Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[The Brain]

General comment:

Like I told fagdiz when he first showed up all papally and shit: if you want to be taken seriously when defending religion limit yourself to possible positive health/psychological/societal effects of engaging in it. If you actually try to make a case for adults believing in the sky fairy beyond this you are difficult to take seriously.

And that's not disrespect. That's respect. Smiling and nodding and accepting your ridiculous fantasies as being worthy of any consideration would be treating you like a retarded kid, not an adult.

[Barrister]

Scientists cannot prove their claims. They can only disprove them.

That's not quite true.

Some hypothesis are not unable to be proven, such as evolution.  Other claims however can be positively proven.  We have proof that certain drugs cause certain effects.  We have proof that atomic weapons work.

[Berkut]

And that is why Aristarchus and Copernicus were wrong, because if the sun is stationary at the center, you can't stop the sun in the sky. And the bible got it wrong.

The Bible only "got it wrong" if you think of it only as a literal and accurate recording of events.

Many Christians don't think of it in only in those terms.

Anything in the bible can be a non litteral and non accurate recording of events? How do you know what to believe then? Anything can be wrong or untrue. How do you know what to have faith in?

Easy - you have faith in those things that reinforce or confirm what you wish to be true, and ignore the rest as "allegory".

This was, of course, a lot easier in times past, when 90% of the "facts" were not conclusively shown to be utter bollocks, and poor Gods home has certainly gotten a lot smaller in the last few hundred years. These days the smart religious have taken the BB stance of pre-emptively just ditching the bible as a source for anything factual altogether. It is the smart move, since the trend has been so negative.

[Berkut]

Scientists cannot prove their claims. They can only disprove them.

That's not quite true.

Some hypothesis are not unable to be proven, such as evolution.  Other claims however can be positively proven.  We have proof that certain drugs cause certain effects.  We have proof that atomic weapons work.

"Atomic weapons work" is not a theory though. It is an observation that tends to support some theories about the structure of nature. But it does not prove them.

[crazy canuck]

That distinction makes ALLTHE DIFFERENCE. Faith does not have a routine for error correction. Science does. That makes the two things fundamentally different.

I agree.  But that difference does not make one irrational for having faith.

[ulmont]

scientists who create hypotheses about things for which there is no evidence?  Scientists do the latter all the time.  There are degrees in xenobiology even though no evidence of life off this planet even exists.

Yes, but xenobiology has a fair amount of physics and chemistry built in, which can be tested locally.

[Viking]

Anything in the bible can be a non litteral and non accurate recording of events? How do you know what to believe then? Anything can be wrong or untrue. How do you know what to have faith in?

You have faith in the spiritual lessons without clinging too much to the stories they came from.  I would consider the Garden of Eden story to be about human self awareness and its consequences rather than a literal story from history for example.

The fundamental problem with that is that all of this was assumed to be literally true at some point. The silly stories are stop being literal and become symbolic when they are proven impossible or highly implausible. The fact that until disproven the bible stores are assumed to be literal and when disproven assumed to be symbolic. This is just like adding epicycles to ptolmaeic orbits.

[Valmy]

We have proof that certain drugs cause certain effects.  We have proof that atomic weapons work.

Well we know they work but somebody could find evidence that disproves our current theories as to why they work.

[Barrister]

Anything in the bible can be a non litteral and non accurate recording of events? How do you know what to believe then? Anything can be wrong or untrue. How do you know what to have faith in?

Well that's the challenging part then isn't it. 

I don't have all the answers.

[Malthus]

As I keep saying the only real distinction is that scentists can prove or disprove their claims wheres priests cannot.

Scientists cannot prove their claims. They can only disprove them.

You keep getting this wrong, and it is important, since it is the very fundamental distinction that makes all the difference.

Indeed, to the extent that religious types make claims subject to disproof, they tend to be disproved, god-of-the-gaps style.

However, many religious and moral precepts are not exactly subject to disproof - but this does not of necessity make them invalid.

For example, one cannot "disprove" the Golden Rule - one can either find it a useful summary of the ethics or reciprocity or not.

Again, that most rational-sounding of moral systems - utilitarianism - cannot be disproved; its validity is itself a value judgment.

Religion and morality properly exist in the realm of things that cannot be disproved. The problems start when people, wishing to support their religious or moral systems, attempt to venture into the realm of things that are subject to disproof: for example, insisting that evolution is false because the Biblical account of creation is literally true.

[grumbler]

I would say that the body of knowledge that we consider to be "correct" in science is in fact whatever happesn to be the "best theory at the moment". Obviously, this is a process however, so what is the "best" theory is often up for debate. 

All things "in the canon" in science are presumed to be at least potentially false, and this is the key difference between science and religion, where the opposite is true.

But under no cases is the "best" theory one that is based on some scientist just making something up for which there was no evidence.

Incorrect, in the case of xenobiology.

[Pat]

Neither is religion.  An unproven scientific theory is just as viable as religious faith except that the unproven scientific theory has at least the potential to be proven correct through the scientific method.

Or disproven.  Religious faith can never really be disproven.  You could go back in time with a camera and prove decisively that none of the stuff that the Bible claims actually happened and it would not make much of a difference for alot of people.

I imagine that would make a huge difference to almost everyone.

There is actually something very close to this going on with Islam. Most research on Islam in the west is funded by the gulf states so it has been very uncritical. But now we're starting to see independent research into the history of Islam, especially from Germany. Most of it has not been translated yet, but it is interesting to read interviews like this one:

Interview with Karl-Heinz Ohlig
Muhammad as a Christological Honorific Title



In his book "The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History," the theologian Karl-Heinz Ohlig has come to the conclusion that Islam was not originally conceived as an independent religion. Alfred Hackensberger has talked with the author

Your book bears the title "The Hidden Origins." What is hidden about the origins of Islam?

Karl-Heinz Ohlig: All the information we posses on the origins of Islam is taken from later texts – "biographies" that were written in the 9th and 10th centuries. One of these texts, the Annals of at-Tabari (10th century), is also the source of further histories. As such, we lack any corroborating contemporary texts for the first two centuries.

Can these later documents still be regarded as accurate? From a scholarly point of view, are they not something akin to falsifications?

Ohlig: To categorize these texts, or similarly the books of Moses or the Romulus and Remus tale, as falsifications would be entirely wrong, as one has to take into consideration this specific literary genre. Religious-political foundation myths are not history texts and nor were they meant to be.

You advocate the thesis that Islam was not conceived as an independent religion. What proof do you have for this claim?

Ohlig: According to the evidence of Christian literature under Arab rule from the 7th and 8th centuries, as well as from Arab coinage and inscriptions from this period, such as that on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the new rulers adhered to a Syrian-Persian form of Christianity that rejected the decisions of the Council of Nicaea. Instead, it regarded Jesus as the messenger, the prophet, the servant of God, but not the physical son of God, who is a strictly unitary being not "adjoined" to any person. The fathers of the Church, for instance, regarded John of Damascus (d. around 750) as a heretic, because his Greek understanding of Christianity did not correspond to their views. There is no mention of a new, independent religion of the Arabs before the 9th century.

Does this mean that Islam was only made into an independent religion at a later date?

Ohlig: This formulation sounds somewhat arbitrary or like a conscious decision. It is much more the case that religions often arise in that a new assessment is made of the inherited religious conceptions of a tradition. These are then interpreted differently, solidified, and systematized in a specific manner.

You have also engaged in historical-critical research with respect to the Prophet Mohammed. What can be said about his person?

Ohlig: It has been established that the earliest coinage with the motto MHMT appeared in eastern Mesopotamia around 660, made their way westward, and there bilingual coins were stamped with MHMT in the center and muhammad in Arabic script at the edge. These coins bear a Christian iconography, i.e. always with crosses, so that the name muhammad is clearly to be understood as a predicate of Jesus, as in the Sanctus of the mass ("praise be to he that comes...").

Here, muhammad means "revered" and "praiseworthy" or "He who is revered" and "He who is praised." This also corresponds to the inscribed text on the Dome of the Rock, where the title muhammad refers to the Messiah, Jesus, the Son of Mary, and the servant of God. It also fits in with the polemics of John of Damascus against statements he considered heretical.

Later, it seems as if this Christological predicate lost its reference, so that it appears in the Koran as a frequently mentioned, nameless prophet, which could then be historicized into the form of an Arab prophet. The earliest source of this historicization is to be found in writings of John of Damascus, who speaks of the pseudo-prophet Mamed. Only later could the wealth of stories of this Mohammed fill out the historical deficit.

So what you are saying is that the term muhammad could possibly be referring to Christ?

Ohlig: It is entirely possible – even when previously historically improvable – that an important preacher was present at the beginning or at another point in the history of the Koran movement. However, according to the evidence of Arab coins and the inscription in the Dome of the Rock, it must be assumed that the term muhammad, the revered or the praiseworthy, was originally a Christological honorific title.

Why is it that these links haven't previously been made?

Ohlig: Such inquiries are forbidden in Muslim theology, which hasn't yet passed through its Enlightenment. Western Islamic studies remains preoccupied with philology without employing the established methods of historical scholarship. Similarly, there is little religious-historical or Christian theological investigation into the extremely varied cultural traditions of the Middle East. As such, the roots and motives of these traditions are not recognized.

In your book "Early Islam," you write that you do not wish to harm this religion. Many Muslims will see the exact opposite in your work.

Ohlig: Since the 18th century, many Christians, even to this day, regard the Enlightenment as an attack and an attempt to destroy their religion. In reality, however, it has allowed Christianity to survive in the modern world and also be applicable to the lives of modern man. This is a phase that Islam still has to go through, but it is unavoidable if it doesn't want to exist in the future only in ghetto-like, closed communities.

Alfred Hackensberger

© Qantara.de 2008

Karl-Heinz Ohlig is professor of Religious Studies and the History of Christianity at the University of the Saarland, Germany.

http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-756/i.html





There are other researchers into the early history of Islam. The Richard Dawkins Foundation on Research and Science and Sam Harris' The Reason Project last year funded a conference into the early history of Islam: http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/19589/sec_id/19589



This is interesting because the Koran is the foundation of Islamic faith. Much more than the Bible is the foundation of Christian faith. In Christian faith the foundation is the life of Jesus. What you find in the NT is just a gathering of testimonies on the life of Jesus. Not so with the Koran, which, according to muslims, is supposed to be the final word of God, recited to Mohammed through the arch-angel Gabriel.

If the early history of Islam can be falsified, then that does indeed remove all foundations for Islamic faith. But somehow I doubt that the Islamic world will look and the evidence and go "oh, okay, I'll suppose we'll stop belive it now".

[Berkut]

  There are degrees in xenobiology even though no evidence of life off this planet even exists.

But there is evidence that life exists, and hence it is certainly an interesting scientific endeavor to try to understand how it might exist elsewhere, and to even create theories to explain why life exists here, and what that might mean for its existence elsewhere.

I would not agree that there is no evidence that life exists elsewhere - the fact that it exists here is evidence that it might exist elsewhere.

So they make hypothesis like "maybe life exists on Mars!' and then they test them. Lately by sending probes to Mars, and prior to that by studying meteorites that came from Mars. So there is plenty of evidence to be studied, even if a conclusion is still beyond us.

[Viking]

Anything in the bible can be a non litteral and non accurate recording of events? How do you know what to believe then? Anything can be wrong or untrue. How do you know what to have faith in?

You have faith in the spiritual lessons without clinging too much to the stories they came from.  I would consider the Garden of Eden story to be about human self awareness and its consequences rather than a literal story from history for example.

But they say nothing about the truth or falsity of the religion claims.

[Valmy]

The fundamental problem with that is that all of this was assumed to be literally true at some point. The silly stories are stop being literal and become symbolic when they are proven impossible or highly implausible. The fact that until disproven the bible stores are assumed to be literal and when disproven assumed to be symbolic. This is just like adding epicycles to ptolmaeic orbits.

Perhaps they were originally intended to be symbolic.  The original Christians didn't seem too concerned all their gospels were very very different.  They seem more concerned with the symbology of what they are discussing.  Then later we began to pull our hair out over whether Jesus was really born in Bethlehem or Nazareth or whether a person named Joseph ever actually lived or whether they actually went to Egypt and so forth.

I also doubt the Jews in Babylon really knew or cared whether or not Joshua really did destroy Jericho or not.

But in any case the Bible is only useful to me taken symbolicly and only marginally useful taken as a source of historical events.