Hello everyone. I'm new here, and I'm hoping to stick around and have good discussions.
My purpose for this thread is to ask you all, in your own words, why you consider the narrative in the Koran to be the accurate and unaltered word of god.
I realize this may seem like a silly question, so I'll provide context for my curiosity. I'm an apatheist, someone who doesn't think that the existence or nonexistence of deities is an important question. Whether one exists or not, to me, is neither here nor there; I care about how a person acts and what they do for the people around them, and less about why they do the things they do. I have read a lot of religious texts in my life, however, because I find religion both fascinating and nonetheless a decent source of philosophy.
This philosophical view is what brought me to this forum. I have read the Koran twice now, once in English and once in German, unfortunately I do not speak Arabic or I'd have read it in that, too. For the most part, I like the philosophical message of the Koran, very much. I think it's undeniably more comprehensive/tolerant than any other Abrahamic text, and is also much clearer and less allegorical than most other religious texts. I don't think it's perfect, of course, but the philosophical and moral framework that one can construct from its pages are, at worst, decent, and at best they're conducive to a rather functional society. I like it enough, in fact, that I've found myself idly considering the idea of joining a muslim community.
My hang-up, however, is the belief aspect. I can (and do) respect the Koran as a philosophical text, a historical text, and even as a moral treatise. My issue is the last leap to actual belief in a deity. I understand that the pillars of Islam require the belief that there is no god but god, and that Muhammad was his last messenger, but the idea of believing in something that can't be established as observably true is difficult for me, especially since I have never put much thought or care into the existence of deities one way or another.
So, to re-iterate my question, how do you all get past this point? What made you take the leap of faith, as it were? How do you reconcile the unprovable nature of the divine with the modern, materialist world?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
My purpose for this thread is to ask you all, in your own words, why you consider the narrative in the Koran to be the accurate and unaltered word of god.
I realize this may seem like a silly question, so I'll provide context for my curiosity. I'm an apatheist, someone who doesn't think that the existence or nonexistence of deities is an important question. Whether one exists or not, to me, is neither here nor there; I care about how a person acts and what they do for the people around them, and less about why they do the things they do. I have read a lot of religious texts in my life, however, because I find religion both fascinating and nonetheless a decent source of philosophy.
This philosophical view is what brought me to this forum. I have read the Koran twice now, once in English and once in German, unfortunately I do not speak Arabic or I'd have read it in that, too. For the most part, I like the philosophical message of the Koran, very much. I think it's undeniably more comprehensive/tolerant than any other Abrahamic text, and is also much clearer and less allegorical than most other religious texts. I don't think it's perfect, of course, but the philosophical and moral framework that one can construct from its pages are, at worst, decent, and at best they're conducive to a rather functional society. I like it enough, in fact, that I've found myself idly considering the idea of joining a muslim community.
My hang-up, however, is the belief aspect. I can (and do) respect the Koran as a philosophical text, a historical text, and even as a moral treatise. My issue is the last leap to actual belief in a deity. I understand that the pillars of Islam require the belief that there is no god but god, and that Muhammad was his last messenger, but the idea of believing in something that can't be established as observably true is difficult for me, especially since I have never put much thought or care into the existence of deities one way or another.
So, to re-iterate my question, how do you all get past this point? What made you take the leap of faith, as it were? How do you reconcile the unprovable nature of the divine with the modern, materialist world?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
- on a serious note Muslims regard the Laws and regularities of nature as an act/habit of God - so if low probability things happen then they have occurred for a reason and not out of some random chance - there isnt demarcation between the supernatural and natural in Islam - Instead we have the seen and unseen. They are all creation's of God.