Could you believe that your current religion is wrong?

[shunyadragon]

Most areas weren't being over run by successive waves of invaders for several centuries in a row. Interestingly when that pretty much stopped the Christian world didn't take long to catch up and even overtake everyone else.

The fact is that even atheist scholars are now discounting the idea of the Dark Ages as being more myth than substance and it was largely the church that was responsible for preserving and even continuing science during that time.

Of course these inconvenient facts fly in the face of what you want to believe so I'm fairly certain you'll go into denial mode and hand wave it all away.

I consider this response a hand wave in and of itself. The above needs references, since it is Islam that is primarily responsible for preserving and advancing science in this period.

[Kbertsche]

Yes I realise that but it was the spirit of scientific enquiry that was lost in Christendom during the so-called Dark Ages, and the slack was taken up by Islam during its golden age...as you suggest. And this in turn informed the Renaissance and the start of the scientific revolution.

I realize you know that, the main purpose was to remind the others how far the Christian world was behind in science until well after ~1200 AD.

If you are consistent on your definition of science (needs to be testable, falsifiable), then science didn't begin until the scientific revolution, after the Middle Ages.

Islam made good observations, especially of the heavens, but this wasn't really "science" in the modern sense of the term.

[Adrift]

If you are consistent on your definition of science (needs to be testable, falsifiable), then science didn't begin until the scientific revolution, after the Middle Ages.

Islam made good observations, especially of the heavens, but this wasn't really "science" in the modern sense of the term.

[shunyadragon]But but ... Lucretius ...![/shunyadragon]

[shunyadragon]

[shunyadragon]But but ... Lucretius ...![/shunyadragon]

But, but, but, but ,but, but . . . as the anal retentive grammarian fades into smelly fog of the Okefenokee swamp.

[shunyadragon]

If you are consistent on your definition of science (needs to be testable, falsifiable), then science didn't begin until the scientific revolution, after the Middle Ages.

Islam made good observations, especially of the heavens, but this wasn't really "science" in the modern sense of the term.

Despite the limitations of the ancient world Islamic science developed scientific methods indeed testable and falsifiable at their level of the ability. They tested hypothesis and compared things, and made observations. For example, they developed the most advanced steel in the world at this time.

Source: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/03/the_muslim_scientist_who_birthed_the_scientific_method.html

If asked who gave birth to the modern scientific method, how might you respond? Isaac Newton, maybe? Galileo? Aristotle?

A great many students of science history would probably respond, "Roger Bacon." An English scholar and friar, and a 13th century pioneer in the field of optics, he described, in exquisite detail, a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, and experimentation in his writings, as well as the need for independent verification of his work.

But dig a little deeper into the past, and you'll unearth something that may surprise you: The origins of the scientific method hearken back to the Islamic World, not the Western one. Around 250 years before Roger Bacon expounded on the need for experimental confirmation of his findings, an Arab scientist named Ibn al-Haytham was saying the exact same thing.

Little is known about Ibn al-Haytham's life, but historians believe he was born around the year 965, during a period marked as the Golden Age of Arabic science. His father was a civil servant, so the young Ibn al-Haytham received a strong education, which assuredly seeded his passion for science. He was also a devout Muslim, believing that an endless quest for truth about the natural world brought him closer to God. Sometime around the dawn of the 11th Century, he moved to Cairo in Egypt. It was here that he would complete his most influential work.

The prevailing wisdom at the time was that we saw what our eyes, themselves, illuminated. Supported by revered thinkers like Euclid and Ptolemy, emission theory stated that sight worked because our eyes emitted rays of light -- like flashlights. But this didn't make sense to Ibn al-Haytham. If light comes from our eyes, why, he wondered, is it painful to look at the sun? This simple realization catapulted him into researching the behavior and properties of light: optics.

In 1011, Ibn al-Haytham was placed under house arrest by a powerful caliph in Cairo. Though unwelcome, the seclusion was just what he needed to explore the nature of light. Over the next decade, Ibn al-Haytham proved that light only travels in straight lines, explained how mirrors work, and argued that light rays can bend when moving through different mediums, like water, for example.

But Ibn al-Haytham wasn't satisfied with elucidating these theories only to himself, he wanted others to see what he had done. The years of solitary work culminated in his Book of Optics, which expounded just as much upon his methods as it did his actual ideas. Anyone who read the book would have instructions on how to repeat every single one of Ibn al-Haytham's experiments.

© Copyright Original Source

[Tassman]

I realize you know that, the main purpose was to remind the others how far the Christian world was behind in science until well after ~1200 AD.

So true, but "the others" don't want to be reminded it seems.

The scientific and academic impetus of the ancients shifted from the Christian world to the Islamic world (the so-called Dark Ages) and then resumed again in the Christian world c. 1.000 years later...pretty well where the ancients had left off...with the rediscovery of ancient findings, methodology and epistemic values. In short the Renaissance, (meaning revival) resumed and continued the process the ancients had begun and this is what resulted in the scientific revolution and modern science as we know it.

[Tassman]

Precisely the opposite. I do not believe God can or should be defined.

The Jesus story is best understood within his Jewish culture, as is the story of an undefinable God, and that is developed as a theological concept in Judean, Christian, and Muslim cultures. The concept is not a real god; it is merely a conceptual way of affirming our inability to define God with human knowledge and language. God himself is infinitely more than we can affirm or deny.

then it seems to be an idea occurring naturally in multiple cultures longing for a sense greater meaning and a kind of closeness to God. That these ideas developed in pre-scientific cultures does not invalidate them from a mythological and poetic perspective as long as one does not try to oppose such stories to modern scientific knowledge. If your point is merely that a scientific understanding of the world does not account for an understanding of how God might become human, well, OK, but so what? Here you seem to be saying that this Wotan who becomes human and deflowers virgins was created as a pre-scientific explanation of the universe. Perhaps, but I don't see the relevance of the incarnational aspect of this Wotan, unless perhaps it functions as an explanation of the existence of evil in the universe. If that is the case, it is also rather different from the Jewish and Christian senses of incarnation. In the Christian sense, I have characterized it above as, among other things, God becoming human and thereby subjecting himself to to the laws of nature, entropy, and all the human and political forces that led to his violent death, through which he gave witness to the truth as he saw it. This is not a story that explains the existence of evil in a world created by God, but rather gives a model for how to confront evil with a faithful witness to the truth. This kind of story need not be seen as competing with scientific explanations of the laws of nature. Most people would not look to science for this kind of wisdom and profundity.

The ideas

[robrecht]

ideas

It seems to me you've changed the subject here quite a bit. I do not assume God exists, but I do believe in God, whom I cannot define. We've discussed before why I believe in God and we can again but it will probably be the same discussion. I could be wrong about that (the topic of this thread), but I won't deny the profundity of ideas being entertained, even less so the reality implied by such ideas.

If the story of Wotan becoming man and deflowering virgins is merely meant to point to a belief in the interaction of natural and supernatural realms, that begs the question of whether or not we can define the borders of natural and supernatural realities. As above, I don't believe we can. If you would now prefer to discuss poor theologies of the atonement, we can do that too, but surely you realize that too is a different subject than whether or not belief in the resurrection should be thought of as the reanimation of a corpse.

[Kbertsche]

Despite the limitations of the ancient world Islamic science developed scientific methods indeed testable and falsifiable at their level of the ability. They tested hypothesis and compared things, and made observations. For example, they developed the most advanced steel in the world at this time.

Source: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/03/the_muslim_scientist_who_birthed_the_scientific_method.html

If asked who gave birth to the modern scientific method, how might you respond? Isaac Newton, maybe? Galileo? Aristotle?

A great many students of science history would probably respond, "Roger Bacon." An English scholar and friar, and a 13th century pioneer in the field of optics, he described, in exquisite detail, a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, and experimentation in his writings, as well as the need for independent verification of his work.

But dig a little deeper into the past, and you'll unearth something that may surprise you: The origins of the scientific method hearken back to the Islamic World, not the Western one. Around 250 years before Roger Bacon expounded on the need for experimental confirmation of his findings, an Arab scientist named Ibn al-Haytham was saying the exact same thing.

Little is known about Ibn al-Haytham's life, but historians believe he was born around the year 965, during a period marked as the Golden Age of Arabic science. His father was a civil servant, so the young Ibn al-Haytham received a strong education, which assuredly seeded his passion for science. He was also a devout Muslim, believing that an endless quest for truth about the natural world brought him closer to God. Sometime around the dawn of the 11th Century, he moved to Cairo in Egypt. It was here that he would complete his most influential work.

The prevailing wisdom at the time was that we saw what our eyes, themselves, illuminated. Supported by revered thinkers like Euclid and Ptolemy, emission theory stated that sight worked because our eyes emitted rays of light -- like flashlights. But this didn't make sense to Ibn al-Haytham. If light comes from our eyes, why, he wondered, is it painful to look at the sun? This simple realization catapulted him into researching the behavior and properties of light: optics.

In 1011, Ibn al-Haytham was placed under house arrest by a powerful caliph in Cairo. Though unwelcome, the seclusion was just what he needed to explore the nature of light. Over the next decade, Ibn al-Haytham proved that light only travels in straight lines, explained how mirrors work, and argued that light rays can bend when moving through different mediums, like water, for example.

But Ibn al-Haytham wasn't satisfied with elucidating these theories only to himself, he wanted others to see what he had done. The years of solitary work culminated in his Book of Optics, which expounded just as much upon his methods as it did his actual ideas. Anyone who read the book would have instructions on how to repeat every single one of Ibn al-Haytham's experiments.

© Copyright Original Source

Yes, al-Haytham did a lot of experiments with light before Newton. I think I saw a copy of his optics book on display at the Huntington Library a few months ago. But to credit him with inventing the scientific method seems like a bit of a stretch, and sounds like the kind of claim that Arab and Muslim apologists like to put forth. Do you have any SCHOLARLY references, e.g. from historians of science, which support this?

[shunyadragon]

Yes, al-Haytham did a lot of experiments with light before Newton. I think I saw a copy of his optics book on display at the Huntington Library a few months ago. But to credit him with inventing the scientific method seems like a bit of a stretch, and sounds like the kind of claim that Arab and Muslim apologists like to put forth. Do you have any SCHOLARLY references, e.g. from historians of science, which support this?

[Kbertsche]

Your Britannica quote agrees that al-Haytham made good optical observations, and says that he used math to validate his experiments.

But I do NOT see it crediting him with inventing or using the scientific method, as claimed in your first non-scholarly article.

[shunyadragon]

Your Britannica quote agrees that al-Haytham made good optical observations, and says that he used math to validate his experiments.

But I do NOT see it crediting him with inventing or using the scientific method, as claimed in your first non-scholarly article.

You are describing the scientific method then denying it is the scientific method. Sounds familiar. Research on him would be historical not scientific research.

Do your own homework. I will post more. . .

[shunyadragon]

Your Britannica quote agrees that al-Haytham made good optical observations, and says that he used math to validate his experiments.

But I do NOT see it crediting him with inventing or using the scientific method, as claimed in your first non-scholarly article.

[Kbertsche]

You are describing the scientific method then denying it is the scientific method. Sounds familiar. Research on him would be historical not scientific research.

Do your own homework. I will post more. . .

Shuny, do you understand what the scientific method is? If so, can you summarize it?

[shunyadragon]

Go to google or a high school science text book and look it up your self!

I do not pablum spoon feed idiots!!!

You asked for an academic reference and I gave you one!