Arabic is my native language, but I've never been truly impressed with the Quran. It's an illusion. There's very little content, and none of it useful. Only by overanalyzing it do you find hidden meanings and such which can be done with any piece of literature.
I found it to be completely and utterly unimpressive. The errors and contradictions that Muslims refuse to acknowledge were the final nail in the coffin for me.
Funnily enough, I have heard similar opinions before from native Arabic speakers.
This is probably a loaded question, but if the Quran didn't claim to be from God, and had never been relentlessly overstudied, analysed and automatically held in high esteem by millions of people by that same virtue, do you think it would still be considered 'miraculous' from a linguistic perspective by... well, anyone?
Toona makes a great point. I would also add since holy texts are seen as an authority, due to divines messages or the texts divine nature itself. We are looking for validation of our views and ideas from an authority. Now we, as humans, do this often. However usually we communicate with other humans to evaluate our ideas rather than ad hoc sources which can not directly communicate back. The search for validation goes so far that one can avoid any criticism by excluding all sources which could provide criticism. Hence one religion can have many denominations as each validates their views with a non-individual or individual we create ourselves. Hence "What would God, Jesus or Mohammad do?" Each person views are 100% correct, everyone else is wrong. Criticism is ignored completely creating a schism between those for or against the idea. We grant ourselves abilities far outside our capability, namely the 3-Os. We grant ourselves the ability of the God we happen to worship to resolve a question which originate from humans. Hence we can never be wrong as we are isolated in a bubble of pure divine "right"
One of the things I've found fascinating about Christianity and Islam, is that they're both adhered to by billions of people around the world, have their "sacred texts" which have been the subject of endless study, have their proselytisers and unquestioning clergy, have spawned various different 'sects' and schools of thought/interpretation, have had an enormous impact on history and society & culture even to this day, have people who swear to have experienced or witnessed supernatural phenomena unique to their respective faiths, and at the end of the day, at the very most only
one can be right, seeing as they're mutually exclusive from a theological perspective, while
both could be wrong. If it's the latter outcome (both being wrong), then it seems to me that mankind's biggest sin is... bias. Something about it reminds me of schrodinger's cat
This is probably long overdue, but I've been having a read around the forum and realised I've committed the cardinal sin of not including bunnies or parrots in any of my posts yet. I do apologise!
Many thanks to all for your input, including those who've pointed me in the right direction via PM.
Topic: Non-Muslim in need of guidance