Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Nature and Life
at 9:03 PM
A man whose mind is well-functioned can recognize himself and his surroundings. People around him and things and occasions he can see and feel create a concept of nature and living in his mind. The concepts later develop toward perfection through a belief or religion held by his people, mainly his parents and through education and teachings given to him later. At present, man’s knowledge on nature is already well-developed. Science and technology has developed so well, so as if man can conquer this universe through his success in breaking through the outer space and in breaking atoms, if only no heavy earthquake shaking Armenia, heavy typhoon sweeping beaches of America and Japan, heavy floods striking parts of India and other natural disasters and strange diseases such as AIDS, all of which show weaknesses of man’s power and limitations of man’s knowledge. With such an advanced development, however, human life is still as mysterious as previous
This universe whose width is hard to describe and the man that is very prominent among all other creatures in this universe had passed a very long life process so that it can hardly be described by using century as the parameter but instead it is measured by using light year
People that have a high ability to reason using his mind has known the process of life, although they are not able to understand nature of the life itself. In the very wide and still-developing knowledge of man, the interest to understand the beginning and the end (“mabda” and “maad”) is not comparable to the interest and efforts to understand the life process. Therefore, in general man’s knowledge becomes cripple and not intact. Efforts to understand life process during the history had led man to understand exact and accurate laws controlling this universe.
Real description of this knowledge can clearly be seen in physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy. Those sciences reveal how this nature is created regularly and controlled so accurately through exact laws. Astronomy introduces to us on how regularly stars move through their orbits.
The earth we live on rotates on its axes and circulates on its orbit around the sun during certain periods certainly leading to nights and days coming alternately and seasons changing regularly. All of these mechanisms run accurately and can be calculated mathematically. Natural sciences introduce us laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, such as proportion law, conservation law, movement law, gravitation law, relativity law, Pascal law, genetics law, laws of reproduction and embryology.
Various findings of natural laws as mentioned above give us clear information that all parts of this universe—from smallest particles in atomic nuclei whose smallness can hardly be imagined to galaxies whose largeness and width can’t be imagined—move according to the natural laws controlling them. Furthermore, things that can be observed closely are our bodies. Science reveals that human body consists of 50 millions of cells, length of all of its blood vessels is 100, 000 kms and more than 500 chemical processes happen in our livers.
Human body is more complicated and more amazing than a computer. Functions of body that can’t be seen are more impressing. Without we realize it, our bodies control our temperatures, our blood pressures, digestions, and do a very lot of other tasks. The body controlling centre, the brain, is able to record and store more information than any other devices. Those body organs work automatically beyond our control and knowledge. Blood circulations, lungs, hearts, kidneys, and respirations work routinely and accurately, without any command from human themselves. Even they very probably don’t know how busy body organs do their tasks for their lives.
Latest developments of sciences, marked by the emergence of social sciences, had led to a same conclusion, that man and society are also controlled by accurate and exact laws, like nature outside the man. These sciences reveal that life and behaviours of man are controlled by certain rules beyond the man’s wish, like ecology laws (environment’s influence), instinctive drives, genetic heritages, supernatural powers, and laws of history.
Behind those findings, a new scientific theory called scientific determinism (“al-jabriyah al- ilmiyah”) had emerged, which describe human beings as pawns of fate (things that had been determined before). Stoicism views that man and even the whole universe had been rationally determined by the universal mind (this is a philosophical terms meaning power that is the source that controls the universe). According this theory, man’s task are only understanding and placing himself within the frame of mind.
Exact rules acting as laws regulating all creations and movements in the universe are generally called natural laws. In language of Al Quran, sometimes it is called “sunnatullah” like mentioned in surah al-Fathir: 43 “But no change wilt thou find in sunnatullah; no turning off wilt thou find in sunnatullah”.
In perspective of theology, such a thing is categorized into “qadha” and “qadar” (fate). However, this term (scientific determinism) is more dominant in things having something to do with human behaviours, and often carelessly regarded as identical to concept of Jabariah (theory of determinism).
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