[Dave Blount uses a Tweet from a fake Twitter account to show that Dr. Zakir Naik wants the movie "Gravity" banned for contradicting Islamic teachings.]
Why Allah Wants the Movie Gravity Banned
Under Obama and his Affirmative Action flunky Charles Bolden, NASA’s “foremost” mission is helping Muslims to feel good about their supposed scientific achievements. Now I get why. Their self-esteem really needs it, considering that no actual achievements will be forthcoming from people still living in the Dark Ages:
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48 comments
Everyone who says the Bible is to be taken literally is also still living in the Dark Ages. As a matter of fact, the Quran is 600 years younger than the Bible. During the Dark Ages, it was the Arabs who were the guardians of knowledge, while Europe were busy burning books and murdering inventors.
Under Obama and his Affirmative Action flunky Charles Bolden, NASA’s “foremost” mission is helping Muslims to feel good about their supposed scientific achievements.
What!? How do you even come to a conclusion like that? What does the most recent project, Maven, even have to do with Islam (except that maybe some Muslim scientists and engineers could be involved)?
Forget that this is a fake tweet that you got taken in by, but what does this have to do with Obama?
Oh right, that "darkie Kenyan-born Muslim" thing...
The sad part is that if someone made Origin of the Species into a movie, Christians all across the country would be calling for it to be banned because it contradicts the bible.
Algebra. Invented by an Arab Muslim named Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, is the basis of much of modern technology. The name comes from the Arab word al-jabr, meaning "restoration" which was part of the book that al-Khwarizmi "published" (as much as you publish a book in the middle ages). He was also one of the driving forces behind the adoption of the Indian numeric system westwards of India, later developing into the Arab numerical system which we use today.
Abbas ibn Firnas, Arab Muslim, invented clear glass and lenses.
Abu Bakr Zakariya al-Razi, Persian Muslim, he identified smallpox, measles, and was the first to see that fever was part of the body's defenses against illnesses.
All the stuff I've seen from Naik seem to be about bending every word in the Quran to make it appear as if the ancient Muslims knew all about gravity, solar motion, the shape of the earth...in other words, just like every other fundie, Christian, Muslim or Jew (I am not that conversant with Buddhism). Some of it verges on the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" for sheer inane stupidity. Combine with his support for terrorism, it appears he is nothing but an asshole.
But putting that all aside, did he in fact call for the banning of the movie Gravity? Or was this all a set up?
Their self-esteem really needs it, considering that no actual achievements
Indeed. Now if you excuse me I need to get back to using al-gorithms full of al-gebra. I'll have to admit it sometimes seem like a bit of a 0 sum game but it's astronomically important.
The sad thing is, there really are a few devout Muslims out there who believe the Earth is flat.
What I didn't like about Gravity were its orbital mechanics. Even in an alternate universe where the ISS and the Chinese Tiangong space station are in the same orbit 100 miles apart, thrusting TOWARD the Chinese space station should have sent Sandra Bullock farther AWAY from it! (She'd either lengthen her orbit if she were behind it, or quicken her orbit if she were in front of it; in either case it would end up farther away at the completion of their next orbit.)
It may come as a surprise to you that mediaeval muslims needed to know a lot about astronomy to fufill the five pillars. Praying in the direction of Mecca requires you to know latitude and longitude and the insane amount of trigonometry involved, as well as knowing that the earth isn't cubic.
All those words like "Aldeberan", "Altitude", "Azimuth", and "Zenith" are incidentally Arabic in origin.
@Sangroid
"But putting that all aside, did he in fact call for the banning of the movie Gravity? Or was this all a set up?"
No, he didn't call for it to be banned. Zakir Naik may very well be a fundie asshole--I don't know because I don't know much about him--but a cursory Google search finds nothing of the sort. Especially not on his Twitter account. Dave Blount was suckered, he even retracted the post, though not fast enough apparently.
@Robespierre:Some, but not many.
It should be noted though, that the end of the Golden Age came about mostly through outside forces. In the West you had the Crusades and in the Northeast you had the Mongols both of which regurlarly burnt down cities, including libraries and madrasas (religiously inspired academies). These and simple stupidity turned into mismanagement and decline. Because of this, historians set the end of the Islamic Golden age at 1258, because this is the year Baghdad - one the centers of thought of the Muslim World, only to be matched by Cairo and later Istanbul - fell to the Mongols. Later this turned into a cultural skepticism towards science, which is only in the last 80-100 years being questioned again.
There was a time (dark ages) When the Western world (Europe) was under a theocracy, known as the Holy Roman Church, Catholics.
During these very dark ages the Islamic world embraced the knowledge of the pre-Christian Greco-Roman empires while the Christian world supressed them (PROVEN, HISTORICAL EVIDENCE)
Then came the Enlightenment, when Europe broke those Theocratical limits and Islam embraced their own brand of Theocratical bullshit to fill a void of sense.
Everything I just typed is PROVEN history. Had old timey Islam not carried the Greco-Roman knowledge on between these years we would have lost it and had to start all over. Works for the church, fails the people.
All Religion is Fake, all as bad as the other, get over yourselves, have fun with your life but not as others expense. Stop worrying about pointless crap.. go out there and cure Cancer
I call for an immediate ban on all religions, as they say the earth is flat and has four corners which is against evidence and logic, & thus insulting to sane, rational people.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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