Islam and its factual claims

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Unconcept, Mar 3, 2012.

  1. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    That's great for both of you. Start your own thread. This one is about factual claims of Islam.
     
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  3. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Who are you anyway?
    Upstart!


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    Morning everyone. I'm from Dogforums.
    It's much better than here. We talk about bones and stuff.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
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  5. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    No fact to discuss, apparently. I say sacrifice the thread to trolling.
     
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  7. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Not so fast Geoff.
    Maybe DaveC has a point.
    Perhaps we should at least try to discuss the matter.

    Not wanting to burn in hell, lets try ruling out the first one first:

    Interpreting a vague statement in such a manner as to guarentee that it is correct even if it bears little ressemblence to what it is linked to

    That's exactly what I think all your "proofs" are.
    Lets take just one of your statements from Islamic religious scripture, and check in detail how it presents a scientific fact.
    It must be non-vague, and bear great resemblance to the science.

    This one seem to match those requirements:
    2- The Amount of Rain that falls Every Year is the Same
    From http://shaikhalbaani.wordpress.com/2...r-is-the-same/
    From Ibn Abbaas who said, “‘No year has more rain than another, but Allaah distributes it between His Creation wherever He wishes.’ Then he recited, “And We have distributed it amongst them, in order that they may remember [the Grace of Allaah] …””


    But the amount of rainfall in any one year, whether globally or locally, is not the same. It depends on temperature, winds and climatic events such as the El Nino effect.
    If Ibn Abbaas had said that there is a finite amount of water in the world, which God distributes as he wills, that would have been impressive.
    That would have been in accordance with modern science instead of utterly wrong.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
  8. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Since we're being evidentiary, I'd like to see some empirical proof that "Allah distributes rain wherever He wishes". Also, it's also wrong that no year has more rain than another. The Earth has experienced intensive, vicious dry periods, such as at the end of the Permian. Yearly rain also varies. It's not even a slippery resemblance to reality. It's pap.
     
  9. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Also, in glacial ages when most of the water was locked up in ice, there would have been little evaporation, and hence little water for rain.

    As divinely inspired science this would have been much better:

    Allah sendeth the water in fiery hail
    and portions it according to his wont
    sometimes he bindeth it in icy mountains
    and sometimes he punisheth with mighty flood.


    Why didn't Ibn say that?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
  10. Bells Staff Member

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    Good luck with that!

    He hasn't returned to address the points that were made which pointed out the fallacies of those 'facts'..
     
  11. Unconcept Registered Senior Member

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    Source? I don't know any other text where it talks about Haman in the story of Moses

    I looked up the story of Haman in the book of Esther. It's indeed similiar to the story in the Qur'an in that Haman builds a tower in the Qur'an.
    Although in the Qur'an it doesn't talk about Haman killing the Israelites, he along with the pharaoh are just enemies to Moses and his followers. Nothing more specific in that regard.

    Yes, that's true. A muslim would rationalize this by saying it meant the contemporary age, and could have to restrict it further if the global warming causes the rain to increase for example.


    I wanted to put a reference in my OP, but the site I knew was down.
    then I searched for another one again, look here
    I'd guess that since it talks about the amounts in increments of 1,000 km3, that the amount of rain varies by 2,000 km3 of water between 2 years at most. And that's probably not much of a variation over the whole earth. The islamic texts usually speak in general not too precise manner, so in a way you could interpret it to mean that the amount of rainfall is 'about' the same.

    Still I'd like to know the possibility if ancients could deduce this in the places they resided in for a long time, since they were observing the sky more than us, or if they could know it in another way.


    That's cool, but I want to understand exactly how accurate they are
    "Using modern surveyors' Ranging Poles, it is possible, with care, to obtain an accuracy of alignment of 1cm in 100m or 1m in 1km. The same technology and accuracy was available to Neolithic man."
    What do I understand from this?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
  12. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Why on earth would you make a guess like that?
    You must have some logic behind it.
    What is it?
     
  13. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe we can make more progress if we take them one at a time.


    @Unconcept,

    "Yes, that's true. A muslim would rationalize this by saying it meant the contemporary age, and could have to restrict it further if the global warming causes the rain to increase for example."


    Are you saying that the amount of rain that God allocates, is always the same except when conditions occur which would make the rainfall different?

    Isn't that a rather trivial, some would say atheistic, argument.
    That would suggest that God is responsible for making "average rain", and that that is subject to change, should climatic conditions alter.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
  14. Unconcept Registered Senior Member

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    Since they talk about numbers like 72,000 km3 and 119,000 km3. That means they're accurate to 1,000 km3 not 5,000. Otherwise they'd approximate 119,000 km3 to 120,000

    Thus when they say
    "The global total of evaporation and precipitation thus balances out at 577,000 km3"
    I guessed that means, at most it's 578,000 and at least it's 576,000 km3. A maximum difference of 2,000 km3
     
  15. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    @unconcept
    Re "The global total of evaporation and precipitation thus balances out at 577,000 km3"
    I guessed that means, at most it's 578,000 and at least it's 576,000 km3. A maximum difference of 2,000 km3"



    Thanks.
    That does sound reasonable, and may relate to the way people present statistics. I don't know.
    I have a feeling you are wrong, but will refer the question to people with better knowledge of the subject than myself.

    @others
    Any mathematicians like to comment?
    Can you fairly infer what unconcept is saying by using his reasoning, so long as the presenters of the statistics were using accepted methods?
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
  16. Bells Staff Member

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    In the Book of Esther, Haman is described as:

    a 5th Century BC noble and vizier of the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, traditionally identified as Artaxerxes II

    The Book of Esther also describes Haman as the man who, along with his wife and son's, were planning to kill all the Jews of the region (Persia).

    The Qu'ran describes Haman as:

    the vizier of Pharaoh at the time of Moses.

    _______________________________

    According to the Qur'an, both Pharaoh and Haman had armies responsible for killing the sons of the Israelites.




    Can you see the similarities and how the religious text that cam after the Book of Esther could very well have appropriated the story and changed it to suit?

    You would be incorrect.

    It's called a set of eyes and markers - ie hills, mountails, etc.. were used to ensure there was a proper alignment.
     
  17. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry Bells, but could you encapsulate the gist of this argument.
    Who is saying what?
    What is the scientific content?
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

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    Wha..?

    There be science in this discussion?

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    I was questioning the 'miracle' claims made earlier and pointed out that stories can be borrowed and changed..
     
  19. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    I think that that is the point.

    From the OP
    I wanted to present the strongest purely scientific and historic evidences for Islam, they're not a definitive proof, if they were we would hear scientists and historians converting all the time. I'll also show aother few embryological passages from the Qur'an and Hadiths that I'm near certain that they are scientific errors simply, I already asked 2 people about some of these errors and they responded that they're indeed errors, but I wanted more testimonies preferably from people knowledgeable about developmental biology.
    I'm doing this because I think objectively islam has wayyy less scientific mistakes than the bible for example.


    Surely, Islam had to be more scientific than Hebraism.
    They were direct inheritors of Greek Science and Philosophy.

    The following is from http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H011

    During the Hellenistic period (323-43 bc), classical Greek philosophy underwent a radical transformation. From being an essentially Greek product, it developed into a cosmopolitan and eclectic cultural movement in which Greek, Egyptian, Phoenician and other Near Eastern religious and ethical elements coalesced. This transformation is best symbolized by the role Alexandria played as the hub of diverse currents of thought making up the new philosophy.

    When the Abbasid Caliphate was founded in Baghdad in 750 ad, the centre of learning gradually moved to the Abbasid capital, which became in due course the heir of Athens and Alexandria as the new cultural metropolis of the medieval world.
     
  20. Unconcept Registered Senior Member

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    I looked into it more, I found mufassirs (interpreters of the Qur'an) saying he was the vizier, but nothing about it in the Qur'an itself. You can read up the 6 verses that mention Haman in the Qur'an, they don't talk about him being a vizier, killing or planning to kill jews. However I found one verse that hinted about him having an army.
    "... Indeed, Pharaoh and Haman and their soldiers were deliberate sinners." [28:8]
    Many mufassirs said the Great Flood was global, but nothing explicit about it in the Qur'an. In the islamic methodology, the mufassirs' sayings are just their opinion in what they found probable, not strictly right unless it's backed by an islamic text from the Qur'an and Hadiths, or if it's a reported consensus.
    Anyway, yes it's similiar to the book of Eshter, in that Haman had an army, built something tall and according to a number of mufassirs he was a vizier.

    I wanted to know if what it means is: for every 1km the alignment deviates 1 meter because the muslims' alignment is pretty good
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2012
  21. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    I'm curious to know how their math skills play a part in determining if their theistic claims have any truth value. The two seem to me to be unrelated.
     
  22. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    @Arioch
    The point was that unconcept was saying that he guessed that the variation in worldwide rainfall in any two years varied very little.
    He said:
    "The global total of evaporation and precipitation thus balances out at 577,000 km3"
    I guessed that means, at most it's 578,000 and at least it's 576,000 km3. A maximum difference of 2,000 km3"


    Is it fair for him to make that guess from the statistics or not?
    Myself, I don't know, so I'm asking other people to say.

    2000 km3 would certainly be a minor variation in total rainfall over a few years, less than 1% of 577,000 km3
    If his mathematical guess is correct, then Ibn Abaas's statement about the total amount of rain that falls globally every year being equal
    is not far off the mark.
    It could do with tightening up a bit, but I don't want to be picky.
    I would cede that point to unconcept, and accept that Ibn was correct.

    Here is the original quote from unconcept:

    2- The Amount of Rain that falls Every Year is the Same
    From http://shaikhalbaani.wordpress.com/2...r-is-the-same/
    From Ibn Abbaas who said, “‘No year has more rain than another, but Allaah distributes it between His Creation wherever He wishes.’ Then he recited, “And We have distributed it amongst them, in order that they may remember [the Grace of Allaah] …””
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2012
  23. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    No-one seems to be offering a counter claim, so you must be right Unconcept.
    I'll wait one more day, but then I'm off to buy a prayer mat.

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