revelation from nature

8/14/2019 Revelation From Nature

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SCALING THE HEAVENSEveryone who is left far from his sourceWishes back the time when he was united with it.

Jalal al-Din Rumi..

MESSAGES FROM OUTER SPACE

In the search for intelligent life on other planets in our Galaxy and the Universe, NASAformally started a program in 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus' 1492 journeyto the the New World, the observations called Seti (Search for extraterestial intelligence),were conducted in the radio frequency range. Millions of dollars have been spent to findthat one SIGNAL from outer space in the hope, would give mankind tremendousknowledge from Civilsations, far advanced technologically giving insights in to the GreatHeavens itself.I have Seti@home a small program on my computers, desktop receiving signals fromouter space, through the Telescope in Arecibo Puerto Rico, a few hundred miles fromwhere I am writing this essay in Pembroke Pines, South Florida.

A vast number of people are engaged in this search to find out, if we are alone in thisvast universe or there are other more intelligent beings. Organisations like SETI and

Planetery society are in the forefront.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Arecibo_Overview.jpg


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Now we have the tools to narrow our search. Earth based Radio and Optical Telescopesin tandem with man made satellites are scanning the sky, in the entire electro magneticspectrum... The recent advancement in finding extra solar planets every two weeks havegiven tremendous optimistm that one day we might CONTACT.With recent discoveries in fields of spectometry the elements of what constivuten life in

brimming the the whole universe. With time we have started to find the Factors on theright side of Francis Drake of Cornell universities famous equation.

N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L

Where,

N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions aredetectable.

R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.

fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.

ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.

fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.

fi= The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.

fc= The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs oftheir existence into space.

L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

Within the limits of our existing technology, any practical search for distant intelligent life mustnecessarily be a search for some manifestation of a distant technology. In each of its last fourdecadal reviews, the National Research Council has emphasized the relevance and importanceof searching for evidence of the electromagnetic signature of distant civilizations .1

"A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed bymodern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tappedby the conventional faiths."

REVELATIONS FROM NATURE.

The revelationOf the BookIs from AllahThe exalted in Power,Full of Wisdom


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Verily in the HeavensAnd the earth, are SignsFor those who believe.

And in the creationOf yourself and the factThat animals are scattered(through the earth), are SignsFor those of assured Faith.

And in the alternationOf Night and Day,And the fact that AllahSends down Sustenance from

The sky, and revives therewith

The earth after its death.And in the changeOf the windsare SignsFor those who are wise.Such are the SignsOf Allah, which We rehearse to theeIn truth, then in whatExposition will they believeAfter (rejecting) AllahAnd his Signs.


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We have not yet detected an extraterrestrial signal. From its inception in the 1959 paper

by physicists Giuseppe Cocconi and Phillip Morrison who together wrote that thefrequency of 1420 MHz which corresponds to 21-centimeter line of neutral hydrogenwould be a good starting point to make contact with extraterresital civilization..

It is reasonable to expect that sensitive receivers for this frequency will be made at anearly stage of the development of radio astronomy. That would be the expectation ofoperators of the assumed source, and the present state of terrestrial instruments indeedjustifies the expectation. They further stated.The reader may wish to consign these speculations wholly to the domain of sciencefiction. We submit, rather, that the foregoing line of argument demonstrates that thepresence of interstellar signals is entirely consistent with all we now know, and that ifsignals are present the means of detecting them is now to hand.Few will deny theprofound importance pratical and philosophical which the detection of interstellarcommunicatons would have. We therefore feel that a discriminating search for signalsdeserves a considerable effort.The probability of success is difficult to estimate but if wenever search the chance of success is zero.Cocconi and Morrison's paper started a debate which will continue till humans or theirevolved forms survive doing science and in the process colonizing other star systemsand galaxies.1


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Not one of the beings in the Heavens and the earth.But must come to (Allah).

Most Gracious as a servant.He does take an account of them (all), and hath numbered them (all) exactly.

The above verses explicitly mentions life in outer space scattered throughout thecosmos.We find complex organic materials the precursor of life everywhere in theuniverseThe enigma with revelations or messages from the Supreme Intelligence being which wecall Allah, God, and Yahiva is that there is no instrument in the laboratory to


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communicate with and authenticate his presence, no empirical data confirming ordenying his presence. Would a super human race be able to to do that its, hard to say atour present level of intelligence. We have started talking about the tear or rupture of thefabric of space and time. We started with controlling hydel, wind and steam powers andthen harnessed electro-magnetism, solar energy, nuclear forces, conquering Hyper space

seems to be the next, albeit when, we dont know.Scholars like inayat ullah2 believe that one day man will have evolved to such a degreeas to physically conquer, the whole universe and would Contact the Supreme intelligenceseems far reaching, but are we progressing in that direction, who could have qussed ionsago that an asteroid or heavely body would strike the earth and produce a tilt enough tostart the seasons later on, or an asteroid would hit the earth to finish 90 percent of thespecies and start the eventual evolution of man. Or another body would strike

There are scholars like Professor Rafiq Akhtar who are of the opionion that this supremeintelligence only accepts the call or prayers of those who obey his Amr, commands. It issimply compliance with the directives of the Shariah and leading a righteous

life that a believer may experienceKashfonly by the grace of AllahThese exterrestial messages not of human origins also evolved from Torah, the Palsms toBible and the Quran, devolping as the human kind evolved socially and scientifically inthe last few thousand years. However each recipient generation of these messagesfossiled around what it perceived to be the ultimate or absolute truth, until to everyonesurprise came anther message and another messenger. So we have wars in the name ofreligion. Talking to a pastor at TBN network in Miami florida, I would not only beperplexed but also see the dilemma of God sending different prohets at intervals toconfuse us if I may say, or not understand what God wants us to do, change instantlyfrom being Moses followers to Jesus followers, to followers of Mohammad or as someeven following others. thinking them as Minor Prophets like Ahmed, or Iranian or Ali jah

when he said the Jews missed Jesus. How can we not claim that they both missedMohammad?Then to our great surprise comes Quran with amazing insights into the world ofNATURE statements which gives no room to abandon religion if I am not at the thirdlevel and accept being an atheist, mind this to all critics of Quran cannot get over thesestatements, but they have to be Natural scientists, even statements like creation in parismay put some off.As Carl Sagan put it in the Cosmos that the Ionian scientist would have worked wondersif the Greek society would have kept going with such libraries as that of Alexandriawhere scientists were trying to find the circumference of earth...which was preProphet Jesus (Peace be upon him) and Mohammad (Pbuh) and obviously the last book

or message stresses on the the study of nature with 1/8th

of the quran or about 600 verses.This is what Sagan mistakenly calls science as informed worship in his book scientificexperiences ironically science or the study of nature is itself a form of worship as thequran says.In the study of the heavens and the earth and in altenation of night and day there are signsfor men of understanding..


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Thy Lord hath decreedThat ye worship none but Him,And that ye be kindTo parents, Whether oneOr both of them attain

Old age in thy life,Say not to them a wordOf contempt, nor repel them,But address themIn term of honour.

And, out of kindness,Lower to them the wingOf humility, and say:My Lord! bestow on themThy mercy even as they

Cherished me in childhood. (Surah 17-23,24)


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Seest thou not thatAllah sends down rainFrom the sky? With itWe then bring out produce

Of various colours.And in the mountainsAre tracts white and red,Of various shades of colour.And black intense in hue.

And so amongst menAnd crawling creatures and cattle,Are they are various colours.Those truly fear Allah,Among His Servants,

Who have knowledge.(35-27)Verily in the creation of the heavens and of the earth, and the succession of night and dayand in the ships that speed through the sea, with what is usefull to man, and in the waterthat God sends down from the sky, giving life thereby to the earth after it had beenlifeless ,and causing all manners of living creatures to multiply there on, and in thechange of winds, and the clouds that run their appointed courses between sky and theEarth.(in all this)there are messages(ayat) indeed for people who use their reason.

The Koran constantly stresses the need for intelligence in deciphering the Signs ormessages of God. Muslims are not to abdicate their reason but to look at the Worldattentively and with curiosty, It was this attitude that later enabled Muslims to build a finetradition of natural science, which has never been seen as a danger to religion as inChristianty.


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http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0708/phoenix_nasa_big.jpg


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Frosty white water ice clouds and swirling orange dust storms above a vivid rusty landscape

reveal Mars as a dynamic planet in this sharpest view ever obtained by an Earth-based

telescope. The Earth-orbiting Hubble telescope snapped this picture on June 26, when Mars was

approximately 43 million miles (68 million km) from Earth -- its closest approach to our planet

since 1988. Hubble can see details as small as 10 miles (16 km) across. Especially striking is the

large amount of seasonal dust storm activity seen in this image. One large storm system is

churning high above the northern polar cap [top of image], and a smaller dust storm cloud can be

seen nearby. Another large duststorm is spilling out of the giant Hellas impact basin in the

Southern Hemisphere [lower right].


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My mind is my own Church.Thomas Paine.

Let me stress that I'm not arguing here for the superiority of one approach to theology overanother. My point is simply that Darwinism has radical implications for theology, and that inchallenging Darwinism, intelligent design likewise has radical implications for theology. This is not

to say that intelligent design is a theological enterprise, any more than Darwinism is a theologicalenterprise. Darwinism, conceived as a theory about how biological complexity has emerged in thehistory of life, is a scientific theory. Intelligent design, conceived as a theory about the inherentlimitations of natural causes to generate biological complexity and the need for intelligence toovercome those limitations, is likewise a scientific theory.


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The inflationary era lasted from 10_37 second to 10-33 second after the big bang.During that relatively brief stretch of time, the fabric of space and time expanded faster

than light, growing in a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second from onehundred billion billion times smaller than the size of proton to about 4 inches.Yes the observable universe once fit within a grape fruit. But what caused the cosmicinflation? Cosmologist has named the culprit a Phase Transition. That left behind aspecific and observable signature in the cosmic background radiation.


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Do not turn away from the opinion according to which the world is new, except becauseof a demonstration. Now such a demonstration does not exist in nature. Further more thestudent of this treatise should not engage in criticism because of my using this rhetoricalmode of speech in order to support the affirmation of the newness of the world. For

Aristotle, the prince of the philosophers in his main writings has likewise used rhetoricalspeeches in support of his opinion that the world is eternal.In such cases it may truly be said: Shall not our perfect Torah be (worth as much) as their

Frivolous talk. If he refers in support of his opinion to the ravings of the Sabians, howcan we but refer in support of our opinion to the words of Moses and Abraham and toeverything that follows there from?

Moses Maimonides would have to wait 800 hundred years to get a demonstration innature, to uphold his opinion that world is new and not eternal as Aristotle thought, withlaunch of the COBE and WMAP satellite missions..


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Now, we can say Well thats just because the right words, were not available back, whenthe first Jewish or Christian or Islamic holy books were written But clearly thats not theproblem, it is certainly possible in the beautiful metaphors in these books to describe

something like the galaxy and the Universe, and itsnt there. It is God of one small worlda problem, I believe, that theologians have not adequately addressed.

Quran and for that matter all the holy books, used the medium or language of therecipients to communicate, Phonics, hierilogics and eventually Hebrew for Moses(pbuh),latin for Jesus(pbuh) and. Arabic or specifically the {laguat ul quresh} language of theQureshi tribe for Mohammad(Pbuh).In keeping with the traditions, customs, cultural constraints, mode of conduct and habits.Quran introduced or evolved and shaped new and previously unknown comceptsscattered like seeds in the soil, through out its chapters as verses or signs to be reflectedupon. Thus grew the Daurl ulloms or center of learnings in Spain, Central Asia,producing the finest scholars and scientists whos inventions and discoveries in art,literature and Science were the fore runner of Reformation and Renaissance in the west.Quran itself unifies natural thelogy with examples drawn, fromastrophysics,astrobiology, and most other sciences as signs of Allah with Amr(commands} on what befits the best human behaviour as distinct from its closely relatedDNA cousins in the animal world.

Western scholars accuse Quran of plagiarism, as having been copied from biblicalsources, well the answer to this is ,,,,,,,,,but no matter how we see it these messages havea sense of continuinty, a sense of purpose, but more like nature or the universe itself,showing chaos , random destruction, matters which are very hard to understand.at times.As inayatullah says in his book hadith ul quran that Allah has made parts of Quran, seemchaotic like nature itself, with one verse having no relation with the previous or the next.Like scientist working with data from nature, its imperative for scholars of Quran to seeand construct the whole Puazzle to find meaning full answers.


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Dr Sagan writes. Now we can say Well that that just because the right words were notavailable back, when the first Jewish or Christian or Islamic holy books were writtenBut clearly thats not the problem, it is certainly possible in the beautiful metaphors inthe books to describe something like the galaxy and the Universe, and its not there. It isGod of one small world, a problem I believe that these religions have not adequately

addressed.Quran essentially uses the prevalent Semitic language Arabic or more precisely Laguat ulQuresh. The dialect used by Tribe of Quresh of the 7th century to download its messages,very strongly using the prevalent traditions ,customs cultural constraints, mode ofconduct and habits, certainly overthrowing and unbalancing the modern day ,analyticaland empirical scientist. Let me give just one example the word 7 is used by all the holybooks to denote multiplicity or many as taking in terms of billions or trillions or Planckconstant did not exist then. Moses Maimonides says in the Guide of the perplexed chapter29. As his words, as the light of seven days, the commentators have have said thatmeans there by the multiplicitly of light, for the Hebrews denote multiplicity by thenumber seven.

Quran introduced evolved and shaped new and previously unkown scientific comceptsscatterd like seeds in the fertile soil, as its verses and chapters more like a great Puzzleunifying Natual theology or the study of nature with commands (Amr) ,on what bestbefits human conduct. As distinct from its closely related DNA cousin in the animalworld. Essentially finding limits of Darwinism and inferring Fine Tuning and design atthe molecular levels.


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Let me quote one or two passages from Briffaults Making of Humanity,

. . . it was under their successors at that Oxford school that Roger Bacon learnedArabic and Arabic science. Neither Roger Bacon nor his later namesake has any titleto be credited with having introduced the experimental method. Roger Bacon was nomore than one of the apostles of Muslim science and method to Christian Europe; andhe never wearied of declaring that a knowledge of Arabic and Arabian science was forhis contemporaries the only way to true knowledge. Discussions as to who was theoriginator of the experimental method . . . are part of the colossal misrepresentationof the origins of European civilization. The experimental method of the Arabs was byBacons time widespread and eagerly cultivated throughout Europe (pp. 200-01). . . .

Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world,but its fruits were slow in ripening. Not until long after Moorish culture had sunk backinto darkness did the giant to which it had given birth rise in his might. It was notscience which brought Europe back to life. Other and manifold influences from thecivilization of Islam communicated its first glow to European life (p. 202).

For although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisiveinfluence of Islamic culture is not traceable, nowhere is it so clear and momentous asin the genesis of that power which constitutes the paramount distinctive force of themodern world, and the supreme source of its victory - natural science and thescientific spirit (p. 190).

The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveriesor revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes itsexistence. The ancient world was, as we saw, pre-scientific. The astronomy andmathematics of the Greek were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized

in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized, and theorized, but thepatient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minutemethods of science, detailed and prolonged observation, experimental inquiry, werealtogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was anyapproach to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical world. What we callscience arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods ofinvestigation, of the method of experiment, observation, measurement, of thedevelopment of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and thosemethods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs (p. 191).

The first important point to note about the spirit of Muslim culture then is that, forpurposes of knowledge, it fixes its gaze on the concrete, the finite. It is further clearthat the birth of the method of observation and experiment in Islam was due not to a

compromise with Greek thought but to a prolonged intellectual warfare with it. Infact, the influence of the Greeks who, as Briffault says, were interested chiefly intheory, not in fact, tended rather to obscure the Muslims vision of the Qurn, and forat least two centuries kept the practical Arab temperament from asserting itself andcoming to its own. I want, therefore, definitely to eradicate the misunderstanding thatGreek thought, in any way, determined the character of Muslim culture. Part of myargument you have seen; part you will see presently.


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Assuredly the creation of the heavens and earth is greater


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Than the creation of mankind, but most mankind know not.(57-)

The heavens and earth on the universal and geological time scales took 13.7 billion yearsto produce observers or star stuff as the scientist like to call us, to send satellites carryingadvanced instruments in space to construct our Origins. Looking back in time, what we

infer from the recent discoveries in astrophysics, starting from the quantum fluctuation ofthe big bang to the present was a colossal task both in complexity and time scales. Theabove message distinctly mentions the word AKBAR in Arabic for greater, larger,immense in estimation , bigger,, major, senior, superior, older , the creation of heavensand earth then the creation of human beings....does this pertains to giving any clues thathumans too evolved in billions of years too, for if it took some 8 or 9 billions years(wekeep on changing these numbers as we get more precise insttuments and research to afew hundred millions to a few billions, as everything was happening in tandem) for theuniverse to form and produce earth, which also evolved from the solar nebula and cooldown at least on the surface for us to occasionly forget we sit on molter rock hurtlingthrough space aroung the sun at 18.5 miles per second and move with the solar system

aroung the galactic core once every 225 million year. For the earth to cool down enoughto start life, and humans to evolve took another 4 to 5 billions years, as stating that thework of creation of universe and earth was immense, pertaining to both the complexityof task and timescale as compared to human kind which considering than could not havebeen, lesser either. As the literal reading of six days of the Bible or Quran would suggest.

The lessons of EPR is that quantum systems are fundamentally non-local. In principle, allparticles that have ever interacted belong to a single wave function---a global wavefunction containing a stupendous number of co-relations.


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In this essay I have attempted to synthesis my life experience concerning the dangers ofbeing getting trapped by the negative influences of the society, as regards being brainwashed by certain values systems, termed as absolute truths, with resulting effect of beingled to lead a certain way of life. As regards the benifets that may accrue to an individualor society as whole, at the cost of alienating a lot of population results in arguments for

war. I am not very competent at this point, but trying my best to get answers, whichwould open a general debate or dialogue among, atheists, scholars of religions,secularists, nationlists, anarchist, scientists for that matter anyone willing to take thisdebate seriously and trying to live together in peace. There 2 schools of thoughtOne , people who believe, God does not exist and its all delusional thinking ,imaanitingfrom our minds because out of fear, Einstein and Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx belong tothis group and there are other who believe in power controlling all of us. Scientist likeNewton, Townsend, and eastern scholars like Dr Iqbal, Dr Radrakrsihan or Dr AbdusSalam who belong to the later. There are equally compelling arguments on both sides ofthe aisle. TheCHAPTER II.OF MISSIONS AND REVELATIONS.EVERY national church or religion has established itself bypretending some special mission from God, communicatedto certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses ; theChristians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints ; andthe Turks their Mahomet ; as if the way to God was notopen to every man alike.Each of those churches shows certain books, which theycall revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that theirWord of God was given by God to Moses face to face ; theChristians say, that their Word of God came by divineinspiration ; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (theKoran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of

those churches accuses the other of unbelief ; and, for myown part, I disbelieve them all.As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, beforeI proceed further into the subject, offer some observationson the word revelation. Revelation when applied toreligion, means something communicated immediately fromGod to man.No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almightyto make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting,for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed toa certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it isrevelation to that person only. When he tells it to a secondperson, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it

ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelationto the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently,they are not obliged to believe it.

Here lies the great problem, for men of reason and science , how to believe in the unseen.

The Quran says ayah 17-36

And pursue not that


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Of which thou hastNo knowledge; forEvery act of hearing,Or of seeing,Or of (feeling in) the heartWill be enquired into

(On the day of Reckoning).Knowledge is to be gained by using, the senses acquired by humans through naturalselection. Anything not verifiable by these faculties or the modern day instruments anextension of these senses, in the realm of the unseen, does not constitute Knowledge.

The Origin of the Universe and the Origin of life on earth is one of the greatest mysteries,we are trying to find an answer for, we were not there to witness these world shakingevents, it, if this process took 13.7 billions years,as the state of art technoglies nowclaim, then . Scientist, Scholars of Religion, Philosphers who have continoulsy engagedin this debate, seem to be converging. Wheather it was Aristotle,on the eternal universe

or Moses Maimonides on newness of the earth , or Kant elaborating on the nebularformation of our solar system t, or Newton and Einstein holding diverging views on theabsoulutnes of space and time, or Darwin, Jay Gould on evolution and natural selectionseem to advancing piecemeal , brick by brick to the time of the last 4 to 5 thousand years,when humans came of age.If a revelation from heaven of which no person could feel the smallest doubt were to dispel the mists thatnow hang over metaphysical subjects, were to explain the nature and structure of mind, the affections andessences of all substances, the mode in which the Supreme Being operates in the works of the creation, andthe whole plan and scheme of the Universe, such an accession of knowledge so obtained, instead of givingadditional vigour and activity to the human mind, would in all probability tend to repress future exertionand to damp the soaring wings of intellectThe mode is very important, some time due to human beings own decisions lead to complete confilcit withSharia, under circumstances for the whole group, which some groups find easy other very hard.When we endeavour then to contemplate the system of the universe, when we think of the stars as the sunsof other systems scattered throughout infinite space, when we reflect that we do not probably see amillionth part of those bright orbs that are beaming light and life to unnumbered worlds, when our minds,unable to grasp the immeasurable conception, sink, lost and confounded, in admiration at the mightyincomprehensible power of the Creator

Fine Tuning in the laws of natureFine Tuning in the chemistryFine Tuning in the MoonMichael BeheEdge of Evolution.

This present life is only like water which we send down from the clouds.10.24

Gravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been1033 times weaker than electromagnetism, "stars would be a billion times lessmassive and would burn a million times faster."


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The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak forcebeen slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned tohelium (making water impossible, for example).

A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have preventedthe formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5

percent would have given us a universe without stars. If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--

roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have becomeprotons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life.

The very nature of water--so vital to life--is something of a mystery (a pointnoticed by one of the forerunners of anthropic reasoning in the nineteenth century,Harvard biologist Lawrence Henderson). Unique amongst the molecules, water islighter in its solid than liquid form: Ice floats. If it did not, the oceans wouldfreeze from the bottom up and earth would now be covered with solid ice. Thisproperty in turn is traceable to the unique properties of the hydrogen atom.

The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on a significant

scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence in the ratio ofthe strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes it possible for carbon-12 toreach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the centreof stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12--allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window ofopportunity 10-17 seconds long. Taken fromGod the Evidence by Patrick Glynn

The fact

They ask: Why has no sign come down to him from his lord?Say: Allah is well able to send down a sign.

Miracles condemned by Mohammed. Gifford lecture 1892Orthodox Mohammedans delight in relating the miracles wrought by Mohammed. But

what does Mohammed say himself in the Korn? He expresses the strongest

contempt of miracles, in the usual sense of that word, and he appeals to the true

miracles, the great works of Allah in nature. And what are these great works of Allah,
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these true miracles of nature? The rising and setting of the sun, he says, the rain

that fructifies the earth, and the plants that grow, we know not how. You see, the

very phenomena of nature in which the Vedic poets discovered the presence of divine

agents are what Mohammed calls the great works of Allah. After that, Mohammed

continues: I cannot show you signs and miracles, except what you see every day and

every night. Signs are with God1. Here you see the true religious view of the world,

which perceives the Supernatural in all things natural, and does not bargain for

special miracles before it will believe.

Natural Revelation of God.It seems almost incredible that in our days such a lesson, confirmed as it is by the

irrefragable evidence of historical documents, should be objected to as dangerous to

the interests of religion, nay, should form the object of virulent attacks.

For some reason or other, our opponents claim for their own theories the character of

orthodoxy, while they try to prejudge the whole question by stigmatising our own

argument as heterodox. Now I should like to ask our opponents, first of all, by what

authority such metaphysical theories as that of innate ideas can possibly claim the

name of orthodox, or where they can point to chapter and verse in support of what

they call either a special or a universal primeval revelation, imparting to human

beings the first concept and name of God? To a student of the religions of the world,

in their immense variety and their constant divisions, the names of orthodox and

heterodox, so freely used at all times and on all sides, have lost much both of their

charm and their terror. What right have we to find fault with the manner in which the

Divine revealed itself, first to the eyes, and then to the mind of man? Is the revelation

in nature really so contemptible a thing that we can afford to despise it, or at the

utmost treat it as good enough for the heathen world? Our eyes must have grown

very dim, our mind very dull, if we can no longer perceive how the heavens declarethe glory of God. We have now named and classified the whole of nature, and nothing

seems able any longer to surprise, to terrify, to overwhelm us. But if the mind of man

had to be roused for the first time, and to be lifted up to the conception of something

beyond itself, what language could have been more powerful than that which spoke

in mountains and torrents, in clouds and thunderstorms, in skies and dawns, in sun

and moon, in day and night, in life and death? Is there no voice, no meaning, is there

no revelation in all this? Was it possible to contemplate the movements of the

heavenly bodies, the regular return of day and night, of spring and winter, of birth

and death, without the deepest emotion?

Of course, people may say now, We know all this, we can account for it all, and

philosophy has taught us Nil admirari. If that is so, then it may be true indeed thatthe sluggish mind of man had to be stirred once more by a more than natural

revelation. But in the early days of the world, the world was too full of wonders to

require any other miracles. The whole world was a miracle and a revelation, there

was no need for any special disclosure. At that time the heavens, the waters, the sun

and moon, the stars of heaven, the showers and dew, the winds of God, fire and heat,

winter and summer, ice and snow, nights and days, lightnings and clouds, the earth,
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the mountains and hills, the green things upon the earth, the wells, and seas, and

floods, all blessed the Lord, praised Him, and magnified Him for ever.

Can we imagine a more powerful revelation? Is it for us to say that for the children of

men to join in praising and magnifying Him who revealed Himself in His own way in

all the magnificence, the wisdom, and order of nature, is mere paganism, polytheism,

pantheism, and abominable idolatry? I have heard many blasphemies, I have heard

none greater than this.

It may be said, however, that the road from nature leads only to nature's gods, to a

belief in many, not in one supreme God. It certainly leads through that gate, but it

does not stop there. If we return to the Veda, the oldest record of a polytheistic faith,

and if we take up once more the thread where we left it, we shall be able to see how

Agni, the god of fire, being at first but one by the side of many other gods, develops

into something much higher. He does not remain one out of many gods. He becomes

in the end a supreme god, the Supreme God, till his very name is thrown away, or is

recognised as but one out of many names by which ancient seers in their helpless

language called that which is, the One and All. You may remember the passage from

the Veda which I quoted before: That which is one, the seers call in many ways, they

call it Agni, Yama, Mtarisvan.The Biography of

} 37{[Yusufali 6:37] They say: "Why is not a sign sent down to him from his Lord?" Say:"Allah hath certainly power to send down a sign: but most of them understand not.

} 38{[Yusufali 6:38] There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being thatflies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted

from the Book, and they (all) shall be gathered to their Lord in the end.

The Quran is not a book of Science, but a guidance in all affairs of men and women

to rightly guide them and make their communities superior to the communites ofanimal and birds . When we read the ayah 17-23


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Thy Lord hath decreedThat ye worship none but Him,And that ye be kindTo parents, Whether oneOr both of them attainOld age in thy life,Say not to them a wordOf contempt, nor repel them,But address themIn term of honour.

And, out of kindness,Lower to them the wingOf humility, and say:My Lord! bestow on themThy mercy even as theyCherished me in childhood. (Surah 17-23,24)


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1. Drake Equation Seti.org

revelation from nature

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