My great friend and teacher shared with me a story about the Efe people taken from The Pygmy Kitabu by JEAN-PIERRE HALLET and ALEX PELLE [yours truly is yet to read the book but I will relay the story nonetheless.
One fine day in heaven, God told his chief helper to make the first man. The angel of the moon descended. He modeled the first man from earth, wrapped a skin around the earth, poured blood into the skin, and punched holes for the nostrils, eyes, ears and mouth. He made another hole in the first man’s bottom, and put all the organs in his insides. Then he breathed his own vital force into the little earthen statue. He entered into the body. It moved… It sat up… It stood up… It walked. It was Efé, the first man and father of all who came after.“God said to Efé, ‘Beget children to people my forest. I shall give them everything they need to be happy. They will never have to work. They will be lords of the earth. They will live forever. There is only one thing I forbid them. Now — listen well — give my words to your children, and tell them to transmit this commandment to every generation. The tahu tree is absolutely forbidden to man. You must never, for any reason, violate this law.’“Efé obeyed these instructions. He, and his children, never went near the tree. Many years passed. Then God called to Efé, ‘Come up to heaven. I need your help!’ So Efé went up to the sky. After he left, the ancestors lived in accordance with his laws and teachings for a long, long time. Then, one terrible day, a pregnant woman said to her husband, ‘Darling, I want to eat the fruit of the tahu tree.’ He said, ‘You know that is wrong.’ She said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘It is against the law.’ She said, ‘That is a silly old law. Which do you care about more — me, or some silly old law?’“They argued and argued. Finally, he gave in. His heart pounded with fear as he sneaked into the deep, deep forest. Closer and closer he came. There it was — the forbidden tree of God. The sinner picked a tahu fruit. He peeled the tahu fruit. He hid the peel under a pile of leaves. Then he returned to camp and gave the fruit to his wife. She tasted it. She urged her husband to taste it. He did. All of the other Pygmies had a bite. Everyone ate the forbidden fruit, and everyone thought that God would never find out.“Meanwhile, the angel of the moon watched from on high. He rushed a message to his master: ‘The people have eaten the fruit of the tahu tree!’ God was infuriated. ‘You have disobeyed my orders,’ he said to the ancestors. ‘For this you will die!'”In another version, god, angered, says to the Man’s wife:“‘You broke your promise to me! And you pulled that poor man into sin! Now I’m going to punish you: both of you will find out what it is to work hard and be sick and die. But you, woman, since you made the trouble first, you will suffer the most. Your babies will hurt you when they come, and you will always have to work for the man you betrayed.'”
My favorite line: “Is it a holy image or a bucket of filth?”
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It would appear that I have SO many comments “in moderation,” that I think I’ll wait to post more until they get moderated.
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Sorry arch, I have been away from the internet the past few days. I think all is well now
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I believe in all things in moderation – including moderation —
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[…] into the question of suffering, wrote a response to a debate on the existence of god, and about the Garden of Eden among many […]
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Lux —
In another segment of your offering of information regarding the Qur’an and science, “The Scientific Miracles of the Holy Quran,” The Quran on Mountains, the author attempts to demonstrate that mountains are like tent pegs in the ground, largely buried, and were placed where they are to stabilize the earth and prevent earthquakes.
First, let me demonstrate how mountains are made – when they’re not being created specially by Allah, that is – place a fresh sheet of paper on a flat surface, then place one of your hands firmly on one end, the other on the other, and slowly bring them together. The paper will buckle in the middle, and thrust up. Each of your hands represents a tectonic plate, and as they move ever closer together, they will compress the matter between them, which has nowhere to go but up.
In reality, that is exactly what is happening in the Middle East – Arabia, via tectonic plates, is moving imperceptibly closer and closer to Iran, and as it does, mountains will be thrust up, amid many, MANY earthquakes.
I have found source after source refuting this Qur’anic claim, including one Muslim, a Shaahin Amiri-Sharifi, who maintains that the verses are being mistranslated – that the mountains in question were intended to balance the earth in it’s orbit, and prevent it from wobbling (shaking) in its travels around the sun.
Clearly, I can’t fill Mak’s blog with all of that quoted material, but I would suggest that you look into the works of Dr. William F. Cambell – the only fault I find with him, is that he is a Christian (see, I told you I was an equal-opportunity offender!), and here are at least a dozen or so articles of refutation.
I leave the subject with this question – if mountains were created by your version of god to prevent earthquakes, why are there as many earthquakes in mountainous regions, as elsewhere?
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I’m running low on time, so I will just give you this:
Click to access en_Geological_Concept_of_Mountains.pdf
The author has a quote you may like:
As for William Campbell, I am well aware of who he is. A more comprehensive website then the one you gave, I think, is http://www.answering-islam.org/. They have Campbell’s work on there as well.
Campbell is not what I would call a good person to use:
Lux
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No, you chose to use the people who wrote, “The Scientific Miracles of the Holy Quran.“
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Ha. There is better than Campbell, like Sam Shamoun.
Lux
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The problem I have with Campbell, is that he’s a Christian, he’s out to prove his side is right, while I contend they’re both wrong.
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If you watch just a few minutes of the video I posted with him, you’ll see what I mean.
Now, if you don’t mind, can I get a link to your blog, assuming you have one? I’d like to follow it, but can’t seem to find it off of your gravatar.
Thanks
Lux
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Lux —
It’s not a “blog,” per se, it’s the beginnings of a book, that, until finished, I intend posting online. It begins here —
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Thank you, will take a look. Interestingly, I stumbled on yours before; I remember. Feel free to stop by mine.
Lux
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I’ll need a link —
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I’m a little teapot short and stout!
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His site is a very good one. He writes well.
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That did not work, let me try again:
I’m a little teapot short and stout!
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Also, interesting site. Will look into it more, but I am impressed that you had the nerve to write a book! I wish you well in writing – although at this point I’m not sure I can wish you well at finishing!
With that said, I propose we stop bothering Mak here with our comments, and continue future discussions on our own respective pages. This thread has gotten far too lengthy, anyway!
All the best,
Lux
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I can’t complain any bit. You too have been quite polite with each other and there has been a lot to learn from your discussions.
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I’m sorry, Lux – I know you believe this stuff, and I hope you believe me when I say that I am TRULY not trying to humiliate you, but I couldn’t even get past the first paragraph of the next category on “The Scientific Miracles of the Holy Quran,” The Quran on the Origin of the Universe:
Smoke is, “a visible suspension of carbon or other particles in air, typically one emitted from a burning substance” (any standard English dictionary). The early universe would indeed have been “an opaque highly dense and hot gaseous composition,” but as a multi-thousands of degrees super-heated plasma, not by ANY stretch of the imagination, the definition of smoke, which is produced by a burning object. WAY too much of a stretch to even seriously contemplate!
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And BTW, carbon (as in found in smoke) is an element, and within the superheated plasma, there was not yet even any atoms, much less molecules – it took thousands of years of cooling before even the first atom was able to hold onto the first electron – I think her name was Eve –.
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Oh, no worries, I believe you. I’ve debated others on various subjects, and you have proven to be by far the most logical counterpart.
Cheers
Lux
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I can attest to that. He is such a fine fellow once you get to know him.
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I just wanted to be sure we were clear on that. I’m a bit too far evolved to still be throwing feces.
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Sorry you missed the pun about “atom” and Eve — 🙂
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Did not catch it, ha!
Lux
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Thank you archy for taking the time to go through those articles. I don’t think I would have half the patience to even read on any one of them to the end. Once you see bunk, you just give up.
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I’m trying to give the man a fair shake. I would expect the same (though I rarely get it) from theists.
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I like William K. Clifford for that quote, instead of the Ten Commandments that I hear adorn some public squares in the US of A, maybe it is time they should consider Bill Clifford for a change
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For the most part, these things are described by their appearance, not their essence.
In other words, it looks like smoke, not is smoke.
Lux
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Then, from “The Scientific Miracles of the Holy Quran,” we have, “The Quran on Deep Seas and Internal Waves“:
Description: The Quranic account of life in the deep seas, the darkness therein, and how it confirms modern scientific findings.
This was what, the 700’s? The Phoenicians (a branch of the Canaanites), and the Greeks after them, had been traversing the Mediterranean for nearly two thousand years by the time that was written, and if Mo’s biography is true, he was a trader who would have done business, if not with the Phoenicians and Greeks directly, at least with those who had – it could easily have been common knowledge of the time, that sunlight gets filtered by particles in seawater, and over distance, dims. It merely involves stating the obvious, then calling it a miracle, much like this:
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Yes, this is simple observation. Like I said, what I cited was a beginning, not an end, and not always correct, and not my primary reasoning for believing what I do.
Lux
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