First off, let me comment by saying that it looks like my thread was rolled into Salah-Al-Din's thread. All of my posts and people's questions have been included, so I don't think anything was lost.
I noticed that Salah-Al-Din last posted about a month ago, hopefully he is still around to address questions, but in any case, I'll try to address some as well. It's always better to have more input on an issue, so I welcome him to make comments on questions that I have already attempted to answer (if he chooses).
Now, onto your post El_Machinae.
Regardless, a religion that demands the killing of people for unclear reasons is ... well, has elements of human sacrifice.
It's quite a stretch to compare exacting punishments to a practice of human sacrifice. I assume you're making the parallel because a person is killed to "appease" God, but there's one item that can't be overlooked. Traditionally in forms of human sacrifice, it is the innocent, the "clean", children, young virgins, etc. that are offered up. Here a person is being issued a punishment because they have committed a grave sin. The main point is, God doesn't
want a person to be killed or sacrificed, but he does seek justice (and according to Muslims, who is better to decide what is just than God?)
Unlike Christianity, Islam clearly extends their death penalty (for sins) to the modern setting. And consider that there have been stages where the Qur'an was not clear (and then became clear later, allegedly). I can't believe that people like that an unclear book encourages believers to kill people; I also cannot see how one can see morality in such a system.
Just because many Christians nowadays are secular and don't follow everything prescribed in the New Testament, let alone the Old Testament, does not mean that they are practicing the religion correctly. Also, there are some Christians (and Jews) who support Biblical punishments, now in modern times. Is it the people faithful to their scripture that are wrong, or those that have chosen to disregard it? (Rhetorical
)
You once again make claims that there are parts of the Qur'an that are unclear. If we're talking about Signs and Miracles, that's one thing, but if we're discussing sins and punishments, that's a completely different topic. Your comment suggests that you believe Muslims punish people with death although it is unclear that they should do so. I encourage you to find one of these instances in the Qur'an and explain why you believe it is unclear.
Also, regarding your "it was unclear before but is clear now" comment. Recall that human beings will invariably come up with different interpretations regarding certain aspects of the Qur'an. This does not apply to the whole Qur'an, otherwise we'd have thousands of Muslim sects. Also, as I mentioned before the Qur'anic concept of ijtihad (self interpretation) allows for some individual reflection on things that are written (so that one interpretation is never forced down the throats of Muslims).
Let God kill all on his own. Surely he is capable. Regardless of whether the Koran is divine or not.
We touched on this already. It is not a question of whether or not he is capable, Jews, Christians and Muslims (as well as members of other religions) believe that God is All-Capable. However, God has instructed humanity to establish a system of laws and to abide by it.
If a person harms us, and we know (or have established ourselves), what we believe is the proper punishment, what is the need for God to be involved directly? You argue that God can kill on his own, but I argue, why does he
have to in your eyes to be legitimate?
I've seen many of the signs. There are some that are impressive, I'll grant, but are probable. But many of the signs given to me are mutally exlusive, and many are what was known at the time.
We'll likely continue disagreeing on the probability of Signs being dumb luck versus true warnings to mankind. However, you claim that many of them were known at the time. If this was the case, why isn't the Qur'an littered with "false" signs, reflecting the scientific consensus of the day, which has since been disproved. I gave the example earlier that the Qur'an makes no assertion that the Earth orbits around the sun, or anything similar. If it did, we would have a clear error that modern day Muslims could look at and be extremely concerned about.
Firstly, let's acknowledge that if either word was not listed 23 times that we wouldn't be discussing this.
That is a completely fair argument.
So, we only need to look at the probability of the second noun being there: how many times are nouns in the Koran? They seem to have a range and would probably clump. Given that range, what's the probability that the second word occured 23 times? Not that unprobable. And again, we wouldn't even be commenting on this if it wasn't there. It's just wishful pattern finding.
You seem to make the suggestion that in the Qur'an, the words male and female would likely be observed the same number of times because in (almost) all instances where one of the two sexes is mentioned, you expect the other sex to be immediately mentioned. Have you read through the Qur'an and observed this to actually be true? If not, then it seems you're the one engaged in wishful thinking
.
The Qur'an then receives additional problems if we believe that the author was mindful of chromosomes, because if we carry this theme elsewhere we see other errors.
You say "other errors" while talking about the chromosome example. Which is the original error that you are referring to, if there are "others?"
Ah ... 'relative to sea level', we're again throwing in qualifiers to make it true!
It's not about using qualifiers to make something true. In fact, one could argue that you're throwing in qualifiers to make it
untrue. You're arguing that God could not have meant the lowest point on earth relative to sea level. If the verse refers to "the lowest point" on the
surface of the Earth, rather than "Earth" carrying the meaning of globe or planet, then the sea level example is the only one that makes sense. For instance, if I asked you what is the hottest place on Earth, you'd likely reply some equatorial or volcanic region. Most likely you would not tell me the Earth's core or mantel. Are you really in a better position to judge whether God means the lowest point on Earth below the sea, or the point closest to the center of the Earth?
Fachy mocked me for stating I would object if the Qur'an called Antarctica the lowest land on Earth, too. I would have a lot harder time, considering that it is actually lower by the most reasonable measure (distance to center).
As mentioned above, that is the measure you consider most reasonable, but that is not something that everyone would agree with you on. You take it as a given fact, whereas there is much more contention than you suggest.
I would also have a harder time, because of that trench you mentioned, maybe (the Qur'an gives no hint that we're to think of ice as land). But I would have an especially hard time if there was a dip in the surface ice that was below sea level!
Again, the Qur'an talks about the lowest point on Earth. Since a person can not pass through ice as they can pass through air, there is a reasonable argument for counting permanent ice and glaciers to be a part of the Earth's surface.
The trench I mentioned in Antarctica is covered by a thick, impassable and permanent layer of ice. Recall that I also mentioned that if all this ice were to disappear, the trench would fill up, and it would no longer be dry, so it could not be considered the lowest point on the Earth's surface, since it would be below sea level (it is simply far too deep to stay above the water).
Surely a god can make an earth that makes the Dead Sea actually the lowest point in the earth, and not merely a local low point? We're supposed to kill people for a God that can't even be clear on 'lowest'? He's given authority to kill people, to people who will twist words as they please?
Again, you're basing these arguments on the view that God is not referring to the lowest point on the Earth's surface. That's an assumption that I think can be quite easily scrutinized.
For example, let us take the land/sea ratio of words that Fachy told us about. It seems impressive, and even interesting. However, what does this tell us? Firstly, since there's no mention of ice, if I accept this ratio I am to believe that Allah thinks of Antarctica as land, not water (even though it's covered in water). But as soon as I am drawn to consider Antarctica as land, your whole 'nearest land' becomes especially problematic, because of that trench! (In addition to Antarctica being the lowest all on its own)
I think you're confused here. The trench is itself land, not ice. Therefore, if it is covered by ice and as you mentioned, you assume that ice counts as land, then the trench is under layers of permanent ice and for the purposes of finding the lowest spot on Earth it becomes irrelevant (because it is covered in ice).
What bothers me most about the authors of those 'Science in the Koran' lists is that they expect me to be impressed with the signs, while presenting signs that then conflict with each other! Like Hovind, the entire scenario seems intended to mislead. And it's okay to be annoyed, because they are actively pushing misinformation in the form of textbooks that they want people to incorporate into education.
Well, if certain interpretations or suggestions of signs contradict or conflict with one another, then that doesn't mean that both are wrong. I agree with you that some people are overzealous trying to point out signs in the Qur'an, but that is not a reason to discount all signs.
Even if the things they allege aren't true, it does not change the Qur'an or make it any less accurate. As we discussed above, if the words male and female
did not appear 23 times and add up to 46 (ala chromosomes), then we would not be discussing them and it's not as though you could use that as an argument against the Qur'an.
I would agree with this reasoning if the people reading it didn't ignore all the untrue hits. The only 'sign' I've been shown in the Koran is that the author thought of the world as temporary (instead of permanent). That sounds like 50% odds of borrowing from the right tradition. Outside of that, we then have to consider if the knowledge was available at the time to a reasonabley learned person or was already a Greek opinion.
Sure there was some knowledge available, but not all of the knowledge was. Also as mentioned earlier, the Greeks were wrong about a great many things, and we don't see those views in the Qur'an.
It seems to be impossible, because believers will shift and twist definitions to suit their fancy. First we're told that man cannot reach the height of mountains. One helicopter ride later and a billion people will suddenly insist that the word 'reach' means to 'grow to the stature of'. In truth, the Qur'an states very little, it's unclear and vague and seemingly written in the vaguest of languages outside of bodylangauge. I mean, we have readers who cannot agree whether a certain punishment is scourging or something less severe! The man who cuffs his wife on the back is just as justified as the man who whips his wife.
What you consider a "weakness" in the Qur'an is what some people see as one if its greatest strengths, and a reason why it was revealed in the Arabic language rather than any other language. The Qur'an is said to have existed since the beginning of time and is to remain applicable until the end of time. Therefore, a Qur'an which can be interpreted in various ways through the ages, without even the slightest actual change to the text itself, is a very powerful source of revelation.
Many Arabs (and Muslims that read and understand Arabic) say that they feel they learn something new, or discover something new every time they read the Qur'an, without exception.
So, my questions: Islam seems to have suffered a massive breakdown in cultural progress starting at about 1200 AD, due to damaging interpretations of Islam becoming popular.
What are you basing this allegation on? In other words, why do you assert that it was "damaging interpretations" that led to the so-called "massive breakdown in cultural progress." That may have been the case, but I think you need to back an argument like that up before people take it at face value.
You should recall that the (political) unity of the Muslims gradually declined with time and local rulers sought to carve out their own empires. The caliphate was also in constant dispute and shifted hands often. Eventually, "competing" caliphates emerged and the authority of one single caliphate was not recognized among all Muslims as it had been in the past.
We need look no further than Al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia) for an example of the situation that I'm describing. Here is a map of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the year 1000.
Only a few decades later, the unity displayed above disappeared, and what we were left with were a number of competing Muslim "states." This lack of unity is what made it possible for the Christian kingdoms of the North to progressively take more of the peninsula, eventually driving Muslims out completely. At times, these weak Muslim states even paid tribute to and allied themselves with the Christian kingdoms. Here is a map of the area in 1031.
It appears that people using reasonable trains-of-thought regarding the hadith lead the followers to fairly sad consequences. Have the thoughts and opinions that formed in this time period been identified by modern scholars?
Again, I'm not sure exactly to what "reasonable trains-of-thought" you're referring to. I'll try to address this question further if you can be a bit more specific. You mentioned that things went downhill for Muslims after 1200 AD, but the Ottomans created one of the largest and most successful empires at the time (starting in 1299). They could also be considered quite progressive in some respects. At its height, the Ottoman Empire (which also became the host of the Caliphate) was an absolute behemoth and controlled the main trade routes between Europe and Asia.
It should also be noted that the (Muslim) Mughals were in control of nearly the whole Indian subcontinent (existing in the 1500s and 1600s). Many of the area's most famous Muslim monuments like Delhi's Taj Mahal hearken back to this time.
More generally however, Sunni Islam today is dominated by four main schools of Jurisprudence which have developed over the centuries. These are all considered part of Shari'a but only one of the four needs to be followed (and the others are viewed to be acceptable options by those that do not follow them). They vary somewhat in their laws and the punishments they ascribe to certain acts, but most important is that they are supposed to be compatible with the Qur'an and Sunnah. The word Shari'a actually means "way" or "path."
There are also some differences regarding interpretation of certain parts of the Qur'an. For instance, I believe that two of these schools allow women to reveal only their eyes (in public), while the other two allow them to reveal their whole face.
Are they in the process of being rejected with an intent to go back to the beginning?
Well the secularization that occurred in the Muslim (and particularly Arab) world during the mid 20th century brought up a lot of these topics for discussion. Also, Muslim intellectuals that lived in other areas, including the West began to take a fresh look at the Qur'an and question whether the interpretations and decisions made by jurists in past times should continue to be embraced and implemented today, or if Islamic law (Shari'a) and practice should be in some way reformed.
Consider for a moment Wahhabism, which is often a topic of interest concerning the Saudis. Basically their beliefs center on "removing innovation" from Islam and restoring it to the way it was practiced in or immediately after the Prophet's (pbuh) time. In other words, it's a movement that seeks to reintroduce what it believes is "Orthodox Islam." The justification they use is a hadith that claims that the best and most pious generations were the Prophet's (pbuh) and the two that followed. As a result, they try to emulate these generations as best they can.
Basically Islam is far from Monolithic.
