Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
The bending of the light does create an illusion, it doesn't split the moon or galaxies. So regardless of what you say, this only goes to show that miracles in religious texts should not be taken literally. They are illusions.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
Ghost, by referring to Occam's Razor, are you saying that the simplest explanation is that the stories are fabricated? But Muqawwee mentioned that when Sura-e-feel was revealed in Quran, people were still alive, yet no one questioned that miracle. Same thing about the split of the moon. When Sura-e-Qamar was added in Quran, people who witnessed that miracle were around. The history since Prophet Mohammed is very well recorded. The event during and just before the time of Prophet, that were recorded in Quran, would be challenged right away, if not by Sahaba, then at least by non-Muslims of Mecca or Medina.*
Philosophy, those were good examples that you listed. Something to think about.*
Pwner, why is it futile? BTW, I am not challenging those miracles, I am just saying that if similar event happen today, would we still call it miracle or do a scientific investigation and try to find a more plausible reason. After all, we did not say that Malaysian Airline flight was taken to Jannah by the angels. We did not give up and kept looking for the rational reasoning behind the disappearance of that plane.
Theorist, I am not saying that split happened because of gravitational lensing. I am just saying that theoretically, such act is possible, if a force powerful enough to bend the light is in the neighborhood. We first have to decide whether the split was an illusion, or really happened?*
Muzna, it could be a fun thread, *I agree.
PartySlims, no the inspiration is from the book "Physics of Star Trek", both part 1 and 2. An excellent read for all you guys.*
Muqawee, I am not challenging the event, *all I am saying (as stated above) that if miracles happen today, will we take them as miracles or will we try to find a logical explanation for them? * 09, why can't it be?
If they happen now two things will happen:
a) People will say its fake
b) We will try to explain it using logical means
I can both happening at the same time. Those who will believe will believe, those who won't will dismiss it.
It all comes down to belief. I don't think Religion and Science answer each other, I agree with pwner on that. One is based on faith, the other is based on observation and hypothesis and, testing that hypothesis and seeing if it is valid or not. There is no room for faith in the second one.
Religion doesn’t specify the number of species put in Noah’s Arc? Is it?
Say for the sake of discussion, Noah carried all species of the world, I would turn to belief that ‘God is all powerful (Qadir)’, so He made it possible’. How? I don’t know and it doesn’t affect my faith.
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We are just assuming that when he took all the species with him, he literally took ‘all the species’.
Today, if I ask you to save all the colors in this universe, as world is about to go black and white, how many colors will you save? Three, that is it. All you need are the primary colors. Rest you can recreate.
Learning from the second episode of Cosmos, if today you need to save all the species, will you save dogs? No. You will just save a pair of wolves, and can later recreate all the breeds of dogs in next couple of thousand years. Similarly, you can recreate many through the monitored evolution. You just need to know the parent/primary animal of each family/line of specie and save them. Rest, nature can take care of.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
Then all he needed was one set of big bang bacteria thingy.
But illusions also have a logical explanation.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
We are just assuming that when he took all the species with him, he literally took 'all the species'.
Today, if I ask you to save all the colors in this universe, as world is about to go black and white, how many colors will you save? Three, that is it. All you need are the primary colors. Rest you can recreate.
Learning from the second episode of Cosmos, if today you need to save all the species, will you save dogs? No. You will just save a pair of wolves, and can later recreate all the breeds of dogs in next couple of thousand years. Similarly, you can recreate many through the monitored evolution. You just need to know the parent/primary animal of each family/line of specie and save them. Rest, nature can take care of.
While I agree with this in theory, evolution doesn't take a few thousand years. Most species today are a result of millions of years of evolution. Then there is the issue of inbreeding. I am sure you're aware of genetic bottlenecks.
Some species will have trouble surviving if there were only 200 of them left, let alone two. Like you Iam not questioning the event, I am questioning its literalism.
What you are saying is that the God of Science and God of Religion are two different being.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
But illusions also have a logical explanation.
Yes, but they are still illusions.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
No God of Science :/
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
What you are saying is that the God of Science and God of Religion are two different being.
What I mean is some religious incidents are clearly supernatural and anything supernatural cannot be observed by any scientific means. And hence our religious beliefs boil down to faith. And faith does not require proof or lack of proof. We either believe something or we don't.
Yes, but they are still illusions.
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Not all of them can be called illusion, because many of them were touchable and fealable in nature. Takht-e-Sulemani that could fly was not an illusion.
I think I failed to explain the real topic of this thread.
I am not challenging the authenticity of any religious miracle. All I am saying is that if a similar event happen today, how will you explain it using logic.
We most likely won’t take them as miracles & will most definitely try to find logical reasons for them because in current era there is no Quran, Bible or Torah telling us otherwise. Naming these three books because they are from the three major religions in the world.
The reason we believe these miracles happened in the past is because in most cases there is not just one Holy book talking about these miracles but more than one. To me that in itself is a reason to believe in these miracles without questioning their logistics.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
I think I failed to explain the real topic of this thread.
I am not challenging the authenticity of any religious miracle. All I am saying is that if a similar event happen today, how will you explain it using logic.
As I said I think you won't find a conclusive answer.
Believers will believe it and try to explain it, while people who won't believe will dismiss it as a magic trick. A similar example would be Sathya Sai Baba. His believers believe his magic, while critics say its all a game.
As I said I think you won’t find a conclusive answer.
Believers will believe it and try to explain it, while people who won’t believe will dismiss it as a magic trick. A similar example would be Sathya Sai Baba. His believers believe his magic, while critics say its all a game.
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I am not talking about trick of hand. If you see small birds killing elephants, will you use religion or science to explain it?
Going with your logic, if you find an event stated in Quran and Bible let’s say, is also listed in geeta, would you take geeta as a true book of God too?
a topic for another thread maybe.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
Circular Reference = Repeat.
My post was not intended to make “logic”.
With all due respect to Hinduism, even if there were more than one event mentioned in Geeta that are also mentioned in Quran or Bible, I still wouldn’t take it as a true book of God.
On this note, neither would I take Bible or Torah as the true book of God. I might be more interested in the teachings of the latter two books because I find a lot of similarities in teachings of these books & Islam. But my sole reason to give any miracles in the past more credibility based on the fact that these events have also been mentioned in Bible or Torah are more based on the concept of “Ahl e Kitab” People of the books.
And also the fact that as mentioned earlier in my post, these three major oldest religions are here & there talking about the same events. Then miracles or mere illusion, but if not thousands but hundreds of thousands are believing in the same thing without majority of these believers questioning these past events then that also makes my personal believe (call it faith or Iman if you want to) stronger in these “miracles”.
Taking the “logistics” out, the fact that they are mentioned in the Quran are more than enough reason for me to believe in them & any current “miracle” happening & it not being mentioned in the Quran will also be the reason why I won’t believe in it & try to make logical sense of it.
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
ok forget everything else
why is there no evidence of a global flood??? (regarding noahs ark)
we can map global sea level throughout time, and describe every other phenomenon but no evidence of a global flood???
Re: Religious miracles with possible scientific explanations
May be the evidence has been found yet. AND will be found later, with advanced technologies 
There was no need of a global flood. Only on that piece of land or continent. Maybe it was Atlantis where this all happened and Noah rescued his boat to another land.
OK I have done some calculation regarding Abraha’s elephants. According to one site that makes bullets for big game bunting, the minimum kinetic energy of a bullet to penetrate elephant’s skin is about 7500 joules. For a pebble of 100 grams to reach that energy, it should be traveling at the speed of about 380 meters per second. That means that the pebble should be dropped from about 7400 meters, or 24000 feet to reach that velocity before hitting a target on the ground.
Birds don’t fly that high, only planes do.
Even if wind effect is negligible, it would take 38 seconds for that fall, which means earth would have rotated about 10 miles on equator (pretty much where Mecca is). So it’s impossible for a bird to compensate for such a deviation.
If we bring down the drop to more reasonable 2400 feet, we need to have the Pebble weigh 1 kg. Now that is a pretty dense materials, and we don’t have any element that is naturally that dense.
In conclusion, just the kinetic energy of a pebble could not kill an elephant. 