However, I thought the prayer at the end of Sura al-Baqara was quite nice ... I mean, an atheist could question the point of prayer at all, but I didn't think it was offensive or anything.
Neither did I. I don't mind it, though it does smack of the Lord's Prayer a little bit, but my issue with it was that the Qur'an is supposed to consist of the words of allah and not Muhammad, though that passage quite clearly shows a devotional attitude to god that would be completely arrogant, schizophrenic and unbecoming from a deity!
Thanks for reading. I'll be starting surah al-`Imran shortly.