Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

Asabiyyah · 26-05-2015 12:07PM

Morbert wrote: »

Orch OR is a controversial theory, generally rejected by the scientific community.

The majority of physicists and philosophers of consciousness have concluded that quantum mechanics and consciousness are unrelated insofar as conscious observers play no fundamental role in quantum mechanics, and consciousness is not a quantum phenomenon.

Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR) has certainly had its critics over the past twenty years. It is a theory of consciousness developed by (Nobel Prize candidate) Sir Roger Penrose and Prof Stuart Hameroff.

However, the vast majority of physicists and neuro-scientists are critical.

Most scientists and philosophers view consciousness as an emergent property of complex computation among ‘integrate-and-fire’ brain neurons. When you have enough neurons firing voila, you have consciousness, somehow. This is the AI (Artificial Intelligence) or singularity argument. Henry Markham’s “The Human Brain Project” is getting 100m a year funding for the next ten years. The “AI types” are heavily invested in its theory.

If Orch OR is correct then “most scientists” got something wrong and have a lot to lose.

Orch OR proposes that consciousness depends on biologically ‘orchestrated’ coherent quantum processes in microtubules within cells.

Perhaps the most significant critic of Orch OR was Max Tegmhark (2000). However, Tegmark’s errors were corrected for and he has accepted this. Even so, Tegmark’s paper has been widely cited by critics of the Penrose–Hameroff position.

An Australian group of physicist, bio-physicists & chemists (2009) claimed Orch OR is not biologically feasible. This has been proved invalid.

These have been the chief sources of criticism of the theory. But the harsh criticism has helped make the theory more robust. Penrose & Hameroff reviewed the theory in 2013 which “rebuts critics and reviews 20 testable predictions of Orch OR published in 1998, of these, six are confirmed and none refuted." As Hameroff says "the evidence now clearly supports Orch OR as the most rigorous, comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put forth”.

The recent discovery of warm temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by a group led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay at the National Institute of Material Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan corroborates the theory. It also tends to render mute criticisms of Penrose’s predictions of consciousness in the quantum field re: Gödel's theorem.

Orch OR locates consciousness in the quantum field which is intrinsic to the universe. This has spiritual implications.

The consequences of the theory are profound.

Morbert · 26-05-2015 03:12PM

Asabiyyah wrote: »

If Orch OR is correct then “most scientists” got something wrong and have a lot to lose.

You seem to be implying the rejection of OOR is due to ulterior motives of scientists. I would advise against this argument. Similar arguments are made by creationists, climate change deniers, and anti-vaccine activists. It is not a very compelling argument.

Projects which postulate consciousness is obtained by complex, adaptive, reflexive neural substrates (as opposed to quantum processes in the neurons themselves) receive lots of funding because these projects produce valuable insight about the brain, its correlation with the mind, and the causal relation between the two.

As Hameroff says "the evidence now clearly supports Orch OR as the most rigorous, comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put forth”.

Hameroff's opinion on his theory is not shared by the majority of philosophers of consciousness and scientists. This Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy article gives a good overview of the current state-of-the-art.

Trojan Donkey · 26-05-2015 04:45PM

ibstar wrote: »

None. It takes an insane person to believe nonsense like religion.

So 84% of the world's population is insane?

On a side note, the right thing to do is usually decided by the majority of voters, e.g. in a referendum. Why doesn't that apply here?

indioblack · 01-06-2015 09:34AM

Trojan Donkey wrote: »

So 84% of the world's population is insane?

On a side note, the right thing to do is usually decided by the majority of voters, e.g. in a referendum. Why doesn't that apply here?

Because this is infinitely more important than a vote about SSM or acceptance of an EU treaty.
A majority may decide that something is right, e.g. reintroducing capital punishment - and they may still be wrong.
If the majority of the world's population believe in a deity, I, sitting uncomfortably on the fence in this matter, consider this to be a source of optimism - and I am not naturally optimistic!
Earlier, a poster asked why we can't see god - if he exists.
Personally, I'd prefer to see more of god and less of the "reality".
But that's me.

Lantus · 01-06-2015 12:01PM

Trojan Donkey wrote: »

So 84% of the world's population is insane?

On a side note, the right thing to do is usually decided by the majority of voters, e.g. in a referendum. Why doesn't that apply here?

Voting is the least effective method to decide anything. Consider asking the people of the planet 2,500 years ago to 'vote' on whether the earth was round or flat. Popular believe held it was flat so that would be the answer returned by everyone. It took just one person to propose it was round and present evidence to support this.

Turtwig · 01-06-2015 02:22PM

Lantus wrote: »

Voting is the least effective method to decide anything. Consider asking the people of the planet 2,500 years ago to 'vote' on whether the earth was round or flat. Popular believe held it was flat .

This is actually untrue. People may have had primitive ideas on many things, the earth being flat wasn't one of them. It was common knowledge by that period that the world was not flat. I have no idea where this myth originated from but it's bloody irritating. By 300 B.C.E some Greeks were debating whether the earth went round the sun! Considering there weren't yet any telescopes that's quite amazing.

Nick Park · 01-06-2015 04:19PM

Turtwig wrote: »

This is actually untrue. People may have had primitive ideas on many things, the earth being flat wasn't one of them. It was common knowledge by that period that the world was not flat. I have no idea where this myth originated from but it's bloody irritating. By 300 B.C.E some Greeks were debating whether the earth went round the sun! Considering there weren't yet any telescopes that's quite amazing.

You don't think that's a tad eurocentric? 2500 years ago, most people on earth had probably never heard of the Greeks.

tommy2bad · 01-06-2015 10:52PM

Nick Park wrote: »

You don't think that's a tad eurocentric? 2500 years ago, most people on earth had probably never heard of the Greeks.

Maybe a little, the point is we know flat earth is a relatively new idea and a really bad example of how we are smarter now than then.

Michael OBrien · 02-06-2015 12:07PM

tommy2bad wrote: »

Maybe a little, the point is we know flat earth is a relatively new idea and a really bad example of how we are smarter now than then.

Do we? The idea of a flat earth was indeed present for a long time, and varied across nations. The greeks did have some natural philosophers that disproved it, but just because some greeks had this concept does in no way show that it was held as a widespread belief, no matter how much Karen Armstrong likes to pretend otherwise.
Both the bible and the quran for instance have references to a flat earth. These would have originated before the greek experiments as they were written between the 9th and 8th Century BCE while the greeks were just beginning to estimate the curviture of the earth around the 7th century BCE and Eratosthenes did his piece around the 3rd Century BCE.
There were Muslim scientists still working on the curvature of the earth concept in the 8th century CE.

The myth was that the idea of a flat earth was commonplace during Galileo's time, because it mixed up Heliocentricism, which he was an advocate of, with the shape of the earth.

The idea that the earth was flat is not a new idea, it is an idea that has been renewed by biblical and quranic literalists, that have a religious need for their books to be EXACTLY perfect in every sentence, from a scientific viewpoint, stripped of cultural context and psychology.

As far as being smarter than those of the past? Your average 10 year old knows more about reality than the greatest minds of the ancient world, but that is relayed knowledge, not acquired directly through personal experience.
The people of the past were a product of their time, just as we are of our time. They had abilities, like memory recall, that outstrips most western people today, due to our ability to outsource memory with the internet and books and widespread literacy. They had knowledge that we may have forgotten, but that knowledge is mostly outdated and now irrelevant.

tommy2bad · 02-06-2015 04:59PM

Nice post Michael, you have nailed it when you say stripped of cultural context. For all we know everyone thought the earth was flat after all that's how we experience it. Unless you live in a maritime society in which case you see the ship's rise and fall on the horizon.
I suspect most people never gave the shape of the earth much thought beyond needing to know locations. References to the corners of the world don't show a belief in a squared world any more than they prove a belief in a flat world, they show that figurative speech was used.

And yes I'm claiming literalism is a totally modern phenomena. It's a form of torturing the text into fitting a predefined meaning.

Lantus · 02-06-2015 09:53PM

Turtwig wrote: »

This is actually untrue. People may have had primitive ideas on many things, the earth being flat wasn't one of them. It was common knowledge by that period that the world was not flat. I have no idea where this myth originated from but it's bloody irritating. By 300 B.C.E some Greeks were debating whether the earth went round the sun! Considering there weren't yet any telescopes that's quite amazing.

OK so I was out by a few hundred years! Greek spherical earth theory originated around 6BC. Prior to that however the general consensus was that the earth was flat.

The POINT though is that 'opinion' without scientific knowledge or evidence is pretty useless and so opinion gained through referendum or voting is flawed in that if you have to argue that one thing may be better than another then both are probably abstract concepts.

What if we were to vote on who should fly the plane when we go on holiday or how large a brake disc should be on a car?
We could vote on whether unicorns exist. What if 80% of the planet agreed that they did? Would that make it valid or real? Should unicorns be taught about in school in accordance with the country's laws?

Is there a better way of arriving at decisions and shouldn't we teach our children to question everything?

Peregrinus · 03-06-2015 01:16AM

Michael OBrien wrote: »

The myth was that the idea of a flat earth was commonplace during Galileo's time, because it mixed up Heliocentricism, which he was an advocate of, with the shape of the earth.

No. This is a common confusion nowadays - a while ago I read an atheist screed in which someone claiming that his beliefs were “evidence-based” denounced the Catholic church for burning Galileo at the stake over his denial of a flat earth - but I don’t think the same confusion prevailed at the time. At the same time as Galileo was publishing his heliocentric theories, William Shakespeare was opening the Globe Theatre in London. Clearly Shakespeare assumed that London’s hoi polloi knew that the world was round. And we have no reason to think that the London mob was better educated or better informed than mobs elsewhere in Europe.

Michael OBrien wrote: »

The idea that the earth was flat is not a new idea, it is an idea that has been renewed by biblical and quranic literalists, that have a religious need for their books to be EXACTLY perfect in every sentence, from a scientific viewpoint, stripped of cultural context and psychology.

Um, cite, please? I don’t know of any religious literalists teaching a flat earth. The belief that they did do so was actively propagated in the nineteenth century by “science versus religion” fundamentalists, but as far as I know it has little or no basis in fact.

pauldla · 03-06-2015 01:51AM

Peregrinus wrote: »

No. This is a common confusion nowadays - a while ago I read an atheist screed in which someone claiming that his beliefs were “evidence-based” denounced the Catholic church for burning Galileo at the stake over his denial of a flat earth - but I don’t think the same confusion prevailed at the time. At the same time as Galileo was publishing his heliocentric theories, William Shakespeare was opening the Globe Theatre in London. Clearly Shakespeare assumed that London’s hoi polloi knew that the world was round. And we have no reason to think that the London mob was better educated or better informed than mobs elsewhere in Europe.

Just as an aside, I remember reading a few years ago that the Flat Earth Society described themselves as a 'global organization'. It still brings a smile thinking about it.

Michael OBrien · 03-06-2015 09:20AM

Peregrinus wrote: »

No. This is a common confusion nowadays - a while ago I read an atheist screed in which someone claiming that his beliefs were “evidence-based” denounced the Catholic church for burning Galileo at the stake over his denial of a flat earth - but I don’t think the same confusion prevailed at the time. At the same time as Galileo was publishing his heliocentric theories, William Shakespeare was opening the Globe Theatre in London. Clearly Shakespeare assumed that London’s hoi polloi knew that the world was round. And we have no reason to think that the London mob was better educated or better informed than mobs elsewhere in Europe.

So you agree with me then? That it was about Heliocentricism, which replaced Geocentricism, which had biblical support at the time. Good.

Oh and here is a little video about how a Muslim firmly believes in a flat earth, because the quran says so, and as we all know, the quran takes it's text from the bible.

katydid · 03-06-2015 09:34AM

Michael OBrien wrote: »

So you agree with me then? That it was about Heliocentricism, which replaced Geocentricism, which had biblical support at the time. Good.

Oh and here is a little video about how a Muslim firmly believes in a flat earth, because the quran says so, and as we all know, the quran takes it's text from the bible.

And another Muslim talking sense.

Peregrinus · 03-06-2015 09:43AM

Michael OBrien wrote: »

So you agree with me then? That it was about Heliocentricism, which replaced Geocentricism, which had biblical support at the time. Good.

My bad, Michael. I misread your earlier post.

Michael OBrien wrote: »

Oh and here is a little video about how a Muslim firmly believes in a flat earth, because the quran says so, and as we all know, the quran takes it's text from the bible.

"We all know" that the Quran takes its text from the Bible just like "we all know" that the Catholic church taught a flat earth. Meanwhile, back on planet reality, the Quran does not include any texts from the Bible.

oldrnwisr · 03-06-2015 10:45AM

Peregrinus wrote: »

"We all know" that the Quran takes its text from the Bible just like "we all know" that the Catholic church taught a flat earth. Meanwhile, back on planet reality, the Quran does not include any texts from the Bible.

You know, I gotta admit Peregrinus that I'm surprised that somebody who is usually so well-informed would make a comment like the one above.

There are a number of stories in the Quran borrowed from the Bible with a total of about 50 characters and events being mentioned. Sure these stories aren't copied verbatim from the bible but they are similar enough that they are borrowed from it. For example, the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 is retold as Abraham and Ishmael in Surah 37. Most of the significant characters in the OT and some in the NT are mentioned in the Quran including, but not limited to, Adam & Eve, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, David, Jonah, Mary and of course, Jesus. The stories are edited to be sure, changes are made to make the stories fit with Islamic theology but to suggest that the Quran doesn't include any texts from the Bible is well, silly.

Anyway, with regard to Michael O'Brien's point, while the Quran mentions a flat earth several times, none of the references derive from a Biblical narrative. In no less than 8 different passages from the Quran (e.g. 50:7, 71:19 etc.) the earth is described as having been spread out like a carpet similar to how God spreads out the heavens in Job 9. However, realistically, the references to a flat earth in both the Bible and the Quran owe their presence to the pre-existing traditions on which Jewish and Islamic theology were built, Sumerian mythology in the case of Judaism and Arabian Bedouins in the case of Islam.

indioblack · 03-06-2015 11:21AM

pauldla wrote: »

Just as an aside, I remember reading a few years ago that the Flat Earth Society described themselves as a 'global organization'. It still brings a smile thinking about it.

Reminds me of Marlon, the character in The Perishers from the Daily Mirror, who said "of course the world is round - it's just flat on both sides."
Think of a Frisbee, a discus.

ScumLord · 03-06-2015 02:53PM

Trojan Donkey wrote: »

I'm a Christian myself. However, I never take sides. I won't be arguing for or against the existence of God, as we can never truly know. Until we die, that is.

Maybe we can't say for sure that a sentient thing created the universe or that it is also administering the day to day operation of the universe. But we can look into whether the bible can actually be the word and intentions of that sentient thing. We can judge it for it's accuracy and morals.

I'm open to there being a sentient creator, not so much an administrator, making the universe the way it is makes no sense if you have to administer it. But the bible is just an attempt by ancient people to explain the world around them and give a way of living peacefully in a large varied community. I don't think it could possibly be the word of god.

Trojan Donkey wrote: »

Every animal:All animals are created on earth. Whether by God or [Insert what an atheist thinks here]. All of these animals are mostly unique with only one thing they all have in common - instinct. The Lion is driven to kill Zebras, the Giraffe to eat vegetation and so on.

They have much more in common than they have differences. Two eyes, two ears, hair, four limbs, genes, the list of similarities between every animal on this planet is endless until you get down to very small creatures.

Humans:The human race appears out of nowhere. Whether by a magical Jesus miracle or a faulty evolution theory, they appear. Instead of acting like Guerrillas and bashing sticks together, they say "Hold on, what am I doing here? Why am I alive? Why do I exist? What is the purpose of me being here?" To me, these questions show that humans have intelligent minds. I personally have never heard a cat, dog, mouse, chicken, donkey, horse, woman (joking, I'm not a sexist), hedgehog, hamster, bird, fish, insect or lizard ask why they exist.

Because they don't have that adaptation. Humans didn't appear out of nowhere, we have clear evidence we evolved over a long period of time. We didn't just start asking big questions, we can see those questions appear in our archaeology.[/QUOTE]

We aren't all that unique either, there were other humans, neanderthals being the prime example. However they aren't the only example. They had a lot of similarities to humans, including questions about death because we've found neanderthal burial sites.

Intelligence is an expensive adaptation, big brains cost big calories. Most animals have found more economical ways of surviving. It was pure chance of environmental cues that lead to humans evolving the way they did and it took thousands and thousands of years for us to get to civilization. Nothing we've achieved with our big brains and culture was easy or intuitive.

It's completely obvious that humans are either really weird, or really smart.

We are both weird and smart. We are a pretty unique animal that found a survival tactic that most animals don't bother with. We went from eating fruit and veg in a social setting to being forced to scavenge, to developing hunting.

It's no mystery, it's all on record.

ScumLord · 03-06-2015 04:48PM

Trojan Donkey wrote: »

What makes a good book? A beginning, middle and end. A good book doesn't start in the middle of the story and not tell us how the story began.
Maybe we're all inside a book (metaphor) and the author is God.
We all have to remember that there is always the possibility.

Human brains are designed to think that everyday occurrences e.g. milk spilling when I knock over the carton are normal and that occurrences that you rarely see aren't normal e.g. Jesus hovering outside your window.

*I don't want to start an argument*
I believe in a Supreme Universe (I made up that term myself) which is EVERYTHING. It is not really a universe, but a realm. God's realm. Our universe is inside of this Supreme Universe. There are no laws of physics in the Supreme Universe. Anything is possible. Everything is normal. There is nothing outside of the Supreme Universe.
Our universe and everything in it was created by God (possibly for his entertainment. Maybe we're God's substitute for reality TV). Because God can do ANYTHING, he clicked his fingers and commanded that a believable storyline for the creation of everything in our universe be created. He also created evolution because he's lazy and doesn't want to have to manually edit a specie's features every time it changes habitat. Maybe dinosaurs never lived and their fossils were only planted there by God to make us believe in evolution.

They're only my personal beliefs. They may be wrong, I know that. I don't want to start an argument.

I have no idea what you're trying to say there.

You just seem to be making up more and more bizarre scenarios to support your believe.

1123heavy · 03-06-2015 06:37PM

oldrnwisr wrote: »

There are a number of stories in the Quran borrowed from the Bible with a total of about 50 characters and events being mentioned. Sure these stories aren't copied verbatim from the bible but they are similar enough that they are borrowed from it. For example, the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 is retold as Abraham and Ishmael in Surah 37. Most of the significant characters in the OT and some in the NT are mentioned in the Quran including, but not limited to, Adam & Eve, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, David, Jonah, Mary and of course, Jesus. The stories are edited to be sure, changes are made to make the stories fit with Islamic theology but to suggest that the Quran doesn't include any texts from the Bible is well, silly.

Anyway, with regard to Michael O'Brien's point, while the Quran mentions a flat earth several times, none of the references derive from a Biblical narrative. In no less than 8 different passages from the Quran (e.g. 50:7, 71:19 etc.) the earth is described as having been spread out like a carpet similar to how God spreads out the heavens in Job 9. However, realistically, the references to a flat earth in both the Bible and the Quran owe their presence to the pre-existing traditions on which Jewish and Islamic theology were built, Sumerian mythology in the case of Judaism and Arabian Bedouins in the case of Islam.

Can you please prove the writing I've put in bold ? Where is your evidence ?

And the Quran says nowhere that the earth is flat in shape. It says the opposite. "And after that He shaped the earth" (Quran 79:30). I have put the word "shaped in bold because the english meaning doesn't describe it properly (as with much of the Quran). The Arabic word used is "dahaha", from the root word "daha", the word "daha" means "to be Ostrich-egg shaped", so the verse actually says the earth was shaped similar to that of an ostrich egg. This is proven true by modern science. The egg of an ostrich bulges at the middle and flattens out at the top, the earth also bulges in the middle at the equator and flattens out at the poles, the fact an ostrich egg was used to describe it and the features match the true earth shape further proves the divinity of the quran as no human at the time could have known this.
Though I don't understand how you can get tangled up with an incorrect translation and interpret it in an incorrect manner to suit what you want to prove, meanwhile ignoring the countless other scientific proofs in the Quran about which there are absolutely no doubt. You will not find one incorrect verse in the Quran, God challenges you to find one, if you think you have then prove it. I can prove it's divinity so now you prove it's man made.

Allah sent the Quran as proof of his existence, not to be believed through blind faith but via solid proof, which exists in the explicit scientific statements in it that are only being proved to be correct in recent times.These statements are what we take as solid prove of its divinity. For example the big bang theory that the earth was previously one mass is spoken about in the Quran 1,400 years ago, as well as the fact that water is a vital part in the creation of every living thing, " Do not those who disbelieve see that the heavens and the earth were meshed together then we ripped them apart ? And then we made of water everything living ? would they still not believe ?" (Quran 21:30).

Scientists recently discovered the universe is indeed expanding, the Quran said "And the heaven we created with might, indeed we are its expander." (Quran 51:47) 1,400 years ago. Recent scientific discoveries were that the universe was once a plume of hot gas, well the Quran says "Then he directed himself to the heaven when it was smoke, and then said to it and the earth: "come willingly or by force" they said "we do come willingly" (Quran 41:11).
In some areas of the world's oceans there is both fresh and saltwater side by side, they do not mix and scientists have described a "barrier" that exists between them due to their different densities and temperatures. This doesn't occur at the surface, but hundreds of feet below it (e.g. Gibraltar). While this was proved in the 1950's by french naval explorer Jacques Costeau, it was actually mentioned in the Quran 1,400 years ago, "He has set free the two seas meeting together. There is a barrier between them. They do not transgress" (Quran 55:19-20).

There is also a lot more than that.

looksee · 03-06-2015 10:07PM

These lengthy ramblings about what the Quran, or indeed the Bible, have to say have no bearing on atheism or the existence of god. If you are not a believer in god then it doesn't matter what the two books say, anything quoted from them is proof of the existence of god only to those who believe.

1123heavy · 03-06-2015 10:41PM

looksee wrote: »

These lengthy ramblings about what the Quran, or indeed the Bible, have to say have no bearing on atheism or the existence of god. If you are not a believer in god then it doesn't matter what the two books say, anything quoted from them is proof of the existence of god only to those who believe.

But you miss the point, how could any of the scientific evidence be in the Quran 1,400 years ago if it wasn't from God ? No human on the planet had a clue about any of it at the time. This is solid proof of God's existence, whether you previously believed in him or not is irrelevant.

04-06-2015 08:21AM

1123heavy wrote: »

But you miss the point, how could any of the scientific evidence be in the Quran 1,400 years ago if it wasn't from God ? No human on the planet had a clue about any of it at the time. This is solid proof of God's existence, whether you previously believed in him or not is irrelevant.

This is a prime example of Confirmation Bias

indioblack · 04-06-2015 09:08AM

1123heavy wrote: »

But you miss the point, how could any of the scientific evidence be in the Quran 1,400 years ago if it wasn't from God ? No human on the planet had a clue about any of it at the time. This is solid proof of God's existence, whether you previously believed in him or not is irrelevant.

If there is proof of god's existence disbelief would be illogical and belief itself would probably be redundant.
You wouldn't need to have faith in god's existence - you would have acceptable evidence and would therefore know that god exists.
So why hasn't this "solid proof" shattered the alternate belief systems and silenced the cynical atheists?

1123heavy · 04-06-2015 10:55AM

indioblack wrote: »

So why hasn't this "solid proof" shattered the alternate belief systems and silenced the cynical atheists?

You're gonna have to ask them that yourself. There is actually more proof for the existence of God than any atheist theory, for example that which descends from the writings of Charles Darwin, he himself wrote an entire chapter ( "The difficulties of the theory", Ch no.6 of "The origin of the species") on why his own theory may very well be wrong with regards the evolution of humans, so it actually takes more "faith" to believe in atheism than any religion. There are giant leaps of faith required to believe in the Darwin related atheist theory and Richard Dawkins admits this himself. As an aside, I'd like to know why there are still monkeys and apes in existence if these animals allegedly "evolved" into humans ?.
As well as the above, taking the Quran and the prophet Mohammed's pbuh sayings, there is no conflict with regards the evolution of sea creatures etc, Islam does not say this didn't occur. For humans however it is made clear that we descended from Adam pbuh. The evidence put forward to challenge this, that humans were once animals, is weak and Darwin more or less busts his own theory on that in his book.

I have already shown a couple of the scientific verses from the Quran, if you believe that 1400 years ago there were humans that knew that information (without having ever seen the Quran) then you may have a point with the Quran not proving God's existence on that alone. In essence, for you to argue it isn't from God then please explain how humans at the time came up with it ?. Now can you please tell me which humans at around 600 AD knew the big bang theory and that the surrounding atmosphere was a plume of gas ? Or indeed that the earth flattened out at the poles and bulged at the centre (akin to an ostrich egg) ? And can you please explain how any human around 600 AD knew any of the other scientific evidences in the Quran that I mentioned ? If you can explain how this was from a human as they knew it already then you may have a point that it wasn't from God as I said, but I'd like to see that explanation please. It is either from a supreme being or a human, no other options on the table.

As well as the miracles, can someone please explain who actually created the living soul, atheists may try argue that the physical world came into existance on its own, but how did our actual souls get created ?

Michael OBrien · 04-06-2015 11:29AM

1123heavy wrote: »

You're gonna have to ask them that yourself. There is actually more proof for the existence of God than any atheist theory, for example that which descends from the writings of Charles Darwin, he himself wrote an entire chapter ( "The difficulties of the theory", Ch no.6 of "The origin of the species") on why his own theory may very well be wrong with regards the evolution of humans, so it actually takes more "faith" to believe in atheism than any religion. There are giant leaps of faith required to believe in the Darwin related atheist theory and Richard Dawkins admits this himself. As an aside, I'd like to know why there are still monkeys and apes in existence if these animals allegedly "evolved" into humans ?.
As well as the above, taking the Quran and the prophet Mohammed's pbuh sayings, there is no conflict with regards the evolution of sea creatures etc, Islam does not say this didn't occur. For humans however it is made clear that we descended from Adam pbuh. The evidence put forward to challenge this, that humans were once animals, is weak and Darwin more or less busts his own theory on that in his book.

I have already shown a couple of the scientific verses from the Quran, if you believe that 1400 years ago there were humans that knew that information (without having ever seen the Quran) then you may have a point with the Quran not proving God's existence on that alone. In essence, for you to argue it isn't from God then please explain how humans at the time came up with it ?. Now can you please tell me which humans at around 600 AD knew the big bang theory and that the surrounding atmosphere was a plume of gas ? Or indeed that the earth flattened out at the poles and bulged at the centre (akin to an ostrich egg) ? And can you please explain how any human around 600 AD knew any of the other scientific evidences in the Quran that I mentioned ? If you can explain how this was from a human as they knew it already then you may have a point that it wasn't from God as I said, but I'd like to see that explanation please. It is either from a supreme being or a human, no other options on the table.

As well as the miracles, can someone please explain who actually created the living soul, atheists may try argue that the physical world came into existance on its own, but how did our actual souls get created ?

There are no scientific miracles in the quran, at all. All that nonsense was put forth in recent years by fundamentalists, using the same degree of logic and integrity as Ken Hamm, the creationist.
The Quran does not say the earth is like an ostrich egg, it refers to where the ostrich lays its eggs, which refers to the practice of spreading out the earth and flattening it (see any pic of such a nest). But muslims, including that Kent Hovind wannabe Zakir Naik, sought to try to twist the meaning to refer to the eggs.
The egg in question is a prolate spheroid, when the earth is VERY slightly an oblate spheroid. It is still completely wrong. It is FAR more accurate, and relevant for the time, to refer to the earth as a sphere or ball. It does not do this. However there are more generous islamic interpretations of the surah sentences that refer to the 'earth' as 'land' and simply infers that allah made the land habitable for his creations, a perfectly reasonable viewpoint.

All the so called miracles are grossly fallacious or outright lies and have long been debunked by others, including muslims that object to the desire to make the quran a science book, over the message it contains, which might be seen as a sin in itself.

There is no such thing as a soul, human or otherwise, as far as anyone can scientifically discover. To actually expect science to explain a purely religious concept like a soul is absurd, and akin to demanding atheists explain how Jinn evolved, if evolution is true.

oldrnwisr · 04-06-2015 12:22PM

1123heavy wrote: »

Can you please prove the writing I've put in bold ? Where is your evidence ?

And the Quran says nowhere that the earth is flat in shape. It says the opposite. "And after that He shaped the earth" (Quran 79:30). I have put the word "shaped in bold because the english meaning doesn't describe it properly (as with much of the Quran). The Arabic word used is "dahaha", from the root word "daha", the word "daha" means "to be Ostrich-egg shaped", so the verse actually says the earth was shaped similar to that of an ostrich egg. This is proven true by modern science. The egg of an ostrich bulges at the middle and flattens out at the top, the earth also bulges in the middle at the equator and flattens out at the poles, the fact an ostrich egg was used to describe it and the features match the true earth shape further proves the divinity of the quran as no human at the time could have known this.
Though I don't understand how you can get tangled up with an incorrect translation and interpret it in an incorrect manner to suit what you want to prove, meanwhile ignoring the countless other scientific proofs in the Quran about which there are absolutely no doubt. You will not find one incorrect verse in the Quran, God challenges you to find one, if you think you have then prove it. I can prove it's divinity so now you prove it's man made.

Allah sent the Quran as proof of his existence, not to be believed through blind faith but via solid proof, which exists in the explicit scientific statements in it that are only being proved to be correct in recent times.These statements are what we take as solid prove of its divinity. For example the big bang theory that the earth was previously one mass is spoken about in the Quran 1,400 years ago, as well as the fact that water is a vital part in the creation of every living thing, " Do not those who disbelieve see that the heavens and the earth were meshed together then we ripped them apart ? And then we made of water everything living ? would they still not believe ?" (Quran 21:30).

Scientists recently discovered the universe is indeed expanding, the Quran said "And the heaven we created with might, indeed we are its expander." (Quran 51:47) 1,400 years ago. Recent scientific discoveries were that the universe was once a plume of hot gas, well the Quran says "Then he directed himself to the heaven when it was smoke, and then said to it and the earth: "come willingly or by force" they said "we do come willingly" (Quran 41:11).
In some areas of the world's oceans there is both fresh and saltwater side by side, they do not mix and scientists have described a "barrier" that exists between them due to their different densities and temperatures. This doesn't occur at the surface, but hundreds of feet below it (e.g. Gibraltar). While this was proved in the 1950's by french naval explorer Jacques Costeau, it was actually mentioned in the Quran 1,400 years ago, "He has set free the two seas meeting together. There is a barrier between them. They do not transgress" (Quran 55:19-20).

There is also a lot more than that.

Proof? Certainly.

Since you raise a number of issues in your post I'll deal with them individually.

1. The Qur'an and a Flat Earth

OK, so the first point you make is about the shape of the earth in the Qur'an. As I have said previously a flat earth is mentioned in numerous verses:

"And the earth We have spread out (like a carpet); set thereon mountains firm and immovable; and produced therein all kinds of things in due balance."
15:19

"He Who has, made for you the earth like a carpet spread out; has enabled you to go about therein by roads (and channels); and has sent down water from the sky." With it have We produced diverse pairs of plants each separate from the others."
20:53

"(Yea, the same that) has made for you the earth (like a carpet) spread out, and has made for you roads (and channels) therein, in order that ye may find guidance (on the way);"
43:10

"And the earth- We have spread it out, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and produced therein every kind of beautiful growth (in pairs)-"
50:7

"And We have spread out the (spacious) earth: How excellently We do spread out!"
51:48

"And Allah has made the earth for you as a carpet (spread out),"
71:19

"Have We not made the earth as a wide expanse,"
78:6

Now the sole passage from which apologists such as yourself attempt to claim that the earth is egg-shaped is 79:30 which says:

"And the earth/Planet Earth after that He blew and stretched/spread it."

With respect to this passage most apologists have tried to claim that the specific word used "dahaha" derives from duhiya or daha meaning ostrich-egg. The salient point here is that da-hal-waw the triconsonantal root from which dahaha derives refers to spreading out. It is originally cited in the Lisan-Al Arab with reference to an ostrich:

"أُدْحِيُّ و الإدْحِيُّ و الأُدْحِيَّة و الإدْحِيَّة و الأُدْحُوّة مَبِيض النعام في الرمل , وزنه أُفْعُول من ذلك , لأَن النعامة تَدْحُوه برِجْلها ثم تَبِيض فيه وليس للنعام عُشٌّ . و مَدْحَى النعام : موضع بيضها , و أُدْحِيُّها موضعها الذي تُفَرِّخ فيه .ِ

Al-udhy, Al-idhy, Al-udhiyya, Al-idhiyya, Al-udhuwwa

The place in sand where an ostrich lays its egg. That's because the ostrich spreads out the earth with its feet then lays its eggs there, an ostrich doesn't have a nest.

It is clear, both linguistically and contextually that the reference to duhiya/daha refers to the action of the ostrich in spreading out the sand and not the egg. This is supported also other verses such as those above which refer to spreading out without relying on the dahaha inference.

Also, the overwhelming majority of English translations render the phrase as spread out and not egg-shaped:

Sahih International: And after that He spread the earth.
Pickthall: And after that He spread the earth,
Yusuf Ali: And the earth, moreover, hath He extended (to a wide expanse);
Shakir: And the earth, He expanded it after that.
Muhammad Sarwar: After this, He spread out the earth,
Mohsin Khan: And after that He spread the earth;
Arberry: and the earth-after that He spread it out,

Finally, even if, and it's a big if, 79:30 was right above the linguistics and above the other quranic verses, the earth is not egg-shaped. The earth is an oblate spheroid whereas eggs, particularly an ostrich egg is a prolate spheroid as you can see below:

The Earth is oblate and is elongated along its minor axis like the figure on the left, whereas the ostrich egg (see below) is prolate and is elongated along its main axis.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTWu1RoWFlORpofpHJ3vF5lkd8O7iwjdlGqLGwX-zuN_6Q3aWGbEbwwEA

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTWu1RoWFlORpofpHJ3vF5lkd8O7iwjdlGqLGwX-zuN_6Q3aWGbEbwwEA

2. The Qur'an and the Bible

Your second point is about the qur'an and it's dependence, or lack thereof in your argument, on the Bible. As I previously posted, there are a number of characters and events mentioned in the Qur'an which are borrowed from the Bible but with some changes made to fit Islamic theology.

Take Abraham for example. Abraham is first mentioned in Surah 11:69:

"There came Our messengers to Abraham with glad tidings. They said, "Peace!" He answered, "Peace!" and hastened to entertain them with a roasted calf."

Abraham and his wife Sarah and their plight are described in the same terms in both the Bible and the Qur'an:

"So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Genesis 18:12

"She said: "Alas for me! shall I bear a child, seeing I am an old woman, and my husband here is an old man? That would indeed be a wonderful thing!"
11:72

Then later, the Quran borrows the narrative of the sacrifice of Isaac, changing the story so that it is Ishmael who is to be sacrificed:

"Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”“Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
Genesis 22:1-2

"And when (his son) was old enough to walk with him, (Abraham) said: O my dear son, I have seen in a dream that I must sacrifice thee. So look, what thinkest thou? He said: O my father! Do that which thou art commanded. Allah willing, thou shalt find me of the steadfast."
37:102

Because of the ordering of the borrowed stories from the bible, Muslims believe that it was Ishmael who was the sacrifice because the story of Isaac is presented later chronologically.

Like I said, there are a number of differences between the Qur'an and bible accounts such as Abraham receiving the command in a vision in the Qur'an rather than actually speaking to God in the Bible. This is to better fit the Islamic concept of God outlined in Surah 6:103, something that wouldn't really be reinforced in the Bible until the New Testament (e.g. 1 John 4:12, 1 Timothy 6:16 and John 1:18).

There is a very good detailed analysis of all the shared narratives in the Bible and Qur'an here.

3. The Qur'an and Science

Finally, there is your last point, the last club in the Muslim apologist's bag, scientific foreknowledge.

There are so many scientific errors in the Qur'an that any claim to revealed knowledge is ludicrous. However, this post is long enough and there are too many to deal with them all in detail so let's just have a look at a few.

History

"Said Pharaoh, "You believed in him before I gave you permission. Indeed, this is a conspiracy which you conspired in the city to expel therefrom its people. But you are going to know.

I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides; then I will surely crucify you all."
Surah 7:123-124

In the passage above Pharaoh threatens the people of Moses with crucifixion. However, since crucifixion was a Greek punishment (apotympanismos) adopted by the Romans, it would not have existed in Egypt at the time this story is supposedly set.

Geography

"And He it is Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. They float, each in an orbit."
Surah 21:33

The idea of geocentrism, an idea not discredited until the 16th century is also documented in the Qur'an. Here, the Sun is described as orbiting the Earth.

Cosmology

"When Joseph said unto his father: O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me."
Surah 12:4

Pluto notwithstanding, that still leaves two planets unaccounted for. Where are they?

Biology

"O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty toward Allah in Whom ye claim (your rights) of one another, and toward the wombs (that bare you). Lo! Allah hath been a watcher over you."
Surah 4:1

Biology is one of the bigger problem areas for the Qur'an but this passage is good because it is doubly wrong. Firstly, we know that humans like all other life evolved from lower animals and that there was never a point at which the human population bottleneck reached anything like a single breeding pair. Secondly, the Qur'an like the Bible where it borrows its narrative from shows man being created first and then woman coming from man. We know from embryology that this is completely backwards and that we all start off female and get differentiated later. Have a look at male pseudohermaphroditism for further information.

Physics

"O ye assembly of Jinns and men! If it be ye can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass!"

Surah 55:33

The Qur'an claims that only Allah's permission allows someone to travel beyond the zones of the earth. I guess that all the cosmonauts and astronauts must have been secret muslims then!

Zoology

"Allah hath created every animal of water. Of them is (a kind) that goeth upon its belly and (a kind) that goeth upon two legs and (a kind) that goeth upon four."
Surah 24:45

Forget about insects did we? An animal, biologically speaking is any organism that needs to digest another organism to survive. Therefore, of all the animal species, most of them have in fact got six legs. Strange then, that Allah wouldn't mention that.

Physiology

"Nay, but if he cease not We will seize him by the forelock -The lying, sinful forelock -"

Surah 96:15-16

I'll finish on this one because it is one of the passages that some Muslims claim is evidence of scientific foreknowledge. However, we now know that lying and deceit is not restricted to the prefrontal cortex but is actually a whole brain activity with fMRIs showing activity in the prefrontal, frontal, parietal, temporal and sub-cortical regions.

The Qur'an is very much a book of its time, a syncretic work built on borrowed stories from older mythologies espousing a new theological understanding. To look at it as a book of revealed knowledge is to denigrate both what the Qur'an has to say and also science itself.

Asabiyyah · 10-06-2015 09:26PM

Morbert wrote: »

You seem to be implying the rejection of OOR is due to ulterior motives of scientists. I would advise against this argument. Similar arguments are made by creationists, climate change deniers, and anti-vaccine activists. It is not a very compelling argument.

Projects which postulate consciousness is obtained by complex, adaptive, reflexive neural substrates (as opposed to quantum processes in the neurons themselves) receive lots of funding because these projects produce valuable insight about the brain, its correlation with the mind, and the causal relation between the two.

Hameroff's opinion on his theory is not shared by the majority of philosophers of consciousness and scientists. This link gives a good overview of the current state-of-the-art.

Thanks for the advice and the link. The Stanford Encyclopaedia made for heavy reading for me but a good perspective. Some approaches overlap others and maybe Orch OR also i.e. Dennett's MDM and Kinsbourne’s NCCs theories.
Orch OR is at work at a deeper finer level, at Planck scale (subatomic) and this feeds into neuronal organization and activity.

Orch OR was and still is treated with “disdain” (Hameroff) by many.

The theory was first put forward in the mid-1990s and postulated that consciousness resides in quantum devices located in cell microtubules. At that time quantum experiments required temperatures approaching absolute zero of around -250 degC. So how could that happen in the brain?

However, from about 2006 quantum mechanics has been discovered to be at work in nature i.e. photosynthesis, olfaction (smell) and bird navigation. In a general sense quantum is about to go mainstream with Google and others investing in quantum computing research.

Recent studies show anaesthetics act in microtubules to selectively erase consciousness. Evidence for the theory (from what I can see) is accumulating and none to detract from it.

Anyway what has all this got to do with the topic?

Hameroff: “One implication of our model relates to a possible scientific basis for secular spirituality (unrelated to any organized religious approach). For me, spirituality implies:
• Interconnectedness among living beings and the universe
• A ubiquitous reservoir of cosmic intelligence/Platonic values in touch with our conscious choices and perceptions (morals)
• Existence of consciousness after death
Can these issues be accounted for scientifically? I believe they possibly can.

Atheism does not hold the scientific high ground. Secular spirituality based on quantum biology and the physics of space-time geometry is a viable and important idea. I am not offering or suggesting any proof, just a plausibility argument.”

Due to a revolution in the field of modern resuscitation science there are now copious records of consciousness surviving death in controlled settings (operation theatres).

If Orch OR is correct it makes afterlife a plausible scientific possibility.

am946745 · 12-06-2015 06:59PM

Dr. John Lennox

the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

Science is good at explaining somethings, however too many scientists are too focused on particular areas. They can tell you what position the earth will be compared to the sun in x number of years.. But can't boil an egg.

The quote I get given is.. Science can't explain everything YET so faith is put in the future hope of an explanation. What if it never comes?

Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Part 2)

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