Underrated Quranic 'miracle'

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- kepticsay
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Underrated Quranic 'miracle'
OP - February 10, 2014, 01:43 PM

Please, please don't ask me how, but today I came across this video, which I'll cliff quickly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKNecnrxgdA

- Bees, in their pursuit of yummy plants, sometimes drink from fruits and trees whose nectars have fermented into alcohol
- Bees allegedly have similar nervous systems to humans, and as such 'drinking and flying' is the bee world equivalent of DUI
- Repeat offenders get physically punished by the other bees, since this sort of behaviour threatens the hive's security, I presume

This sort of got me thinking about the idea of justice systems in the animal kingdom. I did a quick google search ('animal kingdom justice system' or something similar) and this was the second link to come up:
http://en.igihe.com/religion/the-animal-kingdom-justice-system-and-morality.html

I remember hearing of a surah which mentions monkeys stoning an adulterous monkey-ette, which is of course ridiculous, but those other surahs listed in that article seem a bit more interesting.

I don't think this is a 'miracle' - who's to say Muhammad couldn't have known this at the time? Are those surahs and assertions about the animal kingdom correct and not just more confirmation bias and more conjecture? etc.

But it's quite interesting nevertheless. I'm surprised this hasn't been flagged by someone like Naik or Yahya. It's more compelling than the other so called 'miracles' those guys come up with.

What do you guys think? I get the feeling I may be delusional, and on par with the nutcases on answering-christianity who try to find apologetic arguments for the Quranic claim that shooting stars are missiles to be hurled at the jinn.
- Cornflower
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Underrated Quranic 'miracle'
Reply #1 - February 10, 2014, 02:37 PM

Ok, so I skimmed through what you posted and I find nothing interesting. This kind of behaviour has been observed in animals for a very long time. It's not like farmers and people living in close proximity to wild animals were completely oblivious to this for thousands of years. In fact, Mo saying that all the animals create "communities" is false.
Moreover, whether or not primates and other animals have the same notions about "right" and "wrong" is up to dispute. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that certain behaviour is more advantageous and thus it's "rewarded", and not that animals have a perception about "morality". Perhaps it's just us tending to project "human traits" in animals.

"The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three
- kepticsay
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Reply #2 - February 10, 2014, 03:05 PM

Quote from: Cornflower on February 10, 2014, 02:37 PM
Ok, so I skimmed through what you posted and I find nothing interesting. This kind of behaviour has been observed in animals for a very long time. It's not like farmers and people living in close proximity to wild animals were completely oblivious to this for thousands of years. In fact, Mo saying that all the animals create "communities" is false.
Moreover, whether or not primates and other animals have the same notions about "right" and "wrong" is up to dispute. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that certain behaviour is more advantageous and thus it's "rewarded", and not that animals have a perception about "morality". Perhaps it's just us tending to project "human traits" in animals.

After I hit 'post' I sort of realised how very un-miraculous this thing actually is. You're right - it's evident to anyone who can distinguish between social and non-social behaviour in animals that there are 'systems' in parts of the animal kingdom. I think maybe this sort of thing stems from the belief that animals are 'Muslims' too. The monkey thing seems to lend more credence to the idea that humans and 'monkeys' are closely related and share a somewhat recent common ancestor.

Interested in hearing your opinion's though. I think it's important to bring these 'miracle' claims into the spotlight and assess (read, debunk) them, so that other people who stumble across them can see both sides of the coin if they decide to investigate, rather than get swept up in the apologist lies and assertions without hearing what the skeptics think.
- Cornflower
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Reply #3 - February 10, 2014, 03:36 PM

As for the hadith where one of Mo's companions saw a she-monkey being "stoned" by the other monkeys because she had commited adultery... like, seriously. I don't know what type of monkey it was, but the only monogamous primate I know of is the gorilla. All other monkeys, even those who live in packs with a dominant male, have sexual relations both with monkeys of the same sex (for example chimpanzees have sex for pleasure and not only procreation, which is kinda sad that humans have made sex into procreation only like the catholics...) and other than the dominant male. It is utterly ridiculous to make a claim that any type of monkey or primate "stones" its members because she copulate with anyone other than the dominant male.

This is actually the reason why this particular hadeeth was the "last drop" that just made me drop everything... Despite the fact that this was supposedly before Mo's prophethood, and that it was observed by a companion, it was still something that really showed Islam for what it is... It's just so ridiculous, any credebility the hadeeth corpus I still had (despite realizing what rubbish it really was after studying usool al hadeeth) just dissapeared in that very moment.

"The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three
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Reply #4 - February 10, 2014, 04:05 PM

Quote
which is kinda sad that humans have made sex into procreation only like the catholics

I did not know Sweden was like that. News to me.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
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Reply #5 - February 10, 2014, 06:00 PM

My teacher when teaching 'Man and Superman' also touted the same thing. This procreation is the only reason behind the romantic affairs between men and women, marriage, etc. She says that it's just the way nature is. Really annoying.
- Cornflower
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Reply #6 - February 10, 2014, 06:13 PM

Quote from: Quod Sum Eris on February 10, 2014, 04:05 PM
I did not know Denmark was like that. News to me.

Scandinavia generally, are Sweden in particular, are very liberal in their views on sex. But I was talking about how, for example, the Catholic church have reduced sex to procreation only. Christianity has generally had this view, that sex is dirty and "unnatural" or whatever. Perhaps I was a bit unclear.

"The healthiest people I know are those who are the first to label themselves fucked up." - three
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Reply #7 - February 10, 2014, 06:22 PM

What's the proposed miracle?

Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
- dr_sloth
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Reply #8 - February 10, 2014, 08:51 PM

i think the miracle is that there are codes of behaviour in non human animals.

it is better than all the other 'miracles', but its still pretty mundane. If muhammed had actually said it about the bees, I would be slightly impressed, and may then look into the issue further to see if this info was already known. Every time I have done this, it turned out that Aristotle was already on the case.
To say it about monkeys, whilst not being as stupid as some of the other miracles, or rely on so many lies, it is still pretty ordinary. You don't need a particle accelerator to have a look at a couple of monkeys.

There definitely are better examples than the ones that exist though. There are only a handful of people that come up with them. That is why there is so little variation when you are presented with these arguments. They can even be identical word for word.
These handful of imaginative miracle seekers obviously have no idea what they are doing. So we shouldn't be suprised if we can find some 'scientific miracles', that are only moderately moronic.
- Quod Sum Eris
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Reply #9 - February 10, 2014, 08:58 PM

If the quran is the perfect word of an all powerful all knowing creator god, then if even one thing is proven to be wrong the entire thing is proven wrong.

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
- Ishina
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Underrated Quranic 'miracle'
Reply #10 - February 10, 2014, 08:59 PM

Yeah, codes of behaviour... like post-coital cannibalism, infanticide, parasitism. So miraculous!

Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
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