Quranic Miracles

[Ruggedtouch]

Bismillah:


Ok, you tell us from where does the Qur'an come. let us hear your views.


Salam


Wael.

I suppose you’re referring to one of the various books that is called the quran. I’ll presume for the sake of discussion that you’re referring to the compilation of writings that survived Uthmans' destruction of various versions of stories and fables.



Quite clearly, the quran - like all books – came from the corruptible hand of man. It’s an inarguable fact that all books are written by man.


First, And here is where the poverty of your argument most starkly reveals itself, there is no surviving manuscript of any Qur'an to make a statement such as yours. In spite of your desire to assert otherwise, the Qur'an alone does not provide enough detail to serve as either a guide to Islam itself, or Islamic practice. If it were, then there would be no need for the Sunnah at all. In fact, it is a general position of Muslim scholars that the Qur'an alone is not even adequate for understanding the Qur'an itself.


The Qur'an alone is not adequate for an explication of even a sizable fragment of Shari'a. Without the Sunnah, you cannot even perform Salaat properly.


The theist creates for himself a genuinely unsolvable dilemma. He/she claims there is a source material that lays out the belief system. He/she claims this source material has a level of functionality that supports that belief system as well. He/she further asserts that unless the "author" of that support system (a god or god(s)) endows one with some special knowledge (knowledge that can’t be shared in a meaningful way), one cannot understand that support system as laid out and supported by the source material.


The theist then further complicates matters by suggesting, as I believe you have previously, and here, that there are various complex methods by which one can read and interpret this source material.


Then the theist proceeds even further. He/she states that the god has a vested interest in human salvation, and through this book makes that word of salvation known, and yet... according to you there are varying degrees by which this knowledge may or may not be interpreted or even discovered.


In other words, the message of the book is a cold, unalterable law: <i>Ye must believeth this, or be damned</i>.


Then the book itself ranges from fact to fiction, from literalism to metaphor helter-skelter, and humans are then asked to pick and choose which aspects are literal and which are not.


Is Joshua's sun-standing still (i.e., Earth stopping its rotation) a true rendering of an historical event, or not? Is the flood true? Is Adam and Eve and original sin true (this one is primary, for without it, all the rest is unnecessary), is Mohammad’s ascension on a golden staircase true?


I dunno. Could be. Maybe. Depends. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe a flesh and blood body. Maybe not. That's what you embrace. Meanwhile, the underlying message remains:


Believe this, or be eternally, forever, always and from now until never – marshmallow in Hell.


You don’t quite get that same message from the Illiad, do you? It's intended as a fictional retelling, and few people debate its relative accuracy. But plenty of people think qurans and Mafioso Books of the Dead do relate an accurate worldview, and that opinion crosses into social constructs, and those social constructs impact individuals’ freedoms. It leverages political decisions. It lends weight to laws that are developed and implemented.


Yet one cannot, according to you, apply the same strictures humans gain for knowledge against this incredibly important book. The Quran, you argue, "gets a pass".


What you are doing is applying the query, "If my particular ideology will squash out other ideologies, then isn't that a positive for me?" to all of existence, and that's a macro of nihilism I see no reason to embrace.


Man's baser instincts are clearly evolving. We are not as dispassionate as we once were. We are not as superstitious as we once were. We have gone from simplistic tools to seeing to the furthest depths of the universe and down into the tiniest atom.


These are achievements of the human spirit, and you reap the benefits even as you dismiss the efforts. You look at these achievements, and even though you are not a part of a global culture that has proven progress over and over, you think the progress has stopped.


The world is also slowly evolving away from notions such as yours; simplistic and constrained by a need to impose your beliefs at the expense of other beliefs.


There is a brightness that is falling across the land called literacy and education and knowledge and exploration and science, each demonstrable, each progressing the human condition, each giving us hope for a better day tomorrow. Is it corruptible? Sure! Everything is corruptible, as those theists who like to assert the 9/11 terrorists corrupted Islam. Like Islamists corrupted islam when they immolated innocents in Bali, New York, London, Madrid, etc., etc., in order to send their now-saved souls to god. Unfortunately, the literacy and education and knowledge and exploration and science part has them by.