Quran and Modern Science Debate
Ahmed’s first rebuttal for 25 minutes.
I would like
to thank Denis Giron for his presentation, let me begin by stating that Denis
stated that there can be many human explanations, and he gave many examples of
how, you know, Aristotle could have done it this way, and stuff like that, Here
is the point to be noted, from the very beginning, I already stated that, yes,
just because you have a scientific statement in the book, that does not
automatically mean that it is the Word of God. In fact gave all the eight
different scenarios in the algorithm,
I would like for everyone to turn to the algorithm,
and I cited.. I went one step beyond there, and I cited you all the of the
eight possible human explanations for each and every single one of these verse.
Anyways, let
me start of by commenting on what Denis has said. He said the thing about bees,
some people have mentioned male bees, some people have mentioned female bees,
and some people have mentioned sexless bees.. well.. there is a very good reason
for this. Because it is a 50/50 chance! It’s either male of
female! So
some people got it right, some people got it wrong. That’s why you see some
books you will fine male bee, some books say female bee. But my point is, that
the Quran got it right. Again I also showed you, that it does not matter what
the other books state, and of course, I think Denis agreed with me on this
point. He was only saying, I’m just showing you that it can be done by human
beings. He is not saying the author of the Quran was plagiarizing, because of
course we know that is illogical, or else he would have copied a lot of the
wrong information as well in that book.. so … you know .. I think that point
has been noted. Anyways, that is my point on bee.
So, the
probability of guessing the right bee is ½. It doesn’t matter what book you
find it in, the probability is ½ , soo that is very important as we continue…
it’s ½. Anyways lets talk about Iram. He said that, it is possible, first of
all he agrees with me, that if you look at any book or any historical books,
there never have been mentioned about any city named Iram. It was only
mentioned in the Quran. He was saying it was hypothetically possible, that
maybe….. some way…… some how……. the author of the Quran somehow knew of the
city called Iram, I don’t know how, but maybe some way he has done that. So ,
ok, he basically said, that basically, that’s again, maybe it was a coincidence
or or it was luck and I cited that in my algorithm.
So he did not agree that, but he said
Old Testament
its selfs claims. So anyways, I don’t want to get too much on the Bible here,
again that could be another red herring.
Ok, let’s
talk about barriers. He said that Aristotle had some familiarity with it. I
already mentioned that in my beginning. I told you how Aristotle believed how..
how.. the salt and water… salt and fresh water gets mixed. Or, I’m sorry, how
you explain the phenomenon of salt and fresh water. He explained it like
eating a
food, and then when you food… when you go to the bathroom, then you know…. what
comes out, he said that’s like how salt and fresh water. This is… I have
already explained all of that… that … Notice, this is the point to be noted:
That Aristotle, had NO clue, NO idea, that there was actually a physical barrier
between the salt and fresh water. He had no idea of this. And notice also
another thing, that the things which he did write about salt and fresh water,
that is all observable to man. Meaning if I were to conduct experiments on salt
and fresh water, and I had no, and a man 1400 years ago were able to do this he
would be able to also come to the same conclusions. So his observations were
observable. That’s a point to be noted also. So, yes, he talked about that
pycnocline, but he didn’t talk about the barrier.
As far as
going back to the my issue of "waters can not transgress" in that
ayat, again I think agree with Denis or Denis Giron, this is all a matter of
interpretation. What do you mean by, "waters can not transgress"?
What some people will say, "because it is it self not a clear wall".
Some people will say,
"look,
what it means is that you have 2 bodies of water.. the salinity the temperature
on that side, and the salinity, temperature, density on that side is something
else…" so that shows that these 2 bodies of water do not mix. So some
people will explain it like that. Like I said, I agree that it is almost
impossible to try to find this type of scientific error, But I agreed with him
that we will not discuss that tonight. We can perhaps make a separate debate
like how I debated Richard Carrier, in which he unsuccessfully , basically
tried to show that there were scientific errors in the Quran. But anyways, let
me move on.
He also spoke
about the darkness in the seas. Now let me pause here for one second, because I
want to make a very important note also. I forgot to make it in the beginning.
Denis Giron, is not saying that these verses do not agree with modern science,
he never made that claim on any of these. Basically what he said
was that
there were possible human explanations for it. So, that’s also very important
which should be noted. He said, that, "well you know, the issues of the
darkness of the seas, well…..you know when I’m in a pool and I see less visible
water, you know, and I can see I can see my feet less visable, MAYBE the author
of the Quran saw the same thing and then he used his intellengence or something
and figured out that yes.. the deep dark seas, or in the dark deep ocean it is
complete darkness. Again, this is all conjecture. The point is, that the issue
about the depth and darkness of the deep dark seas you will not find in any
book. So basically, what Denis is basically saying here, is that this could
have been a coincidence or luck. Go back to the algorithm,
which I have posted for you and look at what is coincidence.. I think its
"B" no, I’m sorry "C" that is luck. So he is basically
saying, what he is doing, is that he is
bouncing back
and forth, he saying , "that’s luck" . .. I’m sorry, "that could
be a good guess"… "that could be a coincidence"….. "that
could be a good guess"… "that could be a coincidence……" he is
bouncing back and forth between the two
options,
because he agrees they do match up with modern science.
So anyways,
let me go on to the issue of nearer land. He bought up an issue of, you know,
most commentators translate… I’m sorry, the lowest point on the earth is near
Jerusalum. And that is, so basically, the Quran used a word for that in which
you will find both "nearer land" as well as the lowest point. My
question to him was, " why did the author of the Quran USE a particular
word which has both meanings. This is my question number one. He said,
"most people translate it as nearer land". That is because, for the
people who don’t know science, or lets say for the person living 1000 years
ago, that’s going to make more sense to him than "lowest land". But
my point stands, it does not matter you can use any one of the meanings,
"nearer land" or "lowest point", the word means BOTH. So
basically, to put it in a nut shell, what Denis is basically saying, is that,
"it is an amazing coincidence". It is an amazing coincidence that the
author of the Quran used a word which has both meanings.
Ok. He said
about the issues of sent down Iron. He said God also sent down a book. Again,
these are all red herrings. That does not mean anything. He did not refute the
point, that this is a scientifically correct statement. Basically, what he is
saying about "sending down Iron", is that…. this could be a
coincidence. Another coincidence. "Maybe he was referring, like its God’s
gift or something.." But even in that interpretation, again, that does
agree with modern science because it is very clear, that the Quran is stating,
that Iron could not be produced by earth.
Leaf of grass
is from the stars, again this is something, he said, "well you know, the
elements, the basic elements of it, could have been, cold have been created
from outside of the universe". Read the verse, it says, "leaf of
grass is from stars". And of course, the person is referring to the stars
up above. We know that’s not scientific. This is a scientific error with you
have pointed out in the book. But perhaps, someone can look at it and say, "ok,
there could be some scientific bases for it". I’m going to give that to
you, no problem.
About Orbits,
he said, "Orbits.. you see Ptolemy also believed this and
Aristotle..". I pointed out before earlier, that it is IRRELEVANT. It is
completely irrelevant what people wrote about it before. The question is,
"how did was the author of the Quran able to decipfer what are the true
statements in an ocean of falsehood?" Therefore, the mere fact, that this
is something
mentioned
before does not disprove this as evidence. The verse which I gave you is in
complete agreement with modern science. The sun and the moon do indeed have
orbits. And of course, I don’t believe that Denis is here tonight to even
suggest the idea that maybe this was a plagiarization. Because of course, you
would copy man of the wrong errors. He was only trying to show, that, a human
being could have done it. Again, what Denis is basically saying on this point,
is that it is another COINCIDENCE, that the Quran is matching up with modern
science.
Ok, having
said all of that, I would just like to bring up another point here. I’m going
to kind of share with you a small little story here, and I think from this
small story its going to give us some valuable lessons. So I’m kinda gona get
off topic here, but it is very much directly related to what we are talking
about. Now, you know, I was watching TV, and I was watching a murder trial, I’m
just going to make it a mock murder trial. There was a man who was accused of
killing his girl friend. And there were many pieces of evidences, and there
were may pieces of evidences that the prosecutors had against him, there were 6
pieces of evidence.
There was a
man who was accused of killing his girl friend. And there were many pieces of
evidences, and there were may pieces of evidences that the prosecutors had
against him, there were 6 pieces of evidence. First, he claimed that he was
going to kill his girlfriend, number one. Number 2, he actually bought a knife
the same week
that his girlfriend was stabbed, and it was the same type of knife. Number 3,
he was last seem with her one hour before her death in a fight,and he was
pushing her in the car. Number 4, blood was found in his car also. Number 5, he
claimed that he mysteriously lost the knife that he bought just a
couple of
days before. Number 6, the very same day of the murder, he said to a local
friend that, "Im going to take care of her, so that she will never bother
anyone again".
Ok, so
anyways, her is my point. There is no question in anyone’s mind, that this man
is clearly guilty of the murder of this this woman. And there is no court
around in the entire world who would not prosecute this man and send him to
jail, based upon this evidence. I don’t think there is any question about that
inside anyone’s mind. But, what if he tried to plead innocent… what if this man
tried to plead innocent? I don’t think this man who has done this will claim,
that all of the 6 pieces of evidence given, was ALL a coincidence. And that’s a
fact. In fact the explanation is soo silly, that even the defendant would not
offer that nor would the attorney in a court of law come up on court day and
say, "Yes, ALL fo those 6 pieces of evidence was all just an amazing
coincidence!".
Anyways, let
me move on to my point here. My point is that we could look at each and every
one of these pieces of evidences INDIVIDUALLY, remember this is a key word,
INDIVIDUALLY.And we look at this piece of evidence. Like, let’s take the first
example: "he claimed that he was going to kill his girlfriend". Well,
you know, that in itself is not conclusive evidence to prosecute him, right? To
convict him? Because you know, like I was saying, to my wife and my
brother,"man, if don’t get out of my room, I’m going to kill ya..!"
Does that mean, that I actually wanted to kill my wife and my brother? Well, of
course not. So, this is basically the same situation we are seeing with the
Quranic verses. That, yes, there could be, it may be from a higher source or it
may not be. The same thing is happening here with with each and every one of
these pieces of evidences. May be he is guilty may be is not. In both(science
in the Quran and
murder trial)
cases the evidence is inconclusive based on this one piece of evidence alone.
If we just looked at this evidence alone. Now of course, that holds true for
each and every one of these 6 pieces of evidences. Alone it will be very hard
to prosecute this man, and he would get away.
But now, here
is what I would like to ask people to do. Let us take a look at the evidences
not individually, but COLLECTIVELY. Let us look at the evidence COLLECTIVELY.
So when we ask the question, "how do you explain ALL of these 6 pieces of
evidence happening to you"? Then it becomes clear that this is not a
COINCIDENCE!
Because.. because what you are doing is that youre saying "ok..ok..fine…
you claimed you were going to kill your girlfriend, ok, that in itself is not
proof. But, hey, you also bought a knife the same week! How do you explain BOTH
of these?!?! So what I am asking you to do tonight, is not look at the evidence
individually, but look at it colectively. And basically, if you were to look at
this evidence collectively which I just did, I don’t think there is any
question that this man is guilty. Because what your brain just basically did,
weather you
realize it or not… You looked at #1 , that he claimed he was going to kill his
girlfriend, in your mind you came up with a probability, maybe 1/10 that he is
innocent, or 1/50.. whatever. And then you look at the second piece of
evidence, and then your brain basically did the same thing; well, that may be a
1/50 chance. So you multiplied the probability of the first one, and the
probability of the second piece of evidence and then you went down and did all
6 pieces of evidences, and you came up with a number like 1/10,000,000. The
chances are,
that it is 1/10,000,000 that all of this was just done by chance, or … or..by
just pure luck, that it is clear that you are guilty, because the chances the
chances of you being innocent are soo low.
Anways, now
what I am asking for people to do is put the same logic to the Quran! Look at
the evidence collectively, not just individually. Up to this point, Denis and
also myself, we were looking at the evidence collectively (ops I meant individually).
Now, lets look at the evidence collectively, and lets see what we come up with.
Ok, the Author of the Quran made 8 brilliant
scientifically
correct statements, which of course I basically mentioned. So thus far we have
seen many versus in the Quran which foretell science and Archaeology before it
was discovered. So we are going to look at the 8 pieces of evidences
collectively. If everyone can turn to the algorithm,
which I gave to you. Lets look at E: Common Sense. What we are doing now, is we
are asking the question:
"How do
we account for ALL of these verses in the Quran which agree with Modern
Science?" Not individual verses. This is the question we are not beginning
to answer. Infact I’m going to cut and paste this question, because it is
pretty important.
How do you
account for ALL of these verses which agree with modern science? Well, look at
"E", I don’t think it is "Common sense". So you can cross
that out. Perhaps the scientific fact was observable, as in the case of
Aristotle? Ah, no. Many of these things are not observable, like the issues of
the bees, as
well as iron
being sent down… none of that stuff is observable. "G: Perhaps the
information already preexisted in history?". And of course we know that is
not true, in the sense that the Author of the Quran plagiarized from some other
source. Well, I don’t think that is true either because in order to make this
claim, you
will have to show other stuff which the which the author of the Quran also
copied from the book. Because, if you are coping from a corrupt source, weather
it be Aristotle, Bible, whatever, you’re also going to be coping the same
errors. So,
on your little list, go ahead and cross out E,F,G.
Lets look at
A and C now. Perhaps the author of the Quran was a great scientist or great
genius. And that is how he came up with these great conclusions! Which is of
course, what Denis tried to allude to with the issue of the darkness of the
deep ocean. That MAY BE the Quran was a very smart guy, and he figured it out
from looking at the hazy water on the feet. Lets take a look at these options
here. We all know, that scientists make discoveries by trial and error. That is
how they make discoveries. As we saw in the case of Aristotle, he made 7
scientific
errors IN REGARDS to bee study, right? So my question is, "how many
scientific errors do we find in the Quran in relations to that subject he was
studying and it was 1/0. So we know, that the author of the Quran was not a
scientist. Again another point is, and … it dosent matter how good a scientist
you are, the
statements in the Quran can only be discovered with the aid of modern
technology, and advanced equipment and sophisticated methods. Like, the lowest
point of the earth, Iron, bee orbits. No matter how good of a scientist you
are, you will never come to this conclusion. So, we know, that the Author
of the Quran,
was not a scientist, or a genius. And another point, how was the author of the
Quran able to escape 1,000 pages of hadeeth literature? And even his close
friends like Abu Bakr, and Aisha his wife…. he(author of the Quran) hid his
true profession as a scientist to the whole world. How was he able to do so, in
light of the fact, in light of the fact, that the life of Muhammed(PBUH) was a
open book? We even know how he went to the bathroom. That’s how mudane issues
we recorded about him. So all I’m trying to say, is I don’t think he was a
great scientist, or basically he was a genius. And I think Denis is also saying
the
samething, that is why he said.. be pretty much leaned towards the idea,that
this was a coincidence or pretty much a good guess. Coincidence or good guess.
So basically what you can do know, go ahead and cross out A and C.
Lets look at
"coincidence". Now remember, coincidence means, that you had no
intentions of making these scientific statements, it was a complete accident.
Coincidence can also be ruled out. because we see here from the statements that
the Author of the Quran is making a concerted effort to speak about science.
The Author fo the Quran is WILLFULLY and INTENTIONALLY attempting to speak
about scientific principles and how our universe was created, and how things
work in their. One good example, was the verse on Embryology. First, there was an
Alaqah, then
there was a Mudgah…. I’m sure Denis knows what I’m taking about. But,
coincidence means, that you had no intention of doing so! It was a complete
accident. So on that point I don’t think so. And with coincidence, we know luck
is involved. Lets look at what are the probabilities of making these kinds of
"coincidences".
Let me ask you this question, "what do you think of the possibilities, of
if I claim to be a Prophet, and I wrote a book, and in that book, I started
writing my beliefs, and my views down. What do you think, are the
possibilities, that I will write something down by accident, that will agree,
with a scientifically correct statement, that people don’t know about
NOW… but, it
will be discovered TOMORROW?". And this is all done by accident. I had no
intention of saying something scientific, I was just describing my dog! So,
what do you think of the chances of that happening? Lets make a probability
here. Anyways, let me add some more food for thought. Well, actually, before I
do that, let me tell you the number which I came up with. I came up with
1/500,000. Actually I came up with 1/5,000,000 but I wanted to make things easy
for Denis here. Here is the reason how I came up with that number, 1/500,000. I
say that
because, think of all the people in the world who have written something in
their life today. How many people do you know, that was writing something, I
don’t care what it was, it could have been an email to a girlfriend, a resume,
a spy novel, a horror novel.. and in that book, they wrote something they wrote
something which actually agreed with modern science, which
scientist
have discovered later. And this was all done unintentionally and by
accident"? Well, I think that happens to 1 out of every 500,000. That is
the number I came up with.
Lets look at
this last option. May be, it was a good guess. You know, a person trying to
guess in the year 600 as far as what these scientific probabilities (I meant to
say, principles) are… the probabilities are astronomical as far as what it
could be. Lets go ahead and see… lets say, the Author of the Quran was going to
GUESS at all of this stuff. The
probability of the bee is ½. Right? Because the bee could be either male of
female. So, it is ½. But, what about Iram? What if the author of the Quran
GUESSED about the city which Archaeologists only discovered later? So here is
the question I’m asking. Lets say, everyone just sit here and guess. Or lets
say, I’m just going to sit here and guess. I’m going to guess about a city….
Which no one knows about today… but…. It exists… but Archaeologists will one
day, discover this city…. And …. I’m going to try to guess the name of that
city!! So what do you think of the probabilities of me
actually
being successful in doing that? Well, I put it at 1/1000. I’m sorry, 1/10,000.
That is the probability of that guess. So basically, for all of the scientific
miracles, all 8, I made them 1/10,000, with the exception of bee, bee is ½. So
if we were to multiply 1/10,000 by 8 times:
1/10,000 X
1/10,000 X 1/10,000 X 1/10,000 X 1/10,000 X 1/10,000 X1/10,000 X 1/10,000 = 1/
1 X 10^28
, we come
with a number about 1/ 1 X 10^28. That is the probability that the Author of
the Quran made 8 guesses and on every guess he got it right, that is the
probability of him doing that. So… I don’t think guesswork or coincidence.
Coincidence,
is really bad, you have to tack on a 1/500,000 number ratio for that. So when
you do the math, no matter how you dot it, it just doesn’t work. The chances of
all this being guesswork or coincidence as Denis was basically alluding to, the
numbers are soo ridiculously high, no one would ever assume
such a thing.
1/ 1 X 10^28, that’s the probability of it happening. Therefore, on your list
of possibilities, you can go ahead and cross out coincidence (D), and you can
go ahead and cross out guess work(B). What you should have on your paper
basically is that leaves ONE last alternative. ONE final alternative, which has
not been crossed out yet:
IF Quranic Statement
= Scientific fact
THEN:
(it can be
one or more of the following 8 possibilities)
A. Perhaps
the author of the statement was a genius
B. A very
good guess,luck
C. Perhaps
the author of the statement was a great scientist
D.
Coincidence (ex: a poetic statement which just happened to match up with
science),luck, and the author had no intention of talking about science; it was
an accident. No intention.
E. Common
sense (ex: rain causes grass to grow)
F. The
scientific fact is observable
G. The
information already pre-existed in history (this can only be entertained
if we have
historical errors)
H. A source
greater than man was involved
And when you
look at this alternative, you will see, that is it "a source greater than
man (H)". That is the only logical and reasonable expectation. So in
conclusion, we look at all these other possibilities (A-G) all these other
"HUMAN EXPLANATIONS", of all this stuff happening, and we did not
look this(each scientific statement) individually, we analyzed it collectively,
and none of the human explanations hammer out. T hey don’t make sense. We know that the author of the Quran could
not have been a scientist (C) , we know this is not guess work(B), we know that
it is not coincidence (D).
If we were
just looking at one verse, and one verse by itself, ok… may be we can come to
that conclusion (human explanations A-G), but when we look at the evidence
COLLECTIVELY, then there is no question, that this book, this Quran could not
have been authored by a man. A force greater than man had to have been
the source
and the author of the Quran (H). The Mathematics simply prove that. So my
question for Denis tonight is:
"if you
do not accept this last alternative (H), then you provide us with a logical
rational human explanation not for each verse individually! The collective..
look at the evidence collectively."
With that, I
turn the mic over to Denis Giron.
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