A responce to the post debate babbling of Hoodbhoy and his fans.
Out of the two hour debate these few minutes have been posted separately on YT (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB7xeoKqo4I&feature=related).This is great boon to those who are hard pressed for time.
Question (PH) : Why did you have to bring in science to make religion seem authentic?
Answer : We'll talk about Islam - not religion. Indeed Islam does not need science to be authenticated. Unfortunately too many people are using science to make religion seem artificial. People of your inclination are foremost in this enterprise.
Q: You brought in M-theory, gravity and Stephen Hawking into discussion but you do not do that for living.
A: If he is not doing that for a living does it mean that he can not use these terms?
PH : I do things pretty close to them.
A : Congratulations - if you need.
PH : You have got these things from popular science books but you do not understand them. You think you understand them. So do not go outside your field of expertize.
A: He may understand some things and he may not understand some other things about these topics. The question is whether his understanding is good or bad for the point that he is making. If he is not supposed to use the popular science knowledge then why is it being written and publicized?
PH: Do not hang important theological issues on popular science knowledge.
A: That is not what is happening. Hamza is only arguing that the science that is being used to throw out Islam can not serve that purpose. The advisable thing will be to stop using science to undermine theology and the onus for that lies on scientists of a particular orientation that includes you.
PH : The only way out is the one pointed out Syed Ahmed Khan, science is one thing, Qur'an is one thing and the Qur'an is to be interpreted in a particular way so that miracles become allegorical.
A : Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (RA) was a human being. He had his own ideas also apart from his faith. He asserted that his graduates will have philosophy in one hand, science in another and they shall have the crown of no god but God on their head. This statement is allegorical, neither the Qur'an nor the miracles, and its implication of this statement are rather clear. When you are in doubt in matters scientific and philosophical then decide them in the light of Qur'an. Thus he believed that it is the Noble Qur'an that is superior and not science. Even if he did get his interpretation of the miracles wrong he knew the way out of it - to submit yourself to the Noble Qur'an. You are insisting on his mistake as a guideline for guidance - it is unjust to the departed soul - may Allah(SWT) show him Mercy.
PH: The difficulty with people like Hamza is that they depend upon half baked knowledge.
A : There is a difference between the people who want to do science or propose and prove and improve theories of science by reading popular science descriptions and the people like Hamza who is using popular science to that level only for which it is designed.
PH : I'll get a blank if I ask him to write down what M-Theory is about.
A : Nearly whole of the physics is based on the principle of least action - suitably interpreted and improvised for different situations. Origins of M-thoery lie in eleven dimensional supergravity theory. Eleven dimensional supergravity theory and hence M-Theory do not have the principle of least action to support it. So even if you ask Edward Witten to write the relevant action principle for M-Theory you shall again get a blank. Will you advice him also to abstain from M-Theory? Perhaps not. In deed it is not an entirely fair demand to ask him to explain scientific theories as a scientist would. It will be certainly fair if the conclusions he is drawing from popular science knowledge are correct or incorrect.
PH : People of diverse religions and different countries can agree upon science but they do not agree upon religion.
A : Not entirely correct assessment. Let us consider the number of people who agree upon a very cogent piece of science - special relativity. We can consider scientists only here and out of them only those who understand it. What will be the number of these agreeing and knowledgeable scientists? Let us assume it is hundred thousand. Now let us consider the number of people in the world who agree on unity of God? It will run into billions.
PH : Hamza is a liar because he attributed hatred for Islam and Muslims to me.
A : The paradigm that you follow at least tries to modify Islam in a way that is not acceptable to theologists of Islam. This can not be classified as love for Islam.
Question (PH) : Why did you have to bring in science to make religion seem authentic?
Answer : We'll talk about Islam - not religion. Indeed Islam does not need science to be authenticated. Unfortunately too many people are using science to make religion seem artificial. People of your inclination are foremost in this enterprise.
Q: You brought in M-theory, gravity and Stephen Hawking into discussion but you do not do that for living.
A: If he is not doing that for a living does it mean that he can not use these terms?
PH : I do things pretty close to them.
A : Congratulations - if you need.
PH : You have got these things from popular science books but you do not understand them. You think you understand them. So do not go outside your field of expertize.
A: He may understand some things and he may not understand some other things about these topics. The question is whether his understanding is good or bad for the point that he is making. If he is not supposed to use the popular science knowledge then why is it being written and publicized?
PH: Do not hang important theological issues on popular science knowledge.
A: That is not what is happening. Hamza is only arguing that the science that is being used to throw out Islam can not serve that purpose. The advisable thing will be to stop using science to undermine theology and the onus for that lies on scientists of a particular orientation that includes you.
PH : The only way out is the one pointed out Syed Ahmed Khan, science is one thing, Qur'an is one thing and the Qur'an is to be interpreted in a particular way so that miracles become allegorical.
A : Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (RA) was a human being. He had his own ideas also apart from his faith. He asserted that his graduates will have philosophy in one hand, science in another and they shall have the crown of no god but God on their head. This statement is allegorical, neither the Qur'an nor the miracles, and its implication of this statement are rather clear. When you are in doubt in matters scientific and philosophical then decide them in the light of Qur'an. Thus he believed that it is the Noble Qur'an that is superior and not science. Even if he did get his interpretation of the miracles wrong he knew the way out of it - to submit yourself to the Noble Qur'an. You are insisting on his mistake as a guideline for guidance - it is unjust to the departed soul - may Allah(SWT) show him Mercy.
PH: The difficulty with people like Hamza is that they depend upon half baked knowledge.
A : There is a difference between the people who want to do science or propose and prove and improve theories of science by reading popular science descriptions and the people like Hamza who is using popular science to that level only for which it is designed.
PH : I'll get a blank if I ask him to write down what M-Theory is about.
A : Nearly whole of the physics is based on the principle of least action - suitably interpreted and improvised for different situations. Origins of M-thoery lie in eleven dimensional supergravity theory. Eleven dimensional supergravity theory and hence M-Theory do not have the principle of least action to support it. So even if you ask Edward Witten to write the relevant action principle for M-Theory you shall again get a blank. Will you advice him also to abstain from M-Theory? Perhaps not. In deed it is not an entirely fair demand to ask him to explain scientific theories as a scientist would. It will be certainly fair if the conclusions he is drawing from popular science knowledge are correct or incorrect.
PH : People of diverse religions and different countries can agree upon science but they do not agree upon religion.
A : Not entirely correct assessment. Let us consider the number of people who agree upon a very cogent piece of science - special relativity. We can consider scientists only here and out of them only those who understand it. What will be the number of these agreeing and knowledgeable scientists? Let us assume it is hundred thousand. Now let us consider the number of people in the world who agree on unity of God? It will run into billions.
PH : Hamza is a liar because he attributed hatred for Islam and Muslims to me.
A : The paradigm that you follow at least tries to modify Islam in a way that is not acceptable to theologists of Islam. This can not be classified as love for Islam.
***
(Written by honorable brother Maripat of sunniforum.com)
(Written by honorable brother Maripat of sunniforum.com)
You, like any number of Muslims, suffer from this built-in inferiority complex. Because Islam in general is considered by educated Muslims to be backwards, people like Hamza try and find scientific validation for their beliefs.
ReplyDeleteHamza in particular is an uneducated and unintelligent professional Muslim, who, without having any scientific background lives in his bubble, where he is the greatest. He does not realise that people with a solid education and real knowledge laugh about him.
People like you seem to love him for his vocal diarrhea. He has no clue what he's talking about, but does so with conviction. His video on the Higgs Boson had everyone here in stitches and his misrepresentation of Sam Harris and Stephen Hawking was hilarious and led to serious face-palming. But he does not care and Muslims love him anyway.
You have some serious reality issues. Because you WANT your particular version of god to be right. You don't care about truth or integrity any longer. You bend the truth to the extent of actually claiming that if you don't love something, this automatically means you hate it. What nonsense!
And you also don't seem to care that spreading a lie about a prominent person in a Muslim society can lead to serious consequences. If more people are told that Prof Hoodbhoy hates Islam, he can get killed just for that.
You also don't seem to understand science. Whether a Hindu, a Christian or an atheist measures voltage, they will all agree that this battery has a potential difference of 12 Volts. In fact, all 7 billion humans on this planet will agree on that.
In religions, this does not work at all. The very same Koran can lead to Ahmadiyya, Shia, Sunni, Sufi and all sorts of different religions.
So PLEASE stop mixing science with religion, they are opposites which don't attract.