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Hi guys,
Some of you have made some excellent comments regarding the character and personality of
Nadir Ahmed. There were a couple which made me think about what drives a person – and
not only Nadir – to make statements and still feel right about them, when these are
so wrong.
In a video I made a few months ago I highlighted the intellectual failure of Hamza Tzortzis
and his inability to grasp concepts or abstract thinking and only see and analyse words or
singular terms. I see the same pattern here again.
In addition, I find an extraordinary ability to blinker one’s vision to only see what
is valid for a single opinion without the ability to look left or right or even play
devil’s advocate and try and falsify one’s own premisses and conclusions.
I just hope these are not famous last words and someone catches me doing exactly that.
But then that would serve me right for not being thorough enough and, let’s face it,
nobody’s perfect.
Anyway, what I want to do here in this video is kill 2 birds with one stone.
I realised that Nadir was unable to provide me with a definition for the terms in the
sentence he provided which is in the Koran in Surah Ar-Rahman = chapter #55 in
19 He hath loosed the two seas. They meet. 20 There is a barrier between them. They encroach
not (one upon the other).
Or, to make it shorter: Allah, Arabic for god, Lord of the two sunrises and Lord of
the two sunsets, has released or loosened 2 seas with a barrier between them which neither
can transgress or encroach or pass.
Nadir compares this sentence to a scientific description of a Pycnocline, and proudly presents
as reference a book,
The Barrier Zones in the Ocean
Written by
Prof. Emelyan M. Emelyanov (Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Kaliningrad)
Nadir’s simplistic and primitive line of reasoning: the Koran mentions a barrier and
the scientific textbook mentions the words: “it is a barrier”
This means they are in total agreement with each other.
Nadir then cites 2 other books, which mention a “boundary between layers of water of different
densities” and “Pycnocline forms an invisible boundary”.
So what exactly are we comparing? A sentence in a religious book and a description in a
scientific textbook.
When I asked Nadir for a definition of what the Koran says are seas and the barrier he
quickly changed the subject. When I insisted he ignored it or accused me of interpretation
– the very thing I was trying to avoid.
But now I understand why, as on his own page he presents the reason himself in the only
correct and viable sentence on his entire site:
The truth is, we have no idea what is being described here. There is not enough information
in this phrase for us to understand it scientifically. In addition to that, it should not be understood
scientifically, rather it should be understood morally, because the word "baghi" has to do
with obeying God's moral commands, not science.
That is Nadir Ahmed’s evaluation of the Koranic sentence.
The water masses have a moral obligation not to cross over a boundary and mingle with each
other. Or else what? They will be flogged? Is the fact that since childhood I’ve had
great pleasure in throwing stones into water merely a command from god to stone the naughty,
immoral waters?
Despite the Koran begging us to believe it is clear and explained and easy to understand
and memorise, Nadir says this particular sentence delivers no meaningful information. I am not
surprised.
But the stoning of the water still remains in my vivid imagination. The last time I had
so much fun reading the Koran was when I came across the story of the steak. Since the entire
Koran is in agreement with science, will Nadir present a video where a corpse is smacked
with a piece of steak and is temporarily revived to point out the killer? Filmed on location
in Transylvania?
Let’s get serious again: we see that the language used in the Koran is vague and not precise at all.
On the other hand - or the other side of the equation- we have science. In general, science
is a tool, not a worldview, which is used to describe the environment we live in. Science
describes nature. Science describes reality.
From the Universe all the way to sub-atomic particles.
What is the description or the task of science? My personal definition is: to
Accurately and precisely describe and document our real world, our natural surroundings using
systematic, accurate and precise experiments, measurements, observations, etc., to provide
up-to-date data which can be falsified or confirmed by anyone or applied as knowledge.
That’s what it’s ultimately about. Knowledge. Truth. Verifiable, reproducible truth. This
then leads to real-world applications or useful results.
Because it is so vast, there is no universal science, but branches or fields and all branches
or fields of science describe the real world.
Religion, on the other hand, describes a phantasy world. A world full of angels, demons and
other phantasy creatures. It is governed by the cerebral-temporal lobe and cuddle hormones
such as Oxytocin.
In the real world we have Hydrodynamics which explains how air and water layers retain their
properties for some time before mixing with other air or water masses and changing consistency.
Where they do this we have a zone of transition or the barrier, where the properties of one
layer can still be distinguished from that of another mass. They are temporary and are
geographically unstable barriers, which anyone who actually read the book would have known.
An example would be where we see clouds forming in the sky. This is a barrier, because we
have an air mass with properties where density, temperature and humidity are not conducive
to cloud formation and suddenly, due to meteorological changes and/or topographic changes, this condition
changes due to air movement and we see the sudden formation of clouds.
What we have is that the consequences of a word such as theory or barrier vary between
a scientifically educated person and religious zealots who are not allowed to believe in
natural phenomena or that evolution is a fact.
If we have a Nadir, who sees a word such as “barrier” in a religious book, where it
is not understood and he then finds the word “barrier” in a science book, where it
is also not understood, it suddenly makes perfect sense that he thinks they must be
talking about the same thing.
But as soon as the trained eye looks at this, the differences quickly become apparent.
And why choose the Pycnocline and not one of the other 40 geochemical boundaries, transition
zones, barriers or barrier zones in the oceans?
We will never know.
We see that science is precise, accurate and exact. Science defines everything so no misunderstandings
occur.
The Koran is vague, ambiguous and not even Koran scholars have explanations for the meaning
of all sentences. There are no definitions.
So how can anyone even dream of comparing these 2 diametrically opposed texts?
Why drag a religious book into the highly detailed arena of science or, as I’ve postulated
before: why drag a Bobby Car to a Formula 1 race?
So in spite of Nadir’s woefully inept pleas for recognition we conclude that the Koran
– or any religious book for that matter – does not contain any scientifically useful
information for us.
There are no useful applications for the development of mankind that can be derived from religious
texts.
And, as people have pointed out to me: if the authors of the Koran knew about the Bubonic
Plague, why not include step-by-step instructions for the production of antibiotics into the
Koran? That would have been useful, beneficial, sensational, humanitarian and would have saved
a lot of lives, that of humans and of rats.
I think what irritates me most about his attitude is that if confronted with a straight question
he goes off on a tangent and evades any straight answers. Instead he lances ad hominems like
it’s going out of fashion, puts up strawmen wherever he pleases and dodges the real questions
and issues.
Well, if dogma and polemics are what it takes to satisfy you, fine. But I prefer facts and
the truth. It looks as though Nadir needs to examine the truth for quite some time – if
he really wants to find it, which I highly doubt.
Thanks for your time