Islamic contributions to science, technology...

[lightbulb247]

architecture and art. Things people seem to forget.

[johnny37]

Sorry, I meant he header comment by lightbulb.

[WaldoMcFroog]

I've found religious buildings from all faiths inspiring as archeticture. I'm with Oscar Wilde when it comes to aestheticism and I think they can be remarkable and life enhancing buildings. The Bah'ai do particularly amazing structures (check out the Lotus temple in Delhi).

It no more convinces me that there's a god out there than does the fact that Faure's Requiem can make me cry.

[jomifl]

If god had built the above mentioned temples, cathedrals etc overnight. then I would be impressed. Why does an omnipotent being who can create a universe need so much help from insignificant creatures such as man?

[emmie]

man is nothing, comes from nothing and goes back to nothing, how is that for nihilism.
I love churches, cathedrals, civic buildings anything that has a history, would happily schlep around them in whatever country. Some of the most glorious churches are in Italy, where it also has great food, nice people, what more could you want. Don't have to belong to enjoy life, as the ad says just do it.

[argorstran]

Managed to find this on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdus_Salam
The guy seems to have done a lot of ground work for this unified field/particle theory that we heard a lot about recently .

[keyplus90]

Muslims contributed in almost every field of science when they acted upon the teachings and guidelines from Quran. They dis-appeared when they started doubting it.

http://www.islamtomorrow.com/science2.asp

[naomi24]

Can't be bothered to search threads just now - but I do believe we've heard something very similar before from ....[cough] .... Lightbulb. Or perhaps I'm experiencing deja vu? ;o)

[jomifl]

/The heavens and the earth were ordered rightly, and were made subservient to man, including the sun, the moon, the stars, and day and night. /
Keyplus, this is science? explain please, especially the bit about subservience.

[naomi24]

Keyplus, when did they start doubting it?

[lightbulb247]

//Please can you remind me//

http://en.wikipedia.o...ki/Islamic_Golden_Age

[doctordb]

The 'golden age' was possible not because of religious belief but because the islamic leadership was tolerant and open to the outside world that it traded and shared ideas with. As i said earlier the islamic world was far more enlightened and progressive in the tenth century than it is today.

I think it is fair to say that compared to those times we can call the current era of islam a 'dark age'. It's leaders rule by fear and oppression, they have turned their back on the outside world and suppressed their own people. They are an embarrassment when compared with those leaders who lived a thousand years ago.

[lightbulb247]

well i dont agree with that however everything ahs a dark age or a bad time and the recent attacks on muslims and constant blaming hasnt helped.

[naomi24]

doctorb, I agree absolutely. Islam has destroyed the well-earned respect it once enjoyed.

[jomifl]

Sith, I think the attacks on islam and the 'blaming' may wake muslims up to what has happened to their religion and what it is doing to it's adherents.

[beso]

I have increasingly come to realise that Islam has positioned itself on its own verification by scientific method. They are far more focussed on that then the Christians who apparently can believe pretty much anything they are told.

Muslims say they have proof of the prophet by his obvious understanding of things like the expansion of the Universe which any Muslim scholar will show is just as Mohammed had seen a millennium earlier.

Ancient Islam funded and used science and exploration as vehicle to advance its spread. Like today, science back then offered the most extraordinary advances, even though they were things that we would considered mundane today. People like the technology and Islam was the bonus built on the perception that the scientific guys were way ahead on everything and flock to the economic progress.

The Catholic Church tried much the same in Europe but ran into trouble with their doctrine which was a bit more explicit than Mohammed on such subjects as the origin of everything.

[jomifl]

Keyplus, /contributed in almost every field of science/ really? give me a starter.

[sandyRoe]

algebra, astronomy, and most importantly in some eyes, distilling alcohol.

[jomifl]

Sandy, I suppose that's all the science there was then.. :-)

[birdie1971]

I once watched a TV programme that claimed the invention of the concept of zero as a number in itself was the creation of an Islamic mathematician. However, this appears not to be the case. Zero, it seems, predates Islam by thousands of years.

People do like to claim things about their religions and their religious followers that when looked at objectively simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

[mibn2cweus]

Inventing Zero is one thing, devoting ones life to the worship of that which is existentially its equivalent is quite another.