Dear Siunaa-
I am sure that this has been said, perhaps in basically the same words here, before, but to address your questions to the extent that I can:
For your first question, let me get it out of the way that I, too, still find the Quran really beautiful at times. I still love and cannot get out of my head surat ash sharh, for example, and still think of it, almost automatically, in times of helpless hardship. There are particularly skillful recitations I have heard that are beautiful and lodged in my head like music, I may hum the tunes sometimes of ones I used to replay over and over, I may feel that weird, warm comfort wash over me at the sound of them sometimes echoing from far away, like it still does when I, on occasion, find myself back in our mosque, sitting comfortably on the thick carpet and looking around at these people that I once loved.
Half of the reverence I feel for the Quran is that I know it not just to be another book: I know that here in my hands is something that has commanded the attention and respect of so many people, of old populations, of intelligent and great men and the countless masses alike, so I subconsciously and automatically assign to the words a respect that it wouldn't have earned if it were considered just the literary work of some guy. Part of this is made easier for me, as Arabic is not my native language, and, since then, have found other, older Arabic works profoundly beautiful on their own right, theirs greater than the beauty of the Quran, and I know that, had those come first for me, I would have been sorely disappointed in what the Quran had to offer. I remember the day this struck me was in the middle of reading a poem by ash Shanfara.
I apologize for not providing you with a link for your second question. These kind of Quran challenges are one that I see every so often. They are really just the nonsensical work of apologists, however, particularly Tzortzis, whose favorite trick is “the inimitable Quran.” In order to debunk this claim, one really only needs to apply some critical thinking: every claim, such as failed challenges to replicate the Quran's style, have a fundamental flaw at their very core, and wind up proving nothing.
For one thing, the challenge is a shell game: it is rigged. It is obviously technically possible to write something containing all of the literary devices employed in the Quran using old Arabic. But even when this is accomplished, it does not sway anybody, because the other side of the coin is that they now demand this new work to contend with the love that has built up for the Quran, that perception, that subjective perception, of it as beautiful. You'll see grown men weeping in prayer sometimes, particularly during Eid. Is it because the words are in such beautiful harmony that they are filled with wonder and awe at the language? No, of course not: it is because, to them, the Quran, the religion, the very action of standing in that row during prayer and listening to the imam, already represents something so incredibly beautiful to him that he will defend it and love it above anything else. And no new work can contend with that. It will always fail one of the two tests, if not both. And, even if he succeeded, then what? They'd probably demand some “scientific miracles.” It is not the merits of the Quran that keeps it on this particular throne. It's only the intellectual shortcomings of men.
Tzortzis tries to take the emotional factor out of it and give examples about monkeys typing forever on a typewriter and taking years and years to finally write “To be or not to be,” or trying to show that the Quran is unlike any book written before on its style merits alone. Again, it's all smoke and mirrors. The implications do not and will never connect with “therefore it was written by God.” Besides, he has clearly never read Finnegan's Wake. If you're ever in for a real trip, that is a book that is famous for being like nothing that came before it, and it never made claims to divinity. I read the entire thing, and still am not 100% sure what the hell just happened or who the characters even were.
Finally, about the psychology thing: yes, absolutely. I will look later to see if there's anything you could read to specifically address the sort of examples you gave, but this is basic psychology. Our feelings of helplessness or fear absolutely affect how things speak to us, and greater feelings of confidence do the same. It is a very basic mechanism in psychology, and it is partly why, in great tragedies, you have people more susceptible to things like religion, when there are gaps in their armor, when they are the most vulnerable.
Thanks, very informative!
Topic: Help Me!