Ahmed-Giron Quran and Modern Science
Debate:
Giron’s first rebuttal for 25 minutes.
Ok, I’m just going to go ahead and grab the mic. I would like to say thank you very much to Nadir for his rebuttal. I’m gong to begin here, I hope everyone can hear me and coherent, weather or not in the last one, the last speaking engagement. Ok, first off, to begin right of the front, Nadir asked me, to, that very end, look at the evidence collectively, and give another explanation, for how these 8 verses can be correlated with science. And, I think I can sum up, not to be abusive, I apologize if this offends people, but I think I can sum up an explanation in 3 words:
"Miracle of reinterpretation"
And that is what this issue could boil down to. That can you do it with one verse or eight verses or a hundred verses, can you take a verse in a religious scripture and interpret it in a way, that it becomes harmonious, with beliefs currently held by contemporary scientists? Yes. It is possible. Even with something that.. … like the Bible for example, I already gave the example of Genesis which it soo.. the literal reading of Genesis, at least a English translation, the literal reading of any of the mainstream translations of Genesis, first chapter, is soo different, from what scientists claim happened with the origins of the Universe, its soo different that some Fundamentalist Christians have claimed that science is wrong, and a number of Christians have actually lost their faith and become Atheist, Agnostic or joined other religions. They actually abandoned Christianity, precisely because the felt that there was too much conflict between Genesis and science. None the less, a number of Physicists, I already gave one, Nathan Avaeazhur, and Aveunder and I believe I can think of some others if I had more time. A number of Physicists have written books, I can think of two in particular have written books on why, on how Genesis can be correlated perfectly with the Big Bang Theory, the coupling of light… etc and a number of other things. So is it possible, for a human being can do it with one verse or a hundred verses or a million verses, that they can correlate with science? Yes, it’s absolutely possible. And that’s what I think is one explanation for how something like this could happen.
With that I’m going to try and go back, and go over what Nadir said in the beginning. Indeed he mentioned the algorithm and acknowledge his algorithm. The issue is not that I’m saying all these verses are coincidences. The question which I have up front, in some sense does fit mildly with his algorithm. But his … my own question is, which is a question which I will bring to any verse or any scripture that some one says is a proof in and of itself. That like, if some were to bring you a verse, it doesn't have to be from the Quran, suppose he brings it to you from the Bible, and says, "this verse can only be from God". If that is what they are saying, then the question has to be asked, "is it possible, not is it actually the word of man, but is it possible, that a man could utter something like this?". If the answer is "Yes", the the verse is not in and of itself proof. If it’s possible for one verse or a hundred verses it’s still the same deal. That’s in my opinion.
Now, with regards to Iram, Nadir actually said,
"what were the chances that someone would actually guess a city, that no
one no one else knew about?". The point is, I would like to bring this up,
I actually never claimed that it was a luck guess. My question, is, "is it
possible that a man, living on the Arabian peninsula would know about a city on
the
With regards to the Old Testament, and the Talmud, Nadir said this is
actually a red herring of sorts, because Muslims themselves believe that the
Old Testament is the Word of God. That’s fine, but in an objective debate that
we can site as a premise, that the Old Testament is the Word of God. I mean
that is something that defiantly hasn’t been proven. We will have to prove
that, if we are going to use that as a premise. And .. for example, the Old
Testament mentioning
With regards to Aristotle, Nadir pointed out,that with the salt and the sweet water, that he made an analogy to eating. Yes. He did. Right. He actually said a number of other things. If you read on in his book on Meteorology, he knew about the processes of water and how they condense and evaporate and despite that he also thought it was possible for water to generate out of thin air! So did, Aristotle make errors? Yes. He made many errors. I’m not disputing that. What I was saying, that Aristotle showed some familiarity with the pycnocline, and this is the cite that Nadir invited us to view, claim that when the Quran speaks of the barrier it is a reference to the pycnocline. There isnt actually a barrier outside of the pychnocline, the site is claiming that when it speaks of this barrier, it’s a reference to the pychnocline. The phenomenon of the pycnocline, is a separation of waters, of different densities, and they are at their different densities due to a difference in salinity or… excuse me, temperature. So Aristotle also made a reference to the pycnocline. But the barrier isn’t something separate from the pycnocline. The pycnocline is what the site claimed is what the barrier is a reference to.
Ok, quickly with the dark sea, again the Quran doesn't say anything about depth. It doesn’t say anything about depth. What the Quran just says, imagine yourself in a dark sea, with large waves and dark clouds over head…" and you know, darkness upon darkness. It doesn't even say if you're even deeply in the water, or in the water at all, may be it’s just your boat in the water. Dark seas are mentioned actually mentioned a couple of times, the dark seas near samous are mentioned in the Iliyad, and he speaks about that, you know there are dark seas with dark clouds over head. Again is it possible for human being to be familiar with like this? Absolutely.
Quickly to Iron, no I actually I apologize, I forgot about the near land. The issue in Surah Ar-Rum, when it talks about near land. Is it possible.. I’m sorry, nadir bought up a point, that the word means both, and why would they chose that word? Again, … I think… well, let me give you an explanation on that. I’m going to give an analogy in Genesis , ah not Genesis, in the Bible, in Isaiah, Isaiah 40:22 … chapter 40 verse 22 in the Old Testament. Talks about what most translations would call the circle of the earth. Now, the Hebrew says, gung arait, and it can translate to circle of the earth. Now, arait means the earth or the land. And guung can me circle, sphere or orbe, orbe, like and orbe, like a ball or something like that. So the question is, any Hebrew dictionary of the bible will tell you that gung arait is actually a reference to the horizon, it’s not some sort of scientific miracle. But the question would be asked, why did they use a word which can also mean sphere? Therefore, it can also be translated ,"The sphere of the earth" or "the orbe of the earth"? It doesn’t really matter, a lot of words has many meanings. But it doesn't mean that the author of the verse intended those numerous meanings. And, that’s the point which needs to be bought up here. If a person uses a word which has multiple meanings, you can not assume that the author intended a specific meaning, or, all of the multiple meanings. And I’m not assuming, that with the issue of near land, that, the author intended near land, I’m saying its possible. And if it’s possible, it’s possible for a human being to utter the verse. Therefore, its, we don’t have to assume that it in itself, is the Word of God.
With Iron, actually, Nadir made a slight error, he said, he actually interpreted the verse in Surah Al-hadid as saying that, Iron can not be produced on earth. The Quran doe not say that. All it says is "unzulna" , we sent down in Al Hadid. We sent down Iron, it doesn’t say specifically that Iron can not be produced on earth. That’s Nadir’s…. he’s importing that. No Offense. But, that’s all the Quran says, is that, we sent down. And the issue of sent down, again, is it possible for a human being to say that? And he actually said that, Walt Whitman was in error when I gave you the verse from Walt Whitman’s poem, song of myself. Again, we need to take this into context. The issue of Iron is that, Iron, like all other elements, can not be produced, with the exception of Helium, can not be produced on this earth. Every element with the exception of Helium and may be oxygen, has come from outside this earth. It comes from stars. It has to do with binding energy and nuclear synthesis. Because you know, the binding energy of all these elements are to high to be forged on this planet. So it has to have come from else where. So that means that everything, everything in your body with the exception of Oxygen…err Helium, if there is any Helium in our bodies, I’m not sure, I’m not a Biologist. But with anything, it is the result of things which came from stars. And Walt Whitman, long before people could figure this out, said quote,"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars". The journeywork of the stars is what’s important. Walt Whitman said that. Which can easily be correlated with the fact that, a leaf of grass, everything in it, unless theirs.. with the exception of Helium, I don’t think there’s any Helium in a leaf of grass. But everything in a leaf of grass is an element which traveled from a star and landed in the earth. According to common conceptions of binding.. err excuse me, not common conceptions, the scientific understanding of the binding energy of the elements. So in order for us to have that leaf of grass, we had to have all the elements inside it, make a journey from a star, to the earth. Because none of these elements can be forged on the earth. Therefore, Walt Whitman is absolutely correct when he says in his poem song of myself, that, "I believe that a leaf of grass is no more less the journey work of the stars". How could he say this if he didn’t mean it to be a reference to binding energy? Well I think that, the point is that because we can correlate it with science, doenst mean that he actually intended it to be a reference to that. And that’s actually something which applies to the Quran on all these issues.
Now, back to the issue of his murder trial, and Nadir’s murder trail analogy, and the issue of probabilities. Quickly, with probabilities, I don’t like arguments with probabilities, because they can be abused. And ill give a great example of this right now. I just checked, and according to, now this could be wrong, but according to the numbers in the list of this group, but there are 69 people in this room right now. Now lets use that, because, Nadir gave an example of the possibility that this would all be coincidence, even though I did not claim it was coincidence, is 1/1 X 10^26. Well so, 1 out of,you know..divided by 26 zeros. So I’m going to give an even greater number. There are 69 people in this room. Now let’s take one person. It’s possible that a person, just to show how probability arguments can be abused. It’s possible, that a person in this room, such as myself, will have at least 9 pairs of socks. Now, are they wearing any of those pairs? They could be wearing any one of those pairs, or they could be wearing no socks at all. So the chances that they are wearing any of those socks or no socks at all is 1/10. Now it is also possible that they could own 9 pairs of pants or skirts or things that go around the legs. Now for the person in this room such as Nadir and myself, could be wearing no pants at all, or one of those specific 9 pairs. And the chances of them wearing one of those pairs of shorts, or pants or skirts or whatever, or none at all is again, 1/10. So the chance of them wearing combination of the shirt and the pants and the socks, whatever combination they are wearing, becomes 1/100. Now a person can own 9 different shirts, it could be shirts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters and let’s assume that they own only 9. The chances of them wearing any one of those garments that go over the chest, over the torso, or none at all, is again 1/10, if we are assuming that they own 9 items that go over the chest. So the chances that Nadir is dressed the way he is, wearing either no socks or a specific pair, and a specific pair of pants or none at all, and a specific shirt or none at all, is 1/1000. And the same it would be for me. The chances that Nadir would be dressed the same way that I’m dressed, excuse me dressed the same way he is, at the same time dressed the way I am becomes 1/1,000,000. Now considering that there are 69 people with each person it goes up 3 zeros. The chances that all of us would be dressed in the precise combination were dressed in, this precise combination, not any other combination, any other combination would be similar. But none the less, this precise combination. The chances that it would reach this precise combination, would be 1 X 10^207 ie….. 1 divided by a 1 with 207 zeros next to it. I don’t think it’s a miracle we are all dressed like this. I just think its proof that a probability arguments can be abused.
And Nadir gave the murder trial analogy. Now, the issue with the murder trial analogy is that I don’t think it really captures whats going on. Because with these verses, if you are doing 2 verses, 8 verses, 1000 verses, we can go through them one by one. Is it possible, that this first verse could be uttered by a human being? Yes. Is it possible that the second verse could be uttered by a human being? Yes. Is it possible that this third verse could be uttered by a human being? Yes. And so on. If you go through a hundred verses like that, none the less, you have a collection of a 100 hundred verses like that, and its possible that each and everyone could have been uttered by a human being. I don’t see what the problem here is. Then, none.. you could say that your one piece of evidence doesn’t add up, but if you collect a group of pieces of evidences, that themselves don’t add up, that some how it adds up to something collectively that does fit. I really don’t agree I think you have 8 verses. And each one, it’s possible that a human being could have said it. So if each one is possible, for a human being to have say it, then its also possible for a human being, could have uttered all eight verses. I’m not claiming its chance, you know, I’m not claiming Iram is chance, I think… that’s not what I’m claiming that its guess work. I’m saying its possible for a human being to be aware of a city that’s near where they live. With regards to the pycnocline, it’s the same thing.. I mean with the bottom of the deep, that an ocean is dark, it’s possible that a person would know this. And with the others, its just a miracle of reinterpretation, such as Iron being a reference to binding energy, nucleou synthesis, and other processes which the element comes from off the stars. Or the issue with the Orbit and stuff like that. A number of people believed that the sun and moon moved in Orbits. A lot of people believed that.
So I hope this wasn’t too incoherent, I think I rushed right through it.
Because I didn’t know what Nadir was going to say tonight.. well I mean.. I did
.. but… you know, I didn’t prepare very well.. may be soo.
I apologize if this wasn’t very coherent, I look forward to Nadir’s rebuttal,
and I hope I didn’t offend anybody with this. With that, I would like to say,
thank you very much, and I now yield the mic.
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