Musk wrote:I am saddened by the fact that the majority of posters here preach rationality, skepticism and objectivity, while they themselves have an anti Islamic outlook on things and thus are in contradiction with the things they preach. This whole thread wasn't started with the intention of analyzing and concluding, but with the intention of presenting Islam as a bad thing. If you are biased to any side, you aren't qualified to do things like these, because, as it was clearly seen over the last 6 pages, the majority of the posters are searching for evidences and facts to support their way of thinking. Even if it means to be horrendously wrong.
The debate isn't about winning or losing, it's about arriving to the truth. So if you can't keep an open and rational mind (not open to the things you like, and closed to the things contrary to your beliefs) it's better to stay away from topics like these, because every post proves how ignorant, biased and brainwashed the majority of you are.
Another advice I can give you is to double check your sources. It's better to be blind than to believe everything you read. Islamwatch and Jihadwatch are terrible sources.
And of course you, being a Muslim, are entirely objective and unbiased on this matter, are you? Let's see...
Using pure logic and common sense, the fact that 1,5 billion people in the world are Muslims, tells you something. I am sure that if Mohammad didn't bring good things with Islam, there wouldn't be as many followers and the religion itself wouldn't be the fastest growing. There has to be something in it that attracts humans from the West, East, North and South.
It's a falsehood that Islam is the world's fasted growing religious belief. The fastest growing is actually "no religious belief."
Anyway, is that your idea of a logical argument? If a whole bunch of people believe something, it must be true? Well if 1.5 billion people believe in Islam, that means there are over 4.5 billion people who think it is a bunch of lies. Could they all be wrong? Well, yeah, they could. See how that works?
I agree that Islam isn't under a good light lately and do you know why? Because people tend to ''objectively analyze'' it and conclude that for example it is OK to not let women drive or that it is OK to kill non-Muslims. Everyone analyses for himself. Qur'an, itself, isn't an easy book. In fact to be able to analyze it you have to be knowledgeable. There are some verses pretty confusing and contradicting at the first glance. That's why to fully understand it you have to take hadith (Muhammad's sayings) and historic context into consideration. I don't have time to make examples now, but if anyone is interested I will do it in the future.
So the all-powerful, all-knowing God, creator of the universe, is not even capable of writing a book that is not open to misinterpretation, and requires knowledge of history, an ancient dialect and the reported sayings of someone from 1400 years ago in order to be understood? That's pretty inept.
All in all, you can't take a stance and then start rationalizing, but you have to rationalize first and then take a stance. Those are the basics of debating and there is not a place for emotions in it.
Agreed. Again, let's see how well you hold to this....
Regarding Qur'anic origins, the book was revealed to Muhammad over the span of 23 years. The verses would be taught when there was a need for them, like during some happenings and so on. At first people simply memorized it and they took great care of it, they would organize meetings almost every day to recite and discuss the verses together. So it was hard for the verses to be changed at that time when few hundreds of people knew it by heart (Note that for Arabs knowing things by heart wasn't a big deal, because they were known for knowing their tribes genealogies by heart back to 10 generations and more, futhermore they were also known for poetry which they didn't write down but recite). Additionally they even wrote it down as it is known that Muhammad sent copies of Qur'an to different tribes. That proves that Qur'an was recorded during Muhammad's lifetime, however it wasn't massively done. That's all during Mohammad's lifetime. During the caliphate of Abu Bakr 700 people who knew the whole Qur'an by heart were killed in a battle. That's when Muslims realized that the Qur'an could be mutated because not everyone had a whole copy of it and there wasn't one in the capital Medina, and the majority of people still learned it by hearing. Someone had only fragments while in some parts people started changing the verses. So they decided to write it down and make an ''official'' version of it. Don't get me wrong they didn't change anything in it because every verse that entered the official version had to be verified by at least 2 people who knew it by heart. Abu Bakr compiled the Qur'an, while Uthman was the one who started to ''publish it massively''. Later they added the so called vowels because, Islam grew big and not everyone was a native Arab. Arabs don't need those vowels when reading, but it is helpful for those who don't know Arabic quite yet. They've done it so it becomes accessible to everyone.
You're joking, right? You seriously think it's possible to have followed that process and not have errors included in the final written version? You admit that there were already differences and errors in how the Quran was recalled. Thousands of people have it memorized, but so long as only two people agree on something, it gets included?
Bottom line: We don't have the complete version of the Quran (or, more accurately, the seven versions) as it existed in the life of Muhammed, so we have no idea how many errors were made between then and the final compilation by Uthman. It's just a matter of blind faith to say the Quran was not changed.
So yeah, Qur'an was mutated during the time, but the message didn't change at all. I'll mention just one point regarding that. In Qur'an there are some verses that say that it is preferable not to do prayer after drinking alcohol and there are others that say that alcohol has some good in, it's just that the evil in it is bigger, and there are others that forbid drinking alcohol. Everyone should know that Muslim don't drink alcohol, so how come there verses who say that you can drink it, but it's better to not do it? It's because the prohibition of alcohol came gradually, at first only prayer was forbidden while intoxicated, then came the revelation that the good in it is very small and don't worth the risk and in the end came total seclusion of it.
At first those verses seem to be in contradiction so wouldn't it be better to remove them and only leave the ones who say that alcohol is forbidden as other ones weren't relevant to Muslims anymore. That way there would be no confusion.
Yeah, it
would be better to do that. So why didn't the All Powerful All Knowing Creator of the Universe do that? Let's see your answer.
It is precisely that the reason that you have to take historical context and hadith into consideration. Same thing with slavery and that's because both alcohol and slavery were deeply rooted into pre-Islamic Arabia. If Qur'an was changed the most logical step would be to remove the verses that don't concern the Muslims anymore, but they are still there.
Umm, what? So Allah revealed verses to Muhammed that He knew would be incorrect, misleading and confusing, but left them in because otherwise it would mean changing the Quran? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How about just not including them in the first place. Polytheism and idolatory were also "deeply rooted" in pre-Islamic Arabia, but the Quran doesn't say, "OK, you can worship, let's say, 5 gods, and keep some of your idols.... Alright, now you can worship only three gods, and one idol.... OK, this is the last rule: One God, no idols. That's final."
If you believe Qur'an was mutated, than you believe that it isn't a word of God therefore you believe that Islam is a man made religion. So how come back then in the Qur'an it was written that the seas don't mix their waters into one another
Sure, because no one knew of the difference between freshwater and seawater back then, did they? Note that, in this video, they quote from actual tasfir that demonstrates this is no scientific miracle:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAK6fQQALE4[/youtube]
or that there are 2 Easts and 2 Wests (the sun doesn't rise up/set down from/at the same spot every day)
OK, I have to admit that's a new one on me. Two easts and two west, eh? That sounds hilariously wrong. Why don't you give us some more details on that one. We could all use a laugh.
or the precise teachings about fetus.
This one, OTOH, is an oldie but goodie. There are no "precise" teachings about embryology in the Quran had not already been known for a long time. BTW, have you actually studied embryology yourself, to confirm what is claimed to be in the Quran? Or are you just repeating the claims of apologists that you accept because they confirm what you want to believe?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRBrl02tnnY[/youtube]
Those are just few things found in the Qur'an and if it was man made Muhammad couldn't have known all those things, especially not him, as he was illiterate from the desert, belonging to the backwards society of Quraysh. Their science was zero.
This has always intrigued me. Why do Muslims feel compelled to portray their Prophet as an ignorant fool who did not even the difference between seawater and freshwater? If a Kaffir said such a thing they would issue a fatwah. Yet they feel quite free to say it themselves.
How come Muhammad told his companions that they will win over Persia, that the caliphate would soon end, succeeded by dynasties (Umayyads, Abbassids, ...), which would be succeeded by military dictatorships (as it is today in the majority of Arab countries), that the people from Arabia will compete in constructing the tallest ''towers'' (implying all those skyscrapers built today)and so on. Google a bit about those things, especially the scientific ones. Those are all things that couldn't have been known by him, nor by anyone back then if it wasn't with the help of God.
Maybe you can provide some actual citations to support those claims. Not that there is anything remarkable about them. Every two bit tribal leader with delusions of grandeur probably predicted he would eventually conquer the world. A few of them happened to be right, just by luck.
BTW, do you believe Nostradamus was a prophet of Allah?
Islam and science or rational thinking go perfectly together, in fact in Qur'an it is encouraged to think, rationalize and try to understand the creation of God.
It's pretty obvious from the above that just the opposite is the case. The only way you could make the above arguments is to start from the assumption that Islam is correct then try to twist and misinterpret every piece of evidence to support that conclusion. A perfect example of someone who, in your own words "takes a stance, then starts to rationalize it."
Islam does not promote rational thought. Like all religions, it is the enemy of rational thought.