Talking about religions is my favorite thing ever. :-)
Lilipink,
The arguments you make about the Qur'an are arguments I've heard before. I'd like to respond to them from a non-Muslim point of view, to (hopefully) help you see why many non-Muslims do not see these arguments as very persuasive.
"1)The prophet is illiterate..he could not have come up with it."
So here are you arguing that it is impossible for an illiterate person to create and recite poetry. I don't see the logical connection. If the Prophet were illiterate, he couldn't write down his poetry, but he could still recite it, right? That's presumably what Homer did, and it doesn't mean that the Iliad was written by God!
"2)the qoran in itself is a miracle in every sense...
a)In terms of language it can't be matched"
"b)God describes intricate details of creation , from the formation of a zygote to the sheer wonder of space, solar system and black holes.."
This is the argument for the Qur'an that always makes me crazy. :-) It is completely unpersuasive to me. What I see happening is that the Qur'an says something vague and poetic, and modern readers interpret it to mean something that fits into their, modern, worldview. The parts of the passage that contradict modern knowledge are simply ignored. Let's take the zygote example: the Qur'an says that the fetus is "chewed flesh," so everyone goes crazy showing how, at a certain stage of development, fetuses look like chewing gum. (The illustrations always crack me up.) But they totally ignore more problematic parts of the very same passage, like that it says fetuses come from sperm (no eggs in the Qur'an!) or that it says the fetus' bones develop before its flesh. From an outside perspective, the description is just not close enough to accurate to be uncanny.
I'm not trying to trash the Qur'an here; the Qur'an is beautiful. But I think it's important for all of us to see how we read our scriptures selectively through the lens of our preconceptions. When we read something that seems to correspond to modern science, it reinforces our belief in our scripture; when we read something that doesn't correspond to modern science, we say it's just poetic or figurative. Christians do this too. It's inevitable, I think, but it's also dangerous.
Look at "We created every living thing from water" as an example. Now, clearly we are NOT made out of water. But folks like www.55a.net/firas/ use it as evidence for the scientificness of the Qur'an anyway, because of they way they interpret the passage. (They also ignore the fact that the VERY FIRST Greek philosopher, Thales, said the same thing 1200 years before Muhammad was born -- was he inspired by God?) It is clear to me that this verse is meant poetically and not literally, since the Qur'an elsewhere says we're made from mud, or dust. But that doesn't stop people from trying to show its literal truth.
Let me state again that I hold Islam, the Qur'an and the Prophet in high regard. I'm not arguing against Islam here, but only against specific, literalistic arguments for the miraculousness of the Qur'an that I find entirely unpersuasive.
Talking about religions is my favorite thing ever. :-)
Lilipink,
The arguments you make about the Qur'an are arguments I've heard before. I'd like to respond to them from a non-Muslim point of view, to (hopefully) help you see why many non-Muslims do not see these arguments as very persuasive.
"1)The prophet is illiterate..he could not have come up with it."
So here are you arguing that it is impossible for an illiterate person to create and recite poetry. I don't see the logical connection. If the Prophet were illiterate, he couldn't write down his poetry, but he could still recite it, right? That's presumably what Homer did, and it doesn't mean that the Iliad was written by God!
"2)the qoran in itself is a miracle in every sense...
a)In terms of language it can't be matched"
I can't speak to this personally, since I've only read the Qur'an in translation. (My level of Arabic fluency is still limited to such erudite phrases as "سيارتك جميلة و جديدة", and I've probably misspelled that!) You have to admit that this is a pretty subjective test, though. Who gets to decide if in imitation is close enough to the original?
"b)God describes intricate details of creation , from the formation of a zygote to the sheer wonder of space, solar system and black holes.."
This is the argument for the Qur'an that always makes me crazy. :-) It is completely unpersuasive to me. What I see happening is that the Qur'an says something vague and poetic, and modern readers interpret it to mean something that fits into their, modern, worldview. The parts of the passage that contradict modern knowledge are simply ignored. Let's take the zygote example: the Qur'an says that the fetus is "chewed flesh," so everyone goes crazy showing how, at a certain stage of development, fetuses look like chewing gum. (The illustrations always crack me up.) But they totally ignore more problematic parts of the very same passage, like that it says fetuses come from sperm (no eggs in the Qur'an!) or that it says the fetus' bones develop before its flesh. From an outside perspective, the description is just not close enough to accurate to be uncanny.
I'm not trying to trash the Qur'an here; the Qur'an is beautiful. But I think it's important for all of us to see how we read our scriptures selectively through the lens of our preconceptions. When we read something that seems to correspond to modern science, it reinforces our belief in our scripture; when we read something that doesn't correspond to modern science, we say it's just poetic or figurative. Christians do this too. It's inevitable, I think, but it's also dangerous.
Look at "We created every living thing from water" as an example. Now, clearly we are NOT made out of water. But folks like www.55a.net/firas/ use it as evidence for the scientificness of the Qur'an anyway, because of they way they interpret the passage. (They also ignore the fact that the VERY FIRST Greek philosopher, Thales, said the same thing 1200 years before Muhammad was born -- was he inspired by God?) It is clear to me that this verse is meant poetically and not literally, since the Qur'an elsewhere says we're made from mud, or dust. But that doesn't stop people from trying to show its literal truth.
Let me state again that I hold Islam, the Qur'an and the Prophet in high regard. I'm not arguing against Islam here, but only against specific, literalistic arguments for the miraculousness of the Qur'an that I find entirely unpersuasive.
Peace.