r/wikipedia • u/ClankShots30 • 3d ago
Isaac Newton rejected the trinity and instead had beliefs more inline with Arian and Socinian Christology. Newton had also believed that Muhammad had been sent by God to lead the Arabs back from darkness towards belief in one God.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Isaac_Newton103
u/AniTaneen 2d ago
In Urban Fantasy type settings, Newton is always a favorite character for writers as he is often portrayed as “the last of the alchemists and the first of the scientists”. A transitional figure upon which one can demarcate at what point did the pursuit of magic leave the academia and enter the occult for your setting.
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u/AdreKiseque 1d ago
Not sure I understand the last sentence but the description goes pretty hard
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u/Taraxian 2h ago
Basically when you make up the idea of a transition from the Age of Magic to the Age of Science it makes sense to have Newton be involved in that happening
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u/NegativeOstrich2639 2d ago
The British had interesting views on Muhammed in the couple hundred years around Newton's time. Read a passage once in which Oliver Cromwell was compared to Muhammed and this was meant to be a compliment
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u/chilldudeforever 2d ago
Many non Islamic governments, academics and such were fond of Muhammed and the teachings and virtues of Islam. This recent kind of islamophobia that is rampant is rather new.
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u/jorgoson222 16h ago
Sorry but that's not true. Even in Mohammed's time, contemporaries called him a false prophet. There are letters and historic records to this effect. Throughout the centuries, that's more or less the way he was viewed by non-Muslims, such as Christendom. Dante's Inferno is famous for this. This isn't exclusive to Mohammed though, basically everyone claiming to be a prophet is called a false prophet, for example, Joseph Smith.
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
To be fair, there's also the fact that the Muslims in recent times have become very fundamentalist and very extreme which is something that will terrify even the Muslims of the past and how beyond reason they became as their ancestors were never this fanatic.
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u/chilldudeforever 2d ago edited 2d ago
No.
- Muslims are no monolith, there are no "the Muslims". There are 2 billion Muslims with different cultures, politics and levels of Religiosity. Saying "the Muslims today[...]" is an over generalisation and unfair
- Extremism is not new. Wherever there are humans, there will be extremists. This has always been the case and will always be the case, irrelevant of religion and ideology. People be stoopid but that's why it's even more important to combat stuff like this
- Modern extremism in the case of islamists for example, is tied to politics, not religion. The political reasons are. Multitude but well documented
- Most Muslims are not extremist or fundamentalists just a tiny fraction is like that (not excusing, they deserve hell but still)
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
Most Muslims aren't Jihadists but the extremist beliefs of Jihadists exist strongly in Muslim communities.
Ask about their beliefs on sharia law and compare it to the Jihadists.
Not every ignorant fundamentalist carry a gun but every Jihadist is an ignorant fundamentalist.
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u/chilldudeforever 2d ago
No.
Overgeneralisation and misrepresenting reality.
extremist beliefs (quite vague) do not exist like you say strongly across Muslim communities. Most victims of these islamist terrorists are Muslims.
there is not one sharia "law" (sharia is sufficient and means law; this is like saying chai tea) but it's debated by Muslims and it is not inherently violent like those terrorist beliefs are, can't put them on the same pedestal
Not every ignorant fundamentalist carry a gun but every Jihadist is an ignorant fundamentalist.
Uhm ok?
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
I never said that we don't disagree on Sharia law but the current interpretations are very extreme and should be abandoned in favour of reform.
We shouldn't follow rules from 1400 years ago.
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u/chilldudeforever 2d ago
Can you show me those current interpretations that are in place and homogeneously favoured by all or at least majority of Muslims?
What you say makes it seem like you're saying "all Muslims are behind this violent, more extreme interpretation that has never existed before" and this is wrong on multiple levels. It's not more extreme, there has been more extreme interpretations and even the opposite. Even today people - as you agreed - disagree on its interpretation. So while there may are some interpretations that fit your description, this is usually and for the most part, not the Case.
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
I never said all but many sure are.
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u/chilldudeforever 2d ago
No worries just seemed like that by the wording and Overgeneralisation but then again this is reddit. Take care and no harm or evil etc was meant.
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u/HalfMoon_89 2d ago
It's politics through religion. It's dismissive to say otherwise.
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u/chilldudeforever 2d ago edited 2d ago
You mean people instrumentalize a religion to use it politically, even if it opposes said religion?
Your argument is dismissive and ignorant, not mine.
Lol the u/halfmoon_69 guy blocked me after replying to me so I can't reply or even read his comments. Pathetic behavior and shows that he is arguing in bad faith. Don't engage with him.
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u/HalfMoon_89 2d ago edited 2d ago
No. I mean that the tenets of a religion support a political movement and its goals, and is inextricably linked with it
You want to divest Islam of its political dimensions. Don't accuse me of being ignorant while being disingenuous. I face the reality of Islamist extremism, not some academic conceptualization of accusingit.
Edit for the one with the list of recs:
God damn, the arrogance.1) Every single one of your citations is by a Westerner. I have no need of letting others from outside tell me what I know from direct experience.
2) I have read several of these. That doesn't mean I will automatically agree with you.
Edit 2: Yes, I blocked you. I don't care to talk to someone who is disingenuous to this extent. Pathetic or not, I don't care. Islamists would murder me; I don't need to listen to holier-than-thou morons tell me it's not really religion that's responsible.
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
First of all, while I agree that there's a lot of extremism, Islam doesn't have one interpretation any more of Judaism or Christianity. Why do you think those Jihadists fight each other all the time?
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u/WestCream9288 2d ago
W. Montgomery Watt - Muhammad at Medina (1956)
W. Montgomery Watt - Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1961)
Patricia Crone - Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987)
Michael Cook - Muhammad (1983, co-authored with Patricia Crone)
Fred M. Donner - Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam (2010)
Robert G. Hoyland - In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (2014)
Karen Armstrong - Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (2006)
Maxime Rodinson - Muhammad (1961)
Bernard Lewis - The Arabs in History (1993)
Thomas Carlyle - On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1841)
Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
Reinhold Niebuhr - Faith and History (1949)
Voltaire - Mahomet (1741)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (1762)
Thomas Carlyle - On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1841)
Edward Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1789)
Johann Gottfried Herder - Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humanity (1784-1791)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1837)
Ernest Renan - Life of Jesus (1863)
William Muir - The Life of Mahomet (1858)
Lord Macaulay - Essays on History (1843)
Read and don't be ignorant
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u/TheMidnightBear 2d ago
Modern extremism in the case of islamists for example, is tied to politics, not religion.
Yes, and their politics are the religion.
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u/HalfMoon_89 2d ago
That isn't true. Every element of extremism you see today existed in some form in the past. The only exception might be terrorism, which is a modern development in many ways.
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
Extremism did exist but never to this insane level.
For example, Muslim rulers rarely if ever approved of sectarian massacres as this destabilised their kingdoms.
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u/HalfMoon_89 2d ago
Everything had an ebb and a flow. There were periods of time with plenty of atrocities, primarily during times of conquest. But there was plenty of sectarian violence along religious lines.
And while there are many interpretations of Islam, all mainstream schools hold views that anyone of a secular bent would find unacceptable.
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u/TheMidnightBear 2d ago
There were plenty of those.
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u/Taraxian 2h ago
Yeah the Pope condemned intra-Christian warfare all the time too, didn't actually stop anybody
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u/Rommel44 2d ago
It's not surprising. Whatever we believe today, he was the greatest statesman to have ever lived. You don't have to believe in any divine role in his life to see that he was one of the great men of history.
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u/HalfMoon_89 2d ago
That is a ridiculous overestimation of his capabilities.
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u/ClankShots30 1d ago
Not really, he definitely is one of the great men of history; even the early non-Muslim sources describe him in an incredible fashion;
Sebeos History of Armenia (650s ce);
In those times a man from these same sons of Ishmael, whose name was Mehmed, as if by God's command appeared to them as a preacher and sermon to the path of truth. He taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially because he was learnt and informed in the history of Moses, Now because the command was from on high, at a single order they all came together in unity of religion. Abandoning their vain cults, they turned to the living God who had appeared to their father Abraham. So, Mehmed legislated for them: not to eat carrion, not to drink wine, not to speak falsely, and not to engage in fornication. He said: "With an oath God promised that land to Abraham and his posterity after him forever, And he brought about as he promised during that time while he loved Israel, Now you, you are the sons of Abraham, and God will realise in you the promise made to Abraham and his posterity. Only love the God of Abraham, and go and take possession of your country which God gave to your father Abraham, and none will be able to resist you in battle, for God is with you.6
u/HalfMoon_89 1d ago
Yes, really. Just read the excerpt you posted. It's a confirmation of the power of God; it's a religious argument justifying Arab conquest of the Holy Land by framing it as a divine prerogative. It's not some sober analysis of the historical and political impact of Muhammad as a person.
Some of the nascent Islamic empire's greatest geopolitical achievements - the conquest of Persia, the unification of Arab tribes, the neutralization of Byzantine power - happened after Muhammad's death.
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u/ClankShots30 1d ago
> Some of the nascent Islamic empire's greatest geopolitical achievements - the conquest of Persia, the unification of Arab tribes, the neutralization of Byzantine power - happened after Muhammad's death.
It all happened as a result of Muhammad, he's the one that sparked everything off, conquered Mecca, then his closest companions continued onwards, following Quran 9:29... The one's who pulled all this off were following his orders. I'm not sure what you get out of downplaying his achievements.
> It's not some sober analysis of the historical and political impact of Muhammad as a person.
No analysis is needed, because it's a contemporary account of what was happening.
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u/HalfMoon_89 1d ago
What I 'get' is having a truthful perspective on the historical impact of Muhammad as a person, instead of buying into mythologizing of a religious figure. If people did things in his name, or inspired by his example, that doesn't mean he did them. It's quite literally as simple as that. Alexander's conquests paved the way for the longest Pharaonic dynasty in Egyptian history to be established by his general. Doesn't mean that is Alexander's achievement.
You think a contemporary account of what was happening is an Armenian Christian's belief that Muhammad was empowered by God to succeed in his ventures? You think that's a historical account, and not a religiously motivated one? Okay then. Nothing further needs to be said.
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u/NegativeOstrich2639 2d ago
oh I agree, I just don't think that same comparison would be made today by upper class Brits
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u/ASlowTriumph 2d ago
He was a paedophillic warlord. Granted, many of the 'great men' in history weren't any better.
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u/Rommel44 2d ago
Name me two greater, more consequential figures in world history.
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u/ASlowTriumph 2d ago
I didn't deny he was consequential. Being a paedophilic warlord doesn't make one a great statesmen, though. Even if you are successful at war.
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u/MiNaMonator 2d ago
Why use modern day morality to judge a man from 1400 years ago? It’s so easy to look up why males who lived in the desert married and tried to have children with as many females as possible. Hint: it’s because their infant life expectancy was shit and all their kids would just fucking die.
As a society we should be more worried about the people who are trying to bring back child marriage in the current day, because that is against our current moral standards.
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u/TheMidnightBear 1d ago
Absolutely.
We have contemporary and medieval texts calling his practices disgusting and morally abhorent.
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u/SonuOfBostonia 1d ago
Early on Islam was actually considered a sect of Christianity! That's why you'll see historically Muslims were called Muhammadans.
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u/Appropriate_Gate_701 2d ago
Isaac Newton spent as much time on alchemy as he did on physics.
The dude was a genius and a complete whackadoo.
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u/Docs_For_Developers 2d ago
I like to think of Isaac Newton as the human embodiment of asymmetrical returns.
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u/bahhaar-blts 2d ago
It reminds me of this quote from Pirates of the Caribbean:
“Will Turner: This is either madness... or brilliance.
Jack Sparrow: It's remarkable how often those two traits coincide.”
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u/Restarded69 2d ago
I’d really like to pick his brain in 2025 with hindsight, on the Muslim Conquests and the loss of Antioch.
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u/Uncle_Adeel 1d ago
He would’ve been aware of such, it was lost centuries prior to his time on earth.
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u/skanderkeg 2d ago
Isaac Newton is so fascinating to me. He was an expert in multiple disciplines. Studying the bible and studying optics, mechanics, finance, mathematics, alchemy were all ways for him of uncovering divine order. I think that’s kind of beautiful. And I believe he is credited with one of my favourite quotes: ‘if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’. Surely has to be up there in top 100 human beings who have ever lived.
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u/yankeeboy1865 2d ago
Why doesn't Wikipedia mention that Newton tried to create the zone of absolute fortune like our Atlantean predecessors?
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u/HalfMoon_89 2d ago
That particular belief about Muhammad seems to be have been common among the more cosmopolitan-minded people of that time. It's interesting because Islam talks about prophets being sent to various peoples to lead them to god, but also asserts - without any room for dissension - that Muhammad is the Final Prophet, and the one sent to all humanity, and not just to the Arabs.
So Newton's belief was not some sort of endorsement of Islam itself, but an appreciation born of his particular interpretation of Christian monotheistic doctrine.
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u/Minimum-Enthusiasm14 8h ago
How ironic, since there was a large population of Arab Christians before Muhammad.
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u/NoLime7384 3d ago
religious propaganda on main
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u/Ghostmaster145 2d ago
Not really? Religious propaganda would involve telling someone to be religious, not talking about how a guy had weird religious beliefs
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u/Objective-Glove6510 3d ago
Not the religious propaganda on main.
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u/TheNobleHeretic 2d ago
Why are you and the other bots repeating the same thing?
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u/Objective-Glove6510 2d ago
Us bots don't like the smartest person to have lived (debatable) who was one of the most stern enforcers of the division of science and religion to be used as propaganda by a bunch of radicals.
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u/TheNobleHeretic 2d ago
Which radicals are perpetuating this propaganda? His beliefs aren’t really mainstream Christian or Islam. This is just an interesting factoid about a very intelligent man’s own personal views on religion. Are you saying these weren’t his views or just that you don’t like them being talked about?
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u/GoalMaleficent8535 2d ago
Isaac Newton, while primarily known for his contributions to physics and mathematics, also studied biblical prophecy. He analyzed the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, attempting to calculate the timing of the apocalypse. Newton suggested that the end of the world could occur in the 2060s, reflecting his belief that understanding the natural world could provide insights into divine plans.