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Comment by hekark | Hacker News Reader

Islam doesn't really contradict science. Science is simply viewed as the study of God's creation.

There is a word that's used in Islam text, called Bi'dah; which can roughly be translated to "innovation in the religion". People label their own delusions under Islam, when they have nothing to do with the religion (ie. murder, suicide bombings, etc).

There is a class war and power struggle in the middle east right now. I think middle easterners are divided between those that want the empire back and those that want to integrate into the European (pseudo-Roman) way of life.

Neither side is achieving their goals in a proper manner though. Suicide bombings obviously don't help with anything. Integration with Europe has simply lead to colonization and poorer living standards. The middle east is pretty complicated. It's better to actually understand the history of the middle east, rather than post a link to /r/atheism.

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Islam doesn't really contradict science. Science is simply viewed as the study of God's creation.

That is the position that was widely taken in Western countries. It only lasts so long as the description of God's creation that comes from science is compatible with religion. But once science disagrees with the description of your religion, you're forced to make hard choices.

For most strands of judeo-christianity (including Islam), that point is hit with Darwin.

Integration with Europe has simply lead to colonization and poorer living standards.

The decline of the Middle East actually goes back farther than that. People in the West celebrate the voyages of discovery. But we seldom think about the consequences that direct trade routes from Europe to India and China had on people who were dependent on pre-existing trade routes along the Silk Road, such as the Middle East.

Metaphorically speaking (and taken at the higher level comparison), the Europeans, were exploring for alternative ways to the Asian trade routes without the middle man. In effect, they were just doing a form of "hacking" -- finding an easier way to their goal and upsetting the status quo.

In some ways, that's similar to how most of us try to do in our own ventures what drives progress. It's fairly easy to ignore the consequences involved in disrupting a market, but holding back progress generally has a negative outcome for humanity as a whole.* It may have caused the Middle East to become more isolated, but at the same time, humanity needs to find a way to avoid repeating itself (as we still see such things even today in any rural part of the world). Open communication and integration generally leads to a more free exchange of ideas and calms fears between different cultural groups and nationalities.

*I'm ignoring the ethical consequences here that came with finding North/South America and focusing on the trade routes to avoid going too far off the subject.

There is no question that opening up direct trade routes has been beneficial overall for the world. But it wasn't for the Middle East, and the reasons for the decline, being distant, were not immediately apparent to anyone.

More generally everyone who has learned even a little economics knows that when you open up trade, you improve production. That's the whole point of comparative advantage. However lurking in the math is that if 2 parties are engaged in trade, and the third is not, adding the third makes the total better off, but is not necessarily better for all parties.

Agreed. I don't think anyone, even if it happened today would have saw the Middle East's gradual isolation over several hundred years as the likely outcome of Europeans "hacking" the silk road trade routes (though if a similar case happened today, it would probably be far less gradual). There were other factors as well, such as consecutive bad leadership in the Ottoman Empire following Suleiman the Magnificent (which is often cited as a big reason for the decline of the Western Roman Empire), but the consequences of the trade route disruption has too many ripple effects over time it's hard to say what or what was not in some way attributed to it.

Comparing the Ottomans and the Western Romans once again, both lost out on most of their profitable trade (as most of the trade was in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire and was no longer filling the Western tax coffers when the Empire split into two). Although I wouldn't take my conclusion as fault proof, but it would appear that countries can survive a string of bad leaders, but if trade that's taken for granted dries up and never returns, then the country is in bad shape if it cannot adapt.

^great comment and clarification.

Islam doesn't really contradict science.

I'm afraid science might contradict Islam (like any other religion).

>>>> Islam doesn't really contradict science. Science is simply viewed as the study of God's creation.

of course it does , angel and djinns are not scientific facts , neither are people claiming they received the word of "god" from whatever spook out there...

Science looks at nature and try to draw conclusions , facts that one can experiment or things than can predict something. Prove me that djinns or angels exist as the reproducible phenomenon and i will believe in whatever fairy tail you believe in. Religion is based on faith since you cant reproduce any so called "miracle" written in holly books.

Read your sentence : your assume at first place everything is god creation , that's not how science works.

But i dont blame you , some believe in Hubbard or Smith , no matter how smart they think they are. Just dont lie to yourself in saying religion doesnt contradict science , it is dishonest at best.

> Islam doesn't really contradict science

Sure it does. Qur'an is full of things that contradict science.

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