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Science In Islamic Countries
biohack sends us to Physics Today for a thought-provoking article on the status of and prospects for science in Islamic countries. The author, a Pakistani physicist, posits that 'Internal causes led to the decline of Islam's scientific greatness long before the era of mercantile imperialism. To contribute once again, Muslims must be introspective and ask what went wrong.' The author makes a few strong conclusions, many of which are relevant to the general debate between science and religion. From the article: "Science finds every soil barren in which miracles are taken literally and seriously and revelation is considered to provide authentic knowledge of the physical world. If the scientific method is trashed, no amount of resources or loud declarations of intent to develop science can compensate. In those circumstances, scientific research becomes, at best, a kind of cataloging or 'butterfly-collecting' activity. It cannot be a creative process of genuine inquiry in which bold hypotheses are made and checked."
> In those circumstances, scientific research becomes, at best, a kind of cataloging or 'butterfly-collecting' activity. ...you insensitive clod.
Islam had it fair share of brilliant scholars, the problem was it had its fair share of fundamentalist religious types, and they won.
Did you know that there is a good deal of evidence that the western renaissance was started using Islamic knowledge taken from libraries in spain?
simplified yes, but basically true.
...was once the height of scientific enlightenment. Then along came fundamentalist Christianism, extreme patriotism, and since then very little has progressed (without outside influence).
One can only imagine what civilization would be like today if religion (of all stripes, mind you) hadn't stifled scientific progress since man first walked upright.
When the author mentions the "extreme Hindu group", he misquotes its name as the "Vishnu Hindu Parishad". It's correct name is the "Vishwa Hindu Parishad".
Also, as far as I am aware, it has not asked for the ethnic cleansing of anybody, though many of its members are of a very extreme bent, and may well hold such opinions.
Thirdly, they have also not, to my knowledge, ever acted to block any piece of scientific research. It's an organisation concerned mostly with the social aspects of religion, and they don't bother with what goes on in the laboratories.
Probably the only thing they care about in regard to science and research is that we have bigger and better nukes than the Pakistanis.
Really? Stalin's Soviet Union launched the first satellite, and put the first man in space. Under Stalin's rule, Cerenkov and Tamm won the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physics, as did Landau in 1962 for work carried out under Stalin, and Basov and Prokhorov in 1964.
Stalin was an evil murdering bastard, but to suggest that Soviet physical scientists were prevented from doing good work under his reign is just claptrap. Even under Stalin, scientific free thought was encouraged, it was economic and political free thought that was curtailed. You'll notice they didn't win many Nobel prizes for Economics over that time, and their most notable literary laureate (Pasternak) turned it down out of fear of his government.
Communists have dogma that infringes artistic and economic thought, but it requires a fundamentalist theist to have dogma that infringes scientific thought.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Bettle B made a good point, but I also want to add something. I think in general it's better to look at religion as a reflection of society, than something that molds society. Ostensibly, societies derive their values from religion, but to be completely realistic, more often society leverages religion to enforce the values that they already hold. So in the context of the Arab period of enlightenment, it is useful to look at not the religious angle, but the political and economic events that underly them.
The Islamic Empire (a political phenomenon) brought civilization and urbanization to a region that had been largely nomadic. It brought, at least for a time, stability, security, and wealth. The culture of Islam was, at the time, more contemporary and metropolitan than its contemporaries (remember, we're talking about a period when Europe was in the Dark Ages). These ingredients were all important for the cultural renaissance that occurred in the period. As the civilization declined, wealth, stability, and security were lost, and at that point Islam was used to enforce the conservative social order that naturally arises from such an impoverished state.
Neither Islam nor Christianity have changed substantially in the last 500-1000 years. Neither the Bible nor the Quran have gone through a new edition. What has changed is how literally followers of the religion adhere to the now antiquated doctrines. The vast majority of Western Christians aren't really all that Christian. They don't attend Church regularly, they don't follow most of the teachings of the Bible, etc. They have a vague belief in God and Christ and doing good work, but for all their specificity such beliefs are probably closer to those of a modern, progressive Muslim than to the beliefs of the more ardent believers within their own religion. The litmus test for me is really the whole issue with the Catholic Church and birth control. The Pope, the designated representative of God on Earth, says that contraception is wrong yet most Catholics still use it. This is a very fundamental test of belief. If you honestly believe that there is an all-powerful being who controls heaven and earth and that Jesus died for your sins and left Peter as his successor, and that the current Pope is the spiritual successor of Peter and speaks with all of his authority, then you cannot possibly rationalize the use of birth control. LIke it or not, most modern Catholics do not really believe in Catholicism --- they believe in something similar, but diluted enough for modern sensibilities.
It is this "dilution" that is desperately missing from the Islamic world. We have a population that feels at most mild guilt for skipping Church, and they have a population that fears for their eternal soul for missing prayers, and that's the problem.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Also, no mainstream Christian church exists in the harsh climate--both social and environmental--of the middle east. The old testamenteers were big on the Word, and it was only when the whole focal point of the religion moved to the happy land of Europe that things got a little softer.
Then the Catholic Church happened. Happens. Really, it's interesting to watch judeochristians begrudge the muslim world one good crusade. I mean, without ever owning up to the wholesale murder of the ENTIRE American continent, north and south. Not that people should be involved in a religious war. Even if the Lord calls to them, as he so clearly has done to our dear President.
There. Fixed that for you. If I could've fit some more dollar signs in there, I would have.
And to GGP, I think Allah is almost the exact same pagan deity as Yahweh. Except his beard is black.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
This isn't any different than the consolidation and edition of the works of the bible for internal consistency by the council of Nicea and others. I'm not advocating this, but let's not artificially narrow the scope of the conversation.
Counterquestion: Which pagan deity is Yahweh? Which pagan deity is Jesus? Which pagan deity, pray tell, is Mary?
Q: Why did the Catholic church accept the divinity of Mary in the middle of the 20th century?
A: Catholicism wasn't taking hold in Latin America, where people were unwilling to give up their earth mother goddess.
I think the same can be said for Christianity. I think the Christian leaders aren't too keen on proper education, given their stance on evolution. An educated person can take a symbolic work, interpret it in terms that apply to his or her life, and discard sections of the text that clearly only apply to specific environments (for example, a desert in 600BCE). Religion mostly serves as symbolic anchors for people on a spiritual path, giving you pictures of God creating mountains and such so you get what they're talking about until you're mature enough to appreciate more esoteric internal spiritual development. But that doesn't mean a spiritually developed person can't use symbolism that suits them.
In tribal, violent parts of the world. I've been to some Muslim events and gatherings here in the United States, and they seem generally more conscious, open-minded, and kind than their Christian counterparts. Of course, in the US they're an underclass, so being conscious behooves them greatly.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I wouldn't say my mind is closed.
Of course you wouldn't. That doesn't mean it's not true.
In my experience most people (religious or otherwise) get irrational when their core beliefs are challenged. Not always hostile, but definitely irrational. They will spout logical fallacies left and right, seeming to have suddenly lost their ability to detect them, when only moments before they were pointing them out (as fallacies) in rival belief systems.
This seems to be a psychological defense mechanism that serves to protect one from the very disturbing feelings of uncertainty that arise in such discussions.
The people I've known who don't get irrational when their core beliefs are challenged were usually philosophers (by formal study). Also, they seemed to like it when they suddenly realized that the issues were deeper and less clear than previously thought. In other words, they didn't find uncertainty disturbing, hence they didn't need defense mechanisms, and hence they could remain rational when being challenged, and hence they could actually authentically be considered open minded.
My challenge to you: Humans are not perfect; in fact they often mess things up pretty good. Every single word in the Bible was written by a human. God himself didn't manifest before you and hand you a copy; a human did. Your belief that God used his divine power to preserve the accuracy of the Bible was also taught to you by a human (and, ultimately, cooked up by a human). You simply cannot escape the element of human fallibility present in the Bible, and in all arguments made to it's final authority.
So your faith isn't actually in God. It is in humans. That is to say, you have placed your faith in the specific humans who wrote the Bible, and the specific humans who gave you teachings about it.
In that light, what rational reason can you give me for believing that the (very strange) stories in the Bible (the ones about heaven, hell, superhuman powers, talking animals, and so on) are concretely and historically accurate?
Secularism is a better philosophy than Islam in the same way that rationality is superior to delusion. I'm not sure what you think that has to do with The United States though.
The Farewell Tour II
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts