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Post by Shmajser on Dec 11, 2008 4:43:31 GMT -5
What is your opinion on Gospa tyson, i was in Medugorje many times, it`s like Catholic Meka, my parents were born not so far from Medugorje, do you believe that Gospa appeared there or do you think it`s a ploy for tourists.
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Post by Arthur Kane on Dec 12, 2008 5:25:57 GMT -5
Wow, so many replies, never knew there was so many atheists on this board, i will not be able to reply to everyone, cause i don`t have the time so i shell focus only on Arthur Kane, since he seems to be the brightest one, plus i didn`t read all the replies so it is not even possible to answer all. Are you seriously going to stand by the claim the Quran is a book of science? Not just science , but the all science having an advanced understanding of physics, biology, geology, etc. Hahaha. Really, you should consider picking up a real science text if you are truly interested.
The Arab culture that made up Islam borrowed many ideas from the lands they conquered in the West and inherited vast reserves of philosophical and pre-scientific knowledge of the Ancient Greeks such as contained in the Great Library of Alexandria. They also inherited Judeo-Christian theology and spawned their own religion from it.
You really should try to understand what atheism and evolution actually are. Atheism =/= Theory of Evolution though most atheists are rationally minded and accept the massive evidences for biological evolution. One does not need to be an atheist to accept evolution by natural selection as a fact and valid scientific theory.Yes Quran is the book of science, many ideas may seem like they were borrowed from ancient Greek and Arab scholars, who said many correct things, but they also said many false things as well, everything in Quran is scientifically accurate, there is not a single contradiction, it is impossible only to borrow/copy correct things and leave out the incorrect ones, just because you find similarities between ancient scholars and the Quran it does not mean that Quran copied from them, besides Muhammed could not write. Yes i know there are millions of sites out there trying to disprove the Quran, but they are mostly hate sites, created by the people who don`t even speak Arabic. If you want to know the truth talk to the Islamic scholars, you will find all sorts of stuff on the internet. Many atheists demand a scientific proof for the existence of God. I agree, today is the age of science and technology. So i will use scientific facts to kill two birds with one stone, to prove the existence of God and at the same time prove that the Quran is from God. In mathematics there is a theory known as Theory of Probability. If you have two options, out of which one is right, and one is wrong, the chances that you will chose the right one is half, one out of the two will be correct. You have 50% chances of being correct.If you throw a coin the chances that your guess will be correct is 50% (1 out of 2) 1/2. If you throw a coin the second time, the chances that you will be correct in the second throw is again 50% half. But the chances that you will be correct in both times is half multiplied by half (1/2 x 1/2) which is equal to 1/4 50% of 50% which is equal to 25%. If you throw a coin the third time, chances that you will be correct all three times is (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2) that is 1/8 or 50% of 50% of 50% that is 12½%. A dice has got six sides. If you throw a dice and guess any number between 1 to 6, the chances that your guess will be correct is 1/6. If you throw the dice the second time, the chances that your guess will be correct in both the throws is (1/6 x 1/6) which is equal to 1/36. If you throw the dice the third time, the chances that all your three guesses are correct is (1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6) is equal to 1/216 that is less than 0.5 %. If we apply this theory of probability to the Quran, and assume that a person has guessed all the information that is mentioned in the Quran which was unknown at that time. Let us discuss the probability of all the guesses being at the same time correct. At the time when the Quran was revealed, people thought the world was flat, there are several other options for the shape of the earth. It could be triangular, it could be all kinds of shapes. Lets assume there are about 30 different options for the shape of the earth. The Quran says it is spherical, if it was a guess the chances of the guess being correct is 1/30. The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Quran says it is a reflected light. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/2 and the probability that both the guesses the earth is spherical and the light of the moon is reflected light is 1/30 x 1/2 = 1/60. The Quran also mentions every living thing is made of water. Every living thing can be made up of either wood, stone, copper, aluminum, steel, silver, gold, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, oil, water, cement.... The options are say about 10,000. The Quran rightly says that everything is made up of water. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/10,000 and the probability of all the three guesses the earth is spherical, light of moon is reflected light and everything is created from water being correct is 1/30 x 1/2 x 1/10,000 = 1/60,000 which is equal to about .0017%. The Quran speaks about hundreds of things that were not known to men at the time of its revelation. Only in three options the result is .0017%. I leave it upto you, to work out the probability if all the hundreds of the unknown facts were guesses, the chances of all of them being correct guesses at the same time and there being not a single wrong guess. It is beyond human capacity to make all correct guesses without a single mistake, which itself is sufficient to prove to a logical person that the origin of the Quran is divine.No, the Quran is not a book of science, its a book of faith. If the purpose of the Quran was to explain science then the references to the subjects in there that happen not to contradict general science wouldn't be so obscure. I find it interesting that you first defend your argument by suggesting that I refer only to Islamic scholars as you view the non-Muslim websites that are critical of the 'scientific value' of the Quran as corrupt sources. Isn't this a bit rash? How could you ask me not to refer to a biased source by suggesting I refer to another biased source? I am aware of the Theory of Probability 'argument,' you actually copied and pasted this from Zakir Naik, word for word. You would've done the man justice if you had sourced his work instead of what appears to be plagiarism. If you really do accept this 'argument' as some kind of scientific 'proof' to validate the Quran then please tell me in your own words how you understand the ToP and how this can be related to the Quran. 50/50 chance for one coin flip or instance that requires a choice based on random factors. This is the crux of the ToP. However, you stated something very different. You stated that it is either 'correct' or 'incorrect' and in every instance we would have an exactly 50% chance of guessing correctly. I dispute this on grounds that are not that complicated. Suppose I drew a lottery ticket. I can be either correct or incorrect in my guessing. Even if I were to just guess one of the numbers it doesn't stand to reason that I have a 50% chance of guessing correctly. In fact, the probability would be low. The rest of the description by Naik is accurate when increasing the instances of choice given random factors. But again , how is this related to the information contained in the Quran. It suggests a false dichotomy to say either the author(s) of the Quran could have no prior knowledge of some basic facts or they must have been inspired by god. That is not reasonable. Because choices, or in this case ,what you choose to write, is biased. What I mean by biased is that what you chose is already based on previous knowledge, not like a coin flip where the information acquired from each coin flip does not 'stack up.' Each new instance is a 50/50 random chance unless you are guessing for more than a single instance. In other words we can go back to being 'correct' or 'incorrect' like you stated. Well, I can pose the challenge by giving you two choices of two statements and you can guess which is correct. Here it is : Proposition A : There is a flying purple elephant in my living room ; Proposition B : Water is comprised of 1 oxygen and 2 hydrogen molecules. You must chose which statement is correct. If you are not insane you would chose prop B. Why? Its because you have previous knowledge which makes your choice biased. The probability changes from random chance and doesn't require a supernatural Skydaddy. You claim Mohammad didn't know how to write yet you claim he is the author of the Quran. Well, we have several problems here. It is not reasonable to assume that a supernatural god allowed him to write because the probability of that is actually low. You see, you must avoid the false dichotomy here. Mohammad is claimed the author of the Quran yet he is illiterate. Its is not reasonable to then draw the conclusion , therefore, god made him do it. Many more probabilistic possibilities exist. Mohammad could've had a scribe which was common in those days. Someone else wrote the Quran and the claim that illiterate Mohammad did it is not factual. Mohammad was actually literate. Supernatural skydaddy is not the only possible explanation. We have other logical problems if we assume skydaddy did it and here they are: Why does god need language to communicate to one man? Why one man and not everybody? Why chose Arabic as your preferred language yet deny the majority of people on earth the ability to read/write it? Surely since god gave Mohammad the ability to read/write Arabic he can do it everyone else? Why does god prefer a bureaucratic middle man to translate his message in one language when god can do it himself to all people in all languages, therefore. eliminating senseless conflict? Why is the Quran , like any other book , prone to getting 'lost in translation?' The most probabilistic and reasonable explanation for all of this is that an Arab, or some literate Arabs, wrote the Quran as a cornerstone for a religion that would unite the Arab lands under their influence. It is reasonable to assume that since these Arabs would have to be literate they acquired knowledge of those that came before them, particularly Judeo-Christian theologians. There is direct evidence within the Quran itself that it is influenced by the Judeo-Xtian old Testament and we know the Quran did not originate these stories. We also know that Arabs in the same time period were between two enormous empires which, themselves , have direct ties to the philosophical era of antiquity which preceded them. We also know through archaeological evidence ( with written texts to match) that the Arabs were merchant and trade civilization which acted as middle traders between the Mediterranean Roman&Byzantine civilizations and the Persian civilization to the East. The Arabs even claimed the Great Library at Alexandria. Do you see how this is far more reasonable than a supernatural skydaddy for which there is no objective empirical evidence for its existence?
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Post by Arthur Kane on Dec 12, 2008 17:10:28 GMT -5
^ Indeed The Bible, or should I say the old testament, the foundation for both Christianity and Islam was a series of scriptures written over a long period of time by religious elders of Semitic tribes. It was written by primitive men, in a primitive cultural environment with often brutal conditions. While the Old Testament speaks of love, it also speaks of blatant genocide as a good thing, not to mention the horrendous ways of executing people for what would not even be considered crime today. Christians are often very selective, and they like to pick out and quote the "nice" things the bible has to say, but will usually stay away from the more "bloody" lines in the good book. There are some particular countries out there today that implement the morality and law of the Old Testament quite literally to some extent, and that is Iran and Saudi Arabia. thats because the christian faith is based around jesus's teachings , ie. the new testament. thats why when the mass is celebrated in the church, they only referrence the new testament. for some christian protestant churches, they only have the bible with the new testament in it. the old testament is still important, like the book of genesis, the commandments, among alot of other things, but its the new testament what christians concentrate on. it defines our faith, and we also like to believe in a merciful, loving and compasionate god which is portrayed in the new testament, rather than a vengeful, angry and unforgiving god which is portrayed in the old testament. thats what is much more attractive about christianity over judaism and islam, because their god is the one portrayed in the old testament. each to their own, though If you actually read the NT, you would see that Jesus' teachings were not so gentle and were contradictory throughout the Gospels and especially throughout the letters of Paul. Objectively, we have dated the earliest texts of the NT ( Book of Mark in particular) to a few decades after Jesus' supposed death. We know that the information contained in the gospels are not a direct observation of Jesus but rather several mens' interpretation of a supposed historical figure. There were also gnostic scriptures supposedly explaining details about Jesus' so-called existence but the Church omitted those. The books of the Bible were arbitrarily selected by men who became the cornerstones of a state religion based on many pagan customs. That is no more 'holy' than other men struggling for power and control. If you want to personally believe in mythology as truth, thats fine, not much I can do about that if you deliberately chose to be irrational. The problem comes when these beliefs are transmitted to innocent children not yet capable of reasoning. Teaching children 'universal truths' like those propagated by religion with no actual objective empirical evidence to back it up is just bigotry and IMHO child abuse. If we are to teach children what truths are then isn't it fair to show them the evidence first and let them draw their own conclusions without coercion?
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Post by bog on Dec 12, 2008 17:30:43 GMT -5
Islam, Hriscanstvo.. isto sranje drugo pakovanje...
its like pepsi and coka cola
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Zvone
Amicus
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
Posts: 525
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Post by Zvone on Dec 14, 2008 0:32:04 GMT -5
It's actually like mountain dew and sprite. Get your analogies straight!
And I can't believe some people say the Quran is a book of science. Please, show a quote that can't be refuted.
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Post by markosijekira on Dec 14, 2008 2:21:21 GMT -5
I guess Mohammed explained the Laws of Motion before Isaac Newton did! And speaking of the earth being a sphere, it was already known to the Ancient Athenians that the Earth was a sphere.The philosopher Pythagoras figured it out already in the 6th century BCE, although granted not on scientific grounds. And of course Arabic numerals are actually of Indian origin.
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Post by Shmajser on Dec 16, 2008 4:53:32 GMT -5
O.k atheists, i see that i will have to scan the pages from the Quran itself where those scientific facts are mentioned in order to convince you, this time word play will not help you, you shell see the proof from the original source itself, i don`t have much time to spend on this forum, so give me a week or two, i will have a Christmas break next week so that will give me more time to do some scanning. Quran is written in Bosnian, i could use the English version, but i chose Bosnian because i want to show you that nothing is "lost in translation" even when you translate it to a less known language. There are basically 3 main misconceptions that atheists on this forum have about the Quran 1.Did Quran copy from the Greek and Arab scholars 2. Quran and the grammatical errors, and possible grammatical mistakes that could create problems, when it come to scientific facts.3.Does prophet Muhammed copy Quran from Bible. Since Arthur Kane is familiar with Dr. Zakir Naik i am sure he has seen some of his videos where he talks about some of the misconceptions that ppl have about the Quran so i will let him answer all three questions.
Question 1.
Question 2
Question 3
Now that this is settled i will continue with scans probably next week.
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tyson
Amicus
Posts: 1,256
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Post by tyson on Dec 16, 2008 19:19:48 GMT -5
What is your opinion on Gospa tyson, i was in Medugorje many times, it`s like Catholic Meka, my parents were born not so far from Medugorje, do you believe that Gospa appeared there or do you think it`s a ploy for tourists. i wouldnt equate it to mecca, lol. mecca is the most holiest place for muslims, whereas medjugorje is just one of many pilgramage places for roman catholics around the world, or christians in general for that matter, where witnesses say mary appeared and spoke to them. in my opinion, i believe that they saw and spoke to mary, but i havnt felt anything out of the ordinary by going to medjugorje. i guess because i havnt walked up that mountain there, but i doubt i would feel anything out of the ordinary there either, lol. i'm just not much of a spiritual person, and not that religious either, but i do want to take my religion more seriously, and go to church on sundays again for starters, lol. i think that if people are going there trying to actually see or speak to mary or jesus or god, are silly fools. i believe that mary, jesus or god only gives their presence to people they have chosen, and not any old joe blow. so all those people that are coming there to see visions and have god speak to them , like i said are silly fools. but with that being said,.... i support what they are doing in medjugorje. its a good thing, and it brings catholics and christians in general together to come to worship god. what can be said about the place, is i did feel at peace there, but i dont think its was because of something out of the ordinary. its the same kind of feeling when i go to church. its a nice thing. to my experience, medjugorje is a very warm and friendly place. one herzegovinan croat franciscian priest who i talked briefly with outside the front entrance of the church on the steps, was a very nice and friendly man. i'll most probably go and visit it another time when i go to herzegovina to visit our family friends, relatives and inlaws who live there.
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Post by Arthur Kane on Dec 17, 2008 7:50:38 GMT -5
O.k atheists, i see that i will have to scan the pages from the Quran itself where those scientific facts are mentioned in order to convince you, this time word play will not help you, you shell see the proof from the original source itself, i don`t have much time to spend on this forum, so give me a week or two, i will have a Christmas break next week so that will give me more time to do some scanning. Quran is written in Bosnian, i could use the English version, but i chose Bosnian because i want to show you that nothing is "lost in translation" even when you translate it to a less known language. There are basically 3 main misconceptions that atheists on this forum have about the Quran 1.Did Quran copy from the Greek and Arab scholars 2. Quran and the grammatical errors, and possible grammatical mistakes that could create problems, when it come to scientific facts. 3.Does prophet Muhammed copy Quran from Bible. Since Arthur Kane is familiar with Dr. Zakir Naik i am sure he has seen some of his videos where he talks about some of the misconceptions that ppl have about the Quran so i will let him answer all three questions. Question 1. Question 2 Question 3 Now that this is settled i will continue with scans probably next week. I see you're not really sticking with the ToP argument. Probably better that way since I don't think you understand what the ToP actually is and Zakir Naik's rudimentary understanding is laughable at best when he tries to use it to confirm the existence of a supernatural deity. I don't know why you and other muslims keep on insisting that the Quran was intended to be a book of science? It was not since not one proposed scientific theory is offered by the Quran. The Quran doesn't even offer a basic framework of the scientific method nor does it reference any event that is like undergoing analysis via the scientific method. Remember, you told me not to reference non Islamic scholars about the validity of the Quran because you said they wrongly translate the Quran due to their poor knowledge of Arabic. I,as an atheist , do not have the same questions about the Quran as the aforementioned. If I really considered the Quran a book proposing a valid scientific theory ( i.e. scientific) then I would approach it differently. The Quran , like many texts of its day, describes in 'poetry' what it intends. Valid scientific theories are not proposed in poetry and do not evoke a supernatural Being. If read a certain way, we can , at best say, some of the things described in the Quran aren't 'wrong' ( in the sense of not directly contradicting a known scientific fact) but they are certainly not scientific because they happend not to directly contradict evidence. ( This is not true for the supernatural claims the Quran asserts as there is no objective evidence to confirm the existence of a supernatural entity.) I've read plenty of old books that happened to state something about nature that was true, i don't immediately consider this a scientific writing and no knowledgeable scientist or layman would. It very much seems the case that modern science has really boxed in the world of the supernatural. In the Old World, god appeared virtually everywhere and even revealed himself to men. God regularly and directly performed miracles for people to witness so there was no mistake what the source was. However, god has become obscure in the modern age. He no longer 'directly' performs miracles or appears to men , or sends messenger angels to men. IN the age of scientific study, god is virtually non existent. I don't think this is an accident. Over several centuries science was ridiculed and people even died because they accepted it. Eventually, the evidence provided by science mounted where even the most stubborn would be considered insane if they contradicted the evidence. In the case of the Quran, we have a book represented a religion and this book was virtually unquestioned for its validity for centuries. Science has eventually gotten to the point of questioning the validity of the Quran since the positive claims of the supernatural would eventually conflict with science. Scholars and defenders Islam would then pick apart verse by verse the Quran and try to transform the meaning of the Quran from being a book of godly law and faith into a book of objective science. This is laughable to me. I find it quite stimulating that the Quranic scholars have finally figured out that their holy book must conform to the evidence brought to us by science. So hopefully shjmaster can find a valid argument and when he posts whatever he posts of the Quran he can maybe also post the obscure references of the Quran suggesting a flat earth and how the sun sinks into water. My recommendation to shmjaster is that if you really are interested in science , get your hands on some real stuff. THere are literally volumes of great work out there that explain in ways far more factual and elegant than the Quran on how stuff works. I can give you references. Don't you think its a bit silly to rely on an antiquated book the invokes the supernatural as its basis rather than a book backed with evidence and extensive study explaining phenomena in reality?
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Post by Shmajser on Dec 26, 2008 21:25:24 GMT -5
www.bogbosnaibosnjastvo.org/islamandsciencenauka.htmHere are the scanned pages of Quran in Bosnian language with English translation and explanation, i had to do a bi-lingual version cause making two pages would be time consuming, i hope this is not to confusing for you. The original text was at least twice this size, but i had to reduce it, even this looks gigantic.
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