ إِنَّكَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰغِرِينَ
Any boasting or feeling proud is an injustice against God; you did not give God the due credit; you failed to recognize that all of your qualities are simply given to you from God; you failed to recognize that you deserve no praise or recognition for your qualities—that all praise is due to God alone; and you failed to credit and praise God for your qualities—instead you felt superior, worshiped yourself for your qualities, lost sight of the fact that the praise for the impressiveness of the qualities God created you with goes to God alone and not you. Did you create yourself? You were just given those qualities from God. So what right do you have to boast about things given to you? And who does all credit actually belong to? You always need to make sure you are appraising God a just appraisal. You need to value God as much as He deserves, and all praise is to He. Read it again: “ALL praise”. If you praise anything other than God, you’ve ‘created’ a partner with God who also deserves praise (لقد ‘خلق’ شريكًا مع الله يستحق أيضًا الحمد ).
And this one slip up by Satan was enough to get him banished from God’s Kingdom. And God even says “you cannot be arrogant here”. Consider the weight of the crime of being arrogant, and how that would exclude you from God’s Kingdom. Arrogance of the self is a direct injustice to God—credit given to yourself rather than to God alone = idol worship of the self rather than of God alone.
God even calls Satan a disbeliever for doing this:
[2:34] When we said to the angels, “Fall prostrate before Adam,” they fell prostrate, except Satan; he refused, was too arrogant, and a disbeliever.
[٣٤:٢] وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةِ ٱسْجُدُوا۟ لِءَادَمَ فَسَجَدُوٓا۟ إِلَّآ إِبْلِيسَ أَبَىٰ وَٱسْتَكْبَرَ وَكَانَ مِنَ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
Satan is a disbeliever for doing this because Satan had disbelieved in who God really is and to whom all praise/credit belongs to, even of your own qualities. He is a disbeliever even though he believed in God and believed in God’s system–he disbelieved in one aspect of who God is, and that is enough to make someone a “disbeliever”. Here God warns us in the Quran that arrogance is a form of disbelief (kufr)—you have disbelieved in who God is—whenever you are arrogant, you have disbelieved in something about God—you have disbelieved that all power, all praise, all glory belongs to God alone and you as a completely contingent dependent being on God has absolutely no right to even an atom’s worth of praise or glory for the qualities you were simply given by God, and to God belongs all the praise even for the qualities He created and gave you and others. Full stop.
All praise be to God alone, the lord of the universe, the author of existence, the owner of reality.
Relevant Quran verses:
[Quran 28:70] He is the one GOD; there is no other god beside Him. To Him belongs all praise in this first life, and in the Hereafter. All judgment belongs with Him, and to Him you will be returned.
[٧٠:٢٨] وَهُوَ ٱللَّهُ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ لَهُ ٱلْحَمْدُ فِى ٱلْأُولَىٰ وَٱلْءَاخِرَةِ وَلَهُ ٱلْحُكْمُ وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ
[Quran 2:165] …All power belongs to GOD alone…
[١٦٥:٢] … ٱلْقُوَّةَ لِلَّهِ جَمِيعًا …
[Quran 3:154] …Thus, they said, “Is anything up to us?” Say, “Everything is up to GOD.”
[١٥٤:٣]… يَقُولُونَ هَل لَّنَا مِنَ ٱلْأَمْرِ مِن شَىْءٍ قُلْ إِنَّ ٱلْأَمْرَ كُلَّهُۥ لِلَّهِ
[Quran 4:78] …Say, “Everything comes from GOD.” Why do these people misunderstand almost everything.
[٧٨:٤] … قُلْ كُلٌّ مِّنْ عِندِ ٱللَّهِ فَمَالِ هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ ٱلْقَوْمِ لَا يَكَادُونَ يَفْقَهُونَ حَدِيثًا
[Quran 31:18-19] “You shall not treat the people with arrogance, nor shall you roam the earth proudly. GOD does not like the arrogant showoffs. Walk humbly and lower your voice—the ugliest voice is the donkey’s voice.”
[١٨:٣١] وَلَا تُصَعِّرْ خَدَّكَ لِلنَّاسِ وَلَا تَمْشِ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ مَرَحًا إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ مُخْتَالٍ فَخُورٍ وَٱقْصِدْ فِى مَشْيِكَ وَٱغْضُضْ مِن صَوْتِكَ إِنَّ أَنكَرَ ٱلْأَصْوَٰتِ لَصَوْتُ ٱلْحَمِيرِ
[Quran 25:63] …the worshipers of the Most Gracious are those who tread the earth gently, and when the ignorant speak to them, they only utter peace.
[٦٣:٢٥] وَعِبَادُ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَمْشُونَ عَلَى ٱلْأَرْضِ هَوْنًا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ ٱلْجَٰهِلُونَ قَالُوا۟ سَلَٰمًا
[Quran 8:17] …It was not you who threw when you threw; GOD is the One who threw. But He thus gives the believers a chance to earn a lot of credit. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.
[١٧:٨] وَمَا رَمَيْتَ إِذْ رَمَيْتَ وَلَٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ رَمَىٰ وَلِيُبْلِىَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ مِنْهُ بَلَآءً حَسَنًا إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
[God’s footnote 8:17 (explained through Rashad)]: Believing in God necessitates believing in His qualities, one of which is that He is doing everything. Without knowing God, there is no belief (23:84-90).
Disclaimer: These blogs are not meant to be authoritative for Submission, but instead, informal documentation of my evolving thoughts. I do not claim ‘truth’ to anything I say or write, even if I currently feel like it is likely true based on my current reasoning and knowledge–anything and everything I say is subject to revision or complete abandonment of the theories/concepts/thoughts discussed in any of these blogs. See the about this blog section. Join our discord server, where you can chat with us or ask any questions (there is frequent activity in the voice channels):Https://Discord.gg/Submission
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