Big Bang? - Now Scientists Must Evolve

[Castro]

^ What is the moral of any discussion? It is to reach the most probable truth.

[Caano Geel]

Originally posted by ThePoint:

Before passing judgement - it is important to wait for and sift a response. After a reasonably long time, if no response is forthcoming - you can then pass the judgement above. If this above post is as a result of too much spiked Holiday caano-geel, I can make allowances.

saaxiib, i'm sorry, you are right, i was feeling mal-adjusted that day. And i was refering to the author of the original article mr. estetes.

 

And i know the ground is throughly treaded, but the watch maker example is rooted in view point which tries to capture a specific moment that it sees as the intention. And in really the world is too complex for that. So i think what it ends up doing is making faith irrelevant and playing catch up.

 

This gets interesting because if a tenent of a religion is that we know everything. Because the obvious question is: wy didnt you tell us about it before?!

 

Now you can deal with this in two ways .. go revisionisnt and say 'nope it doesnt exist, your making it up and if try to do it its wrong and sinful, or, say actually we know some things and not others.

[Jacpher]

I hope no one is here to compromise their faith for others just to reach probable truth.

 

We can use every mechanism available to deny the death of Elvis and Tupac but to deny the scriptures and the existence of God, is plain deception and foolishness. Why choose deception over reality. There are indeed signs of Almighty God, but only to those with clear vision and good thinking and judgment. Say nay to the purpose of life and steer towards falsehood and state of confusion, as you live your life along the lines prescribed by a fallible philosopher. Life goes on but when reality hits, truth won’t be any good for you, as your testing period ended.

[Castro]

^ Indeed good Ducaqabe. But what is faith if it can't stand scrutiny? Islam is remarkably consistent and questioning (even understanding) such things as the Big Bang and evolution should (must) serve to strengthen one's faith in it. If one is looking to reaffirm their faith, what better way to do it than question these things. SOL may not be the best arena for it but it's a start. It's a start to a deeper quest for knowledge. True Caqiida does not come easily saaxib. And little or no questioning is an invitation to disaster, in my opinion.

 

Let me ask you this saaxib, how does one compromise his or her faith if one questions and discusses the Big Bang?

[xiinfaniin]

Calypso, what a incoherent post you penned! In defense of science (which was worthy of the effort, mind you), you’ve managed to commit a logical incongruity which in turn led you to conclude that Divine Revelations are mutable (Quran included), and hence it correspondingly went through the process of trail and error like science did.

Divine Revelations are not mutable. Qur’an is a divine revelation. Qur’an has never been altered nor will it be. The understanding that Qur’an has been subjected to alteration is simply erroneous. True that some verses have either been completely dropped or its legal effect voided but that was before the revelation was completed and sealed. Qur’an, once completely revealed, has been preserved. And forever so, I may add. The multiplicity of divine revelations has never been a point of moot. Its authority and legitimacy has been and it still is. Rational inquiry and reasoning is one method of reaching the truth. But it is not the only method nor is it the primary one. Divine revelation has primacy over reason when in conflict.

 

As for the topic at hand, what amazes me most is the notion that the burden of proof is on the believer in the existence of God, and not the denier who’s equally resolved in believing in God, not in His presence, but ironically in His absence. That is a patent absurdity indeed.

Big Bang could very well be a sound phenomenon that’s inline with how Allah invented and originated this universe. But it could never be used as a camouflage to deny the existence of the life Giver.

 

On a different note, contrary to the assertion that lack of questioning your cawiidah is an ‘invitation to disaster’, such exercise is the foreplay of satanic seductions, I say. A rejection of which, mind you, is divine decree.

 

P.S: I liked The Point’s articulacy. Good job, saaxiib.

[Castro]

The ability, indeed the gift, to question, to think about, to reflect upon and to ponder is what separates us from animals. It is the duty of every muslim to analyze and reason over the signs Allah has given us. These signs were specifically sent to those who think and reflect. Removing this thought process is an invitation to being led astray and not just out of malice but out of sheer ignorance and lack of thought.

[xiinfaniin]

Assuming of course that by caqiidah you meant Islamic creed, questioning it implies that the faith of who questions it is not settled yet. Only those who are still in the darkness of uncertainty would doubt and question the existence of God. Though pondering on the signs of Allah and reflecting upon the faith in His presence are encouraged by the Precious book, there is, however, a world of difference between a firm faith and ceaseless inquiry that originates from a doubtful mind. Reflection done by the former is a good deed while the latter is a futile exercise.

 

To deprive this duplicitous argument from its rhetorical gown let me say that rational enquiry is not necessarily a bad thing. Not knowing its functions and limitations is. Our quarrel here is not about whether science and reasoning are necessary tools that have yielded great benefits in the advancements of human civilization. To use it as an ultimate method to know the truth is the point of our contention. Whether logic has bounds is a subject that has been tended by great scholars of theology. That fact would not be changed by the emergence of these rookie greens in this thread. The application of science to disprove God is another futile exercise, as I said before, and subjecting the tenets of faith to philosophy and its speculative methods is indeed the zenith of intellectual lawlessness.

 

Faith, my dear friends, is a blessing from God. Its beauty is to believe in the unknown and the unseen, but intelligible things that could not be demonstrated by scientific methods. Either you have it or you don’t. In between the two is void.

 

Ha is karaama seejina, saaxiibayaal.

[ElPunto]

Some interesting stuff here. It would take too long to comment now. All will be explained after New Year's, Boys and Girls! TTYL

[Castro]

Originally posted by xiinfaniin:

Though pondering the signs of Allah and reflecting the faith in His presence are encouraged by the Precious book, there is, however, a world of difference between a firm faith and ceaseless inquiry that originates from a doubtful mind. Reflection done by the former is a good deed while the latter is a futile exercise.

That statement echoes my own sentiments. The risk in lack of enquiry of which I spoke is that one may become dogmatically shallow or worse, fall in the abyss of apocryphal faith (may Allah save us from that). Once someone has faith in the Almighty, he or she should have no reluctance or fear of examining worldy objects. Whether the universe originated from an explosion and is 15 billion years old is a matter yet to be decided by scientific enquiry. That confirmation, if or when it occurs, should hardly matter to those who understand (and believe) it was Allah's will that made it so.

[ATLAS]

burden of proof is on the believer in the existence of God, and not the denier who’s equally resolved in believing in God, not in His presence, but ironically in His absence. That is a patent absurdity indeed.

hahahaha

 

So have we reached an understanding or does disscusion hurt people's reason d'etre.

[Cara.]

Xiinfaniin,

 

You're right about my muddled writing, but you hardly performed any better.

 

Originally posted by xiinfaniin:

The understanding that Qur’an has been subjected to alteration is simply erroneous. True that some verses have either been completely dropped or its legal effect voided but that was before the revelation was completed and sealed. Qur’an, once completely revealed, has been preserved. And forever so, I may add.

To say that the Qur'an is never altered once it has been altered for the last time, sort of sounds like a handy truism. You can say that once science finds the truth, then science is never wrong about that truth again. The Qur'an was being changed, not just added to, in the twenty-odd years it was being "revealed". Some verses were deleted while others were merely abrogated. That makes the Qur'an mutable, at least for those twenty-odd years. That it is not mutable now is beside the point. {Actually, I thought the Qur'an we have is a copy of the Qur'an from on an eternal tablet in heaven, written before Allah even created mankind? So why was it being edited as if Allah was dictating it for the first time in the 7th century AD?}

 

Conveniently, you ignored a key class of divine revelation that has been changed (which I mentioned already): the Bible. It is sufficient to contradict the claim that, as The_Point argued, divine revelation is superior to the scientific method because divine revelation is constant and unalterable. The Bible actually represent two instances in which Divine Revelation was altered by people. That's two instances too many.

 

Originally posted by xiinfaniin:

The multiplicity of divine revelations has never been a point of moot. Its authority and legitimacy has been and it still is.

The question is, how do you determine the legitimacy of a particular example of divine revelation?

 

Originally posted by xiinfaniin:

As for the topic at hand, what amazes me most is the notion that the burden of proof is on the believer in the existence of God, and not the denier who’s equally resolved in believing in God, not in His presence, but ironically in His absence. That is a patent absurdity indeed.

You think the burden of proof for a claim is on the skeptic? Well, there's a little green man living in my refrigerator. He eats all the moldy cheese and ocasionally turns my eggs into pots of gold.

 

I hope you don't doubt a word of what I just wrote, because the onus is on you to prove me wrong.

 

Originally posted by xiinfaniin:

Big Bang could very well be a sound phenomenon that’s inline with how Allah invented and originated this universe. But it could never be used as a camouflage to deny the existence of the life Giver.

I don't know anyone who uses the Big Bang theory to deny the existence of gods. There were atheists long before the theory became popular, and there will be atheists even if it turns out to be wrong. I know believers like to think so, but atheists don't go around saying "I don't believe in god(s) because of evolution/the Big Bang/superconductivity".

 

For most atheists, their stance is--to quote the late great Carl Sagan--extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That an anthropomorphic, omniscient, omnipotent Creator took a bit of mud, shaped it, breathed on it, named it Adam, took one of it's ribs, shaped and breathed on it, and told the couple not to eat from an apple (or was it fig?) tree, is an extraordinary claim. Where's the extraordinary evidence?

[xiinfaniin]

Calypso,

 

Let’s not chase, good Calypso, our tale and confuse our selves. The Qur’an is not alterable by US. Have never been and never will. The version we have now has divined guarantees to stay that way. I referred to the gradual revelation of Qur’an to give you the benefit of the doubt lest you meant it that way. That it is not mutable now is indeed the point! That is the distinction between science and the revealed knowledge!

If you agree that it is not mutable now it deems your comparison rather fallacious.

 

The analogy of proofing little green man in your refrigerator to that of proofing the existence of God is sheer simplicity, saaxiib. It is a meaningless proposition that reduces the subject of metaphysics to a worthless matter. Are you suggesting, good Calypso, that what’s not testable and provable is not to be reasonably believed? And how could you rationally effect a change in belief (in some thing that is not demonstrable) if you can’t definitively prove it false (its lack of existence)?

 

That extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence is a reasonable benchmark. But what you consider evidence may not be the evidence I have. The big pang narrative may not contradict how this universe begun. But when a scientific thought that goes beyond what obtainable facts merit flies in the face of the revealed knowledge, in Xiin’s world the revealed truth takes precedent. As Ibnu Taymiyaa maintained, observable science does not contradict with sound Qur’an tradition. If that happen it would be due to lack of religious knowledge, and would not represent that of divined truth.

 

How one would determine what the correct path is? I don’t really know. Strive and aim to find the truth, saaxiib, and with Allahs help you will(IA).

[ATLAS]

Calypso said:

 

You think the burden of proof for a claim is on the skeptic? Well, there's a little green man living in my refrigerator. He eats all the moldy cheese and ocasionally turns my eggs into pots of gold.

Or that there is an invisible dragon in your garage that breathes heatless fire.......

[ATLAS]

Xiin said:

 

That it is not mutable now is indeed the point! That is the distinction between science and the revealed knowledge!

The point calypso is making is simple, the quran is not mutable because it is known and accepted as it is, and so does the law of gravity, or in his exact words You can say that once science finds the truth, then science is never wrong about that truth again.

 

Calypso said:

 

The Bible actually represent two instances in which Divine Revelation was altered by people. That's two instances too many.

 

Actually much more.....

 

how do you determine the legitimacy of a particular example of divine revelation?

 

You cannot I would like to see who does, who does attempt uses his own particular scripture to supporrt his argument, presenting conjecture in place of fact and raising the spectre of eternal damnation to who ever sees the diffrence, it is old and it is the usuall a separate topic should be started just to see what will happen

 

Xiin said:

 

That extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence is a reasonable benchmark. But what you consider evidence may not be the evidence I have

 

ev·i·dence (ĕv'ĭ-dəns)

n.

A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.

Something indicative; an outward sign: evidence of grief on a mourner's face.

Law. The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.

tr.v., -denced, -denc·ing, -denc·es.

To indicate clearly; exemplify or prove.

To support by testimony; attest.

idiom:

in evidence

 

Plainly visible; to be seen: It was early, and few pedestrians were in evidence on the city streets.

Law. As legal evidence: submitted the photograph in evidence.

 

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin ēvidentia, from Latin ēvidēns, ēvident-, obvious. See evident.]

 

Any of the above will be most usefull

 

How one would determine what the correct path is? I don’t really know. Strive and aim to find the truth, saaxiib, and with Allahs help you will(IA).

 

What sort of individual are you who awaits guidance from a figment of collective hysteria, why not ask for callypso to use that which he is obviously over-endowed personaly or as a member of the human race which is reason, the same reason that allows us to debate on the creation of men that is the net rather than marvelling at fire.

 

With reasons help maybe we will.

[Johnny B]

Good Xiin, maybe now you understand why your philosopher [Mutakalim] was right regrding logic and deductive reasoning and why you should learn to respect it.

Here you´re demanding a skeptic to prove your own claim or you´ll continue holding to your guns( beleiving in according to you unproveable beeings),

Good Xiin, The existance of a Creator is a claim made by the ppl of faith, and if they depend on the skeptics for prove that is not a metaphysical question , that is actually a spycological question.

 

Let me demonstrate why ,

Person A positively claims that the winds blow becouse a Ghost by the name 'Ula' is fanning himself.

Person B positively claims that the winds blow becouse an Alien by the name 'Zula' is smoking an odorless cigar.

Person C positively claims that the winds blow becouse a supreme beeing by the name 'God' is controlling it.

 

Now , Three diffrent claims were made about one and same thing ,namely the winds ,The default of our knowledge of those claims is naturally our ignorance, we don´tknow which one or ones of the claims made is the TRUE blue correct claim.

 

to say that A is correct becouse it is upto B n C to prove the nonexistance of the Ghost who is fanning himself is same as saying B is correct becouse it is upto A and C to prove the nonexistance of Zula the Alien or C is correct becouse it is upto A and B to disprove the existance of the supreme beeing God .

 

That is intellectual dishonesty, why? becouse it demands pre knowledge of Ghosts from B and C who claimed no possession of knowledge ,as well as it demands pre knowledge of Aliens from A and C or pre knowledge of supreme beeings from A and B, in short each and every claim defaults to itself, thus, as for you "God must be accepted by default".

Sadly enough this appears to be the strongest defense you have to offer for your "explanation" as to why we should beleive in your stance.

According to you good Xiin,we could explain anything in whatever manner that suits our whim irrespective. now i don´t know what is "intellectual lawlessness" if that is not.

 

Beleiving in luck is the metaphysics of the gambler as much as it´s the metaphysics of the beleiver in the Ghost or the beleiver in Aliens and ofcourse the beleiver in Gods, while the skeptic finds out which of the claims is the true blue claim, his default and secure position is naturally his ignorance.

 

Absurdity in plain form is when you offer something as an explanation, and turn around immediately to say that not only it can’t be explained, but it can’t even really be understood. good Xiin , what buffles me is how you apply and honor logic and deductive reasoning, (you sometimes even spot a fallacy in others), yet hold to your guns when logic and deductive reasoning tell you the contrary.