Lynx
IB Veteran
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Uthman:
I appreciate the elaborated remarks about the Quranic miracle. I was thinking it over and two things came to mind: first, if the Quran's construction was so miraculous then no one who understands the Arabic should fail to realize its divine nature. Similarly, if you take 3 verses from the Quran and take 3 verses from say a Pre-Islamic poem, and show it to someone who was unfamiliar to either, then that person should be able to recognize not only that the Quran has a unique construction (unique construction could be a bad thing) but should also realize something miraculous about it. There are non-Muslim Arabs who have read passages of the Quran which would be an oddity. I mean if the sun set on the west...most people would call that a miracle. But saying the Quran's arabic is miraculous seems somewhat of an exaggeration. The other thing is even if the Quran was THE BEST possible construction of Arabic grammar, the best literature, etc...I don't think it would follow that Islam is true. I guess what this ties around is that it's not "really" a miracle. It's more of a 'this is a great work let's worship it' type of work which I am not so sure is convincing. I will even grant that Muhammad was a genius. Certainly, even if Islam isn't true I would consider Muhammad a very talented man in changing an entire society. It might be an evidence among a set of evidences but in its own I wouldn't say it's all too convincing unless it had a verse talking about something extremely obviously like the number of stars in our galaxy.
As for the prophecies in the Quran, the bible also claims to have prophecies and you can do a quick google search for them. I think the problem is the prophecies are not exact enough to be miraculous. If it said in 100 years there will be a king born with this birthmark in this part of the world...then you'd have a full fledged miracle! But if you can list some of the prophecies that are clear and precise we can talk about them.
And lastly, as for past events like Prophets and Nations..well I am not sure what you mean. All the prophets the Quran talks about are found in the Bible so there is already a source predating the Quran that talks about the same thing.
As for your last point, I can think of a religious figure: Zarathustra. Was he a liar? A madman? (This argument was used by C.s Lewis by the way in support of Jesus' claim of divinity)
I appreciate the elaborated remarks about the Quranic miracle. I was thinking it over and two things came to mind: first, if the Quran's construction was so miraculous then no one who understands the Arabic should fail to realize its divine nature. Similarly, if you take 3 verses from the Quran and take 3 verses from say a Pre-Islamic poem, and show it to someone who was unfamiliar to either, then that person should be able to recognize not only that the Quran has a unique construction (unique construction could be a bad thing) but should also realize something miraculous about it. There are non-Muslim Arabs who have read passages of the Quran which would be an oddity. I mean if the sun set on the west...most people would call that a miracle. But saying the Quran's arabic is miraculous seems somewhat of an exaggeration. The other thing is even if the Quran was THE BEST possible construction of Arabic grammar, the best literature, etc...I don't think it would follow that Islam is true. I guess what this ties around is that it's not "really" a miracle. It's more of a 'this is a great work let's worship it' type of work which I am not so sure is convincing. I will even grant that Muhammad was a genius. Certainly, even if Islam isn't true I would consider Muhammad a very talented man in changing an entire society. It might be an evidence among a set of evidences but in its own I wouldn't say it's all too convincing unless it had a verse talking about something extremely obviously like the number of stars in our galaxy.
As for the prophecies in the Quran, the bible also claims to have prophecies and you can do a quick google search for them. I think the problem is the prophecies are not exact enough to be miraculous. If it said in 100 years there will be a king born with this birthmark in this part of the world...then you'd have a full fledged miracle! But if you can list some of the prophecies that are clear and precise we can talk about them.
And lastly, as for past events like Prophets and Nations..well I am not sure what you mean. All the prophets the Quran talks about are found in the Bible so there is already a source predating the Quran that talks about the same thing.
As for your last point, I can think of a religious figure: Zarathustra. Was he a liar? A madman? (This argument was used by C.s Lewis by the way in support of Jesus' claim of divinity)