My concern was that faith is a belief in a state of facts (even if they are incapable of objective verification), so that a “statement of faith” does overlap to some extent with an “assertion of fact.” I figured you guys were sharp enough to get my point, though. 
Nope. Let me explain. No, no time, let me sum up. Even better, let me give you an example.
Can you guess what language that is? It’s English - the first few lines of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
How about this 'un.
Hamlet, Scene IV. Again, English, but the usage and meanings of the words are slightly to greatly different than our own.
And that explains how the Qu’ran may be mistranslated. Even assuming that the words of the Qu’ran have remained completely unaltered since it was first written, the Arabic language, like English, has evolved in that time.
The article provides examples of this. Here is one.
The written Arabic in use at the time the Qu’ran was written did not include diacritical marks, which were a later development in the language. Modern editions of the Qu’ran include such diacritical marks.
And, of course there is a second reason why translation is relevant. You assume that the Qu’ran came into existence when Allah spoke to Mohammad. Mr. Luxemberg’s evidence indicates that at least parts of it were derived from earlier Aramaic texts. If Mr. Luxemberg is correct, the accurate translation of those Aramaic texts is extremely useful in determining the actual meaning of the Qu’ran.
I don’t expect you to accept Mr. Luxemberg’s theory, because you have faith in the divine origin of the Qu’ran. Again, good for you - I’m not going to begrudge you your faith. But, yet again, your faith is not evidence.
Sua
Jam Shady
I do not uncritically accept the theory advanced in Sua’s cite. However, call me irreverent, but the image of these suicide “martyrs” arriving in Paradise and and being handed a handful of raisins is enough to bring Gary Larson out of retirement.
There is one assertion in the article I am inclined to accept at face value absent evidence to the contrary,
**Obviously, this has very serious implications for your thesis that the Qur’an remains “completely unaltered.”
I also question your assertion that Islamic belief has never changed “to suit the moment.” In many respects, Islamic belief is all over the place. For example, many Sunnis consider Shi’tes to be near-heretics. If the recent murderous strain in fundamentalist Islam is not a significant departure from traditional Islamic belief, please let us know immediately so we can apologize to the fanatical, frothing anti-Muslim crowd we’ve been arguing with for the last nine months.
Well, I’ll save Jam Shady a little time. Here’s a link to some of Dr. Keith Moore’s claims on embryology and the Qur’an:
http://www.islam101.com/science/embryo.html
Here’s at least one attempt at a refutation ( warning, this site definitely has its biases - but I thought this particular discussion was interesting ):
http://answering-islam.org.uk/Quran/Science/embryo.html
- Tamerlane
I think SuaSponte put this very well. Religious beliefs are just that, beliefs. They have to be taken on faith. Trying to convert people to a religion by claiming that proof exists that it is the truth is an excersize in futility. No proof actually exists; nothing that anyone from outside the religion would percieve a being proof. Some of the people inside the religion accept the supposed proofs, but they are accepting them on faith. They were taught that cirtain statements constitute proof, and they’ve accepted this on faith. If they have any actual understanding of what really constitutes proof in the real world, they compartmentalize and remain unaware of any inconsistancies.
By the way, Jim Shady, a minor question: what exactly is “letting homosexuals congregate”? Does this mean letting homosexuals form congregations, or letting homosexuals join congregations, or what? If so, I’m unfamiliar with using the word “congregate” to mean either form or join congreations, although I guess it makes a cirtain amt of sence. Also, did some particular religion suddenly start allowing something along these lines?
If it was written by god, wouldn’t (s)he have used a universal language that all would be able to understand, no translating would be needed and no misunderstading the text would possable. When it is written that women and children are not to be killed, then we wouldn’t have people say killing the women and children of this or that group is ok.
it might be the word of god, but it was written by man, and we are all only human.
It’s all a bunch of nonsense. To me, the koran is probably the most disgusting, moralless pile of garbage there is. It’s a real shame so many people are suckered into this cult.
It’s all a bunch of nonsense. To me, Rush Limbaugh is probably the most disgusting, moralless (sic) :rolleyes: pile of garbage there is. It’s a real shame so many people are suckered into his cult.
You should have used “Pat Robertson” instead; it’d be a closer parallel to monty2’s misguided mess-age.
I disagree. Oddly enough, I have another candidate in mind for this particular accolade.
'lo peeps. due to limitations in time I have to make this response brief. If I miss anything hopefully I’ll get it next time!
For those of you who reckon the Qur’an has been altered while firm in your belief that the Book of Mormon hasn’t, it didn’t take me long to find this. And from what I gather it was only published in 1830? Is this true? In this case it clearly is nowhere near as old as the Qur’an is!
Alibey: Would you care to suggest a universal language? Mohammad and his followers all spoke Arabic, I find it a suitable language! After all, the other books were delivered in languages understood by the people local to their messengers, the same applies to Mohammad!
And they may have written it, but it was dictated to them. They didn’t write from their own thoughts, so the issue of who physically wrote it down in my opinion is irrelevant!
Hazel: Before the Church of England was against Homosexual behaviour, claiming it was unnatural and homosexuals were not welcome in Christianity. Due to this the numbers of followers fell, so the Church reversed it’s position! It “changed with the times” which I do not believe any faith should do! I don’t know what the Jewish stand on this is, but Islam certainly forbids it. On a similar note, apparently (I don’t know for sure) only pure-bred Jews can follow Judaism. If you’re not pure-bred (as in if your mother or father are not Jewish), you can’t be a Jew either. Sounds odd to me, and if it is true, then that’s another aspect I wouldn’t expect of a religion!
Tamerlane: Thanks for those links. I had a brief look through them, but I got the impression that one guy was trying to say Mohammad ‘borrowed’ his information from the Greek! Considering he couldn’t read in his own language I don’t think he was about to go researching theirs! There were a few things it had wrong, and it mostly relied on an English translation of the suras in the Qur’an. My english translations of it are slightly different, so that’s not completely accurate!
Truth Seeker: I’ll answer your second point briefly. Islam is split into 4 parts (from the 4 Imaams), but only 1 (or maybe none) is correct. Each one believes different things. I myself was ‘supposed’ to be under the Hunafi Imaam when a situation arose in my life and his response wasn’t what I expected. I looked in the Qur’an, found my own answer which his contradicted, and did things my own way. As far as I’m concerned, it’s up to you to make your own decisions, you can’t blame other people. In that case, in the strict sense of the word one or the other (or possibly both) are NOT real muslims. But we’ll only find out on the Day of Judgement! Either way, I’m just concentrating on the Qur’an itself here.
SuaSponte: Very good examples, I’ll answer them in detail later. Just a quick note to point out that Mohammad never spoke to God and God never spoke to Mohammad. Mohammad only conversed with the angel Gabriel on several occasions.
More to come later, sorry for the shortness but I do have a life to get on with and I can’t sit around waiting for these forums to respond!
On that note KGRage101, I originally registered over a year ago, but haven’t visited that much. Unfortunately I forgot my login and which email I used so I simple registered again! This board has 23,182, the other one I mentioned had approximately 18,200. Not that much of a difference as far as I’m concerned, and it has MORE forums, and the boards MOVE faster because more people are posting. In either case the maximum it recorded was about 2.5% of all registered people coming back at any one time, so I don’t know where you got your 5%. You still failed to see the point. They obviously have more ACTIVE users that are posting new threads/points, and are editing them, and from the information the boards provide the servers are clearly doing more work that this one is! Therefore in conclusion, this server is just slow and needs to be upgraded 
Jam Shady,
Anytime you want to fund the server upgrade as well as the upgrade to the links, let one of the mods know. I think the Chicago Reader (which basically supports this site) would be happy for it to have an additional patron.
You might want to e-mail TubaDiva or Lynn Bodoni and ask them to remove your original ID. We’re a bit touchy about second IDs (even if they appear to be unusable).
Regarding board response time: the current server for this board is overworked, but the board is a service provided by the Chicago Reader at little to no recompense. Many discussions of this situation have been posted to the About This Message Board forum and you probably don’t want to hijack your own thread with one more such discussion.
Just a nitpick. That’s true in Sunni Islam, but Shi’a Islam uses another school of jurisprudence…the Ja’afri school. I know it’s just a minor point, but I wanted to point it out.
Also, about Jews. Anyone, regardless of who their parents are, may become a Jew. However, Judaism considers those people born to a Jewish mother automatically Jews.
I’m breathless.
How does the one have bearing on the other? I proved to you that there is a multiplicity of ARABIC versions of the Qur’an in acceptance today. Your response is to go malign another faith’s tome without addressing your continued assertion that the Qur’an is a one-and-only-one entity.
And exactly how old was the Qur’an when it was first published? Age of the item has no bearing on its validity.
As for me, I’d suggest Esperanto (See the report here for why I would.), but it really doesn’t matter what language something’s in so long as people realize that any translation causes a loss of meaning depending on the size, nature, and subject of the item translated.
Thank you for finally hitting on a valid point.
Muhammad didn’t write jack. He recited. Also there was no compilation of the Qur’an during Muhammad’s lifetime; therefore, he had no say in its compilation.
Actually, that assertion is 100% incorrect. The Community of the Faithful (well, the secretaries of Muhammad actually) discussed the provenance of what they thought they remembered of Muhammad’s recitings.
Thank you for finally inserting the word opinion next to one of your opinions here.
Got any proof that the fall in numbers of adherents to the Church of England is directly related to that?
Do us all a favour: grab your copy of the Qur’an and read a few of the verses which have been abrogated. Discuss how that can be if no faith should do so.
Is that covered under the word “Fahsha?” I thought that just meant “illegal sexual conduct.”
“Pure-bred?” You’re kidding about this term, I hope?!
Well, the traditional take on “Who’s a Jew?” is “born to a Jewish mother.” There are other communities of Judaism than Orthodox Judaism, though. In any rate, your assertion is wrong. One can still be a Jew by converting to Judaism.
How something sounds to you and what you expect of something are not criteria for that something’s validity.
I’d say thanks for the link about the Book of Mormon you provided except that it was written by an obvious bigot with an obvious anti-Mormon message.
Funny thing about folks who can’t read Arabic–they can’t read Arabic. Doesn’t mean their points are any the less, or any the more, valid.
And doing a fine job of it, too. :rolleyes:
Correct (if you accept the Qur’an’s telling of it).
You’ll notice that some of us non-Muslims (such as those of us “Of the Book”) actually are aware of many things about Islam and the Qur’an. I daresay a number of the posters (both Muslims and non-Muslims) on this board are more familiar with them than you appear to be. No ire, no prejudice, and no assertion of opinion as though it’s fact, but a friendly discussion is possible. You might consider tyring that.
Hmm. Jam Shady seems to have ignored me. I’m insulted.
In any event, as Captain Amazing pointed out, converts to Judaism (and all branches of Judaism do accept converts) are considered full-fledged Jews with the same rights, privliges and responsibilites as any other Jew. There is no such thing as a “pure-bred” Jew.
Zev Steinhardt
I really shouldn’t do this, but …
zev, when did the Orthodox start recognizing people converted by Reform and Conservative rabbis, or Reform patrilineal-descent Jews to be Jews?
Sua
How can Jam Shady argue that the Book of Mormon isn’t authoratative because it’s too young, but also say that the New Testament or the Torah isn’t authoratative in part because the Koran replaces them by being a newer revelation by Allah? Did I miss something here?
They didn’t. Perhaps I didn’t state my case clearly, or perhaps you misunderstood what I meant.
All branches of Judaism accept converts. While some branches may not accept those converted under the auspcies of other branches, once converted, they are considered as full-fledged Jews. The point was that they don’t have to be “pure-bred” as Jam Shady thought. (BTW, how did the issue of patrelineal descent get into this?)
Zev Steinhardt
Got it, Zev. I interpreted your original statement as meaning that all converts are considered Jews by all, instead that all are considered Jews by (at least) the branch into which they converted.
Sua