Faith Freedom International

bush badee · Joined: 21 Nov 2002 Posts: 1442 Location: usa

They were all written by Man.

There is new evidence that the exodus was written either in the lifetime of those who participated in it or with in 5 generations (100 years) of the event.
We are now pretty sure of the 100 year span in which it was written.
_________________
to answere directly email to
Bushbadee@aol.com

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

There are many religions, self-proclaimed prophets, many claiming contradictory revelations. Some religions forbid following a false religion and/or a false prophet. Therefore one must use reason to determine which if any of the religions/prophets are true.
Reason includes disciplines such as grammar, history, ethics, philosophy, science, and logic.
Some skeptics point out how reasoning is flawed. In such a case, how can we know whether the Quran is historical, logical, scientific, logical, and lacks grammatical errors if not via human reasoning? If human reasoning is flawed we should doubt everything, including Islam.

bush badee · Joined: 21 Nov 2002 Posts: 1442 Location: usa

Rand wrote

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

Bush Badee wrote:

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

Muslims often use a proof for Islam, that it is the fastest growing religion.
I'll try to elaborate on the theological implications of such a view:

1. If we accept the fastest growing argument as a proof, then to be logically consistent: If over the next 10 years, hinduism is the fastest growing religion, one should become a hindu. If over the next 10 years, pork is the fastest growing food, one must eat pork. There have been many vices that have been fastest growing. There are diseases that have been fastest growing. Over history, different religions have been the fastest growing, not all of them are the true religion.
2. Defining fastest growing is not easy. Is it based on percentage growth or absolute numbers? There are people that are considered muslim by some people but not others. Demographers make rough estimates of statistics. Is it fastest growing over 3 years, 50 years, 100 years, ???
3. If we believe that Adam and Eve (assuming they existed) followed monotheism (at least that being the intent of the assumed creator). If at some point the majority of the world were polytheist, then polytheism would be the fastest growing religion.
4. When Muhammad invented Islam, a second before that, there existed a fastest growing religion, and Muhammad did not accept that religion.
5. Within Islam, there are sunnis, shiites, wahabis, quran-only, etc. Why don't we hear about the fastest growing sect within Islam?
6. The majority of the world does not follow Islam. Why isn't that a more meaningful statistic?
7. One of the premises of a democracy is a free-flow of communication and people that have studied and have access to accurate information. For example, if Smith and Jones are running for a local election, and I take a poll on this site about who is the better candidate, but I don't describe anything about these people or their views, the outcome of the poll is meaningless.
In Islam, a very large people are illiterate, Islam is an insulated religion. Islam exists mostly in Islamic countries where they ban heretical views. Muslims are taught in mosques, and are not exposed to other philosophical/theological systems. So the study is flawed.
8. The idea that a faith is proven via human demographers, is strange. Especially, if Islam tried to undermine idoloators, jews, and christians. Islam believes in jinns. So how can one trust a person/jinn to conduct such a study?
9. Many on this forum question the statistic, as just propaganda, as the punishment for apostasy is death, so many people that strongly disbelieve in Islam are counted as muslim. Others point out the growth is due to producing more children.
10. The quran differentiates between hypocrites, doubters, believers and non-believers. It is unrealistic to expect demographers to make such a distinction. If they don't, statistics on the growth of blieving muslims do not exist.

bread · Guest

Mr Bush and Rand,

the Abrogator Verse Theory is a frimly established Islamic theological doctrine. Indeed the earlier (Meccan) verses are milder, because MuhamMAD was weak, and with only a handful of followers in Mecca, generally only some run away slaves, bandits, and beggars plus some members of his clan the Hashimes (today ruling Jordan). When MuhamMAD fled Mecca in 622, he fled with only some 70 followers.

In Medinah a city with large numbers of Jews and Chritians, he could spread his monotheistic message far easier, as the audience was already used to monotheism after centuries of Pagan, Jewish and Christian co-habitation (in a civic, not sexual meaning) in Medinah.

When MuhamMAD reached a critical mass of followers as % of Medinans, his ``revelations`` took a harsher, more martial tone than those of Medinah. Now he was strong, not weak, and in Medinah MuhamMAD became the absolute ruler (theocratic) of the City and its surroundings. Now MuhamMAD didnt need to be soft in his ``revelations``.

The problem with the modernly applied numbering of Quranic chapters is that they are not in chronological order. But usually any good Islamic source, and today that includes someweb sites, does tell you which Chapters are Medinan and which are Meccan.

Another problem is that not just the Chapters are out of Chronological order, but even the verses in the chapters are out of chronological order. Verses were inserted by Mo and his scribes in chapters were they thought they fit best, even long after new chapters were being ``revealed``.
This makes for a very, very difficult analysis.

The number of Abrogated verses varies between 30 and 248 verses, among the various Islamic sects and schools of Islamic Jurisprudence.

Also the Hadithes relate how as many as 1000 verses in the Quran have been expunged after MuhamMAD`s death. When you have a Book like the Quran, were the number of verses expunged(erased) and abrogated verses represent 18% of the total number, it becomes very difficult to analyse that book, much less to attach a high confidence interval on the remaining verses.

Combine that with the various readings of the Arabic text of Quran (7 different readings as different vowels are included, giving various possible readings and meanings) and you have a veritable hodge-podge, a mumbo-jumbo that no one can make any sense of.

So much for the ``clear quran`` and its ``perfect preservation``. Both these claims are myths, contradicted by Islamic sources themselves. Rolling Eyes

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

Presumably, the intended audience might vary depending on which verses we are discussing, but that requires much more research.
I previously explained how the chapter 4 (chapter on women) of the Quran is addressed to the males reader. http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=103814&highlight=chapter+4+quran#103814

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

There are over 6,000 verses in the quran and close to 80,000 words. There are many ways to find numerical patterns.
Are all the numerical patterns/interpretations correct? In other words, if one finds a pattern that "Muhammad is a false prophet", or "the Quran is a lie", would this disprove the Quran? Such patterns should be very easy to find, if one knows arabic. One can calculate the numerical pattern of such a phrase, and search through the Quran and should be able to find a phrase that sums to that total.
Muslims would be forced to admit that such patterns are mere coincidences or they would need to leave their faith.
To be able to determine a real pattern from a coincidence requires much research and scholarship in probability theory. But even so, this question is unanswerable. A pattern that can easily be explained by chance can be deliberate. For example, if I flip a coin once and get a tail, it could be easily explained via randomness, but it is possible that it was a two-tailed coin. If I flip a coin 50 times and get 50 tails, it could be explained via randomness although the odds are extremely remote.

http://skepdic.com/lawofnumbers.html writes:

rand · Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Posts: 1752

In my previous post, I briefly discussed the law of truly large numbers (coincidences). Over the past 1400 years, there have been many historical facts, inventions, famous people, theories in all kinds of new scientific fields and discoveries, etc. Given the many verses in the quran, and many ambiguous words, the law of truly large numbers can explain how certain scientific ideas are or at least seem to be mentioned in the quran.
But this begs the question of whether these are reading the intent of the author, or whether one is imposing science into the quran. This question is important, as once one admits that the quran contains a particular scientific fact, if that scientfic fact is disproven so is quran.
Often a theory is presented that muslims claim was not known in the 7th century, therefore it must be from God. Often, these theories were in fact known. Further, it is impossible to prove that a theory was not known in the 7th century.
Like the numerical patterns, the scientists and the mathematicians aren't the ones writing books explaining the deep science and patterns in the quran.
The math/science community wants to go to heaven and avoid hell. If they noticed these incredible patterns, they would be elaborating on these miracles.