Since the ancient Greeks got science right way before the Muslims, doesn't that mean the Greek gods exist?

Question

Is there anything more funny than a Muslim apologist?

These people say things like: Since the Qu'ran says people are made from water then the Qur'an is true because humans have water in them. These people ask: How could these men have known this other than by divine revelation?

And yet we have way more spectacular examples in history. The Ionian Greeks for example had discovered much more hundreds of years before through a primitive form of science. Thales (640-550 BCE), the "Father of Philosophy" astonished the natives of Miletus by informing them that the sun and stars (which they worshipped as gods) were merely balls of fire. His pupil Anaximander (610-540 BCE) believed that the universe had begun as an undifferentiated mass, from which all things had arisen, that the Earth laid in space, that astronomic history periodically repeated itself in the evolution and dissolution of an infinite number of worlds, that all our planets had once been fluid, that life had first been formed in the sea but had been driven upon the land by the subsidence of the water; that of these stranded animals some had developed the capacity to breathe air, and had so become the progenitors of all later land life and that man could not from the beginning have been what he now was.

Anaximenes, another Milesian (around 450 BCE), described the primeval condition of things as a very rarefied mass, gradually condensing into wind, cloud, water, earth, and stone. He also thought, correctly, that earthquakes were due to the solidification of an originally fluid earth.

Anaxagoras (500-428 BCE), teacher of Pericles, gave a correct explanation of solar and lunar eclipses, discovered the processes of respiration in plants and fishes and also explained man's intelligence by the power of manipulation that came when the fore-limbs were freed from the tasks of locomotion.

Heraclitus (530-470 BCE), said even in the stillest matter there is unseen flux and movement. A perfect fit to what we now know about chemical bonds. Finally Leucippus (around 445 BCE) and Democritus (460-360 BCE) made the remarkable achievement of atomism, the idea that everything is made from atoms.

So Muslim apologists, since the Greeks knew all these amazing things that aren't mentioned in the Qur'an and even way before the Muslims, doesn't that mean the Greek gods exist?

? · Accepted Answer

Islamic science itself came from Greek-Roman-Egyptian and Mesopotamian discovers.

Isnt it amazing that the islamic world only entered an age of Scientific discovery when they took over Babylon and Egypt (only to have it repressed a coup hundred years later as it was of the devil).

Also many of the Greek Philsophers who developed these beliefs lacked belief in the ancient Gods of Olympus. Epicurus was a Deist/Atheist, Plato was a monotheist/Deist etc...

In fact Herodotus, the first Known European Historian, even says that the Greeks religion was given to them by the Egyptians.

Captain America · Answer

Actually, there is a theory that the Greek pantheon was based on the Annunaki, or sky people who supposedly gave humans advanced technology.  Some people think these could have been the "sons of god" mentioned in Genesis that came down and took women for wives and had children; hence the legend of demigods would be referring to the nephilim (angel-human hybrids or god/human hybrids to the ancient greek mind).

? · Answer

Islam is an Abrahamic religion just like Judaism and Christianity so you could ask the same of those religions too.

Also Ancient Greece (600BC) existed way before Islam/ Muslims (600 AD).

imdashti · Answer

1. When the Quran says that humans (and all living creatures) were made of water (see Quran 21:30 and 24:45), it doesn't claim discovering something new. It is just presenting a simple fact of how complex creation is based on a simple compound like water, to provoke non-believers into pondering the greatness of God's creation, especially considering the low level of civilization that existed in Arabia at the time of Prophet Muhammad. If Muslims attach extra weight to Quranic speech to claim something which the Quran is not claiming, I think it is a problem with Muslims, not the Quran.
2. The word for water is used in the Quran many times (see 25:54, 32:8 and 86:6) to refer to semen, suggesting the inferior beginning of the human. It is just challenging the arrogance of some people who refuse the call to worship God, the Creator, and may see themselves above other human beings. Semen is politely called "Man's water" in Arabic speech. So again, the Quran is not claiming a discovery, but asserting a simple fact to provoke contemplation into God's greatness and human inferiority.
3. Muslims, like other nations in history, contributed their share to human thought. Mostly positively, but sometimes negatively like in political theory which is still struggling to harmonize religious thought with proper ways of governing human communities. It is a fact however that the mission of Prophet Muhammad gave an impetus for Arabs to rise from their low life in Arabia to become masters of many lands and peoples and create one of the greatest civilizations known to humanity. The story of Muhammad's success is extraordinary, but the final picture is not necessarily Muhammadan. The Muslim civilization is not necessarily Islamic, nor it claims to be calling for the worship of God, the message which Muhammad came with. Islam was just the official religion of that civilization, but it was not necessarily followed strictly even by Muslim rulers who evidently disobeyed Islamic laws in many cases for their worldly gains. There's no sensible theological claim of God's existence that can be drawn from the Muslim civilization. The same applies to the Greeks.
4. God is true. Whether you believe in the Muslim God, or another god (or gods), or even if you are an atheist, this will not change the fact that God exist, if God really exist. Believing or disbelieving in God is your choice. You can create your own religion, for all I care. But you are responsible for your choices. Your mind is telling you this is right, and that's wrong, but who says that your mind is correct. Even the greatest theories of science (which you seem to worship) can be destroyed by new discoveries. Hence science does not claim the ultimate knowledge, though it striving to move in that direction. What if the ultimate truth (if ever reached by science) is the same essence which religion was claiming for millennia?!! Are you prepared for this possibility?!! For my self, I don't claim discord between religion and science, and I live happily in this world, and if there's another world in the Judgment Day, I will still live happily. So, I'm a two-way winner. But those who refuse religion and believe only in science are only one-way winners if there's indeed truth to religion.

Queen Chrysalis the Grammar Nazi · Answer

The greeks plagiarized.

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Since the ancient Greeks got science right way before the Muslims, doesn't that mean the Greek gods exist?

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