But you stated, without foundation, that they are indeed biased. (As you have again).
As opposed to simply having evidence the claims were incorrect.
Yes, you would see it that way. Given your bias.
The Quran on Seas and Rivers:
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As opposed to simply having evidence the claims were incorrect.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
On the contrary meticulous work have been done by scholars to determine which verses of the Quran can be interpreted clearly and which cannot.
Really?
Is that why we can find up to a dozen different translations?
Please link to a definitive and universally agreed-upon translation to support the claims made.
actually its easy to see the difference.
ever walked along the sea shore (particularly near cliffs) and noticed a line of foam along the surface a few metres from the shore? or been out in a boat and noticed a long thin line of flotsam on the surface?
these mark the boundaries of "fronts" - the places where two different water masses meet but do not mix easily
so its very easy to see where fresh water meets saltwater or where warm water meets cold water - all you need to do to test the difference is jump in
you fail
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
The interpretation of the verse which is originally in Arabic is what's translated so the translation doesn't change the interpretaion. So, I don't see what's the issue here.
Universally agreed upon? They're verses of a holy book.
Let me repeat:
Yet you felt it necessary to state:
Which would indicate that some verses cannot be interpreted clearly.
Make your mind up.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
Yes I did imply that some verses can't be clearly interpreted so what it's not as if we're omniscient.
Then we're back to my original contention. The claims made are supported ONLY because the "relevant passages" are interpreted in the light of modern knowledge and are therefore not necessarily as explicit or meaningful as claimed.
And I'd like to query the actual meaning of this statement of yours:
Is this meant to imply that because it's a "holy book" they can't be misinterpreted? Or what?
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
The problem is the relevant verses that are used have pretty clear interpretations.
No.
No, which is why I asked for a definitive one. Like I said:
So what was the point of the statement? It had no bearing on the discussion if you aren't claiming that it cannot be misinterpreted. :shrug:
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
Mind clarifying and backing up this statement?
Whoever said that it must be impossible to misinterpret the holy book we have the freedom to interpret things the way we deem fit not that that would be appropriate since we want a very accurate interpretation.
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Clarify?
There is more than one possible translation (interpretation from the Arabic to English) available.
Here's one example:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/huxley/islam_big_bang.htm
I had another web page that actually listed ~12 different translations for each verse, I'll try to find that again.
Edit: found it: here. (Turned out to be slightly more than the dozen I remembered seeing).
I'll also quote this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur'an_translations
And this:
http://www.meforum.org/717/assessing-english-translations-of-the-quran
Your sentence doesn't quite make sense.
It can be read at least two ways:
"Whoever said that it must be impossible to misinterpret the holy book, we have the ..."
In which case my answer is:
Pardon?
Who claimed ANYONE said it was impossible to misinterpret?
Or "Whoever said that? it must be impossible to misinterpret the holy book we have the ..."
In which case you're contradicting yourself.
As for the last portion:
"we have the freedom to interpret things the way we deem fit not that that would be appropriate since we want a very accurate and interpretation."
Yet it would appear that that is exactly what is being done with (at least some of) these claims.
guys the interpretation of the quran is accurate enough. doesn't mean you can't find a dozen different ones.
a-they all agree on the boarder line, but may differ on its color, which doesn't change much*.
b-they are not all on the same level of knowledge, i always thought of interpretation of the quran as a game of suduko, there's zero room for personal touches, it's just the more you know the better you can eliminate possibilities and pinpoint meanings, you start with a broad meaning, some numbers to start on but lots others to decide, then you bring in other numbers-facts- from other verses and start eliminating, till you reach a narrow and detailed enough meaning.
the more numbers you know, the faster and more precise your interpretation is, and it build son.. the numbers found from one sudoku puzzle help explain another puzzle..
from this we can say, that when one has no numbers to start with, or too few, they are bound to come up with an explanation, but a completely wrong one**, atheists are an example, when they try to interpret the verses, what they lack is not logic that works, but knowledge to work that logic on, same with many of those who blow themselves up and stuff, at first glance, the verses and hadiths they back their stance with seem to clearly support what they're doing, reading more and looking into the context shows the opposite.
why? why the process of elimination and detective work? because if you're gonna put ALL the information humanity essentially needs into one book, that's the only format you can put it in, otherwise it'd be a city of libraries if you give every piece of information straight forward. and the only one who can compile a city of libraries into one book, is god, that's my firmest piece of evidence i hold, the more i read, the more my "faith" builds, but it isn't baseless faith, in the same way the engineer's gut feeling was not, but when you ask me to pinpoint the evidence for you and bring it forward, i don't know where to start and where to end, for i have hundreds of sudoku puzzles solving each other like a pyramid, topmost yields a statement of my belief, where in the intertwining network of proofs should i jump, grab one, and present it to you?
but just so you know what amount of knowledge i'm talking about, i've studied islamic studies since i was in 1st grade, spanned fields like tawheed and fiqh and tajweed and hadeeth and quran, even now at uni i'm taking them as electives, belief in islam and social structure and politics and economics... and i swear the more i know the more i realize how much i don't know, i'm barely skimming the outskirt of the tip of the iceberg, if i'm majoring in engineering and studied science in high school, some students in saudi arabia study religion in highschool, and they have whole religious colleges to spend years of their life on degrees-SAM may know about them-. where am i to compare to them, where are YOU to compare to ME?
but then again, i know that if i were you i wouldn't take my words as proof or anything, claiming you know much about something isn't as actually demonstrating it, one may be studying UFOs all his life, and he wouldn't be believed if he said they exist,if he wasn't able to demonstrate it and just cited his efforts into the subject, his knowledge can be explained as stemming from a fascination or a fetish for UFOs, as much as my result i believe i reached by knowledge could be stemming from indoctrination.
but anyway, i feel a load's off my shoulder's, i've had this thing in mind for quite some while, was planning on dividing it into several threads, which might still happen, but i want to see your reactions to a demo outburst..
and D, i seem to be failing to continue with our discussions, i read your post and have a reply then think what would your reply be and how i'll reply to it and what you'll reply to it and...i click another tab.
but as the pages with the empty reply boxes increase my browser's getting crammed,and i know i'll have to get it over with soon.:spank:
*however, as i pointed out,if there WERE major conflicts about the border line, it would be one of ignorance and misinformation,the weapons of a religious debate are god said and the prophet said, you sure will need logic to use them, but the more you have them the less you need logic to prove a point in a debate.
**it's wrong to cut a verse with occam's razor, as it would become an argument from ignorance.
a-they all agree on the boarder line, but may differ on its color, which doesn't change much*.
b-they are not all on the same level of knowledge, i always thought of interpretation of the quran as a game of suduko, there's zero room for personal touches, it's just the more you know the better you can eliminate possibilities and pinpoint meanings, you start with a broad meaning, some numbers to start on but lots others to decide, then you bring in other numbers-facts- from other verses and start eliminating, till you reach a narrow and detailed enough meaning.
the more numbers you know, the faster and more precise your interpretation is, and it build son.. the numbers found from one sudoku puzzle help explain another puzzle..
from this we can say, that when one has no numbers to start with, or too few, they are bound to come up with an explanation, but a completely wrong one**, atheists are an example, when they try to interpret the verses, what they lack is not logic that works, but knowledge to work that logic on, same with many of those who blow themselves up and stuff, at first glance, the verses and hadiths they back their stance with seem to clearly support what they're doing, reading more and looking into the context shows the opposite.
why? why the process of elimination and detective work? because if you're gonna put ALL the information humanity essentially needs into one book, that's the only format you can put it in, otherwise it'd be a city of libraries if you give every piece of information straight forward. and the only one who can compile a city of libraries into one book, is god, that's my firmest piece of evidence i hold, the more i read, the more my "faith" builds, but it isn't baseless faith, in the same way the engineer's gut feeling was not, but when you ask me to pinpoint the evidence for you and bring it forward, i don't know where to start and where to end, for i have hundreds of sudoku puzzles solving each other like a pyramid, topmost yields a statement of my belief, where in the intertwining network of proofs should i jump, grab one, and present it to you?
but just so you know what amount of knowledge i'm talking about, i've studied islamic studies since i was in 1st grade, spanned fields like tawheed and fiqh and tajweed and hadeeth and quran, even now at uni i'm taking them as electives, belief in islam and social structure and politics and economics... and i swear the more i know the more i realize how much i don't know, i'm barely skimming the outskirt of the tip of the iceberg, if i'm majoring in engineering and studied science in high school, some students in saudi arabia study religion in highschool, and they have whole religious colleges to spend years of their life on degrees-SAM may know about them-. where am i to compare to them, where are YOU to compare to ME?
but then again, i know that if i were you i wouldn't take my words as proof or anything, claiming you know much about something isn't as actually demonstrating it, one may be studying UFOs all his life, and he wouldn't be believed if he said they exist,if he wasn't able to demonstrate it and just cited his efforts into the subject, his knowledge can be explained as stemming from a fascination or a fetish for UFOs, as much as my result i believe i reached by knowledge could be stemming from indoctrination.
but anyway, i feel a load's off my shoulder's, i've had this thing in mind for quite some while, was planning on dividing it into several threads, which might still happen, but i want to see your reactions to a demo outburst..
and D, i seem to be failing to continue with our discussions, i read your post and have a reply then think what would your reply be and how i'll reply to it and what you'll reply to it and...i click another tab.
but as the pages with the empty reply boxes increase my browser's getting crammed,and i know i'll have to get it over with soon.:spank:
*however, as i pointed out,if there WERE major conflicts about the border line, it would be one of ignorance and misinformation,the weapons of a religious debate are god said and the prophet said, you sure will need logic to use them, but the more you have them the less you need logic to prove a point in a debate.
**it's wrong to cut a verse with occam's razor, as it would become an argument from ignorance.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
An easier way to say what I'm assuming you're saying is that the Quran must be read as a whole in a manner that none of it's verses contradict each other.
People did that with the Bible, back in the Middle Ages and even later.scifes said:
They became very learned and sophisticated theologians. Almost everything they learned about the physical universe was wrong. Almost everything they learned about the Bible was wrong. They ended up making great elaborate accounts of the Bible's amazing explication of seas and rivers, plants and animals, the stars and the planets, the origin and history and nature of the world based on Biblical accounts, and all of it was wrong - because the Bible was just a book, and it was part of that physical universe, written by men, not something outside it that had to be taken as perfect.
The more deeply they delved into the Bible - beginning with the essential assumptions, of course, regarding its provenance and authenticity - the less they knew that was real and verifiable and the more they were enmeshed in a huge, elaborate, beautiful, logical, web of nonsense and error and bizarre delusion.
Just saying. They were real scholars, you know. That didn't help.
you got a good point iceaura, but you also misunderstood me.
religious knowledge supports religious claims, scientific knowledge supports scientific claims, crossing one knowledge to the other claim messes things up, which is what happens when a scholar prescribes a drug based on his religious book, or when one uses his telescope to find god.
one thing that i also wondered about, is the amount of religious material there is to study in religions other than islam, as islam defines various aspects of life, from buying and selling to marriege and politics and kids upbringing and alot of other stuff, it contains diverse fields as much as science, i wonder if there's much to study in other religions, other to read the book and wonder in awe at it's meanings adn explain things of the past or afterlife or such..is there an applicable side to say, christianity or judaism? i read somewhere that they also prohibit usury, which is a
big field in islamic economics, and has very complex definitions and stuff one can get a doctorate in it alone, do christians study such things in depth as well?
if they don't then i wonder why they started explaining the material world from a book that mainly deals with the immaterial.
religious knowledge supports religious claims, scientific knowledge supports scientific claims, crossing one knowledge to the other claim messes things up, which is what happens when a scholar prescribes a drug based on his religious book, or when one uses his telescope to find god.
one thing that i also wondered about, is the amount of religious material there is to study in religions other than islam, as islam defines various aspects of life, from buying and selling to marriege and politics and kids upbringing and alot of other stuff, it contains diverse fields as much as science, i wonder if there's much to study in other religions, other to read the book and wonder in awe at it's meanings adn explain things of the past or afterlife or such..is there an applicable side to say, christianity or judaism? i read somewhere that they also prohibit usury, which is a
big field in islamic economics, and has very complex definitions and stuff one can get a doctorate in it alone, do christians study such things in depth as well?
if they don't then i wonder why they started explaining the material world from a book that mainly deals with the immaterial.
pretty much:thumbsup:
the quran's bits explain each other.
and i meant bits literally.
How can any believer find contradiction in their scriptures when their god is all-powerful, where the meek and ignorant can pray to have their gods twist and violate the physical laws of the universe at their whim?
Contradiction? Impossible, the Quran states it does not contradict itself. LOL!
Guru
Registered Senior Member
It is so futile to discuss Koran - it is a book for creating a slave race. To even ask for an explanation of a Koranic verse is to insult our own intelligence. I feel sad for the liberal Muslims who try to salvage some peace loving verses and also try to reconcile the scientific work done by 'infidels' with some verses from Koran. While the majority of the people are trying to hate and kill the same infidels.