Hi Trumble,
format_quote Originally Posted by
Trumble
Again you choose to completely miss the point, which is how convincing all this might be to an atheist. It is not the alternative interpretation which is 'imaginative', it is yours!
Yet you have continually failed to demonstrate that. You have hopped from one explanation to another, trying to find anything that could explain away the obvious. While I insist on going exactly with what the verse says you keep trying to find other ways to fiddle with the meaning, which is clearly a lost case here since "waves above which are waves, above which are clouds" leaves little to the imagination. You intially supported Pygoscelis's conjecture that it just meant 'a lot of waves' despite the blatant incoherence of such a view in light of the verse's context. So then you drop this point and suggest well maybe the verse doesn't mean to say what it says! In making such a claim you have denied the argument before having entertained it. Allow me to illustrate with an example. If a man living 2000 years ago said that the air we breathe comes out of many trees, that statement contains explicit scientific insight. It is not a fair argument to say, "Well, since the guy was living so long ago he couldn't have known about oxygen and cellular respiration, therefore he didn't mean what he said, therfore we can change his words and say that he really meant to say, 'stuff we consume comes from plants' because we eat a lot of fruits."
Or if the same person said that the moon pulls on the water to generate tides, and you say, "Well by pull he really means poetically that you can see the reflection of the moon dancing on the waves as though it is pulling at them." I'm sure you can probably see many similar examples of such fallacious reasoning.
I have already explained why that is a mute [moot?] point. Do you conceded that the sun is in fact a lamp?
Here's the problem with your analogy - you're trying to dispute over the meaning of one word - 'waves' to mean something other than waves, while your giving me the example of a comparison between the function of the sun and that of a lamp. A more accurate comparison here would be to compare metaphor to metaphor: the sun to the lamp, versus the layers of darkness to the disbeliever.
As a matter of interest did the Arabic of the time have words for both 'wave' and 'current' anyway? If it
did have a word for 'current' you have answered your own next question.
Note that when you use the word 'current' you actually intend a specific phenomena which you have clarified later in this post to be a type of tidal flow. Yes, there would be words like the '
sayl' which the Qur'an uses to describe the miraculous flood waters that overwhelmed the people of Saba. It does little for your argument however, since we still stuck with the inescapable conclusion that the Qur'an states that there are ocean waves existing at different altitudes. And their connection to the varying degree of darkness beneath the ocean is also mentioned.
Erm, ever heard of tides?
I have, but you failed to mention that, and as I said in my last post there are a host of distinct ocean phenomena described as currents. But mroe importantly, this actually negates your own argument since substituting such a meaning into the verse renders the passage incoherent along with its metaphor for the disbelievers! The periodic tidal pulls are in no way like layers of darkness one above the other nor can they be described as waves above which are waves above which are clouds. Your attempts are becoming increasingly frantic here.
It is only a Petitio Principii if you assume that the original wording
does correlate with science and was intended to correlate with science - which I do not.
Then we should be arguing about whether the original wording does correlate with science or not, not what alternative words we can plug into the verse to change its meaning. So far I have not seen a single argument from you against the correlation between the original wording and science. All your arugments stem on the basis of alternative wordings.
The same is true whether the substitution is made or not... in both cases the non-God explanation will be the least unlikely to our atheist.
Not entirely true. I know many atheists for whom such verses have been a factor in their acknowledgement of the veracity of Islam, in addition to their acceptance of its message. Two ex-atheists on this very forum come to mind - br. _salam_ and br. steve. If one has an open mind they will see that quite clearly there are indeed passages in the Qur'an such as this one that contain an inescapable level of scientific insight which cannot be attributed to a human being living in the desert 1400 years.
The change is indeed due to 'cloudy water'.
But the verse connects it to waves! And it points out the varying degrees of light deeper in the ocean until the point where there is no light and one cannot see their hand in front of their face.
The second part obviously is true, but a snorkel is not required.
Most people would not perform an analysis of the visibility below the surface in the arabian sea without goggles or some eyewear.
You still miss that point as well. However unlikely it may have been it is certainly concievable.
Is that your best response? You can in no way counter my historical arguments on its infinitesimal probability? You take a stand on this issue that you would never take on any other issue in your life.
Simple application of Occam's Razor therefore suggests a far more plausible explanation than conjouring up a divinity.
Actually there is greater parsimony in accepting a divinity when one looks at the big picture because billions of cases like this are transformed from infinitesimal probabilities into plausible scenarios.
A fair point only IF you accept anyone told him about, or that the Qur'an refers to, "phenomena that were only realized in the 19th century". You may have gathered by now I do not.
I have, though I am amazed by the incoherence and deficiencies in your arguments.
Regards