Miracle

[Harris]

Do you have any proof apart from Wikipedia articles that no one in ancient times knew that skin could sense fire?

If people were thinking about the skin, then there should exist at least one reference but neither you nor I nor anyone else in today’s world is able to find even a single statement in the entire human history up until fourteenth century that may be taken as proof that people were aware of the properties of skin.

Why everyone was silent earlier but onwards fourteenth century suddenly started speaking rigorously about the skin properties. Think wisely.

And do you have any proof that the Quran says the heart has nothing to do with the sensation of pain?

Quran gave contrary information by exposing skin as pain receptor in place of heart when everyone was thinking otherwise. It is an adequate proof for any person who is logical.

You still haven't proved that people in ancient times knew that being hit in the groin by a piece of wood caused pain.

Do you think a dying person does not feel pain? Perhaps, death occurs because of agonizing pain.

I'm using your logic and coming to the conclusion that if you can't find an article written by an ancient person about being hit in the groin by a piece of wood causing pain that is perfectly good evidence no one in ancient times knew about pain being caused by being hit in the groin by a piece of wood.

Main idea here is that groin hurts badly when someone strike it forcefully and victim may die due to pain. Here the main idea is not the wood, metal or bone that strike the groin.

Your logic makes strike of a wood the only thing that causes pain in the groin. You are giving sense that if groin were hit by metal, stone, or bone that would not affect it and the victim would not feel any pain after the hit.

By your logic, if you prove that the strike of a wood is the only thing in the world that causes pain in the groin then I will agree with your statement that “NO ONE IN ANCIENT TIMES KNEW THAT BEING HIT BY A PIECE OF WOOD IN THE GROIN HURTS.”

Otherwise, I have already crushed your statement by giving an authentic historical record.

“And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the midst of the gate to speak with him quietly, and SMOTE HIM THERE IN THE GROIN, THAT HE DIED, for the blood of Asahel his brother.”
Verse 28
2 Samuel − Chapter 3
Holy Neviim − Book 4

Just to go into more detail on this, I think you're looking over this too simplistically.

When people say the brain or the heart is responsible for pain they aren't saying the actual burning of the skin isn't causing the pain.

True

So I'm sure you agree that in ancient times people knew that burning their skin caused pain?

I do agree

That is one of the most basic scientific discoveries if you can even call it that, all an ancient person would have to do is burn their skin and they would know it is painful.

There is no living animal on earth, which does not try to protect itself from burning in fire. In that sense, burning sensation is not a scientific discovery but such a common knowledge that even animals are also aware of it.

So then the only thing to discover after that is does the heart or the brain or something else sense these things.

Ancient people might have believed that the brain, the heart or a unbalanced amount of body fluids resulted in pain, but they all knew that it was fire touching the skin that was the initial act which set of pain.

They might have believed that the fire touching skin was sensed by the brain, or by the heart, or that fire touching the skin caused an inbalance in body fluids.

But it would be ridiculous to say that no one noticed that burning skin causes pain altogether, and this is the only information the quran gives. The quran doesn't say

"And we will burn their skin and the pain won't be sensed by the heart it will be sensed by the brain."

It just says we will burn their skin, replace the skin burn it again and they will feel pain. Any ancient man would have known burning skin makes you feel pain, they just wouldn't have known the mechanics behind it, but the quran doesn't give any info to the mechanics behind it.

That is the point that even by sensing a burn at the spot where fire touches the skin they were still giving all the credit of burning sensation to the heart and not to the skin. Quran has corrected that idea by attracting the attentions towards the skin.

Additionally I believe you previously said that skin is the cause of pain and not the brain. But if you want to be simplistic and say any one organ is the cause for pain it would be the brain. Without skin you can sense pain in other organs, but without a brain you don't sense pain at all.

Do you know that if you literally burn or cut physical brain of a conscious person then that person does not feel any pain?

Brain is a processor that receives signals from different sensory organs and translate them into some kind of brain language that gives meaning to the consciousness.

Without skin or fire, brain cannot process sense of burning, therefore both the skin and the fire are obligatory for the brain to give burning sensation.

Brain alone is a senseless organ that acts like a dumb, deaf, and blind processor in the absence of input devices. Brain cannot produce any sensation on its own without proper sensory organs therefore the idea that brain or heart independently work out burning sensation is false.

Quran is precise in pointing to skin and internal organs without which people would have no feelings of burn.

There was plenty of science in the Greek and Roman traditions, and many ideas about the nature of reality (atoms, etc.) which were "discovered" later. You are really cherry-picking to find something that makes Islam stand out in a positive way. But that you have to do so should be a pretty good hint that you're grasping at straws.

I do not understand why you hyperactive scientific guys love to throw statements in thin air without any citation.

It is as if I am saying, you have a tail and go aside laughing at you seeing that you are striving hard to prove “no I do not have a tail.”

If you think some ancient Greek thinker said something miraculous then give proper citation along with your statements.

The fact is that the Quran offers little that you can't get a better, more modern version of for $10.99 in your local self-help bookstore. So let me ask you, what wonders has Islam worked in the last couple hundred years? What great culture, what great literature, what great ideas? If God really did favor Islam in the 7th century, then no longer. The fact is that the muslim world has stood back since about the 16th century and watched as western thinkers discovered more every year than the Quran writers did in their lifetimes. You want a miracle? Look around your room and discover the power of lightning, harnessed into tiny rivers on silicon chips that can process information billions of times a second. If there is any miracle available to us now, it is clearly science-- and it is almost exclusively western.

Do you think without nature science is possible?

a. If your answer is Yes then show how
b. If your answer is No then show how nature originated
c. If you do not have answers to a and b then simply agree with the facts that Quran is exposing which are logical in terms of science and philosophy.

What Muslims are doing today or what they did in the past is nothing but a BIG BLAH!