Re: introduction in astronomy in Arab


John Savard wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 11:43:19 GMT, pausch@xxxxxxx (Paul Schlyter) wrote,
> in part:
>
> >If you by "us" mean all the people of the Earth, and not merely the
> >right wing in the US, I don't think you can find one single book where
> >there are not "many of us who feel it is not right".
>
> I was trying to be polite in the way I expressed this point.
>
> Of course some people, from religious bigotry, might oppose encouraging
> faith in Islam simply because it isn't faith in Christianity.
>
> It isn't surprising that looking at the majesty, beauty, and wonder of
> the heavens might well bring to mind an appreciation of whatever
> religious belief a person might already have.
>
> Religion has both a positive side and a negative side.
>
> The positive side is when it encourages humility, when it promotes
> kindness and charity and respect for the rights of others.
>
> And the negative side is when it promotes the harmful parts of group
> identification like intolerance and hatred. Or when it suppresses
> independent inquiry and critical thinking, encouraging ignorance and
> superstition.
>
> Christianity displays quite a bit of both sides of religion.
>
> Recent news events have called quite a bit of attention to the presence
> of forces promoting the negative side of religion in the Islamic world.
> Naturally, the Islamic world is far away, and thus from our perspective,
> we don't see the positive effects of Islam on people's lives. Although
> it doesn't make the front pages, we will sometimes hear about things
> like this
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4531520.stm
>
> simply because it is of more direct interest to us than other events
> there.
>
> In any event, because astronomy *is* a scientific discipline, it is not
> surprising that when someone in this part of the world hears of the idea
> of giving a young boy in the Islamic world a book on the subject, they
> might think of it as awakening in him an interest in science, in
> objective free inquiry, and drawing him away from the sterile dead-end
> of pursuing theological minutae, or zealotry and fanaticism, and so on.
>
> Certainly it *is* unfair to Islam to cast this as the light of Science
> (and secularism) versus the muck and mire of superstition - the
> scientific and secular Soviet Union didn't exactly represent humane
> values either, as most Americans recognized since the Korean conflict if
> not earlier - but, under current circumstances, it's hard to see what
> else you might expect.
>
> John Savard
> http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
> http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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What little you comprehend of Western astronomy is not worth passing on
to a nation who was already familiar with astronomical methods which
make facets of Western civilisation possible .What little you
comprehend of faith is derived from the lowest common denominator that
Western Christians would be embarrassed to believe in and amounts to
little more than projecting a creationist view on all Christians.

Now,who is going to teach you Western astronomy and how Copernican
heliocentricity and its later refinements are derived .Even the
enjoyable as exquisite Equation of Time astronomical principle and its
transfer from the pre-Copernican equable 24 hour day to the
heliocentric principle of indepdent axial rotation at 15 degrees per
hour is lost on you.

http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/phys/alshukri/PHYS215/Islamic%20astronomy.htm

The Islamics don't need 'saving' by Western cataloguing however I
assure you that you and your empirical colleagues do.

.

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