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Claiming Allah in Science: Hijacking Mankind�s Real Glory?? Satya Sondhani
"Just as people came to understand that GOD does not cause lightning, gradually society will understand that consciousness and other things attributed to the Almighty arise naturally, too" -James Larrick, Director of Palo Alto Institute of Molecular Medicine, Mountain View, California One of the very frequent and tricky sayings of Islamist as to what Allah really is or how He came (if at all!) into being is that this is something beyond the sphere of our understanding. We as ordinary human beings cannot perceive origin of Allah. You if then ask them "When you yourself are clearly admitting that Allah is beyond your perception then how come you say, He knows everything, He is the supreme power? How do you believe in something that is beyond your power of perception? Why do you then criticize people who believe in hilarious stories of fairy or Draccula? Isn�t it the same as your blind belief in Allah/Ishwar/God? ". No sensible answer at least so far I myself have come across! Nevertheless their dogma hypnotized them so much that they remain same whatever they study in real life or whoever they become when they grow up (physically only?). No wonder after becoming involved in science (but they never develop scientific attitudes despite studying science) they often face contradictions, their belief that is mostly based on their mythological scripture constantly encounter the scientific facts. They can neither quit their hereditary belief (irony is they will seek treatment and would try hard to get rid in case they inherit something that has potentials to harm them physically e.g. a defective gene that may make them susceptible to fatal diseases like cancer, sickle-cell anemia, diabetes, to name a few) NOR can they accept literally what science says. In their desperate bids to reconcile the dogma they harbor in mind and the real science many of them come up with bizarre hypothesis like the most common one that says- 1) Holy (!) Scripture like Quran has many scientific indications (note here the noun "indication" is a very cunning term coined by them as it does not require Quran to be a literal source of a scientific discovery!). Another common propaganda is one mentioned below: 2) Many scientists believe in GOD (here Islamists do not mind to include many non-muslims as well whom otherwise they address as "Ihudi", "Kafir", "Nasara").
On above bizarre hypothesis-1: It is hypothesized by Islamists (equally there are Hindu, Christian bigots for similar claims with respect to their Scriptures) that Quran and Hadeeth have many scientific indications. If you examine any of the citations that is claimed to indicate a scientific fact in comparison with real science you apparently can not help laughing and asking following-
On the contrary, most discoveries in science are a not a result of any single-step effort. Rather it requires/required years (sometimes hundreds) of ingenious and laborious thinking. Islamists know well that it will be a great joke to try to find out a literal scientific fact in Quran. Therefore in order to preserve their belief (also business?) from fading away they coin the verse even if it is far away and vague in sharp contrast to scientific meaning. Then they play the following trick!
Of hundreds of such dishonest of examples where Quran/Hadeeth is quoted in support of modern science, I will briefly discuss just one. DNA (Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid) is known as hereditary unit of life. Ever since it�s structural elucidation in 1953 this �master molecule of life� alone has given rise to several modern disciplines of Biology such as Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics, Molecular Medicine, Biotechnology, Genetic Engineering and Gene Therapy. However it took scientists nearly hundred years to unravel the basic compositions and structural organizations of DNA. Although Jim Watson and Francis Crick scientists are most well known for their 1953 double-helix model, any Biologist/Biochemist knows that several earlier observations paved the way to 1953 breakthrough (termed as "The greatest achievement of science in the twentieth century by Sir Peter Medawar). Some of the important events around DNA are-
Dear readers, I am not here to teach you DNA. My purpose is to tell that like above DNA discovery, almost all great discoveries had proceeded through sequential events and there is no room for Quran or Bible in that! Now how would you react if one claims that Quran provides clue about DNA?? This is what indeed is claimed by some Islamist! According to Islamic scientists, following verse of Quran denotes to DNA. "And in your nature and in (that of) all the animals which He scatters (over the earth) there are messages for people of assured faith" (45:4) (Reference:" Scientific Indications in The Holy Quran, 3rd cover page, written by a board of researchers of which Dr. Shamser Ali of Dhaka University is the Chairman and published by Islamic Foundation Bangladesh. This book is full of hundreds of such ambiguous examples!)
Now if you ask any of the following questions what probably Islamist will say in reply is you are suffering from lack of belief in Allah.
Bizarre hypothesis-2: Islamists often say there are many Muslim scientists OR some great scientists too believe in God. Both are true! But what is not true is among prominent scientists who are Muslim, none (yes I repeat, none!!) of them have ever said that they made discovery based on clues in Quarn! On the contrary, to all of them, being Muslim has nothing to do with them being a creative scientist. This applies to all famous Muslim scientists. Coming to second claim that some scientists believe in God, yes, some do indeed! But note here kind of God they believe most often is absent in the descriptions of Scriptures like Quran, Bible or Geeta. Rather often they identify themselves as "Spiritualistic"(i.e. they are not atheist and believe in kind of super natural force which is far away being Allah, God (Father of Jesus), etc of Quran, Bible. One such example is Albert Einstein, who once commented, "I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes
his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves.
Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his
physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such
thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the
awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world,
together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so
tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually
on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is
necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by
fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
"The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity
of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by
the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him
neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent
cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God
interfering with the natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense,
by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which
scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded
that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not
only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine, which is able, to maintain
itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its
effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress.... If it is one
of the goals of religions to liberate mankind as far as possible from the
bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, scientific reasoning can
aid religion in another sense. Although it is true that it is the goal of
science to discover (the) rules, which permit the association and foretelling
of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the connections
discovered to the smallest possible number of mutually independent conceptual
elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the
manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is
precisely this attempt, which causes it to run the greatest risk of falling a
prey to illusion. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of
successful advances made in this domain, is moved by the profound reverence
for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he
achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and
desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur
of reason, incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is
inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious in
the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only
purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also
contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of
life."
Therefore it is true that Einstein was not an atheist BUT no body can claim he was a Jews or Christian while defending the type of belief he had. Most of the scientists who believe in God today fall into above category. Their concept of God by no way supports the bizarre notion that Holy (?) scripture contains scientific facts. |
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