tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65341849380456871472024-03-12T12:30:31.952-07:00serkan zorba's blogblends physics, philosophy, politics, and religion...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-4715244003831171892024-03-12T12:29:00.000-07:002024-03-12T12:29:53.580-07:00The Hermeneutic Necessity of Revelation <p>"God" and many other human concepts don't and can't fully fall under the powerful but LIMITED purview of science... Yes, one can invent their own "purpose of life," but will be clueless about a potential "absolute purpose of life." </p><p><br /></p><p>If one doesn't know the "big picture" or "purpose of life" one cannot reach a reliable judgement about God using the effective but parochial means of science. Hence a need for divine revelation to make sense of the big picture.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am basically advancing what I will call a "hermeneutic necessity of revelation," which is the necessity of a top-down, "whole-picture" enlightenment to make sense of the "parts". This is because science is forever confined to shedding lights on some aspects of the "parts." Therefore, the science-based enlightenment will always be partial.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, to assess the soundness of myriad religious (including revelation-based) claims, we need to use our innate intellect, logic, reason and also, if available, relevant empirically well-established science.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-73042130301391676342023-06-21T16:13:00.025-07:002023-06-23T21:14:50.163-07:00What Muslims, Jews and Christians Got Wrong about the Forbidden Tree and Demons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">This is an extract from a recent book by Dr. Serkan Zorba titled <i><b><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://rb.gy/4qdir" target="_blank">The Forbidden Tree and the Jinn: A Modern Interpretation</a></span></b></i>. Dr. Zorba is Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Whittier College, Whittier, California, USA.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In his book Man’s Place in Nature, the prominent European philosopher of the early 20th century Max Scheler laments the lack of having a unified idea of what man is as follows [1]: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If we ask an educated person in the Western world what he means by the word “man,” three irreconcilable ways of thinking are apt to come into conflict in his mind. The first is the Jewish-Christian tradition of Adam and Eve, including creation, paradise and fall. The second is the Greek tradition in which, for the first time, man’s self-consciousness raised him to a unique place on the grounds that he is endowed with “reason.”. . . The third idea is that of modern science and genetic psychology, which also has a tradition of its own. According to this view, man is a very recent product of evolution on our planet, a creature distinguished from its antecedents in the animal world only by the degree of complexity of energies and capacities already present on a subhuman level. These three ideas are not compatible with each other. Thus we have a scientific, a philosophical and a theological anthropology in complete separation from each other. We do not have a unified idea of man. </span></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By and large, this proclamation still stands today. Particularly, there is a seemingly unbreachable gap between the view of modern science and that of the theistic religions, especially the Abrahamic religions, concerning what man is. In this book, I will present arguments that show that an important part of this gap is artificial and stems from a lack of proper understanding and interpretation of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic account of how life in general and the human being in particular were created. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">More specifically, this is my attempt at a Quranic (and by extension, Biblical) hermeneutic pertaining to a narrow spectrum of specific mysterious topics mentioned in the Quran, employing a combination of close textual reading and modern scientific knowledge. The topics are the Forbidden Tree and the Fall of Adam narrative and the jinn mystery. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Uniquely, the holy book of Islam itself furnishes the careful reader with an exegetical key given in verse 7 of the third chapter called Al-i Imran, which the brilliant 20th century Quran commentator Muhammad Asad (born Leopold Weiss and of The Road to Mecca fame) referred to as “the key phrase of all its key phrases.” The relevant verse is as follows (using Asad’s translation) [2]:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He it is who has bestowed upon thee from on high this divine writ, containing messages that are clear in and by themselves - and these are the essence of the divine writ - as well as others that are allegorical. Now those whose hearts are given to swerving from the truth go after that part of the divine writ which has been expressed in allegory, seeking out [what is bound to create] confusion, and seeking [to arrive at] its final meaning [in an arbitrary manner]; but none save God knows its final meaning. Hence, those who are deeply rooted in knowledge say: 'We believe in it; the whole [of the divine writ] is from our Sustainer - albeit none takes this to heart save those who are endowed with insight.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This singular verse clearly indicates that there are two types of verses in the Quran: the ones with well-established (literal) meaning, and they pertain to the foundational aspects of the religion of Islam; and the allegorical ones which require deeper knowledge to appreciate the meaning thereof, with the proviso that, in the final analysis, only God knows their meaning with absolute certainty. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Notice critically here that the phrase is not “those who believe say we believe in it…” but rather “those who are deeply rooted in knowledge say we believe in it…” Why is that? I aver that the implication of that is that knowledge is a necessary (but not sufficient) element for appreciating and potentially understanding allegorical verses. A countenance to this view of mine is found among some prominent early Muslim exegetes. Abdullah Yusuf Ali mentions in his famous commentary that the great pioneering mufassir Mujahid ibn Jabr, from the tabi’un, argued that the verse should in fact read as “No one knows its hidden meaning except God and those who are firm in knowledge, who say…” </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Foremost among the most alluring mysteries and symbolisms of the Quran are the concepts of jinn, the Forbidden Tree and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise (a.k.a. the Fall of Adam or the Fall of Man). Notwithstanding the importance of these concepts to the Islamic religion and culture—and the ever-mounting modern scientific know-how—the contemporary Muslim understanding of them is, truth be told, nebulous. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The concept of jinn (plural form; singular form is jinni), as understood by most Muslims, is not unlike the concept of supernatural beings encountered in almost all cultures of the Earth, such as spirits, shedim, kami, fairies, demons, etc. Arguably, though, the jinn concept is much more deeply ingrained in the Muslim psyche, and as such, it is conspicuously integral to the Islamic culture. This is mainly so because the most authoritative epistemological sources of Islam, i.e., the Quran and the Hadith (the prophetic saying), present the jinn as a pivotal and ever-relevant class of created entities. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The ascription of a supernatural character to the jinn is purely speculative and irrational, as there is neither coherent textual nor scientific evidence for such an interpretation. It is, in my view, a mighty misinterpretation. The jinn interpreted as supernatural and ghostly beings have understandably fascinated people but also acted as an attractive distraction from what they actually might be. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Given the pivotal role the Quran assigns to the jinn and the related entities of devils pertaining to human wellbeing and salvation, not having a justifiably—not speciously—rational explanation for them presents a great void in properly understanding the message of the Quran and Islam, and therefore perhaps an insuperable obstacle to improving the human condition holistically. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My contention is that although the various world cultures and religions talk about the idea of spirits, fairies, demons and devils, and that is a credit to them all, the Quran and the Prophetic sayings unprecedentedly provide—as I will show in this book—strong and incontrovertible clues and details to unravel the essence of these entities, if one enlists the dot-connecting help of modern science. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Famed late astronomer Carl Sagan, for example, denounces humanity’s historical belief in demon-like entities as superstitious and ignorant. He woefully underestimates the collective wisdom of humanity across countless ages and vast geographies. He does not give the benefit of the doubt to even the giants of dialectic like Socrates and Plato in this regard [3]. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Influential historian of religion Mircea Eliade criticized similarly dismissive and condescending judgment, albeit in a more general context, of the beliefs of archaic humanity by the pioneering anthropologists Edward B. Tylor and James G. Frazer as follows [4]: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tylor and Frazer, like good positivists, regarded the magico-religious life of archaic humanity as a mass of childish “superstitions,” the product of ancestral fears or of “primitive” stupidity. But that value-judgment is in contradiction to the facts. The magico-religious behavior of archaic humanity reveals an existential awakening of man’s consciousness of the Cosmos and of himself</span><span style="font-size: medium;">.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><blockquote></blockquote></span></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Contrary to such scientistic and colonialist charges of being superstitious and primitive, my interpretation will provide a kind of a redeeming quality to all the world cultures and beliefs, from the animistic to the “organized” religions, for justifiably coming up with this notion of mostly invisible forces of nature which were affecting their lives but nevertheless were beyond the control of humanity for most of its history. In so doing, I will be offering a new hypothesis not only for the origin and universality of animistic and religious beliefs in countless ghost and demon myths but also for the influencing of the unconscious. I say “new” because my thesis on the origin and meaning of the jinn mythology, as will be presented in this book, is not found among the conventional academic explanations of myth making, neither is it offered as one of the potential explanations for the striking similarities of the demon-themed myths as well as the common claims of ghost-seeing among vastly separated—across both time and geography—groups of people worldwide [5,6]. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As for the archetypes of the Forbidden Tree and the Fall of Adam, they are central to the story of the creation of humanity’s primogenitors not only in the Quran but also in the Bible. However, to the best of my knowledge, the meaning and significance of these stories have not yet been rationally elucidated. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Forbidden Tree and the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden are generally interpreted either in an otherworldly sense with no concrete correspondence with the Earth and the biosphere, or—for those interpretations involving Earth-bound explanations—in an arbitrary fashion with unjustified narrative license. As a consequence, the hermeneutic imagination ran wild for the relevant Quranic and Biblical commentaries by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars and learned people alike. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Among the important questions pertaining to the theme of the Fall of Adam that are not answered in a consistent and satisfactory manner by the Abrahamic religions are the following: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where and what was the Garden of Eden? </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What was the nature of the Forbidden Tree? Was it a fig tree, apple tree, wheat, or something completely different?</span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why doesn’t the Quran ever use the word “fruit,” while the Bible does? </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What was the nature of Adam and Eve? Were they human beings like us or something else? </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If they were biological humans, why would their nakedness appear to them only upon eating from the Tree?</span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why did God put the Tree in the middle of the Garden but at once forbade it to Adam and Eve? </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why is this story of Adam and Eve in the Garden presented as a unique event in both the Quran and the Bible? Because it seems that God, who is all-forgiving, did not forgive their first and only infringement, since they were banished from the Garden as a consequence of this transgression. </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And, what about Satan or the serpent? What were they? What was their role? </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Supposing that Adam and Eve were indeed human beings and had the option to choose, why would they need Satan or the serpent to make even the suggestion of eating from the Tree? Were they senseless automatons before that? </span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Overall, what is the significance and meaning of Adam and Eve story and their eating from the Forbidden Tree and the subsequent banishment from the Garden and other draconian punitive measures: a life of toil, sweat and blood, being enemies to one another, constant predation and murder, etc.?</span></div></div></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We have two options: either this story is made up and does not correspond to anything factual or we have not been interpreting it correctly. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Islamic scholars, imams and the so-called sheiks cannot shed much scholarly light to further our understanding of these topics as they almost never go beyond rehashing what is written in the traditional sources. Popular accounts are often times replete with fantastic, sensational, and irresponsibly inconsistent elements. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Likewise, Judaic and Christian authorities have not advanced any rationally satisfactory (nonarbitrary) explanations for these narrations. In fact, studying the contemporary religious, cultural, and self-proclaimed scientific expositions on these subjects is an example of ignotum per ignotuis. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I present two unconventional ideas in this book pertaining to these topics, each groundbreaking in its own right, but complementary to one another:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(1)<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I propound a novel interpretation of the Forbidden Tree and the Fall of Adam archetypes. Specifically, I decipher the true meaning behind the Quranic account of Adam and Eve eating from this “forbidden tree,” exposing their private parts, incurring the punishments of having to constantly struggle for survival, and of being “enemies” with other living beings and shedding blood. This interpretation also naturally resolves another age-old Abrahamic enigma of God teaching Adam “all the names.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(2) I show—using Islamic sources and relevant sciences—that the concepts of jinn and devils do not refer to supernatural beings, as traditionally assumed, but rather to tangible beings that are all important for the biosphere and human health and wellbeing.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The exegesis that I have developed of these motifs is strictly based on a close-reading of the relevant Quranic and Prophetic accounts with the help of physics, microbiology, microbial ecology, biogeochemistry and the fast-emerging science of microbiota.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The explication presented here on both topics might be worthwhile with significant implications for mythology, anthropology, and the role of revelation in epistemology. This is because my proposed thesis on the jinn will furnish the concepts of devils and demons a firm rationalistic footing. Similarly, the Forbidden Tree and the Fall of Adam interpretation I advance will have deep implications for the Abrahamic accounts of the creation of the human race and life, in particular, and the science-religion discussions, in general. Specifically, the Christian notion of the Original Sin and the concept of Satan will be strongly impacted.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My primary aim in writing this book is to convince my fellow Muslims that they don’t properly interpret the allegorical Quranic verses and that as a civilization they are, in the present age, oblivious to the Quran’s metaphysical potency and far removed from its civilizational entelechy. The original motivation for the ideas offered here was personal: To try to penetrate and understand some of the seemingly inscrutable Quranic verses on said topics to the extent possible in this current age. If deemed nonarbitrary and authentic, this insight into the pertinent revelation-based Quranic and Biblical texts might have profound implications for not only how humans obtain and build their knowledge, but also, more importantly, what we are and why we are here. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">References</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1. Scheler, Max, and Hans Meyerhoff. Man's place in nature. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2. The message of the Qur'an. Gibraltar, Dar Al-Andalus, 1993.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">3. Sagan, Carl, and Druyan, Ann. The Demon-Haunted World. United Kingdom, Ballantine Books, 1997.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">4. Eliade, Mircea. Images and symbols: Studies in religious symbolism. Vol. 684. Princeton University Press, 1991.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">5. Witzel, EJ Michael. The origins of the world's mythologies. Oxford University Press, 2012.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">6. Shermer, Michael, and Pat Linse. “The Science behind Why People See Ghosts.” Skeptic, 16 May 2022, https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/the-science-behind-why-people-see-ghosts/.</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-16015608112465211572023-05-19T01:41:00.000-07:002023-05-19T01:41:12.850-07:00The Forbidden Tree and the Jinn: Myths or Messages?<p>An extract from my recent book <i>The Forbidden Tree and the Jinn: A Modern Interpretation</i> featured on <i>Islamicity</i> website:</p><p><i><a href="https://www.islamicity.org/82887/the-forbidden-tree-and-the-jinn-myths-or-messages/" target="_blank">The Forbidden Tree and the Jinn: Myths or Messages?</a></i></p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-91376494241117720622023-05-17T23:03:00.006-07:002023-05-18T22:38:29.543-07:00The Forbidden Tree and the Jinn: A Modern Interpretation <p>My recent book:</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Forbidden-Tree-Jinn-Modern-Interpretation-ebook/dp/B0C4Y2Y2HC/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3SGSDSUW08UM5&keywords=serkan+zorba&qid=1684389635&sprefix=%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><i>The Forbidden Tree and the Jinn: A Modern Interpretation </i></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-66392576812874940592022-05-14T20:51:00.004-07:002022-05-14T20:59:18.054-07:00The Aether problem of our age<p>According to the mainstream explanation, the dark matter is one hypothetical particle or another that interacts with itself either very weakly or not all, and that does not have any way of dumping its energy to other physical entities to form aggregates, and that bizarrely seems to interact with matter only gravitationally (weak interaction is not totally ruled out). </p><p>There is no stronger indication of a crisis of <i>historic proportions</i> in physics today than the twin problems of dark matter and dark energy. In an effort to "explain away" the <i>increasing</i> number of associated problematic observations, mainstream cosmologists and astrophysicists are digging their heels either in the mire of the so-called Lambda-CDM model of the universe or in proposing yet more "aethereal" explanations. In my opinion, these problems have become the "aether problem" of our age.</p><p>Here is the latest example of this game: The common plane of orbit of satellite galaxies around their host galaxy is unexplainable with the Lambda-CDM model. (Please note that such a plane orbit is expected in my rotary spacetime model of the universe.) </p><p>One recent paper proposes the existence of some "invisible walls" in the universe to explain it:</p><p><a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/invisible-walls-satellite-disk-problem" target="_blank">Satellite disk problem is explained away by "invisible" walls</a>.<br /></p><p>Serkan Zorba</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-70414410975122750932017-08-30T15:50:00.001-07:002017-11-21T11:55:53.978-08:00Dark Energy and Dark Matter, A Unified Picture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is a short on why I think the Universe is rotating, based on my paper titled Dark Energy and Dark Matter As Inertial Effects, </span><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">available at</span></span><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><a class="yt-simple-endpoint style-scope yt-formatted-string" href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.3021.pdf" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.3021.pdf</a>.<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-50064167406025857302017-03-20T14:50:00.000-07:002017-06-18T01:35:46.842-07:00Centrifugal force demo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is a computer simulation demo of the centrifugal force, which I claim is what is responsible for the so-called "dark energy."
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<iframe width="520" height="310" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n9qAAn2R1dE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-66459030373420040682017-03-20T14:19:00.000-07:002017-06-18T01:35:59.473-07:00Coriolis effect demo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here is an impressive demonstration of the Coriolis effect, which I claim is responsible for—together with the cosmic centrifugal force—the so-called "dark matter."
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<iframe width="520" height="310" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o-jV5Vf-bcw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-67789561266293885082016-06-11T23:31:00.001-07:002016-06-11T23:31:04.007-07:00'God is random' article featured on bookforum.com<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-11144828691567073182016-06-02T17:42:00.001-07:002016-06-04T22:22:50.212-07:0019 reasons as to why it was a Big Spin, not a Big Bang<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">For the details, please read my "<a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1210/1210.3021.pdf" target="_blank">Dark Energy and Dark matter as Inertial Effects</a>" paper on arxiv.org.</span><br />
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<iframe height="620" src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B71mNyEycm-KYTMteHlKWlNIRXc/preview" width="530"></iframe></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-91774105302634983952016-05-11T01:26:00.004-07:002016-12-21T16:31:41.705-08:00Big Spin, Not Big Bang!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">My spacetime-rotation model of the universe (see my papers in arXiv and blog posts here) proposes, effectively, to replace Big Bang with a more "natural" Big Spin which, although its own origin needs to be dealt with, does capably <u>unify, </u>and <u>naturally</u> and <u>physically</u> explain many seemingly unrelated and confusing outstanding cosmological problems: the cosmic inflation, dark energy, dark matter, and the "mysterious" intrinsic spin (angular momentum) of elementary particles, and the physical meaning and origin of Hubble's constant and Planck's constant. Again, please see my original dark energy-dark matter papers on arXiv for details.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here I would like to share with you something very exciting that I came across very recently about one of the founding theoreticians of the Big Bang theory: George Gamow. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After I came up with my rotary model of the universe, without any prior knowledge of the literature, in October 2010, I learned from Wikipedia that Kurt Godel had (in 1949) a rotary model of the universe that, although useful as an exercise in general relativity, goes counter to our daily experiences due to its infamous closed timelike curves, allowing time travel into the past and a disturbing possibility of messing up with the causal chain of events, which we don't seem to experience. Furthermore, Godel's model, in general, does not result in an expanding universe, and hence the issues of dark energy and dark matter are absent. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That is because Godel's universal rotation is the rigid rotation of matter, whereas my model proposes a <u>rotating space-time</u>, which naturally produces inertial effects that we, unknowingly, call dark energy and dark matter.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Anyways, at the beginning of this year, I read somewhere online that there is a possibility that Kurt Godel got his cue about a rotational cosmic model from a letter sent to the editors of Nature magazine a few years earlier, in 1946, by the brilliant George Gamow about the possibility of a rotating universe.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I immediately ordered a copy of this paper through our interlibrary loan service. Below I will paste it as a picture. Please take a look at it, and note how my "Dark energy and Dark matter as Inertial Effects" paper does point out the same thing as Gamow mentions, particularly, about the shapes of galaxies and how a rotational universe would naturally explain them. I found this to be very interesting and exciting, and more important, profoundly encouraging.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wsv8Yjla6BfaHFMq-J38_yVpAzipPBH-ydkrNC3mEFurlJDa_m0jbFadY5aBEPB-fP1eM0cpXBOBKoYE0Z64tdoBv1qK3oacG1OwaoNnfxKX4qo5hw6bfiAZcbrseukCcG3F5QTbSnQ/s1600/GamowsUniverse_short.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wsv8Yjla6BfaHFMq-J38_yVpAzipPBH-ydkrNC3mEFurlJDa_m0jbFadY5aBEPB-fP1eM0cpXBOBKoYE0Z64tdoBv1qK3oacG1OwaoNnfxKX4qo5hw6bfiAZcbrseukCcG3F5QTbSnQ/s1600/GamowsUniverse_short.png" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-18557599686917587442016-05-11T00:25:00.001-07:002016-05-18T12:13:31.495-07:00What is the Origin of Intrinsic Quantum Spin?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">Spin quantum number is the fourth parameter needed to uniquely describe the quantum state of a, say, fermion such as an electron. It was originally postulated by the brilliant, albeit caustic, Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Shortly afterwards some physicists interpreted it as self-rotation. Pauli himself was not happy with this interpretation because a quick calculation shows that such a mechanical supposition requires a superluminal rotation of the electron's "surface," which goes counter to the dictates of the special theory of relativity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So how is quantum spin explained then? Is there a physical model for it?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The standard answer to these questions is that we are supposed to think of quantum spin as a two-valued intrinsic quantum degree of freedom, corresponding to an "intrinsic" angular momentum, with <i>no classical analog</i>. And the majority of physicists follow this catechism.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">But I don't!</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When self-rotation so neatly explains the two-valuedness (clockwise-counterclockwise), and the angular momentum aspect of this phenomenon that I do question the validity of Pauli's (and others') concern about the faster-than-light rotation. The special theory of relativity puts a speed limit only on the propagation of causal information. I don't think electron's spinning faster-than-light can be harnessed to breach that limit. After all, we are familiar with many superluminal but non-causal events: Isn't it true, for example, that quantum entanglement can travel faster than light? Or that there are galaxies in our universe that are receding from us superluminally?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Having presented my perspective on quantum spin, I would like to now go one step further and ask what the primal origin, the cause or the source of this, fundamentally two-valued, spin is, which, one has to note, is possessed <i>universally</i> by all elementary particles.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Again, why is it that it will be either parallel or antiparallel to a given measurement axis? How is possible that all the fundamental particles have the same property, which never dissipates?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My answer to these questions is to do with my cosmological model that unifies and explains, in one stroke, both the dark energy and dark matter, namely the Big Spin. As those of you who have read my two papers (see arXiv.org) on the topic, and a blog post here, will recall that I have proposed a globally rotating space-time model, that I call the Big Spin, which is a natural cause of the early cosmic inflation, and the relatively recent accelerated expansion of the universe and the galaxy rotation curve anomalies.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I hereby do posit that, in addition to being a strong and natural candidate to explain our outstanding dark energy and dark matter dual problems, a Big-Spin model does also naturally explain the origin of "intrinsic" angular momentum of elementary particles. That is because these particles at the initial singularity started to spin with a gargantuan primordial angular momentum of the Big Spin, not Big Bang!, with superluminal rotation speeds. As the universe expanded, the spin orientations got thermalized and hence the current two-valued, clockwise-counterclockwise characteristics.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-58247215205812923352016-03-28T01:31:00.000-07:002016-06-04T10:59:11.047-07:00Western Media Awash in Disinformation and Hogwash about Turkey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As someone originally from Turkey (of Kurdish background) who follows the international news fairly closely, I have been particularly alarmed by the level of unfair and grossly inaccurate journalism vis-a-vis Turkey, post-Arab Spring.<br />
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Here is a country that----under Erdogan's leadership----managed to turn its past economic and democratic dismal-self around remarkably in the last decade or so, and became, for the last couple of years, perhaps the most humanitarian of all governments, by allowing, and taking care of, some 3 million Syrian and Iraqi (Arabs, Kurds, Yezidis, Christians etc.) refugees into its territory.<br />
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But according to the most Western media, Turkey seems to be a horrible place where journalists are jailed and minorities are oppressed. I urge you to investigate all these claims, looking at the arguments from both sides, not just the smug claims made by some in the Western media. For example, many of the journalists or people in question would face similar, if not worse, litigations in the West (Judith Miller and Edward Snowden come to mind).<br />
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Furthermore, you need to know the culture of the country itself to make sense of what is happening there. Some people (in Turkey and the West) think that insulting and defaming people's reputation publicly is part of freedom of speech. How can that be? Why do we have defamation laws, for instance in the West, available to anyone who feel their reputation is publicly tarnished?<br />
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One gets a sense that the pre-Erdogan Turkey was like the proverbial Switzerland, but Erdogan took all that away. Whereas those of us with some fair sense of judgement who happened to have lived in pre-Erdogan Turkey, knows very well that it was a God-forsaken country both economically and democratically. It would be an insult to human intelligence to even compare today's Turkey to that of old Turkey. But, alas, that is exactly what the Western media is doing.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-71715839205298966262015-12-08T01:35:00.000-08:002015-12-08T02:12:07.803-08:00Proposal to Establish World Electron Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is the mainstay of our
electronics technology, from light bulbs to computers. It is also the particle
whose dynamics controls all chemical reactions, and our biochemistry and
genetics, from the firing of neurons to the information encoding in DNA.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;">A lot of things would not
exist if it were not for the electron, one of the main constituents of the
atom. It is critical for physics; it is critical for chemistry; it is critical
for biology; and it is critical for our civilization. There is no other
subatomic particle that is so singularly and pervasively beneficial to our
existence and civilization.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, I propound that we
celebrate such a prominent entity—in an effort to raise awareness about the
critical role it plays in our lives and civilization, and our vital dependence
on this seemingly simple (fundamental) but truly versatile particle—by
establishing a World Electron Day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;">This would be a focused
opportunity for our youth and general public to appreciate, and raise awareness
about, the electron—and by extension—our technology and basic science.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;">I propose that that day be
May 11 or 5-11, a reference to the invariant rest-mass energy of the electron
in kilo-electron volts, namely 511 keV.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe that the
universal and vital role that the electron plays in our lives and civilization
is not recognized and appreciated enough. So I have decided to file a petition
to establish a day to celebrate the electron. Please show your support for this
proposal by signing the petition using the link below.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/365/501/676/celebrate-the-electron-by-establishing-a-world-electron-day/" target="_blank">http://www.thepetitionsite.com/365/501/676/celebrate-the-electron-by-establishing-a-world-electron-day/</a></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-19537252612121521242015-09-29T00:27:00.000-07:002015-10-01T17:12:07.002-07:00Math and Irony<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The famous Basel problem is an infinite series of the form:<br />
<br />
<strike></strike>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWMwCS5zqBHK_Qyg0fCVFr_bPqRFktbpPi1BzgEX1BYACLOCyjkdHrvilwiLLW-mQwabEsg46vTXtcGRW9DC3dKedXiLTOEXUdfS0ssvy8szachEiFwdjn78KuxadBI6LBQgDK0NGnvWg/s1600/Basel2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWMwCS5zqBHK_Qyg0fCVFr_bPqRFktbpPi1BzgEX1BYACLOCyjkdHrvilwiLLW-mQwabEsg46vTXtcGRW9DC3dKedXiLTOEXUdfS0ssvy8szachEiFwdjn78KuxadBI6LBQgDK0NGnvWg/s320/Basel2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
It was first posed by the Italian mathematician Pietro Mengoli in 1644.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/math-and-irony.html">Read on >></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-9263652930318737372015-05-24T15:23:00.001-07:002016-05-25T22:29:36.271-07:00God is Random<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><i>Partly based on my essay: </i></span></span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="http://philpapers.org/rec/ZORGIR" target="_blank">God is Random: A Novel Argument for the Existence of God</a>,</i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><i>European Journal of Science and Theology (2016). I had the original idea in around 2005 but could not get a chance to present it as an essay until recently.</i></span></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5454540252686px; line-height: 18.8999996185303px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Featured on <a href="http://www.islamicity.org/by/serkan-zorba" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">islamicity.org</a> and <a href="http://iviews.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">iviews.com</a>.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The perennial debate between the two camps of Creationism and
Evolution is based on a fallacious assumption about chance, randomness,
and God.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The
creationist, by whom I mean the anti-evolution type, shuns the ideas of chance
and randomness, as for him/her they are the antithesis of what the concepts of
God, order, harmony, and “intelligent design” are all about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;">Very often when
creationists assault Darwin’s theory, they do it by pointing out how it is all
based on random chance mutations, and thus an anathema to the notion of God.
“How can order of high complexity come out of chance and randomness?” they
rhetorically ask.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/god-is-random.html">Read on>></a></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-50035658932524873202015-05-24T14:43:00.001-07:002016-06-01T02:37:52.410-07:00Dark Energy and Dark Matter are Cosmic Centrifugal and Coriolis Forces<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">Below is my attempt at explaining the problems of dark energy and dark matter that I developed in 2010.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The two most outstanding unsolved problems of modern
cosmology today are the problems of dark energy and dark matter. Together these
two problems imply that about a whopping 96% of the energy content of the
universe is simply unaccounted for within the reigning paradigm of modern
cosmology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">T</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">he dark energy problem has been around only for about two decades, while the dark matter problem has gone unsolved for about 90
years. Various ideas have been put forward, including some fantastic ones such
as the presence of ghostly fields and particles. Some ideas even suggest the
breakdown of the standard Newton-Einstein gravity for the relevant scales.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Although some progress has been made particularly in the
area of dark matter with the nonstandard gravity theories, the problems still
stand unresolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"><a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/dark-energy-and-dark-matter-as-inertial.html">Read on>></a></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-64704013536316273662014-06-08T05:03:00.002-07:002015-10-03T11:56:47.492-07:00So, Just Who is Dhul-qarnayn? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5454540252686px; line-height: 18.8999996185303px;">Featured on <a href="http://islamicity.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">islamicity.com</a> and <a href="http://iviews.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">iviews.com</a>.</i><br />
<span style="font-family: Gentium; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Gentium; font-size: 12pt;">Dhul-qarnayn is a mysterious figure mentioned in the Qur’an whose identity has been a matter of contention and speculation to this day. Many differing theories were proposed on the identity of Dhul-qarnayn by Islamic scholars throughout the ages. This naturally has caused/been causing somewhat of a confusion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Gentium; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Gentium; font-size: 12pt;">In this article, I am going to offer yet another opinion as to who this mysterious figure is. My goal, of course, is not to add to the confusion but rather to help eliminate it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/so-just-who-is-zhul-qarnayn-zhul.html">Read on >></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-65497579469110794242013-06-18T21:02:00.004-07:002015-09-11T12:28:11.819-07:00Muslims and Their Chronic Intellectual Stagnation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5454540252686px; line-height: 18.8999996185303px; text-align: left;">Featured on <a href="http://islamicity.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">islamicity.com</a> and <a href="http://iviews.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">iviews.com</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<span style="text-align: left;">According to a quotation usually attributed to Einstein, insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and yet expecting different results. In my view, this describes the state of the understanding and interpretation by Muslims of their way of life, i.e., Islam, for about the last few hundred years.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/muslims-and-their-chronic-intellectual.html">Continue reading >></a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-47142847850589939372013-06-11T07:37:00.001-07:002015-06-12T07:12:09.796-07:00Gezi Park Protests in Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5454540252686px; line-height: 18.8999996185303px;">Featured on <a href="http://islamicity.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">islamicity.com</a> and <a href="http://iviews.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">iviews.com</a>.</i><br />
<br />
One has to distinguish between two kinds of protests that emerged from the Gezi Park demonstrations in Istanbul, Turkey: an innocent and legitimate one that took place in the early days of the protests, and a transmogrified version of the latter into a social engineering project to bring down the democratically elected and widely popular government of the AKP, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party. The latter had been attempted numerous times within the decade-long rule of the AKP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/gezi-park-protests-inperspective-one.html">Continue Reading >></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-49224240771246952552013-06-02T01:38:00.003-07:002015-06-12T07:12:19.446-07:00Islamic Extremism: A Clarion Call for Islamic Renaissance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.5454540252686px; line-height: 18.8999996185303px;">Featured on <a href="http://islamicity.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">islamicity.com</a> and <a href="http://iviews.com/" style="color: #b113b1; text-decoration: none;">iviews.com</a>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
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Islamic extremism/terrorism is not
a purely religiously motivated phenomenon at its roots. Like most human affairs,
it is ultimately rooted in socio-political dynamics. In the case of the Islamic
extremism: it is the culmination of two socio-political factors that made it to
be the powder keg that it is now: A sclerotic (Islamic) civilization and the
Western post colonial involvement in the Middle East, i.e., exploitation of the
Middle Eastern oil, the plight of Palestinians etc.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/blog-page_2.html">Continue reading >></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-61504798306025296582010-09-19T21:09:00.001-07:002010-09-20T18:42:21.419-07:00Con Coughlin at It Again!Reporter Con Coughlin wrote a piece on September 14, 2010, in the British Daily Telegraph alleging that the party of the Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan received $25 million from Iran. <br /><br /><br />Coughlin provides absolutely no proof to support his claim. He just keeps invoking the ambiguous phrase “Western diplomats” as the “source” of his allegations. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/con-coughlin-at-it-again_19.html">Continue reading>></a><br /><br />Note: <span style="font-style:italic;">A version of this piece ran on <a href="http://www.lobelog.com/con-coughlins-intelligence-failure-redux-iran-turkey-deal/">Jim Lobe's blog</a> and Islamicity's <a href="http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=IV1009-4299">Iviews</a> website.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-45137463280770104002010-09-07T17:51:00.001-07:002010-09-07T18:23:25.983-07:00Quantum mechanics: a bizarre theory<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Since its inception in 1920s, quantum mechanics has puzzled the philosophically minded by its bizarre philosophical implications. That the debate as to the meaning of quantum mechanics is still going on is an indication of the fact that the dust raised over the world of science by this revolutionary theory of microscopic world at the beginning of the twentieth century is not yet settled.</span><div><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/quantum-mechanics-bizarre-theory.html">Continue reading >> </a></span><!--EndFragment--> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-74758914459605047822010-08-09T20:31:00.000-07:002015-06-12T07:13:22.786-07:00Turkey is crucial to a stable Middle East<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-style: italic;">First ran on Jim Lobe's</span> <a href="http://www.lobelog.com/guest-post-turkey-is-crucial-to-a-stable-middle-east/">blog</a>.<br />
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Up until the last few years, Turkey has been a democracy only in name. In reality, it has been a military-ruled regime since at least last five decades (there has been a military coup in Turkey almost every decade). Erdogan's government has been making strides in making Turkey more democratic and prosperous... <br />
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<a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/turkey-is-crucial-to-stable-middle-east.html">Continue reading >></a><br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">Reproduced with permission from <a href="http://www.lobelog.com/">lobelog.com</a></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534184938045687147.post-51141677249742740642010-08-08T18:57:00.000-07:002010-08-18T12:36:42.824-07:00Howard Fineman's recent Newsweek article on TurkeyHoward Fineman wrote an <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/05/sail-the-seas-and-come-to-the-holy-city-of-byzantium.html">article</a> on Turkey in Newsweek on August 5, 2010.<br /><br />Overall, it is a nice and insightful article. And as someone who is originally from Turkey, I also found it to be flattering...<br /><br />Nevertheless, he did what many right-wing/neo-conservative pundits are doing these days: while acknowledging the humongous progress the party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AK Party), the current Turkish premier, made in the last seven or so years, they keep qualifying/blemishing their compliments by implying that Erdogan's party is (feared) to slowly change Turkey to an Islamic state. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.serkanzorba.com/p/howard-finemans-recent-newsweek-article.html">Continue reading >></a><br /><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br /><br /> var _gaq = _gaq || [];<br /> _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-18062690-1']);<br /> _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);<br /><br /> (function() {<br /> var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;<br /> ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';<br /> var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);<br /> })();<br /><br /></script>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2