Dear Brothers and Sisters I am a 21 year old ex-muzzie from South India , I've been following the religion for all these years and i was never a true believer or something, i followed the religion only because i was born in a Muslim family.Like the majority of Muslims out there, i never read the quran by understanding the meaning of it . but recently i came to read an article aboutdebunking the scientific facts in quran . and it made me even more curious so read a lot of articles about these fro websites lke faithfreedom.org , answering-islam.org , islam-watch.org etc and most of these articles made me to learn more and more about the religion . the articles i read ,pictured prophet as a pedophile, tyrant and mass murderer the articles had cited links to certain verses and hadiths as proofs. i read the articles written by both theists and atheists . and now i am kind of depressed and it might me because of ditching a belief I've had all these years and i need your help and support to get over this phase .i know there are many people who have gone thru this phase i need your advice .
there are certain things which i'm still doubtful of please help me with these
- prophecy about the tall building competition between Arabs
- prophecy of cloning
- growing number of converts from atheism to Islam/Christianity
- illiteracy of prophet Mohamed
- possibility of another intelligent life in outer space
- the origin of life
- origin of universe
- impossibility of evolution
and please refer me to anything which can prove myself the absence of god or false prophecy of Muhammad
and today i had a online chat with a Muslim in http://www.islamreligion.com/ i asked about the prophet Muhammad hatred towards non-believers mentioned in quran but the guy told me that the war was only against towards those who attacked the Muslims , th
ere was no clash with those non believers, who didn't attacked the Muslims.
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welcome to the forum
I am not that much informed on the Hadiths and all Muslim prophecies in there.
However I know that Islam proposes a theistic type of god and a totalitarian belief system.
So even if we grant every prophecy as fulfilled, you are still at the same place where you started.
Just because someone can make prophecies it does not mean that whatever he says is the truth.
Only illiterate slaves would be convinced with such a poor argument.
Islam is proposing a god which watches you and judges you for every action and everything you think is because he allows you to do it.
Thinking anything he doesn't like is punishable in some way.
This is immoral since you would become a mental slave to a totalitarian belief system.
This religion, like Christianity is immoral.
It is like living in north Korea where people are forced to venerate a god-man as a god from dusk till dawn.
Actually even worse, since in North Korea you can at least die and leave North Korea, with Islam the torture continues after you die for eternity.
Also Christians and Muslims venerate their imaginary friend as a god and that is why they never agree with each other. They all have a different imaginary friend but think it is the same one.
- prophecy about the tall building competition between Arabs
As I stated above, it is irrelevant
- prophecy of cloning
As I stated above, it is irrelevant
- growing number of converts from atheism to Islam/Christianity
It is irrelevant to the truth of the claim Islam is making.
- illiteracy of prophet Mohamed
Yes most agree that he was illiterate, but apologetics get around it by saying that he was surrounded by people who could write what he was saying.
Though at the end of the day it does not even matter.
- possibility of another intelligent life in outer space
Sure it is possible.
- the origin of life
we still do not know that yet and it is OK to say you do not know when you honestly do not know.
saying god did it only shows that you are not mature enough to understand that you do not know.
- origin of universe
we still do not know that yet and it is OK to say you do not know when you honestly do not know.
saying god did it only shows that you are not mature enough to understand that you do not know.
- impossibility of evolution
Evolution is a fact, it can be verified in a lab over and over again, evolution does occur for real.
What is a product of evolution and what we do not know yet, is another completely different argument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNv8kvd2H8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCOQukCn0kg
Prophecies have never been reliable, no matter who they come from. Have some been "proven right"? In some sense, people could argue that they have. However, what most people will not admit/point out is that 99.9% of all prophecies ever uttered, written, etc. Have never come true.
On cloning? You could say that people have also predicted that in other mythologies... Replicating one person to create an identical person was not a new idea when cloning was realized, rather the process of how that would work was new knowledge.
In practice though, cloning is not actually full replication. A clone of me, for example may have hereditary alopecia (baldness) and high cholesterol, just like me... He may even have eyes the same color as mine, the same voice and similar brain patterns. However he would NOT be me, differences in hormone influence and brain patterns, neurology, and his lacking of injuries I received would make him an entirely different individual.
There have also been prophecies of self-driving chariots (cars, motorcycles) people flying across the sky (jets) and so forth... But that's really nothing special. Chariots, wagons, carriages and carts have always had wheels, it's not that difficult to decide "someday, that may move on its own!" and so forth.
And evolution is not impossible, it's people who don't learn about it from the proper avenues that -think- it is impossible. Many things promoted about evolution aren't source material... Like the famous picture 'ascent of man'... That's not a scientifically accepted picture or sketch, it's an artist's rendition (and simplification) of the idea of evolution. It didn't happen overnight, or in a few thousand years... It happened over millions of years. And evolution was not the start of life, it was simply the process that life took to adapt to an environment.
Lastly... There is life on other planets. What's silly is the notion that aliens are out there with flying saucers that abduct our cattle and brainwash truck-drivers to not remember seeing it happen.
The only life we've found (so far) have been bacteria, as well as likely environments for bacteria to thrive on other planets, moons, etc.
I think we live in an exciting world, in an exciting time where we can find and investigate research that has already been done, and keep tabs on developments as we find them!
I don't think everything in history can be discounted quickly, the Arab world is largely the reason we have advanced algebra, that we transferred the Hindu number system (used by the Middle East eventually) and were able to mathematically solve problems.
But religion, I find.... Offers little to nothing for knowledge. Science holds true that theories are -always- falsifiable: anyone can prove a theory wrong, with the correct evidence and series of tests and observations.
Religion, on the other hand along with conspiracy theories, psychics and supposed 'truthers' about aliens all claim that they cannot be wrong... And yet they cannot replicate -now- what they claim is true. That is what denies all those things credibility when faced with reason, logic, and human understanding of the natural universe and its fundamental laws.
I hope some of that helped!
@ Nordic Fox,
You state, "There is life on other planets" and "The only life we've found (so far) have been bacteria..."
This is news to me and the rest of the World. Can you please provide a reference because to my knowledge no life has been found on on other planets nor in the rest of the Universe.
(There is the possibility that some of our space probes have microbiological contamination on them from Earth, but I don't think this is what you referring to.)
I should have phrased it "We have seen evidence of highly likely (>80%) microbial life on other planets", out of replication of similar environments on Earth, odd findings in the upper atmosphere (one short article here) http://www.stratostar.net/blog/alien-bacteria-discovered-above/
As well as news regarding the meteorite found which (reportedly) contained evidence of bacteria fossilized in-transit from Mars (or another source) which landed here on Earth, as well as the skeptical (reasonably) criticism of the same journal, for some similarities. http://planetsave.com/2011/03/06/ancient-alien-bacteria-discovere-in-met...
And research on bacteria that exhibit unusual characteristics, (link) http://www.popsci.com/have-we-found-alien-life
It's not a for-sure wiz-bang find, but the research going into this seems promising. http://phys.org/news/2011-03-nasa-scientist-alien-life-fossils.html
As you mentioned though, we have indeed contaminated spacecraft, far-upper atmospheric space stations, etc. With some very unusual Earth-origin (and apparently damn hardy) bacteria.
Mostly, conditions are favorable (more than favorable at times, with temperatures at 0-100*C for water) on some worlds in our solar system, like Titan... But for now that's only conjecture.
So... We *may* have evidence of bacterial life from Mars, in the form of micro-fossils from a chunk of rock... But most discoveries started in similar ways. Mars had water, favorable temperatures (at one time, as indicated by the heavy canyons on its surface) and very likely supported microbial life at the very least. Exciting, if nothing else!
It's sad however that our probes have not been refined to test for bacterial cultures... Though I highly doubt anything would/could live on the surface of Mars, etc.
There are many in the astronomical field though that anticipate the finding of such life, with near absolute certainty. Even the late Carl Sagan discovered that biological materials could be created by bombarding radiation interacting with existing gases and compounds on-planet. An interesting read can be found here, too http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/abs/10.2307/3571249
I don't believe in green men riding around in UFO's. But I have studied biology long enough to at least see that it is highly possible for microorganisms to survive in some extreme environs!
Yea was researching the argument about life on other planets to answer this post because I knew I read it somewhere but I forgot the details.
Found exactly all you listed and also the earth like planets which have been discovered thus far like Kepler-186f which could have life.
https://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size...
An Ocean Flows Under Saturn's Icy Moon Enceladus which could have life.
http://www.space.com/30559-saturn-moon-enceladus-has-ocean.html
Jupiter's Icy Moon Europa could also have some form of life.
http://www.space.com/26905-jupiter-moon-europa-alien-life.html
Well apart from the locations and evidence that would indicate that life is possible to occur elsewhere, one has to also consider that our own galaxy is so small in this universe that to make the assumption that life originated on earth first and only is a very arrogant position to hold.
It is very very unlikely that earth is the first and the only place for life.
Pretty cool stuff though, right?
I'd be happy to even just be in the room with the team that finds the first living, undeniable samples from another world.... Would be an awesome place to be!
Yes everything related to knowledge about our surroundings is cool stuff to me.
Try:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dtA_VwR5k
With reverse engineering you can find almost anything in any old book, find something that is similar to it in the modern day and say "Aha! Prophesy fulfilled." It's just a way to trick people into believing, like dozens of other methods. As far as a growing number of converts and Islam growing, yes it is growing. So? Nazism grew, was that good? "Lots of converts" = argumentum ad populum, which is a logical fallacy and thus not a valid argument. Many purport that Muhammad was indeed illiterate. So? He didn't "write" the quran. He recited it, and others memorized it and then wrote it down later. Life on other planets is certainly possible and even likely. Again, so what? How does this even help the case for theism, I do not understand why you asked about it. The non-theistic origin of life has many possible explanations. Google "A Physics Theory of Life", an article available online through Quanta Magazine. It is about the work of Jeremy England and it is fascinating and makes perfect sense to me. (Or at least more sense than "A wizard did it".) Your next question is about the origins of the universe, which is an area about which we still have a great many unanswered questions. But, to take those unanswered questions and turn them into "a wizard must have done it" is another logical fallacy known as "argument from ignorance", and is thus an invalid assertion. We simply do not know enough yet. But that does not mean anything other than "we do not know". Your last point is the most concerning one "the impossibility of evolution". There is... nothing impossible about evolution. It is a fact. If you are not well educated enough to be familiar with it, many resources are freely available on the internet. But, evolution is a proven fact. It is not impossible. You either accept it... or you are wrong. But it's not a matter of opinion. I can show it to you. Just because someone sold you a bunch of twisted apologetics about "probabilities" (let me guess.... Zakir Naik? Or maybe Hamza Tzortzis? How is my guessing game?) that does not mean their arguments are scientifically or logically valid. They are snake oil, sold to anyone foolish enough to listen and be duped.
Thank you . It make sense and thanks for the article too :)
If you have any doubts about evolution, could I suggest that you consider reading "why evolution is true" by Jerry Coyne or "the greatest show on earth" by Richard Dawkins. Both set out the evidence from widely varying branches of science in a way that can easily be understood by a non scientist.
If you prefer a more interactive (and lower cost) approach. There are various free online courses available. The link below should provide some suggestions
https://cse.google.co.uk/cse?cx=partner-pub-3252929032242305:3580054474&...
I can certainly recommend "Introduction to Genetics and Evolution" which is offered by Duke university on the Coursera platform. It begins by explaining how evolution is inevitable if certain conditions exist.
For more info go to: https://www.coursera.org
Just a note on your conversation on islamreligion.com did you ask him about the invasion of Spain from north africa in the 8th century? Or the piratical raids by arabs as soon as they arrived at the mediterranean? Or indeed the invasion of Afghanistan and subsequently Northern India? Or going back to the invasion of the sassanid empire (persia) or the siege of jerusalem in the 7th century? Those places had had no dealings with the arabs apart from limited trade. And yet they woke up with a large arab army on their doorstep demanding their wealth and submission.
Perhaps I could help with the origin of life, the universe, the possibility of extraterrestrial life and evolution, building on what has already been said by Jeff Vella Leone.
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE is called abiogenesis. This is the process by which non-living things become living. At the moment, we don't fully understand how life came to be, but a number of hypotheses have been proposed.
Autocatalysis. To those of you who don't study chemistry, this is the chemical reaction where a molecule is the catalyst for its own reaction. Let me explain: two molecules react together to form a product. The product then speeds up the reaction, speeding up the production of the product. However, if you have a limited amount of starting material, and multiple potential products, then the product that forms quicker tends to be 99% of the final product. (For more reading on autocatalysis, read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soai_reaction) The importance of this in abiogensis is that it helps to explain something called homochirality.
Homochirality is an observation that all biological molecules (DNA, protein, sugar) are all of the same symmetry. So, to explain a bit further, your left and right hands are symmetrical, yet different. If you had two left hands, you'd definitely notice a difference! The same thing happens with certain molecules. You can have right-handed DNA (called D-DNA) or left handed DNA (L-DNA) and likewise, the same applies to proteins and sugars. But in nature, we see that all DNA is D-DNA, all sugars are right handed and all proteins are left handed (except from a few exceptions). SO - as I've mentioned before, when you have autocatalysis going on, it's possible that at the beginning of life, there was a mixture of left and right handed precursor molecules to proteins and/ or RNA (since RNA came before DNA). However over a very long period of time, one symmetry became more popular, leading to homochirality.
There are other mechanisms by which homochirality may have come to exist, but I'm trying to keep this as short as possible, so I won't go into it. But if you want to do some extra reading, repeated recrystallisation helps to attain homochirality; Louis Pasteur was actually able to separate two piles of crystals (sodium tartrate) based on their molecular symmetry.
This ties nicely in with EVOLUTION. I'll keep this fairly short. Evolution has been observed. Diseases are often cured with antibiotics. However, it's possible that if you administer an antibiotic to a bacteria population, 0.01% of that bacteria will be resistant to the antibiotic. Therefore, the bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic are more likely to survive, live on, reproduce and pass on their genes for antibiotic resistance to the new generation. In this way, bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotics; the more we use the antibiotics, the quicker the bacteria adapt.
Evolution also helps explain things like ring species and Darwin's finches. Once again, I won't go into these in great detail, but you are more than welcome to google them to satisfy yourself. Essentially, according to an "intelligent design" advocate, "like" breeds with "like". Or rather, the definition of a species is that of two creatures that can breed together to make potentially fertile offspring. Ring species are a phenomenon where, if we take a very tall mountain (for example) and there is a lizard that lives north of the mountain, the lizards of the north are able to breed with the lizards of the north east and the north west. The lizards of the north west are able to breed with the lizards of the south west; the lizards of the north east are able to breed with the lizards of the south east. But the lizards at the south east CANNOT breed with the lizards of the south west. This is because, over many, many generations, the genes of the lizards in the east and west have changed so much, they cannot breed with each other any more. Yet apart from in the south, each lizard is able to breed with its adjacent neighbour. Evolution helps explain this phenomenon.
THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE is something that is much less understood. It is commonly believed that the universe started with "The Big Bang". That is, we can observe that the universe is expanding, so it makes sense that if you went backwards in time, you would find that the universe would have started from one place. Other evidence for this exists in something called "cosmic background radiation". After a huge explosion, you'd expect to see lots of heat/ light (think of a bomb exploding). Similarly, scientists discovered cosmic background radiation in 1964, which in simplified terms, is the echo of the Big Bang.
On a philosophical level however, people might ask "What happened before the Big Bang?". Well, some people have proposed that the universe is in a constant cycle of undergoing Big Bangs, and then when the universe stops expanding, the gravitational attraction between stars/ planets/ black holes e.t.c. will lead to the universe condensing back into a single point (this is know as the The Big Crunch). Some people argue that god (or Allah) could have created the Big Bang, but then this begs the question "Who created god?". And if you're going to say "God doesn't need a creator. God is infinite." then why don't you also make the universe infinite? Why don't you make the universe an exception?
This ties nicely in with EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE. It is literally impossible to explain how large this universe is. The numbers are so large, it is impossible for your brain to understand the scale of it. Let's say that you travel at the speed of sound (340 metres per second). It would take you 314 hours to reach the moon. If you travel at the speed of light (299,800,000 metres per second (or nearly 300,000 kilometres per second), you can circumnavigate the world more than seven times per second, yet it will still take you 8 minutes to reach the sun. If the sun disappeared, right now, we wouldn't know about it for 8 more minutes!
The distance between us and the nearest star (that isn't the sun) is 4.3 light years. That means that if you travel at the speed of light (which is impossible according to our understanding of physics), it will take you 4.3 years to reach the next nearest star. Now, let's say you want to travel further than that. You want to travel from our end of the galaxy to the other end of the galaxy. If you travel at the speed of light, that will take you 100,000 years.
Now let's say you want to travel from our galaxy to the next nearest galaxy (from the Milky Way to the Andromeda galaxy). If you travelled at the speed of light, that would take you 2,500,000 years. To clarify, the oldest estimate for mankind is that we've existed for 250,000 years. So you'd be able to witness the birth of mankind to today ten times over.
Now, let's say you want to travel to ALL the other galaxies in the world. There are 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the observable universe. Now, the Milky Way (our galaxy) is relatively small compared to other galaxies, but it has 100,000,000,000 stars in it. Any star in our galaxy, given the right conditions (age of the star, distance of planet from star e.t.c.), could harness life. Now, let us say that all other galaxies in our universe have the same number of stars as the Milky Way (it's probably a lot more, since as I've said, the Milky Way is quite small). The number of stars in the universe is 100,000,000,000 multiplied by 100,000,000,000. That's a one, followed by 22 zeroes. Any one of these stars, given the right time and conditions could harness life. It's just that we're so far away from any of these stars or planets, it's impossible to see if any specific star or planet is harnessing life.
However, if I were a betting man, knowing that life on Earth started as just some self-replicating molecules, I'd gamble that somewhere out there, there are more self-replicating molecules out there.
I appreciate anyone who took the time to read this rather lengthy post.