Does science lead to objective truth?

بسم الله الرحمٰن الرحيم، وصلوات الله وسلامه على أشرف المرسلين

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a well-known and respected physicist, published this tweet a few days ago:

No doubt, he is referring to scientific discoveries when he talks about “objective truths.” But does he have any rational justification for asserting that? Continue reading “Does science lead to objective truth?” →

My Response to Jerry Coyne

Bismillah was-salaatu was-salaamu ‘ala Rasoolillah.

Jerry Coyne wrote an article, published on his blog as well as in the New Republic, in which he claimed that it’s wrong to claim that ISIS is not Islamic. The title of the piece was: “If ISIS Is Not Islamic, then the Inquisition Was Not Catholic.” He claims that both ISIS atrocities and the Inquisition are examples of crimes carried out in the name of religion, and so if we argue that ISIS is not truly Islamic we’d have to claim that the Inquisition was not truly Catholic. However, the piece is full of logical fallacies (and factual errors: such as his claim that the Qur’an calls for killing apostates) as articles by “New” Atheists usually are, so I’ll respond to his main claim here:

  1. There is a such thing as “true” religion. Perhaps Jerry Coyne and his fellow atheists see the world (specifically: moral values) in subjective and changing terms. But religion deals with absolute Truths. Coyne himself acknowledges this when he criticizes religion for promoting “dogma.”
  2. The Inquisition was sanctioned and carried out by the official Catholic Church. ISIS has been condemned by every major Muslim institution throughout the globe. Coyne’s comparison of the two is a false equivocation.
  3. Muslims have been fighting against ISIS for almost a year now. Thousands of Muslims have lost their lives trying to stop ISIS. Just because it wasn’t on the news, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. For more info, see: this, this, and this. Also, a June 2014 report (link – AR) by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that 2,764 Syrian rebels alone had died, up to that point, fighting against ISIS. That doesn’t even include Kurds and Shi’ites, who are also Muslim, and it’s probably even higher by now. There have also been thousands of civilian casualties, vast majority Muslim.
  4. How many Catholics lost their lives trying to stop the Inquisition?

So I think we can safely conclude that while the Inquisition was indeed “Catholic,” ISIS is certainly not Islamic.

Salaam,

Yousuf

Update: Musa Furber has some excellent comments about Coyne’s article in this Facebook thread as well: https://www.facebook.com/musafurber/posts/833924539981748.

David Berlinski Destroys Secularism

Bismillah was-salaatu was-salaamu ‘ala Rasoolillah.

One of my favorite writers and speakers about science and religion is David Berlinski. He’s Jewish himself, and he wrote a devastating critique of “New” Atheism called The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions.

This is an excerpt from that book:

What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they were doing. And as far as we can tell, very few of those carrying out the horrors of the twentieth century worried overmuch that God was watching what they were doing either. That is, after all, the meaning of a secular society.

‘Nuff said.

Salaam,

Yousuf

The Noble American

Mohamed Ghlian's avatarMohamed Ghilan

BasmalaSlide1The following is a translation of an August 22, 2014 article written by Majed Abdul Hadi for Al Arabi Al Jadeed (The New Arab) about the barbaric murder of American journalist James Foley. Majed Abdul Hadi is a Palestinian journalist and writer living in Qatar and working for Al Jazeera. I decided to translate this instead of write a piece of my own, because I feel it is important for people in the West to see this reaction coming from Arab Muslims. Abdul Hadi’s reaction is not unique by any stretch. But I chose his article because it read like a eulogy, as well as a lament over the current state of affairs in the region, which James Foley paid with his life and precious blood as he tried to be a voice for the voiceless.

The Noble American

He neither shook, nor his voice quivered, nor did he stumble on…

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Why has ISIS risen?

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Bismillah was-salaatu was-salaamu ‘ala Rasoolillah.

In Sha Allah, this blog post will be divided into three (3) parts: the first, dealing with military reasons why ISIS has risen; the second, ideological reasons; the third, a brief refutation of their beliefs and actions from an orthodox Islamic perspective. (Note: I’m not claiming to represent orthodox Sunni Islam. I’m just basing my reasoning on its principles.)

Continue reading “Why has ISIS risen?” →

Lifting the Veil of Harris & Hirsi Ali

Mohamed Ghlian's avatarMohamed Ghilan

basmala_01maxresdefaultNew atheist/ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been one of the people of interest to be discussed as of late. After much outcry, she lost an honorary degree that Brandeis University had intended to award her. They cite in their statement that Hirsi Ali’s “past statements are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” That was their politically correct way of saying they did not realize the extent her Islamophobia and bigotry had gone to when they initially wanted to award her that degree.

At the time there was a bit of social media lashing out that came from some figures, particularly among the new atheist crowd. Somehow it was turned into a freedom of speech issue, which it was most definitely not. For others it was a bogus Islamophobia issue – enter Sam Harris.

In spite of the increasing awareness of something wrong taking place in how Islam and Muslims are being viewed by…

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Response to Heina Dadabhoy and Sadaf Ali

I read a May 25th, 2014 article by Mark Oppenheimer in the New York Times about two women named Heina Dadabhoy and Sadaf Ali. Both are ex-Muslims, and they have been receiving a lot of press attention recently.

First of all, let me say this: the amount of press that these “ex-Muslims” get is just ridiculous. They had a whole show done about them recently on HuffPost Live, and have had similar attention in Europe (many have been exposed as liars, such as Ergun Caner). Continue reading “Response to Heina Dadabhoy and Sadaf Ali” →

CONSCIOUSNESS, ACCEPTING THE BEST EXPLANATION

Imran Hussein's avatarImran Hussein

cv101

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis recently published an essay on consciousness, in which he aptly demonstrated that materialism cannot explain the phenomenon we know as consciousness in particular the hard problem of consciousness. He concluded his paper by inferring that God as the best explanation for conscious states. Furthermore Hamza explained why God was the best explanation by providing a five point breakdown which I have shared at the bottom of this post.

However some people have completely dismissed his explanation, claiming it does not explain anything, that this is the “GOD OF THE GAPS!” fallacy and so on, which is quite absurd. His inference quite clearly provides a cogent answer with great explanatory power, no one is trying to squeeze God into a gap. It seems to me that the problem is not that God is the best explanation; rather the problem seems to be well why should we accept this explanation since we don’t…

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Islamic science vs. secular science

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم، وصلوات الله وسلامه على أشرف المرسلين

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Nowadays, every opportunity is taken to denounce Allah’s deen (religion). One recent allegation is that Islam/Muslims are backwards or primitive, since they have lagged extremely far behind in the world’s scientific development for the past 300 years. Just visit Richard Dawkins’ Twitter feed to know what I’m talking about.

Many Muslims respond to this criticism by pointing out that there were thousands of Muslim intellectuals throughout history that contributed greatly to the world’s scientific knowledge. This is 100% correct. But I think we’re missing a key point here: the “science” practiced by Muslims during their Golden Age was NOT the (secular) science people like Stephen Hawking are a part of today. There were fundamental differences, which I hope to bring to light in this article In Sha Allah (God willing). The main differences are:

Continue reading “Islamic science vs. secular science” →