Truth

[Zafran]

This is just nonsense, we know about gravity and the way planets and suns work and we have this knowledge through observation and experiment. As Scotty in Star Trek used to say "captain, you canna change the laws of nature". The very idea that say Ohms law or Archimedes principle will stop working is preposterous rubbish. You are confusing induction with deduction. With induction the idea is that we argue "more of the same" so if we toss a fair coin 30 times and it comes down heads each time in your mind the next one is bound to be heads also or a high probability. But the point is that previous occurrences do not assure us of the next or even increase our confidence.

but how do we know that it will also work in the future - how do you know that the same experiment we did in the past be it a million times is going to give us the same results tommorrow? - we dont - its a high probablity and thats it - its not absolute as there is always a chance that it might not work in the future - it requires belief that all the observations, experiments of the past are going to give us the same results the nex day.

Your calling it rubbish that the "law gravity wont work" thats your belief - which i believe is sound.

So if we take the so called proofs for the Qu'ran then they are all inductive and like all inductive arguments circular. So you say the Qu'ran is syntactically perfect so must have been written by God because if God writes anything it will be syntactically perfect. This is just induction so no amount of such proofs of conjectures will make the idea that the Qu'ran is God word true and worse than that you cherry pick; ONLY consider inductive arguments that move in one direction. You CANNOT even consider negative arguments but logically they are just as valid. For example, I could argue that if God wrote something it would be entirely new, nothing in it would or could be found elsewhere or argue that since Mohammed's revelation was an entirely private affair it is hearsay and I can go on like this with dozens of other conjectures that prove the Qu'ran is not the word of God.

I would say the Quran is the word God and is as clear as night and day - if you cant see that then its your problem. I can consider arguments against the Quran but thats like considering a negative argument against the law of gravity or the archmedes prinicple.

 

[Hugo]

but how do we know that it will also work in the future - how do you know that the same experiment we did in the past be it a million times is going to give us the same results tommorrow? - we dont - its a high probablity and thats it - its not absolute as there is always a chance that it might not work in the future - it requires belief that all the observations, experiments of the past are going to give us the same results the next day. Your calling it rubbish that the "law gravity wont work" thats your belief - which i believe is sound.

It will work in the future because it is a law of nature there is no probability about it, its is absolute. There is zero evidence for your conjecture that "gravity" might change or might not work and its been around for billions of years. If you take the line that laws of nature can change then there is no common ground on which to demonstrate anything but what is very very odd here is that you are sceptical about laws of nature yet you have no doubts that a man was given revelations is a cave in the Arabian desert.

I would say the Quran is the word God and is as clear as night and day - if you cant see that then its your problem. I can consider arguments against the Quran but thats like considering a negative argument against the law of gravity or the archmedes principle.

This is no argument - 300 years ago there were plenty of people who thought blood letting was a clear as night and day and before that people thought the earth was the centre of everything. That is why we have rational powers and scepticism otherwise we would still be in the dark ages and never move forward. You betray yourself here because you consider arguments for the Qu'ran to be as strong as for gravity yet you are sceptical about the one but not the other - how can that be if one is a honest observer? Any conjecture about gravity can be considered if it can in principles be falsified but I do not know of a single way to falsify the conjecture that the Qu'ran is the word of God so we simply cannot know if it is true or false. You can cook up any number of tests to show it is true and I can invent any number that show it is false. We could even have a pointless competition where we trade conjectures and I show yours don't cut it and you show mine are poor also so we end knowing that no proof is possible.

With faith its not a matter of proof because it will always rest on unprovable conjectures about God and who or what he is. Faith is then a matter of being convinced in some way that what you hear is God speaking and as such you implicitly trust that he exists.

 

[Zafran]

It will work in the future because it is a law of nature there is no probability about it, its is absolute. There is zero evidence for your conjecture that "gravity" might change or might not work and its been around for billions of years. If you take the line that laws of nature can change then there is no common ground on which to demonstrate anything but what is very very odd here is that you are sceptical about laws of nature yet you have no doubts that a man was given revelations is a cave in the Arabian desert.



This is no argument - 300 years ago there were plenty of people who thought blood letting was a clear as night and day and before that people thought the earth was the centre of everything. That is why we have rational powers and scepticism otherwise we would still be in the dark ages and never move forward. You betray yourself here because you consider arguments for the Qu'ran to be as strong as for gravity yet you are sceptical about the one but not the other - how can that be if one is a honest observer? Any conjecture about gravity can be considered if it can in principles be falsified but I do not know of a single way to falsify the conjecture that the Qu'ran is the word of God so we simply cannot know if it is true or false. You can cook up any number of tests to show it is true and I can invent any number that show it is false. We could even have a pointless competition where we trade conjectures and I show yours don't cut it and you show mine are poor also so we end knowing that no proof is possible.

With faith its not a matter of proof because it will always rest on unprovable conjectures about God and who or what he is. Faith is then a matter of being convinced in some way that what you hear is God speaking and as such you implicitly trust that he exists.

There are a few problems here - I never said I was sceptical about the laws of nature - I just said that they suffer from the problem of induction which shows that they are not absolute. Just because you test them in the past does not make them any more true or false in the future - or even absolute. the job of science has never been to give us absolute answers but the best answers possible. I have no idea where you get the idea of laws of nature are absolute.

As You cannot seem to consider the opposite view that the law of gravity is not absolute how in God's earth do you expect somebody else to consider a negative argument against the Quran! You preach one thing but you do the opposite.

I would like you to re read my post and actually see what I am saying rather then writing things which you believe that I am saying. Like the below

it requires belief that all the observations, experiments of the past are going to give us the same results the next day. Your calling it rubbish that the "law gravity wont work" thats your belief - which i believe is sound.

falsifying something doesnt mean its true or false - Even it suffers from the problem of induction. We need to define what true and false actually is.

With faith its not a matter of proof because it will always rest on unprovable conjectures about God and who or what he is. Faith is then a matter of being convinced in some way that what you hear is God speaking and as such you implicitly trust that he exists.

the same way we have to have faith if the law of gravity is going to work tomorrow.

 

[M.I.A.]

i would say id rather argue against gravity than the quran... and in all ways it is easier to do so.

i was just talking to somebody about string theory the other day. i guess that the theory of gravity has been made so infallable that string theory cant accomodate, i found this oddly funny.

 

[syed_z]

I wish you would read the posts and not offer this kind of stuff. I cannot prove that the Qu'ran is or is not the word of God - no one can. Perhaps you know how to do it so can tell me how it might be falsified, I do not know of such a test and neither does anyone else. If you cannot think up a falsification test then it is beyond science and remains so and you can believe it if you wish and I can reject the idea. To begin with you have to prove that God exists and no one has done that yet so we cannot even start. Try to understand that if I say there are fairies at the bottom of my garden then YOU cannot falsify it can you and the so the truth cannot be established.

You have to understand what proof is and it does not look like you do. For example, I could take 1000 different electrical circuits and in every one ohms law would apply without exception so any test you think of must be able to be used in any circuit and will always verify Ohms law. So if you say a proof that the Qu'ran is the word of God is that it is syntactically perfect then I must be able to apply that same test to ANY book and if I find that book syntactically perfect then it also must be the word of God - ispso facto the test is obviously useless.

Since you cannot which i knew you couldn't... why are you trying to argue at the forums about Islam... many times on different threads, have you left off and never replied, to many questions i posed you... either you try to change the subject... and last time i told you to prove me whether all the Norms and Laws Quran gives came to exist after the Revelation of Quran and did not exist Pre Islamic revelation, you gave me the example of Ancient Greek full of errors and ignorant Law, which allowed baby girls to be buried.... and you talk about Revelation of Quran, while ignoring the fact, that you DONT even have any proof that Quran is NOT the word of God... even though there are many Scientific Facts discovered by Muslims which were not discovered by the Medieval West living In Dark Ages, which Muslims came to know from Quran, which i can provide tons of proof.... but there is no point of you playing the Flute in front of a Cow... it wont even Move! Why do you even Challenge the Verses without having any proof to show that there is error in them.... find errors.... then come and reason.... other wise your example is of a person who is of no use to himself niether to others....

btw i think you should go for a check up, for you have Islamophobia...

 

[Hugo]

There are a few problems here as you show I never said I was sceptical about the laws of nature - I just said that they suffer from the problem of induction which shows that they are not absolute. Just beacsue you test them in the past does not make them any more true or false in the future - or even absolute. the job of science has never been to give us absolute answers but the best answers possible. I have no idea where you get the idea of laws of nature are absolute. As You cannot seem to consider the opposite view that the law of gravity is not absolute how in God's earth do you expect somebody else to consider a negative argument against the Quran! You preach one thing but you do the opposite. I would like you to re read my post and actually see what I am saying rather then writing things which you believe that I am saying. Like the below.falsifying something doesnt mean its true or false - Even it suffers from the problem of induction. We need to define what true and false actually is. the same way we have to have faith if the law of gravity is going to work tomorrow.

Have you never heard of 'deduction' and the scientific method? The problem of induction is that it is always circular but when we say talk about Ohms law we are NOT using induction but deduction. So I don't have to wait until the circuit operates before I know the parameters, I can work all of them out beforehand with absolute certainty. If I design an aeroplane I don't say aeroplanes with wings usually fly (induction) because I have worked it all out from known and proved scientific principles and mathematics. Can't you see that if I for example have an equation x + 1 = 4 that it cannot give me a different answer tomorrow and I am not using induction and I don't need faith. The same goes for say Newtons laws of motion they are a set of equations and are always true and again I do not need faith.

With regard to falsification you really don't get it do you? When we speak of falsification we are asking if you can think up a test. For example, in Ohms law I can work out the current if I know the voltage and resistance because that is what the law states. I can now falsify it by constructing the circuit and measuring the current. If it stands up to the test then the law is valid and it does NOT matter what circuit I use the same test will apply.

If I now try to use the same method on the Qu'ran or any scripture I run into trouble and the reason is that for any test to work it must be applied on any similar artefact. So if you say the Qu'ran is consistent then firstly it is a matter of opinion not fact and secondly if the conjecture is true it must apply to any book, it cannot just apply to the Qu'ran. Next it must stand up to any test that comes along not just the ones that give a yes. If it fails even one test it is falsified.

 

[Hugo]

i would say id rather argue against gravity than the quran... and in all ways it is easier to do so. i was just talking to somebody about string theory the other day. i guess that the theory of gravity has been made so infallable that string theory cant accomodate, i found this oddly funny.

What a strange thing to say, I nor you nor anyone else can ignore gravity but I can totally ignore the Qu'ran and it has zero effects on me.

 

[Hugo]

Since you cannot which i knew you couldn't... why are you trying to argue at the forums about Islam... many times on different threads, have you left off and never replied, to many questions i posed you... either you try to change the subject... and last time i told you to prove me whether all the Norms and Laws Quran gives came to exist after the Revelation of Quran and did not exist Pre Islamic revelation, you gave me the example of Ancient Greek full of errors and ignorant Law, which allowed baby girls to be buried.... and you talk about Revelation of Quran, while ignoring the fact, that you DONT even have any proof that Quran is NOT the word of God...

It is a very simple scientific principle that one cannot prove a negative. So here no one can prove the Qu'ran is NOT the word of God but that does NOT make it true or perhaps you can tell me how it does make it true. I will try again, suppose I say I (and others) have seen men from outer space, tell me how you will prove I did not?

The idea that scientific proofs came from the Qu'ran is totally fanciful. Even a cursory study of say the famous translation movement of the Abbasid's will show how they gathered books and idea from anywhere they could get them and then built on them. It is absurd to even think that all they did was search the Qu'ran. Just go and look at the life of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning; Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (981-1037), one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His 'Qanun fi-l-Tibb' is an immense encyclopedia of medicine covering pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments. He did this because he was a free thinkers and gathered information from wherever he could get it because he understood that scientific knowledge is universal it has nothing to do with faith and is the same for everyone.

I have tried to reason with you but your mind is so closed it cannot look outside the fence you have build around Islam.

 

[M.I.A.]

What a strange thing to say, I nor you nor anyone else can ignore gravity but I can totally ignore the Qu'ran and it has zero effects on me.

i believe in a message that has given the prophets peace and blessings be upon them flight to heaven and even flight in this world.
this was long before modern air travel so i guess in my eyes gravity is only a human construct, my belief is held in something else.
as far as gravity goes it can explain why things are held into orbit and also why we keep our feet on the ground, but in my opinion it is still a matter of understanding and debate.
as for the quran having zero effect on you, at least your intentions are clear...not many people who are narrow minded are open to anything other than there opinions.

 

[Hugo]

i believe in a message that has given the prophets peace and blessings be upon them flight to heaven and even flight in this world. this was long before modern air travel so i guess in my eyes gravity is only a human construct, my belief is held in something else. as far as gravity goes it can explain why things are held into orbit and also why we keep our feet on the ground, but in my opinion it is still a matter of understanding and debate. as for the quran having zero effect on you, at least your intentions are clear...not many people who are narrow minded are open to anything other than there opinions.

Surely God created gravity and everything, we certainty did not construct them and we should be in awe and wonder at such precision and beauty in the laws of nature and as far as I know God has not allowed us to debate them as if they were untrue or we can change them but he has allowed us to discover them.

Just a question but are you suggesting that those who who are sceptical about the Qu'ran are by definition 'narrow minded'?

 

[جوري]

Just a question but are you suggesting that those who who are sceptical about the Qu'ran are by definition 'narrow minded'?

:lol: well what other explanation is there if the 'bible' is your better choice? :haha: you really do tickle us.. subject your bible to some of that, let's see how well it fares if you were honest, or are you too good to be true?

 

[Hugo]

well what other explanation is there if the 'bible' is your better choice? :haha: you really do tickle us.. subject your bible to some of that, let's see how well it fares if you were honest, or are you too good to be true?

How about the truth of the following, be sceptical if you wish or find a Qu'ranic passage which compares in clarity with this same idea.

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 

[M.I.A.]

Surely God created gravity and everything, we certainty did not construct them and we should be in awe and wonder at such precision and beauty in the laws of nature and as far as I know God has not allowed us to debate them as if they were untrue or we can change them but he has allowed us to discover them.

Just a question but are you suggesting that those who who are sceptical about the Qu'ran are by definition 'narrow minded'?

i agree, discovery by man is from god, what i do not agree with is accepting something that has been discovered and then put into theory and not accepting something that has been discovered and not understood....is that the same as rejecting something or quietly ignoring it?
for example the plane of orbit that most planets, moons and such rotote on. they all sit on the same plane of rotation...god knows why,scientists do not.

science feels always too primative in many respects, whenever i look at it as a whole it seems crude and always open for improvement.
whenever i look at the quran i know its whole and has stood the test of time, science may try to disprove some points made by it but i look over and think its always on shaky legs and never one to judge....whatever you would rather believe in really.

 

[جوري]

How about the truth of the following, be sceptical if you wish or find a Qu'ranic passage which compares in clarity with this same idea.

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Nice paragraph, a bit sophmoric, I couldn't compare it to the Quran, there is nothing to compare, there is the language of men, and then the language of the divine, but I'll post that which is better by Antonio Machado, albeit the above wouldn't even qualify as a poem (let alone what you set it out to do)

Last Night As I Was Sleeping

​

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.


Translated by Robert Bly



should we worship antonio machado .. his words make more sense than saul's
all the best

 

[Zafran]

Have you never heard of 'deduction' and the scientific method? The problem of induction is that it is always circular but when we say talk about Ohms law we are NOT using induction but deduction. So I don't have to wait until the circuit operates before I know the parameters, I can work all of them out beforehand with absolute certainty. If I design an aeroplane I don't say aeroplanes with wings usually fly (induction) because I have worked it all out from known and proved scientific principles and mathematics. Can't you see that if I for example have an equation x + 1 = 4 that it cannot give me a different answer tomorrow and I am not using induction and I don't need faith. The same goes for say Newtons laws of motion they are a set of equations and are always true and again I do not need faith.

With regard to falsification you really don't get it do you? When we speak of falsification we are asking if you can think up a test. For example, in Ohms law I can work out the current if I know the voltage and resistance because that is what the law states. I can now falsify it by constructing the circuit and measuring the current. If it stands up to the test then the law is valid and it does NOT matter what circuit I use the same test will apply.

If I now try to use the same method on the Qu'ran or any scripture I run into trouble and the reason is that for any test to work it must be applied on any similar artefact. So if you say the Qu'ran is consistent then firstly it is a matter of opinion not fact and secondly if the conjecture is true it must apply to any book, it cannot just apply to the Qu'ran. Next it must stand up to any test that comes along not just the ones that give a yes. If it fails even one test it is falsified.

This is even more odd - you know that Ohms law works before hand? how? just because you worked an equation out and how do you know thats actually going to work in practice in the future - Even if it works a million times its still not absolute - there is always a probablity that it wont work. Its simply not absolute - Its never the Job of science to be absolute and doesnt claim to be absolute regardless of what the theory or law is.

it maybe known the past but that provides no certainity that they will work in the future.

For the test of the Quran - the Quran gives its own test which hasnt been met by anyone.

You should have no problem with this has you have no problem of following a law and claiming that it tells you the future and even going so far as denying the possibilty of it being wrong!

 

[M.I.A.]

love is a great tool and a hard one to keep hold of, especially as we as muslims always strive against our nafs and try to do jihad.
i can partly justify this as most live in a society where violents and fighting are not permitted, struggle is done on other levels especially against those that would go against you. but personal victory can set bad examples to those that would witness your victory, so it may be better to hope that the hands of those that are against you are there own undoing. that is the power of love and the ultimate hope and faith in god... and it may soften the hearts of those around you.
doubt it ever works like this though, just speculating.

 

[Lynx]

Have you never heard of 'deduction' and the scientific method? The problem of induction is that it is always circular but when we say talk about Ohms law we are NOT using induction but deduction. So I don't have to wait until the circuit operates before I know the parameters, I can work all of them out beforehand with absolute certainty. If I design an aeroplane I don't say aeroplanes with wings usually fly (induction) because I have worked it all out from known and proved scientific principles and mathematics. Can't you see that if I for example have an equation x + 1 = 4 that it cannot give me a different answer tomorrow and I am not using induction and I don't need faith. The same goes for say Newtons laws of motion they are a set of equations and are always true and again I do not need faith.

Although Zafran explained the problem of your post very clearly I can't help but put in my two cents also.

Newton's laws are NOT 'absolutely' true and they do rely on inductive reasoning. The mathematical equations only describe what would happen IF my assumptions about the natural world are true and your assumptions of the natural world are only true because of some inductive reasoning. But if the universe changed all of a sudden and Newton's laws no longer applied, what would happen to your mathematical equations? They would no longer apply and would no longer be able to give you accurate predictions. So it's very naive of you to say you will always know equations in Newtons physics will always be true; they will only always be true if what they are meant to describe stay the same and there is no logical guarantee that they will ! A rule of thumb that that helps clear up confusion between certainty and near certainty is to see if you get a contradiction if you assumed that something you think is absolute is not absolute. It's easy to see how tomorrow the universe could magically change and all your laws of physics will turn out to be wrong (this is logically possible and if this logical possibility exists you can't claim certitude, or at least not in the 'deductive' sense) but I suppose it's harder to see how an equation as simple as x + 1 = 4 could give you a wrong answer. Math is a little funny though, it seems to be the case, as Godel proved, that math will be true but unprovable logically.

 

[syed_z]

It is a very simple scientific principle that one cannot prove a negative. So here no one can prove the Qu'ran is NOT the word of God but that does NOT make it true or perhaps you can tell me how it does make it true. I will try again, suppose I say I (and others) have seen men from outer space, tell me how you will prove I did not?

The idea that scientific proofs came from the Qu'ran is totally fanciful. Even a cursory study of say the famous translation movement of the Abbasid's will show how they gathered books and idea from anywhere they could get them and then built on them. It is absurd to even think that all they did was search the Qu'ran. Just go and look at the life of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning; Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (981-1037), one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His 'Qanun fi-l-Tibb' is an immense encyclopedia of medicine covering pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments. He did this because he was a free thinkers and gathered information from wherever he could get it because he understood that scientific knowledge is universal it has nothing to do with faith and is the same for everyone.

I have tried to reason with you but your mind is so closed it cannot look outside the fence you have build around Islam.

The reason why Ibn Sina was a free thinker was because of these Verses of Quran which exhort the Muslim to see the signs of Reality in the physical world, in the process of History and in his own inner self (biology)!


(Al Quran 3:190-191)Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, there are signs for men of understanding. those who remember Allah while standing, sitting or (reclining) on their backs, and reflect in the creation of the heavens and the earth, (saying): 'Our Lord! You have not created this in vain. Glory to You! Save us, then, from the chastisement of the Fire.



it was words like these which inspired the Muslims to do research and their bases of research was Beleif in One God , and it was their Belief in words of Quran given by Prophet Muhammad (Saw) which made them do all these discoveries, the fruit which is being enjoyed by Modern Western Secular states....


Hugo it is your mind which closed, seeing yourself as always right, has even made you over look your faults, and is making you waste your time in this world, which is very precious... for you remind me of those, who work so hard for this world, while forgetting that the Real Life is Here after....


The Research done by Arab Muslims was done because the Quran tells them to look at the Creation and explore... A European understands this Because he is Unbiased.... but as you keep viewing the Muslims and Islam with your Discriminatory view, you see nothing but faults...


Rom Landau Author of the Well Known Book Islam and Arabs says...

"They might be summarized as the ardent desire to gain a deeper understanding of the World, as created by Allah ; an acceptance of the physical universe, as not inferior to the spiritual but co valid with it; a strong realism that faithfully reflects the unsentimental nature of the Arab mind; and finally insatiable curiosity. Everything that was in the Universe was Allah's , from the mystic ecstacy and a mother love to the flight of arrows, the plague that destroys an entire country and the sting of a mosquito.....In Islam religion and science do not go their separate ways. In fact the former provided one of the main incentives for the latter."


The only person who would attribute to Muslims Scientific contribution to the modern world and claim that Religion did NOT have to do any thing with Muslims discovery , is either, lost and does not know, or is pretending to act like he is lost.... and for Hugo, he is pretending!

 

[syed_z]

What a strange thing to say, I nor you nor anyone else can ignore gravity but I can totally ignore the Qu'ran and it has zero effects on me.

The Quran answers people like you.... why they would NOT have effect on you...

(17:45) When you recite the Qur'an, We place a hidden barrier between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter

(17:46) and We place a covering on their hearts so that they do not comprehend it, and We cause a heaviness in their ears; and when you mention your Lord, the Only True Lord, in the Qur'an, they turn their backs in aversion.

just like i said, your wasting ours and your time...

 

[Hugo]

i agree, discovery by man is from god, what i do not agree with is accepting something that has been discovered and then put into theory and not accepting something that has been discovered and not understood....is that the same as rejecting something or quietly ignoring it? for example the plane of orbit that most planets, moons and such rotote on. they all sit on the same plane of rotation...god knows why,scientists do not. science feels always too primative in many respects, whenever i look at it as a whole it seems crude and always open for improvement. whenever i look at the quran i know its whole and has stood the test of time, science may try to disprove some points made by it but i look over and think its always on shaky legs and never one to judge....whatever you would rather believe in really.

Interesting but what puzzles me in what you say is that the laws of nature cannot be avoided no matter how we feel and the fact that we don't quite understand it make no real difference. Also we have made great advances so it seems your are being disingenuous here. I suppose the point is that if one believes that God created the laws of nature then one can hardly distrust them. What you are saying is not unlike what people said in the middle ages when they interpreted the scriptures and said in effect science was often wrong and people got locked up or worse for going against an interpretation and progress came to a halt. John Lock writing in 1690 said "He that takes away reason to make room for revelation puts out the light of both; it's as if we persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope." So science shows us more of God not less.

Of course you can feel confidence in the Qu'ran but it does seem to stretch credulity too far to say science is primitive and at the same time accept without it seems question a revelation with a single witness and no possibility of corroboration - as you say you can believe whatever you want but surely we must not abandon reason in the process?