Age of the Earth and Its Measures

If you have such an interest in Prostate Cancer and related topics, why wait for MOhammed Gill! Why don`t you write one yourself? You must be in the right age group!

Atleast, M-Gill is pretty sincere about what he writes. So no need for sarcasm.

Wot`s next Gill?.An essay on prostate enlargement??.There`s plenty of stuff at the Detroit Public Library you can snitch from.Go on.Write.I promise you i will not pan it.

Well I agree with you in these ideas. Now how about writing an article in Pakistanlink sometime soon or Iviews ? Haven`t seen your hand there for a long time there ! Peace.

Kamath

Alchemist_1:

Thanks for your insightful post. The simplest way to avoid conflict is to separate religion from state. By doing that, religion is also separated from science. In the west, this separation is quite successful and has allowed science to develop without any intervention from religion.
One reason why coexistence of the two seems difficult is that we perceive religion in absolutist sense. If we interpret the Scriptures in metaphorical and figurative sense, we can avoid conflict and confusion. In the west, religious people have adopted this perception. In Islam, reinterpretation (ijtehad) is allowed but it has been muzzled by the fundamentalists. The Christians know that the world was not created in six days. Many of them resolve this intellectual impasse by suggesting that the Biblical day is not necessarily equal to our 24-hours day. For them there is no conflict. Other conflicting language is also accordingly interpreted. You may say that this is hypocrisy. May be and may be not. Those whose spirituality is strong enough, they can live with this sort of exegetes. If you don’t want to resort to this technique, it’s okay because in the west religion is individual affair. No body forces his perception of religion on you.
In the Islamic world, skepticism, agnosticism, or atheism is not tolerated. In that situation, “my belief becomes every one’s issue.” “Every one tries to hang me for my skepticism.” The real problem lies there. They don’t want to leave anything for God; they want to settle it themselves, here, and now. This is what needs to be changed. Religion should become a personal thing.
If half of Europe is faithless, so what? However, If President Bush tries to sneak religion into his policies, it becomes problematic. With kind wishes,

Mohammad Gill

freethinker # 12

Gill Saheb, like most people on here, I always enjoy your articles. They are good read and informative. However, I disagree with your following comments

`` I also believe that science and religion can coexist peacefully as they are doing in the west. ``

I have following questions and comments

1. How did you arrive at that conclusion? In most of western europe, religion has been discarded to carry any meaningful weight in shaping society or governance. In the US, the Christian right has turned more dogmatic in fading hopes of resurrecting the lost glory. I seriously doubt organized religion can survive within rational and scientifically oriented societies. Benign spirituality might.

2. The key point of conflict between the two is quite simple. Religion professes absolute truth without any empirical evidence. The emphasis is on belief, which cannot be used as an argument in any rational discussion. It is as if saying, I believe the space is filled with invisible, undetectable potatoes. Science questions everything, and is not shy of negating its own theories if more credible conflicting evidence is presented. There’s no ego in science. I think this reflects a significant disparity of mindsets.

3. Using religion to justify science or vice-versa is also futile. If someone were to claim parallels between scientific theories and religious revelations, they hazard negation of the revelation as the old theories might be discarded in favor of new ones.

Regards

Very articulate and informative Gill sahib. Your articles certainly provide a good source of quick reference, to say the least. Although most of the people, as they have stated, would already be aware of a good proportion of the facts revealed here, the chronological ordering of the same is still commendable and important.

To my knowledge, the most prominent and reliable estimation for the age of the Universe, in the current global scientific scenario, comes indeed from cosmological probings. I am not sure, to what extent does that help in figuring out the age of the Earth, but it should at least provide an upper limit on it, so was worth taking into account in the conext of this subject.

Nevertheless, thanks for a very knowledgeble read once again Dr Gill, and three cheers for the efforts that you put into the compilation of these articles, for it certainly isn`t a piece of cake, I know for a reason!

A very informative article - though much of this is familiar to me. However, seeing here on one page is interesting - and I must say thanks to you for the condensing the material down and put it all togther.

That last paragrapgh of your article is a very important point - and it should be borne in mind by all people whether they are muslims, or followers of quran, christains, followers of the bible, or Hindus, animists, heathens etc. I am sure that one paragraph of yours is going to generate sufficient heat and energey, which will violate all laws of thermodynamics

Gill.....your articles remind me of this guy......


``Life`s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.``

Macbeth Act V Scene V

Thank you, Gill Sahib, for all your time and effort. At least someone`s doing the right thing. Look forward to your articles.

I think there will always be many people who`ll not only believe in but also practice religion. Diversity is better than monotony. I also believe that science and religion can coexist peacefully as they are doing in the west. It is better to use religion positively rather than as a weapon of offense. Whatever way we look at it, we need science and technology for material development. This is the only way we can become self-sufficient. We should read the signs of nature, as the Quran enjoins us to do, and develop science as much as we can. It is no good to live on borrowed science. And we should stop accusing others for our own weaknesses.

Mr. Naqshbandi has misunderstood me. Science is not the only truth; it depends of course on how we define ``the truth``. I never said that it was the only truth. He should read my article on Chowk, entitled ``Limitations of Science``. My point is that we cannot and should not exclude science from our culture. We should learn to live with it even when it contradicts some religious facts.

Azure:

I appreciiate your viewpoint. I am indeed doing what you`re in fact asking me to do. I am opening up avenues for discussion. I am trying to stimulate the interest of the readers (particularly young readers who are engaged in their professional studies) in science and technology. I see some positive response to my efforts.

This encourages me to do what I am doing. I have used various topics in science, including the most sensitive and controversial topic of biological evolution, for this purpose. My stance is entirely positive. I ask Azure and other readers to contribute articles on science to diversify and broaden the endeavor.

I`ll like to close with:

Andaz-e-byan gar cheh bahut shokh naheen haiy
Shayad keh utr jaey teray dil mein meri baat

Mohammad Gill

Re: # 10

irfanhamid, wouldn`t it be better to just read an encyclopaedia of quantum physics or metaphysics then come online and read Mr. Gills articles? No offence to Gill sahib, his effort is highly commendable. But if I were to write good informative stuff like this, I`d add a seperate section called `Writers Comments`, and put all that I have in my mind in there. After all, Mr. Gill really MUST have something in his mind which is different from what Einstein, Newton, Fourier, Laplace, Darwin or Edmund Halley says. They were human beings, and so are we! The only difference is that they get to discover all the lovely things, and we just have to read and try to understand them. I bet if Newton were alive and he were to give an exam based on theories on physics by me, for example, he`d have a hard time trying to figure out where all the forumals came from, which would be a piece of cake for me because afterall I would be the father of the theory. It`s like trying to reverse engineer a car when designing something new is a lot more easier... something only an engineer can understand! ;-)

Good article. I don`t think including your own views is necessary. A clear synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular domain can be an enriching read in and of itself. Plus, always better not to make informed opinions about something in which on is not an expert isn`t a safe thing to do anyway.

At least we know that God did not create heaven and earth in 6 days (unless the planet he`s on turns REALLY slowly).

My dear Naqshbandi
Since you seem to be a person who believes in the religious method as the way of attaining absolute knowledge, you would be the ideal person to address my concerns.
Would you be kind enough to let me know how a religious truth is verified. All the religions make the claim of being the only true religion. Juadaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam all make the same claim. Forget the rest for now, there are about 72 sects in Islam only. To my understanding all the religions use the same method to prove their claim and that is common to all of them. Each one has its own relvealed book, Prophet, miracles to prove their divine source.
Now , by what method can a person choose one of them? How can a religious truth be validated? To me, it all comes down to faith which does not need any reason and thats the beauty of it.

Mohammed:

Good heavens man!. Why do you smuggle God into the realm of scientific speculation and reasoning. The God you quote is utterly unqualified here in the present discussion. Quranic God can be vengeful , terrifying and all punishing too. Keep him out please. Why mix up revelation and reason?

BTW: Muslim world was not in just deep slumber. It has been in dumps for the past 300 years and it may or may not wake up and get over its arthritic state unless take a hard look at itself and its flaws.

Kamath

Mr. Gill,

Your articles would get more interesting if you added more of your own ideas, opinions and your `deep dark` thoughts instead of concluding them with hopes to see a better future, a better theory, or more englightenment. That would probably generate a lot of debate on your board too and a bit of `survival competition` between the people who favor religion and those who favor science.

Just a suggestion! :-]

Gill sahib wrote:

As a footnote, I started this essay with an ayat from the Quran, which enjoined people to study the signs of God. Ironically, it is the non-Muslim world that followed this injunction, studied the signs of nature, and developed the human knowledge to its present state. In the mean time, the Muslim world was (and probably still is) in deep slumber.

Naqshbandi wrote in #2:

*yawn* (again). Gill sahib, you have made your point: according to you Science is the only Truth and religion (especially Islam) is Bad and superstitious.

Thanks. We choose to disagree.



;-)



Thanks for the informative article Gill sahib. Keep writing!