Religion without Science is Blind

A Crazy Man:A blind without science and `religion` sight dog remains blind and hopeless all set to suicide.
A Character in Sholay: `` Yeh Socide kya hota hai bhai ??``
Another Character Explains: ``Jab angrez log marte hain to usey socide kehte hain !!!``

UrsTruly!!!!! I am still expecting a theological exposition on what is the ``PURE`` and ``CORRECT`` interpretation of the Qura`n and Hadith.

nasah

What I find most remarkable about Indic tradition is its concept of time and underlying evolutionary thinking. While there was no `theory` in the sense we currently use the word, but compared to simplistic linear views of the world held by many others, Indian and perhaps chinese thought came closest to what we believe today.

Then they mixed it up with the caste system!

dost-mittar,
You`re welcome! Thank you.

Maharana, nasah,

After these ancients discovered these enormous time-cycles, it was probably just one more step to conclude that the universe must be *much* older than its largest time-cycle.

Personally, I believe there was more than one Indian civilization...which went up and down (tide and ebb). There is simply far too much literature in Indian culture with mythical authors...for them to be recent creations (I mean post-Alexander).

The oldest Indian civilizations must have had intimate contact with babylon and egypt...both being so close.

Nasah # 41,

``now -- when you compare the Hindu sages talking in billions the age of universe -- and the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sages describing the age of the universe of being of only 5 thousand years -- and the world created in 7 days! ........ one cannot help but say..... how pathetic the Judeo-Christian-Islamic `religious science` of God and Creation can get...:-) ``

My feelings exactly. Despite this fact we are culturally defensive as compared to the rest of the world. But perhaps as you put it
``....has turned out to be one of the most imprecise disorganized mish mash of Myths and Maths.......``

is perhaps responsible for our apathy towards our bizzare culture in this organization dominated science, religion and society of the modern world.

adios

nasah:
``yet our heritage mixed with -- the Charas and Bhang -- has turned out to be one of the most imprecise disorganized mish mash of Myths and Maths.......of wildly improbable gods and godesses -- in wildly improbable numbers.....performing wildly improbable feats of wildly improbable miracles ....in wildly improbable time and space...... ``

well said!
..and the tradition continues...some of the top mathematicians and scientists in India today are the disciples of miracle-maker Sai Baba.

Dost Mitter,

My knowledge in this regard is perfunctory at best. Ironman`s reply explains your question well.

Ironman,

Its strange that astrologers in india should account for preccission of earth`s axis in their planetary computations, but the calendar makers don`t do so. I`m not doubting the veracity of your explanation, rather wondering why...
Perhaps a science historian could dig some information on this.

I agree with you about people claiming modern scientific theories as their ancient heritage.

Adios

the prowess of ancient Hindu math -- you can see in the remotest villages in the most illiterate parts of India -- where few can read and write but almost everybody can calculate one and a half time(dheRaa) -- 2 and a half time(aRhiaa) -- on his fingers -- without pen and paper...

honestly speaking -- any community that could come up with the concept of ZERO, Decimal system and the FRACTION -- 3 thousand years ago -- can rightly claim to be the the intellectual giant of the world -- for all times to come -- as the true originator of the universal language of measurement and precision -- the language of mathematics --

yet our heritage mixed with -- the Charas and Bhang -- has turned out to be one of the most imprecise disorganized mish mash of Myths and Maths.......of wildly improbable gods and godesses -- in wildly improbable numbers.....performing wildly improbable feats of wildly improbable miracles ....in wildly improbable time and space......

.....perhaps another name for the Quantum world?

now -- when you compare the Hindu sages talking in billions the age of universe -- and the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sages describing the age of the universe of being of only 5 thousand years -- and the world created in 7 days! ........ one cannot help but say..... how pathetic the Judeo-Christian-Islamic `religious science` of God and Creation can get...:-)

UrsTruly,

I think we are actually talking in different frames of reference. You want the issues back into the old sectarian frameworks whereas I am talking about how your discouraging hermenuetical interpretation in the name of ``biddah`` is a retrogressive step.
Your examples of eating with fork and knives etc. can be argued against by using some other premises from the same ``GIVENS``. The issue is that there are actually no ``GIVENS`` which can be considered as ``FUNDAMENTAL`` and others propositions as ``PERIPHERALS``.
A major part of the Quran refers to the conflicts of ``THAT`` time, which are basically references and not principles. They have to be read in a certain way and are meant for our instruction. One particular verse which has been put to increasing use recently to paint the Muslims as intolerant of the followers of other religions is `Take not the unbelievers as your friends,` today this has been turned into a principle. It is NOT a principle and was revealed in a certain CONTEXT. How can such a principle be for all times? In several verses, Allah has referred to the Ahlal Kitab - people of the Book - and given them a lot of importance. People who pick Quranic verses out of context have twisted the verse.
Getting back to the issue of interpretation, take for example the word ``hijab`` which means curtain. The law of hijab laid down in Surah Nur applies equally to men and women. `Lower your gaze and guard your modesty.` The Quran puts a lot of emphasis on dignity, elevating human beings, calling them the children of Adam and putting them above the rest of Allah`s creations. The Quranic injunction is not restricted to the dress code, it includes the way you talk, walk and how you conduct yourself in public space. The message is to be mindful of your human dignity.But it can also be interpreted literally in the manner the Talib mullahs do to put the women folk behind the confines of the four walls.
I have also seen people arguing against the Satanic Western Technologies by refusing even the food cooked with Gas Stoves. And mark my words, they were equally convinced as you are that their moral stance was justified by the ``GIVENS`` of Qura`n and hadith. Their logic and their arguments givens were equally impeccable.
your formula that ..
.``The main criteria for Muslim is to always check whether what he is doing is contradictory to Qura`n and Sunnah or not?``
is bound to justify one`s decision, no matter what your position is, by using appropriate interpretations of the texts as well as the ``GIVENS`` of the person`s historicity.
Now as far as I can understand, your Aristotelian methodology of deriving every moral principle as well as social legislation from the ``GIVENS`` of Quran and Hadith is doomed- If you do not understand why I say so- that is because every HERMENEUTICAL understanding is entrenched in the historical horizon or context of the interpreter that is supposed to be determined by his or her ``tradition``- the . I would suggest that you go through some of the issues on the hermeneutics of Islamic text in Abu Zaid`s thesis :
http://amalid.com/Islam/Abu_Zaid_study_of_the_Koran.htm.
as well as the issues on hermeneutics in the recent western philosophical texts like Gadamer`s ``Truth and Method`` in order to appreciate what I am driving at.

ironman#38:
That was brilliant. Thank you very much.

Maharana,

I agree with you about us being short-changed as far as ancient achivements go. What I was pointing to was that a lot of Indians tend to go overboard (eg. Subhash Kak saying that Indians knew the speed of light!!), which makes us lose credibility.

-- - - - - - - -

dost-mittar,

``The calendar, I believe, is lunar in character. And most dates on this calendar do not coincide with the christian calendar. Yet, there are certain dates in the year which do seem to coincide. For example, the first of baisakh is always on the 13th of April and the Panjabi festival of Lohri is always on 12/13 January. What is the mechanism through which these two calendars synchronise? How many months are there in the Indian calendar and do they add up to a year of 365 days and how?``


The Indian calendar is technically Luni-Solar (a little of both).

The Lunar month is about 29.5 days. So if you add 12 lunar months, you come up with 354 days. What happens to the remaining (365-354) = 11 days ?

The muslim calendar says `I don`t care`. If 12 lunar months are 354 days, then my year is 354 days. As a result, the muslim year is faster than the actual. Ramzan keeps moving up by 11 days each year.

The Indian calendar takes care of this by adopting a Solar month.
So days are Lunar (called tithi) , but months are Solar.

The sky (zodiac) is divided into 12 equal parts. When the sun leaves one part and enters another, one month is over and another starts. (This moving to new part is called `sankranti`). So the Indian year is well sychronised with the actual year, because it is Solar-based.

But still...how does one account for those 11 days??

The long answer will bore you with technical detail. Short answer is, by adding extra months every few years called `adhimasa` months.

One more point is that the Lunar day is not equal to the Solar day. Sometimes the same Solar day overlaps two Lunar days. The same technique is applied, but in a more complicated manner (some overlapping Lunar days are discarded).


- - - - - -

Now your other question.

An important issue is, where is the starting point in the sky from where you measure? Answer is `where the sun is during the spring equinox`. Thats the zero-reference point. Currrently as you know the spring equinox happens approx Mar. 21.
In olden times the equinox was much later (in April). The change (moving forward) of the equinox is due to the earth`s precession. It moves forward one degree in 70 years.

The current Indian calendar, unfortunately, has not been kept in sync with precession. So we still think Baisakh which is the spring equinox (or new year) to start on april 13, whereas it has already moved ahead to Mar. 21 (about 23 days ahead). We can back calculate that baisakh was correct in about 400 AD (about aryabhatta`s time).

Same is true for Lohri (winter solstice). This was in earlier times the peak of winter (sun has reached southernmost point and now starts moving northwards (called uttar-ayana).
In about 400 AD, Lohri was correct at Jan. 13. But today the solstice has moved ahead 23 days to Dec. 21. And we haven`t corrected for precession since 400 AD.

So...those Indian holidays that are Solar-based, will always fall on the same day each year (our calendar is in sync with the actual, but offset by 23 days).

Those holidays which are Lunar-based (ekadashi, etc)...will be different each year.

Hope that was useful.


cheers,

Maharana, Ironman:
Could you help me with a puzzle in my mind wrt the Hindu calendar. The calendar, I believe, is lunar in character. And most dates on this calendar do not coincide with the christian calendar. Yet, there are certain dates in the year which do seem to coincide. For example, the first of baisakh is always on the 13th of April and the Panjabi festival of Lohri is always on 12/13 January. What is the mechanism through which these two calendars synchronise? How many months are there in the Indian calendar and do they add up to a year of 365 days and how?

Ballukhan:

Most of your questions will answer themselves when you get clear on the concept of biddah, (also pronounced as biddat). There is one hadith where an inquirer is reported to have asked the same questions from Holy Prophet (pbuh). He asked of the criterion, which might help one chose the right path and differentiate between right and wrong. The Holy Prophet replied this man that you would never go astray as long as you stick to Qura`n and my Sunnah (i.e. the way I have lived).

As a matter of fact the life of Holy Prophet is a living example of the interpretation of Qura`n and primary source of guidance after Qura`n.

Now by definition, biddah is a new invention in addition to what Qura`n and Sunnah has prescribed for us. When we say that, we naturally come across the question whether every new invention is a biddah? This, I guess, is your question too. Lets take an example; Holy Prophet (pbuh) used to eat with his hands instead of using fork and knife. So the question is whether eating with fork and knife is biddah? We can find the answer to this question by examining how this effects our religion. First we check Qura`n and then Ahadith. We come across some general manners of eating but not the specific answer that either of two prevent us from eating with knife and fork. Do we get rewarded by Allah if we eat with hands and punished if we use forks? The answer is no. Which means that the way we eat has no bearing on our religion. So eating by forks is not a biddah. (Some ullema argue that if we start using knife and fork we will loose the tradition of Holy prophet (pbuh) eventually. However, my argument (and many others) is that the criteria to adopt a way is through Qura`n and Hadith and not the personal opinion of Ullema).

Now lets come to some real issues. One of the issues between Brelvi and Deobandis is also that of celebrating the birthday of Holy Prophet (pbuh). This custom started about 600 years ago. For 900+ years before that, Muslims did not feel a need to celebrate such an occasion. Superficially, it shouldn`t make much difference by dedicating a day in the memory of a person who changed the destination of humanity forever; and who came as a blessing for the whole humanity. If the matter would stay up to this point then it is acceptable. But when one starts considering it a religious obligation and starts preaching that the celebration of this birthday is a religious duty of each and every Muslim and those who celebrate are rewarded by Allah and those who don`t will be punished, then we have a problem. Because neither Qura`n nor Sunnah attest to this position. So here we have a new invention that has corrupted the religion. After a few generations a common man who is not well versed in religious injunctions and teachings will start considering it a part of religion and will be ready to die for it. Isn`t it what we see happening in our daily lives? Now this custom of celebrating Prophet`s birthday has been corrupted to the extent that those who celebrate make circles (tawaf) around the card-board figures of Ka`aba during these celebrations and think that they are being rewarded by God if not as much but close to it as if they had actually performed the Hajj. So the religion is corrupted.

By using this logic we can analyze almost every aspect of our lives. For example, Holy Prophet used to ride camels or horses; so is riding a car biddah?. The answer is simple that riding the car does not corrupt the religion and neither Qura`n nor sunnah prevents it. Similarly, we can argue on many things like using computers, performing surgical operations, and even forming a democratic government. The main criteria for Muslim is to always check whether what he is doing is contradictory to Qura`n and Sunnah or not? And believe me it is not an impossible demand. A Muslim is conditioned from the very childhood to analyze the matters through this criterion – whether it is reading labels at a grocery store or mortgaging a house.

On Discouraging Innovations and Hermenuetics in Islam:

UrsTruly,

I agree that for ``POLITICAL`` reasons uniformity or ``broad consensus`` over the principles of what is it that makes one MUSLIM may be important.
But is this what muslim world really needs? If we were to accept this then the obvious POLITICAL question will arise:
Who is going to enforce such concensus?
Who is going to take steps to discourage hermeneutics by calling it Biddah?
Are we going to have Talib guards caning or charging them with apostasy those who make different interpretations of even the ``PRINCIPLES``?
What quantum of penalty the ``Elders`` should prescribe for such sub-altern behaviour?

Infact, it is these issues which have been the fertile ground for Islamist politicians and mullahs to enter and scr*w up the lives of rest of the ummah. They are ready to PURIFY the ummah of the IMPURE interpretations and individuals.
Remember, this is what made the Talibs become the self proclaimed saviour of Islam who were professionally into the business of ``discouraging`` hermeneutics of Islam and calling innovative interpretations names like biddah. The day we start doing this we are doomed to live in the world of discourse created a thousand years ago for ever- our vocabularies would be frozen and so would be out intellects!!

``....And that is exactly the reason why we as Muslims should discourage even the slightest form of biddah even if it looks harmless and done with best of intentions, because it is so subjective and it has potential to turn malignant as the case of Quadianis have turned out to be.``

Ironman # 31,

I think it would be best to settle this issue if you actually looked up the calculations as mentioned in the translation i mentioned to you or sagan`s ``Cosmos``. I referred to the copy of ``cosmos`` I have again after your post. This is what roughly sagan says about the hindu theory on the age of the universe.
``Surely it must be a mere coincidence that ancient indians calucalted the age of the universe to be 14 billion years``.

You did not follow clearly when i mentioned that while christians go to ridiculous lengths to justify childish theories, indians on the other hand are hesitant to claim what is rightfully their heritage. I was trying to show you the contrast in two cultures. And No i`m not hoping that indians behave like these conservative christians. Rather, they learn to atleast assert confidently what is their contribution in any area.
As a small example, the vast majority of indians I know in academia do not know that trigonometric functions like ``Sine`` were first discovered by Aryabhatta. Its because of what people like you that the number system prevelant is called arabic numerals and not indian numerals. Atleast you can learn from the chinese, how they have been able to assert on their fair share of credit where due. There are many such exmaples, but then nations like germany care more about sanskrit literature then indians do.
In all of the above examples it is not my intention to go back to past and live life the ancient way. But, for heaven`s sake, give credit to people for what they have done, even if they are indians. And yes in the eyes of a common indian, such information will definitely have a positive affect upon their self-esteem.

``The only surprise here is that you don`t know this simple fact. A panchang is made using data *FROM* an almanac``.

If that was the case, I would not have bothered to post this statement. But obviously you did not care to reserach. A panchaang FORECASTS the position of planets based upon calculations. These calculations strangely take into account preccission of earth`s axis. Pick up a panchaang 100 years old (lot of folks have these but perhaps in tattered condition). And you will see that sun eneters a new zodiac every 15th o the month not 23rd as claimed in western world since 2000 years. Although 2000 years ago sun enterd every zodiac on the 23rd of every month, due to slow shifting of earth`s axis the dates now coincide with 15th/16th. An astronomical almanac differs with a panchaang only in about less than a degree for all the planets and sun. Incidentally, sawai mansingh of jaipur who built his jantar mantar (observatory) was perhaps the llast time indian astrologers looked up in the sky to actually measure the position of planets.

Adios

Urstruly,

Inter-sectarian fatwas of kuffr that I alluded to … are from scholars of your Islam … who cannot agree upon a definition of a Muslim … but agree that all those who disagree should be killed. I am not joking … this stuff has been documented in government-led inquiries in Pakistan in the 1950s. Ignoring it will not make it go away.

Furthermore, if one goes by your definition of a Muslim, personalities like Shah Waliullah, Mohiyyuddin Ibn-e-Arabi, Jalal-ud-Din Room etc. become non-Muslims. They believed in coming of future prophets, and made that clear in their writings.

Quran supports continuation of prophethood. To support your views, you incorrectly quote ahadith (as I showed several times) … while ignoring numerous ahadith that negate your views.

Unanimity among scholars does not validate absurdities. Islam is not defined by scholars who also believe in a two-thousand year old prophet residing above clouds, the giant fire-breathing donkey, Issa raising the dead, Mohammad flying above clouds to meet with god at night, and similar absurdities.

Mainstream Islam has become a case of blind leading blind. Their decline over the past few centuries, punctuated by inter-sectarian violence, attests to this fact. Like I said … look in the rearview mirror before making bold claims. Recent history of Islam negates your claims.