The Role of Mystics, Artists and Scientists in Human Evolution “In the last few centuries, human beings have crossed another milestone in evolution through the disciplines of Science and Philosophy…………..Karl Marx……….twentieth century writings of….philosophers like Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud”

My friend how can you say that? You just sold my gurus short. What about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and how about Confucius? These guys are as old as any of the other religions. They are contemporaries of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Moses and a lot older then good old Jesus and Mohammad. They represent the humanist, secularist tradition which is as rich and almost as old as the famous myth mongers. It was Alfred C. Whitehead who said something to the effect that, all Western philosophy is nothing more then a series of footnotes to the writings of Plato. This whole western civilization whose marvels we admire every day, its humanism, its values, its virtues are all based upon that luminary and his disciple Aristotle. It is sad that you have not afforded them any role in your evolution story.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #192 & #193 by tahmed32

If I understand it correctly by prod you are implying jazaa and sazaa. No, not at all! I believe virtue to be its own reward. But again at the risk of repeating myself, it is the subtlety of the human condition e.g for me I get lazy and take short cuts when I know what the right thing to do is; so the gentle prod to me is … hey you know better then to do that. But you may never take short cuts but have other issues, so the prod is directed in other ways for you. It is unique and tailor made for each one of us because we all have our own individual and unique paths to God.

This is getting too darn heavy! I think I am gonna have a head ache – this is way beyond I ever wanted to delve.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #188 by Raw_Dust

MY GOD!!!

Another interlocutor! You almost blindsided me, I didn’t expect such a violent reaction from the left. But let me regroup, and put myself together for your onslaught.

First of all the delusion that I am suffering from is shared by nearly 85% of the people of this planet, and they have suffered it for a few millenniums. As a matter of fact there has yet to be a society on this earth which has survived without God. Communism and socialism which tried to create a society without IT, could not survive a generation. So your kind, which has to be lumped together with agnostics, humanists and other theists, is a tiny minority which is new, has not been tested through time and stands on very thin logic and what you call rationalization.

Now let me address this question in a manner that you were hoping that I would– through rationality. you are absolutely right that I am a rational being. But rationality is just one component of me and it is really not the component which rules me. I am ruled by the other side of me which you can call my true self, this is where my likes and dislikes are. I make my decisions based upon my likes and dislikes (emotionally) and then try to justify them rationally. So where as you may have killed your emotional self and made the determination that your life is nothing more then unending calculations. I have not made any such sacrifice – I embrace my humanity, my love, my passions …. all the things that make life worth living.

So deep within my being I feel the presence of this Goodness. The One who gently prods me to do the right thing. Who is my Moral Compass. Who wants me to stay on the straight and narrow (sirat e mustaqeem). Can I justify it rationally? I think I have. But feel free to rebut and ridicule.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well Hey Zeemax:

Man, I have been waiting for you, because I really wanted to have our discussion, but you have chosen not to. That is okay. I am sorry, I put you on a spot, but you see this is the subtlety of our condition. Life is nothing more then a journey and self doubt and being conflicted is an essential part of the human experience.

This is where it becomes crucial to believe in a benevolent, beneficent and compassionate God, who understands our frailties and forgives our trespasses. This is also where we have to reject the Mullah trap of an angry, vengeful God all set to throw us all into eternal hell fires. Both you and I are hopeful (because without hope there is nothing) that His mercy will pull us through.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #143 by malik99

“the fact that there was no dearth of ``aalims`` who had mastery of arabic just as good, if not better, than arabs’

Please guide me to some sort of course requirements for aalim, faazils, because as I understand it Faazil e Adab, Fazil e Dinyaat, munshi fazil (farsi), moulvi fazil (Arabic), adeeb fazil (urdu) sanad e hikmat younani; were all the asnaad in the madrasah which was conducted at the mosque. Hardly any of them required over 10 or 11 years of education. These graduates had very little ability. Their main function was that of being munshis whose job was to read letters or write letters to loved ones who were far away. Most if not all of the population lived in villages and there were one or 2 munshi fazils or with alim sanad. But calling these dinyat peddlers as ‘aalims’ is a stretch. Knowledge of Arabic enough to know about the Quran and tafseer was rare. If you have any data or sources which give some indication as to the level of such literacy I would love to have them.

“but even Bible didnt get translated from Latin into English and other languages until well into 1500s - nearly 1500 years after it was put together”

You are absolutely right – but it did not happen without a fight. Fact of the matter is that this ended up dividing the Church into its current Catholic and Protestant factions. The Church raised similar objections like our ulema that translating the Bible was not possible as its divine meaning would be lost. Practical reason was that where as it was so much easier for a priest to utter his words in an unknown language where he could impress his congregation as they didn’t know what was being said. But once it was said in the local vernacular they knew that what ever the priest was saying was after all not so magical and some of it was actually pretty ordinary that they were afraid to loose their power over the people. So Martin Luther said something to the effect that the strength of the church should not be in the ignorance of the laity. Moreover the printing press was just coming on and he was able to get the gospel translated into German published and distributed much more quickly then the opposition had time to solidify against him.

Kemal Ata Turk with his national hero credentials tried it for us Muslims as well, but not having philosophical credentials he was unable to make a coherent argument for having the Quran and the namaz conducted in Turkish. It never caught on and as a matter of fact today even in Turkey namaz is conducted in Arabic. But for our Muslim reformation we may end up having to revive the same formula that the Christians had adopted 500 years ago.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #150 by hamidm2

Hamid:

What the heck is wrong with you today, I think it is the pathan side of you that is acting up. If you cant get it just read what bjkumar wrote. It is fairly simple, the harm like you said done by Syed Qutb and Co. cannot be undone by Dr. Hoodbhoy or any of you science types. It requires an anti Qutb and Co. philosophers, social thinkers, religious scholars who refute the arguments and reconcile modernity with Islam. That is the only way forward.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #142 by hamidm2

``........ this really comes as a shock to me !......... if the koran wasn`t translated into persian.....``


You see that is why you need to study history – it challenges your assumptions.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #129 by hamidm2

“we don`t want people with humanities degrees to go back ! ....... remember syed qutub?..... he came to america to get a humanities degree and this is what he learned about you :

......... then he went back to join hassan al-banaa`s al-qaeda ......... and if i am not mistaken, hassan turabi, another shining light of al-qaeda, has a phd in law from the sorbonne ......... and let`s not even talk about sir muhammad allama iqbal who studied philosophy in germany and returned to cause more havoc than masadi can ever dream of ..........”

As usual you don’t get the point unless I hit it over your head with it. You cant even claim the success of Agha Khan medical college on the talent of you science dans. It has all to do with Agha Khan and their sects philosophy of creating such institutions for their success. Where as idiots like you (science graduates) even in the best of circumstances were only able to make marginal differences to institutions that you have mentioned Syed Qutb, Illama Iqbal and Maudoodi have had the lasting societal impact on the Muslim ummah.

So the point being that you can study all the science you want but it is going to be meaningless unless you can reconcile modernity with your purpose in life, your conception of what is good, and ultimately its place in your salvation.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #141 by zeemax

I am sorry man! This is too darned pivotal so tedious or not, lets delve into it as deeply as we can. Now you have introduced another term that you are a fundamentalist but not a fanatic. Wait just a minute … When it comes to Islam both these terms are meaningless. The only terminology that can be used is whether you are observant or you are not. Either you follow Islam or you don’t. There are no gradations, no moderation, no enlightened moderation, fanaticism etc. They just do not apply to Islam.

Either you accept the literal word of God and you observe it to the best of your ability …. And if you don’t accept it (mind you not observe it)….. aap daira e islam sey kharij hein.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #123 by zeemax

Yes it was written by an almost illiterate Bedouin – with the claim that it was the divine, literal and inviolable word of God. To this day even for recitation purposes, pronunciation and diction are emphasized so that it is not misinterpreted in any way.

Any body who attempted to go beyond literal was accused of innovation and paid a heavy price. One of the accusations for the murder of the third Caliph Uthman b. Affan was that he had innovated beyond what was written in the Quran. Even Umar had to back track for his so called innovations. In the subcontinent the first person to finally translate the Quran into …… Persian was Shah Wali Ullah in the mid 1700s and it was his progeny who finally completed the translation into Urdu in around 1800. Can you believe it that Islam had been in India for over a thousand years before its people (the mullah) not the aalim had a chance to know what was in the Quran. It just didn’t happen like that, it was because of assiduous opposition the same sort that we now see against Science.

With so much emphasis on the literal word being all important how can you so easily dismiss it and call upon a deeper understanding of the Quran. More then that by saying what you said you have denied the literal word of God. For me, its okay I do it all the time and am resigned to my fate as a blasphemer (from a literalist point of view). But I am shocked that you, with your fundamentalist persona engage in similar heresy as uncle tom’s (your words) like me. This is a sad day for fundamentalism.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #116 by zeemax

“No. I don`t think that`s what Quran means literally.”

Ay Muslim! Try to understand the meaning of Muslim. Muslim means the one who has submitted to Islam and to the will of God. You say I DON’T THINK! Who gave you the right to think when it comes to the Quran ‘literally’. Go back and examine your faith, don’t be blasphemous like me.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #109 & #111 by zeemax


Maggot meal:

You continue to bring this subject up every chance you get. I have a few questions of my own for you.

Are you saying that you will not be maggot meal?

Beyond this it is all a realm of hope and competing myths. But still I would like to know which one you subscribe to. So do you think:

- That you will be transported to Junnah and have your 72 hoors right away or do you believe that you will have to wait in your grave till judgment day when you will be summoned to answer for your deeds.
- Isn’t that a long time to wait, because the ones you admire so much didn’t believe that judgment day was so far away. Forget maggots you’d be lucky to find dirt their.
- Is your body you and the spirit just the breath in it? Isn’t the conception of heaven that has been sold to you contain nothing but hedonistic pleasures, eat fruit, drink sharab e tahura, screw hoors and ghilmans.
- If that is what your eternity will be like, Why bother - go to the playboy mansion its all there. Even that, if you are anything more then a pig, you will get sick of it in a couple of years. There is more to us then being an eating, fukking machine (a pig).

Teaching Science Badly – and Well #75 by hamidm2

Oye Khabees!

Stick to the subject and don’t go wild on me. I was restricting myself to Muslims so when I say a disproportionate representation of them are in science classes that is precisely what I mean Indians and Chinese don’t seem to have our problem.

“out of the hundred, ten commit suicide because they realize they are not as smart as their parents led them to believe and another forty take up sociology, history, greek mythology and philosophy so that they can make easy a`s and drink more beer”

By this logic 40 percent of Muslims who are sent to America for higher education should be humanities graduates. You are crazy if you think any of them go back with such degrees.

But you miss the point – why is it that all these great science graduates like you who went back to their respective Muslim countries, did not bring about a scientific revolution in their societies. They could have fostered a sense of wonder, a realization of all the possibilities that such a path to discovery offers. It wouldn’t have been unique in history if this had happened.

We have a very vivid and clear example of U.S Commodore Perry who sailed into Japanese harbor in 1854. Isolationist Japan was helpless in preventing such a bold maneuver. They ended up being so impressed with the science, gadgetry and the mini railroad coach that he brought with him, that they went all out to learn science and to advance like the West. From no infrastructure to building their own planes they accomplished in a few decades and by the second world war they had their own aircraft carriers their own planes and their own weapon plants.

What is it in our genes, or in our water, or in our culture or lest I say religion that has prevented us from taking up this course which even the Indians and Chinese have adopted. That is my question.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well
“Science is taught in schools for a good enough reason – we owe the modern world to it. The prosperity or poverty of nations, and of individuals, has become contingent upon their ability to understand and control science. Take its products away, and we would be back in the dark days of our ancestors when a child at birth was more likely to die than live.”

Purpose of scientific education is to develop a scientific infrastructure which would enable a country to make products that it needs and solve its problems whether environmental, medical or whatever. Muslim nations realized over two centuries ago that the reason they were in decline and the West in its ascendancy had to with the latter’s ability to harness scientific knowledge. Realizing this every attempt was made to obtain this knowledge.

The best and the brightest of our youth were given scholarships; the wealthy and the powerful didn’t want to be left behind in this race and sent their kids to the best institutions in the West. Even today go to any good American University and attend a philosophy, history, political science, art or anthropology class and you will find that the class is full of Americans, but go to a calculus, physics, chemistry or natural sciences class and you will see them disproportionately filled with Muslims from Arab and non Arab countries. To date I have never met a Muslim student who came to America to study history, philosophy or political science. No self respecting parent would ever entertain the prospect of spending his money on such an economically worthless subject.

Arabs have a lot of money and pre 911 you could see American Universities flooded with their students and most of them graduated with science degrees and did return home to their respective countries. Mind you these young men were no dummies, those who stayed behind joined research institutions and academia here and made a name for themselves and did quite well. But what about the vast majority of the ones who returned? This should have fostered a climate of science and technology in all those nations, where such emphasis had been placed on a scientific education. But that is not the case at all, the Muslim world as a whole lags behind in scientific innovation, in creating new products or developing services indigenously.

My point is that whereas the Good Doctor is lamenting the fact that science is not well taught, the problem runs even deeper then that. Even when people from our backgrounds are given the opportunity and learn good science, they still are unable to think scientifically and obtain the results that they expected to achieve. Why is it so?

Pandora Box of Television in Pakistan #213 by tahmed32

No I am a Punjabi and have great love for my kind. In that paragraph I was trying to use only Urdu but like a typical Punjabi a part of me just came (oozed) out. That’s all!

Pandora Box of Television in Pakistan #209 #210 by zeemax

Yup! After a while you cant keep all these idiots straight. I was hoping to keep it all in Urdu where it is ‘bud sey budnam bura’ but as you can tell Punjabi oozed out.