@ sobeiski
Yes. but, I’ll keep it in that corner.
Well you keep a pretty damning thing in that corner, that the guide to all mankind fails miserably (100%) to explain how nature works. Is that a wise thing to do? If you would find out your financial adviser is an embezzler, would you keep that in the corner too?
If we were Martians, the Quran would have sounded Martian, as it should.
Mars is rock just like Earth, so it would have sounded in the same limited way. What is your point then?
So why do you still use these terms, even though you know they’re wrong? Because using other terms would make you sound very awkward, no?
Actually I never use these terms, because the need for using them never arises. Nowadays I use the clock system if I want to refer to a point in time - and I'm not being sarcastic here. If I'd really want to refer to those events/periods, I could say "dawn" and "dusk", but yes, I could use "sunrise" and "sunset" just as well. Mainly because I don't have the mission of writing a guide to all mankind, a guide that wants to impress unto the reader that it is not the work of a limited being.
I believe if God said, in the Quran, things like that the earth we stand firmly upon is actually moving really really fast, no one would have believed it (including Muhammed himself), and the religion would have died, even before it was born, for trying to convey an *irrelevant* idea (without the guarantee of impressing anyone from the future).
You believe that? Based on what? Lack of faith in Mo's belief capabilities? Lack of persuasion capabilities on Mo's part toward fellow Arabs? Is it more easy to believe the sun sets in a pool of murky water? If you like to speculate in this way, I could also speculate that IF they wouldn't have believed that, "Allah" could have performed miracles before them, and tell them to believe it. Or "Allah" could have destroyed them for their disbelief and throw them into hell (like he threatens all over the place in the Quran to do), then he would have approached other primitive people more open to suggestions. Why didn't you choose to believe these alternatives? Because you'd like Islam to be true?
As for the "without the guarantee of impressing anyone from the future" part, maybe you're not familiar with people converting to Islam because of the "scientific miracles", and people falling from Islam because of their falseness. They *do* have the guarantee of impressing people from future.
Here’s what I said exactly: (as opposed to being hilly all over, for example). I used parenthesis precisely because I wanted to explain to you that saying the earth is flat doesn’t necessarily mean the earth cannot be a globe, especially that the Quran sounded as if it’s counting this “flatness” of earth as something to thank God for.
Well first, the verse I presented says nothing about it being something to thank God for.
Second, it *does* mean the earth cannot be a globe, since a "bed" is never a globe. The only reason you're saying it "doesn’t
necessarily mean the earth cannot be a globe" is that the alternative is not palatable to you. The context shows clearly "Allah" speaks from a cosmic perspective here about his creation, the creation of a whole planet, not the creation of a path. The thing that betrays the author is not an out-of-this-world being is that this author has the limited perspective a primitive man on earth would have.
I’m not going to go over the entire list of alleged scientific errors with you here. I’m just giving you a most celebrated example on a scientific error, when nothing in the text makes it necessarily so.
That's a shame. Let's go through just one more. Quoting from isLame's (I think) list, here's the 1st one:
Quran 41:9-12 teaches that it took God 8 days to complete his creation, while Quran 7:54, 10:03 and 11:07 say it took 6 days.
I’m not going to reject the entirety of a book, because a few things that don’t make sense to me. The worst that I could do is assume that what should have happened, happened and some corruption reached the Quran (I’m not saying that I believe that the Quran is corrupted, I’m just saying that believing in a possibility of corruption is only one alternative to rejecting an entire book, when I’m completely convinced in the vast majority of its verses).
Why is that the worst, I say it's the best. There is empiric evidence for it, so what's the problem. JWs have a favorite (but valid) question for doubters, that works here too: would you drink a glass of water knowing 1% of it is poison? Hey, 99% is clear water, right?
I already explained that this was an example on the seemingly definite ones (given what I know).
Then you were playing with me previously. I asked you "So you agree that you are rejecting reality, that the Quran contains indeed contradictions?" and you replied "
No, I agree to the *possibility* of contradictions but that doesn't necessarily mean that there are contradictions."
So do you admit now that you are rejecting reality, something you complained about when it comes to the Shia?
It all starts with a simple premise: all that exists is God and His creation. By “creation” I mean absolutely everything, including our thoughts and the fleeting idle moments of our lives, everything.
So you believe you owe your "soul" to "Allah" because he created your soul, and you believe he created your soul because you start with a premise? Why don't you start with hard facts? Why do you prefer to start with *this* premise? And how do you know this premise is correct, what are your hard facts and proofs?