Nor like the speech of soothsayers - Possibly subjective
CalD … *possibly *subjective? The qualifier is unnecessary. That being the case, this is a challenge that cannot be met because there is no objective way to prove whether certain verses are ‘like’ the speech of soothsayers. The way to “win” the challenge is to point out that by definition the Qu’ran itself does not meet the challenge, since none of the speech in the Qu’ran is like the speech of the Witch of Endor, or Kreskin, or whomever you’d like to assign.
And kanicbird … just for my own curiosity… have you ever discussed your views on Islam with a devout Muslim? I think that if you found someone as devoted to his/her scripture as you have to yours, you’d have some very interesting conversations.
Shakespear is widely regarded as being the ultimate English writer. Many people believe no one else comes close. Same (IIRC) for Goethe in German. Were Shaekspear and Goethe taking dication from God?
This the sort of thing that completely turns me off Christianity (I was brought up a Catholic). So much seems to have been read into the occasional word in the bible. I had a browse of the Rapture Ready forum once, out of curiosity, and my interest was raised by people moaning about Catholicism for adding non-scriptural things to the faith. From my point of view the Rapture and just about everything regarding “End Times” has next to no basis in scripture, yet they consider it so important that it is incorporated into the forum’s name.
The concept of THE Antichrist, especially as Satan, is only ever mentioned in letters and only one of the Gospels yet has been built up into such a huge concept. He doesn’t even get to appear in Revelations.
I understand your point. However, that’s what phrases are for. “Prove beyond a reasonable doubt” clears up what one means. And in this particular instance, the OP is making the case that Islam can be effectively refuted by some whimsical challenge. Solve the riddle, and poof. He isn’t saying anything about doubt, as I understand him. In fact, the opposite. He’s saying something about certainty — certainty that Islam can be disproved.
The Qu’ran was, according towikipedia, written after Mohammed’s death by his companions- it should be more fair to say that both jewish and muslim traditions come from the same sources, the same semitic traditional tales.
People who think Christianity does not have a history of forced conversion are simply poor students of history. People who argue that “well, we used to do that but we know better now” are going to have a hard time making their case that the immutable Word of God has guided the church since the beginning.
Christian bible scholars seem to have no problem in analyzing and criticizing the Bible. Both protestant and catholic scholors are constanly studying and revising their positions on these texts-does islam allow this?
I can’t see anyboy getting away with ANY criticism of the Koran-you ight wind up like Solman Rushdie.
So, is there any freedon to discuss the Koran?
Actually all this does is show that Eve was deceived, but it was God that did the deceiving, not the serpent. God said Eve would die on the day she ate the fruit. This is what the serpent was contradicting when he told Eve she would not die, and the serpent was right.
Not to mention that Adam and Eve were set up, since they didn’t know the difference between good and evil and therefore lacked the ability to comprehend what they were doing.
Oh, come on. The Koran is clearly the brain-damaged musings of a despotic warlord. No one who buys into it is going to be convinced by any rational proof. Taking it seriously is a waste of time.
Adam and Eve were made to be dependent on God, they could not know. Later the man obtained the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3:22) and has become like God. So, I agree, yes they were set up.
So here we have Satan ID’ed as the ancient serpent, who leads the wole world astray, this would have to include Adam and Eve, and he is identified as having angels.
Now if you want to argue that Satan’s angels do not constitute an army, I believe I can make that case also, since Satan has a kingdom.
So… you worship a being who likes to glue quarters to the ground and hide around the corner waiting to jump out and laugh?
Only, according to your mythology, the reason Jesus had to die was because of original sin, caused by Adam & Eve. And since original sin was a total set up, that means god wanted his own son to die? And god knew the whole time, so he set up all the suffering and death and everything else? And since Jesus is god, he also knew the entire time. I’ll bet the reason god wasn’t around when Adam & Eve ate the fruit was because he was holding Jesus back, who was jumping up and down and shouting ‘Don’t eat it!’
Yeah but the whole point is that you have to have faith, meaning that you need to trust that something is true regardless of all evidence. But so if God made sense, you wouldn’t need to have faith, thus God must act irrationally.