CHAPTER 1
Islam, Science and Atheism The Essence of Science
Introduction
Religious people the world over regardless of their specific belief system dismiss atheistic protestations out of hand without bothering to refute their merits. Muslim intellectuals and Muslim scholars suffer from even more acute failings. They indignantly and uncritically join the swarm for no realistically legitimate reasons. They unthinkingly ignore the maxim that objections of others who do not share their beliefs to any ideas do not necessarily reflect how Islam view most issues. In a wide variety of cases this approach delegitimizes Islam rather than upholds it. Islam differs from all other belief systems in that it strongly encourages reason and abhors dogmatic irrationality. This is true while at the same time giving answers to inquiries about every minute detail concerning either the universe and what it entails or the mundane issues of human beings' daily lives. As such it is convincingly argued by Muslims that Islam is valid in time and space with no exception. Islamic rules and regulations in terms of what is known as the Shari'a ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) deal with human affairs. Thanks to the negligible history of humans on earth compared to other creatures, human needs to be regulated did not change much if at all over humanity's entire history. That implies the stability of the Shari'a ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and its validity under all circumstances or conditions. Contrary to the prevailing idea especially among Westerners, rules and regulations of the Shari'a ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) constitute only a largely minor part of the Qur'anic narrative.
That is obviously not the case concerning collective human knowledge which improves with every passing day. On the other hand, the Qur'anic text is singularly dominated by the emphasis on the Oneness ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of God ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) that can be deduced through His material creations and their implied signs. This is emphatically stated in Ayah 53 in Surat Fussilat ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). Remarkably, any thoughtful probing of Islam's descriptions of material facts reveals general rather than detailed statements subject to the rules of the Arabic Language. Therefore, these statements are open to interpretations which is exactly what a human being is required to do according to the basic tents of Islam to appreciate God's ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) sovereignty. Thus, Muslims have a duty to ponder their stands for or against any arguments especially those that negate their own beliefs. An excuse that the great ancient scholars settled such issues is patently unacceptable. It goes without saying that intellectual laziness is unambiguously un-Islamic. It may be that dismissing atheistic arguments out of hand as currently practiced by most Muslims is due to ignorance of the underlying intricacies of the subject matter. However, it is clear that in numerous instances atheistic protestations are actually borne by some fundamental Islamic principles. Or at least they do not controvert some basic Islamic notions. It should also be obvious that historically these atheistic challenges to religious arguments were solely and uniquely directed at the Western Church and its doctrines. As such they have no bearing whatsoever on Islam, its tents, its practices or its rational approaches. Muslims, therefore, should not be cheering counter arguments that have nothing to do with them but should discuss what atheists have to say with open mind. They should refute their conclusions while accepting what is valid in their premises.
Critics of "Western Civilization" attribute so many transgressions to it such as the extermination of indigenous peoples during the brutal conquest of the New World, the inhumane treatment of the natives during the age of imperialism, dragging most of humanity into its internal quarrels leading to two savage world wars and numerous other misdeeds. But in the opinion of Muslims, the worst offense by far has been its legacy of giving birth and respectability to the notion of "Atheism". It did that through its brute force assertion that the word "Religion" is synonymous with "Christianity". Western Civilization and Christianity (in its western form) became one and the same in the western mundset. It physically accomplished that using missionary zeal associated with extreme coercion at the expense of defenseless peoples on every continent on the face of the earth. Intellectually Judaism paid the price in the early days and continued to suffer persecution overtly and covertly till the present day. Jews came to the brink of extinction at the hands of Western Christians for their denial of Jesus Christ ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) even twenty centuries after his proclamations. The religion preaching peace and love has been historically the most brutal inhumane force thanks to its adoption by the Western Civilization. Eastern Christianity showed none of these signs but rather coexisted peaceably with others. After the Age of Enlightenment, atheism's respectability is directly derived from its uncompromising confidence in humanity's ability to find truth through observation. That is the exact opposite of Christianity's dogma. Having imprinted the idea that "Religion" is synonymous with "Christianity" in the minds of people, Western Civilization made science and religion irreconcilable. This is shown in the writings of almost all prominent scientists in every conceivable field. The fact of the matter is simply that religion is not and cannot be synonymous with Christianity. Christianity's dogmas do not contravene the precepts of only science but also those of Islam as well. Therefore, atheism has to be judged not against Christianity but rather against the fundamental conceptions of Islam if religion is to be assaulted. While atheism is essentially built on the supremacy of scientific achievements and the progress of human knowledge, Islam consists of a vast array of ideas and perceptions including great appreciation of human intellect. In essence one of the most basic foundations of faith in Islam is the realization of the power of God ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) the Creator through thought and observation. Obviously, that concept cannot be irreconcilable with science by any stretch of the imagination. However, this is not obvious when one contemplates the current status of Muslims. The seeming contradiction stems from the long stagnation of Islamic thought and the widely perceived self-serving inaptitude of some modern day Muslim scholars and not from the underlying notions of Islam itself.
It is assumed that the fundamental difference between humans and other mammals is language. When over eons Homo-Sapiens communities developed languages, they were able to communicate among themselves and exchange ideas. Presumably, the overriding concern was to understand their universe starting with their own existence. Mythology was apparently the method of choice to explain natural phenomena that could not be interpreted in a straightforward approach. Contemplating nature humanity realized that there are causes to everything taking place around it. Step by step that realization gave impetus to methodical investigation and eventually the rise of what became known as rigorous science. Human senses were the first and foremost judge of any observable phenomenon. However, the thought process itself took precedence and science became more and more abstract. Almost all scientific explanations are reduced to abstract ideas that find their origins in Mathematics which is the most abstract of all. For example, biologists reduce life itself to chemistry and chemical processes albeit very complicated ones. Chemistry is nothing more than relationships between materials' elements which are in essence merely formed by elementary particles arranged in certain ways. These in turn are governed by laws of physics or more precisely quantum physics. These laws are described in mathematical equations and formulations which abstractly present the logical relationships among human conceptual thoughts. The same is true of any other branch of science. Even the origin and structure of the universe is reduced to mathematical representations.
Mathematics itself is a product of pure thought that assumes logical relationships among abstract objects describing natural phenomena, but not the phenomena themselves, such as numbers. These thoughts however, are usually based on fundamental irreducible assumptions as starting points. Major deadlocks in science, especially in physics, are overcome when it is discovered that some of these irreducible assumptions or axioms are wrong, or to put it more precisely, cannot be proven. The most famous one is the assumption in Euclidian geometry that two parallel lines never meet. The fallacy of this arbitrary axiom undermined plane geometry and allowed mathematicians to develop other more realistic higher dimensional geometries. Physicists found it useful to take advantage of these new geometries leading for example to the theory of general relativity which unlike previous theories enabled the description of the universe in terms consistent with observations. But physicists and mathematicians work independently. Mathematicians deal with the purely abstract whether or not the problem at hand has any applications in reality. On the other hand, physicists are only concerned with observations that are extracted from real natural phenomena. Scientists are always surprised to find that solutions to problems blocking their understanding of certain physical facts could be found in abstract mathematical approaches that were established many years or even centuries earlier. However, as was just mentioned, mathematical concepts are based on logical assumptions or axioms that cannot be reduced further and are assumed to be true. Entire body of knowledge is built on these assumptions and is accepted by scientists as formed by self-consistent facts. When real physical phenomena cannot be reconciled with these axioms, they are discarded as absolute facts but so painfully slowly and reluctantly. That is not to say that they remain excellent approximations to reality although they are no longer considered the absolute truth.
The most revealing example is the age old universal acceptance of Euclidian or plane (two dimensional) geometry to describe the universe. This geometry stems from certain fundamental axioms that were taken for granted for millennia. The day-to-day life of every human being is based on its assumptions as it describes the relationships between lines, curves, surfaces, etc. However, when dealing with the universe as a whole, it was found wanting and could not account for the known physical facts. Other multi-dimensional non-Euclidian geometries were already developed in mathematics by George Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866) and David Hilbert (1862-1943) without any assumptions of their physical reality. Utilizing these approaches, modern cosmology gives an accurate picture of the universe that is consistent with the observed facts. Euclidian geometry may have turned out not to represent reality but it is still the staple of elementary mathematical teaching the world over. The simple reason is that it gives excellent approximations to what humans experience around them even if it cannot accurately describe the universe itself. In other words, multidimensional geometries are reduced to plane two-dimensional geometry when everyday scale of space is considered. Simply put, a theory that explains numerous facets of reality but fails when the scales are radically changed is not inherently wrong but rather should be dealt with as an approximation for a more general theory under certain simplifying conditions. That perception entered public lore with the advent of the theory of relativity. Understanding of space and time was radically altered from the universally accepted Newtonian approach. Newton based his theories on the fundamental ideas of absolute space and absolute time. Adding to these was the idea, which Newton himself found irrational but essential to his theory, of instantaneous action at a distance. A fundamental implication of Newtonian kinematics is that an object can gain limitless speed. In a stroke of genius, Newton succeeded in explaining terrestrial as well as celestial phenomena under the same laws. Scientists for over two centuries held his work in awe and discarded anything that contradicted it. When special relativity put an upper limit to the speed any material object can attain assuming at the same time the constancy of the speed of light, it overturned all Newton's assumptions. That does not mean that Newtonian Physics is wrong but rather that it is an excellent approximation pertaining to everyday's experiences. Relativity is reduced to Newton's theory at speeds much lower than that of light. It is of fundamental importance to understand that relativity brought its own assumptions. If at a future time phenomena are found where relativity cannot account for then these assumptions would have to be modified. Again relativity under these hypothetical conditions could not be considered wrong but rather as an excellent approximation to the more general theory whatever it is.
The important conclusion of this discussion is that a new more general and more successful theory replacing an old one that failed to account for certain physical facts should imply the old theory under simplified conditioned. The old theory is by no means wrong but just limited in its scope. It is also essential to understand that new theories come up with their own new assumptions that create new problems as well. What that entails, is the fact that no discernable end to acquiring new knowledge can probably be attained. Anecdotes about Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck's (1858-1947) years in school can be found to this effect in the 1990 book by his great protégé's Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) 1990 book Across the Frontiers which tell the story that his teacher advised him against the study of physics since after all it was essentially finished with, so that for anyone who wanted to do active scientific research it would scarcely be worthwhile to go into this field. Obviously Planck in 1900 proposed the idea of "Quanta" of energy which begat the revolutionary new quantum theory to push through the dawn of modern physics with incalculable implications for almost every field of science not only physics. The situation is elegantly described by another of the great builders of quantum physics during the first half of the twentieth century Richard Feynman (1918-1988). In his 1964 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University he asserted that when one speaks of a theory one is never definitely right, scientists can only be sure they are wrong. Therefore, physicists are trying to prove themselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can they find progress. Speaking of the changing thought patterns that result in scientific revolutions, Heisenberg wonders that such revolutions in science have actually been possible at all but he wanted to know how then have they come about? The answer that comes readiest to everyone is because the new ideas are simply right and the old are wrong. This answer presupposes that in science it is always the right answer that prevails. But that is by no means the case. He supposes that another explanation for the success of revolutions is that they come to pass because scientists gladly defer to the authority of a strong revolutionary personality, such as Einstein. However, the internal resistance against a change in the thought pattern are much too strong to be overcome by the authority of any one man. He then gives the correct answer in his opinion as a perception of scientists that with the new pattern of thought they can achieve greater success in their science than with the old; because the new system proves to be fruitful. It is always stated that Newtonian mechanics is implied in the theory of relativity as long as objects' speeds do not approach that of light. What is less known, is that Newtonian mechanics is also contained in the quantum theory. It is as a limiting case in which the events are completely objectified and the interaction between the object under investigation and the observer can be neglected.
