The purported Holy Mysteries discovery
Posted 31 Oct. 2009 by moderator Ι. Fatsea
The recently released "The Holy Mysteries" film in Turkey reveals to the world a supposed new divine revelation underlying the of importance of the most sacred site in Islam - Mekkah in Saudi Arabia.
By taking a number of geographical measurements using the geographical co-ordinates of the Ka'ba in Mecca, and relating these to the golden ratio constant, they seem to think they have discovered a new divine miracle.
But in their calculations they have mistakenly relied on an accepted custom - a convention - the global coordinate system using a prime meridian longitude centered in the city of Greenwich England.
Hence by using the logic employed in film, we can conclude:
that God had placed Kaaba in Holy Mecca, using in His calculations - the British geocoordinate convention.
So had another coordinate system come into being - say an American, or a Japanese convention - God would have gotten it wrong!
By virtue of this religious “miracle” there is hence, "mathematical proof" that God wanted us to follow Islam. And even if we are to accept their use of the British convention, their calculations are out by about 300 kilometers.
Though desperate to make their point, they take their proof further – by showing references to where the discovery is supposedly validated in the Holy Quran.
You be the judge ..
The film is directed to an Islamic audience, and was released in Turkey for the month of Ramadan 2009. The effort made by the so-called discoverer who happens to also be the director of the above film, Erdem Cetinkaya misses two significant points:
1. no impartial mathematical authority or reputable scientist have endorsed his erroneous calculations; and further would dare endorse a propagandized work such as this.
An ordinary person would think it rational to get this story peer reviewed first – before wasting time and money fabricating it for political ends.
2. the church or mosque has never really dealt with the scientific reality of the universe; more or less what has been handed down to us - has been religious doctrine masked as science.
The point being made is these religious “miracles” are used in ways and in places (the realm of science and mathematics) where it does not belong.
The significance of the golden ratio embedded in the designs of nature, astronomy, anatomy, and man-made architecture for example have preoccupied some of the greatest mathematical minds throughout history.
The first documented definition we have today of the ratio was derived by Euclid of Alexandria [325BC-265 BC.]
Admist religious turmoil in the Hellenic world, such as the burning of the Royal Library of Alexandria (twice), and Emperor Justinian's edict [529 AD] ordering the closing of all Greek schools of Learning, the whole enterprise of Science and Mathematics was subsequently transferred in its entirety to Arabia and the Indian subcontinent. Had it not been so – most ancient Greek writings we are familiar with today, would have been lost.
Euclid’s works had found its way to the Intellectual custodians in Baghdad.
The first Arabic citation of the golden ratio was documented by al-Khwarizmi.° [825AD]
The divine proportion
Because we witness the golden ratio’s widespread appearance in life, matter, and the universe - it hints of a unifying mathematical principle that is more subtle than science has been able to define. This is why it is also called the divine proportion.
Hence through the use of the divine proportion, it is relatively easy to conjure up
a religious “miracle” using the sacred Kaaba, and Mecca for political ends.
° on Al-Khwarizmi’s clarity in his work on the golden ratio:
“The question of whether al-Khwarizmi actually had the golden ratio in mind (in his calculations) .. is a matter of some dispute.” cited in Mario Livio’s book
“The Golden Ratio” 2002 p.89.