Posted on 07/22/2017 7:39:40 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
When attacking an epistemological structure, it is a often a waste of time to attack the consequences of a belief system when one can cut it down at the root. Islam has such a bizarre problem. And Muslims avoid it, for fear it would cause the whole religion to collapse.
Islam, like Judaism, is monadic. It only admits of a hard absolutely unitary deity.
However, Islam makes an amazing contradictory statement: the Koran is eternal.
This introduces a real problem. Anything which is eternal is, by definition, deity. And that strikes at the very core of Islam's claim to a hard monotheism.
[T]he Noble Quran, as is, is forever Preserved by Allah Almighty, and therefore Its Holy Words are Eternal. -- Answering Christianity, an Islamic site.
This... sums up the doctrine of the massive majority of the Muslims, namely the People of the Sunna and the Congregation, concerning the pre-existent, pre-eternal, beginningless, and uncreated nature of the Divine Speech Allah Most High has named al-Qur'an -- Sunnah.org
Here is their disaster. If the Koran is uncreated, the Koran is a deity. Think about it. But if the Koran is God, and Allah is God, the Islamic doctrine of hard monadic monotheism falls apart.
This is no mere sleight of hand. A few early Muslims noted the inconsistency and met an unhappy fate for bringing it up.
He said about someone who said that the Qur'an is created, "He is an unbeliever, so kill him." He said in the version of Ibn Nafi', "He should be flogged and painfully beaten and imprisoned until he repents."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It seems Khadija’s uncle was a crappy, but effective, plagiarist.
The bible has many different authors.
The Koran was written by a scam artist who used its teachings to overcome Christians and justify their savage treatment. While “the Prophet” was savagely raping a wife in the blood of her beheaded husband, his gang of thugs were robbing, raping, beheading, rounding up their women as sex slaves and healthy men as slaves. What a contrast to the early apostles who were performing miracles, healing the sick and feeding the poor.
I see it as one God with three aspects; each co-equal.
The Father: Omnipotent Creator Boss
The Son: Mediator/Defense Lawyer etc.
The Holy Spirit: The Communication System/Translater/Instructor etc.
All in agreement. And so glad to know Him.
I don’t agree with Catholic doctrine either, but why be so shitty about it FRiend?
That said, I’m really not trying to start an argument...I’m just trying to encourage a gentler approach. Despite the fact that I’m naturally a bit of an asshole myself lol.
Mr. Konrad chose the right place to post this deeply philosophical article. Very interesting analysis.
I’m sure this important, subtle theological point will be met and considered with much deep philosophical and theological reflection by readers of the Koran.
A boring argument answered years ago.. lol.. I am stunned it would be posed here, on this board.
Hard to believe no one has noted Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.” Which Peter quotes again in I Peter 1:25.
Now when the NT quotes the OT, the passage quoted is always of special significance.......
RE: Note Jesus name written on His robe in Revelation 19:13 - read 19:11 - 16.
The word “remaining forever” is a little different from “eternally existing and uncreated”. The latter is a description of divinity.
No question.
According to the traditional view, the Koran was spoken by the angel Gabriel to Mohammad, who in turn repeated what was said word for word. The words of Mohammed were then memorized, and later written down, and then gathered together, each step faithfully, so that what we have today is exactly what was spoken by the angel Gabriel.
With regard to the Hebrew scriptures (or Old Testament) and the New Testament, these are viewed as written by men inspired by God. The truth of their message has been preserved through the ages by the community of believers. Among Christians, the fact that Jesus read from the Septuagent (a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, by scholars gathered together by the Library of Alexandria) validates that source. Otherwise, the books of the Hebrew scriptures and of the Bible are those determined by councils of scholars circa the 3rd century AD. Jews and Christians are generally comfortable with seeming contradictions in minor details, and multiple interpretations of their scriptures.
Returning to the Koran, because of its dogmatic characteristic, there remain to this day Muslims who believe in nonsense such as the world is flat. It has been known to all educated people that the world is round since the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, even how big was its circumference. (Columbus’ voyages were predicated on a mistaken calculation of circumference, not on the world being round.)
Although I do not speak Arabic, I am told that the Koran is very difficult to read. We know the Bible contains exaggeration, allegory, parables, and other such teaching devices. But, in the Koran, where the literal truth ends and the such teaching devices begin cannot even be discussed under penalty of death. You must go along with the nonsense that it is all literally true.
With the Bible, from time to time, we discover ancient manuscripts and these generally conform to what we have, although not in every detail. We’re comfortable with this. Indeed, we are excited by such discoveries. Nowadays, with modern archeological methods, we are discovering ancient manuscripts that differ from the Koran as promulgated by Uthman, proving that version to be merely an edited compendium of statements attributed to Mohammed. Previously, the Muslims has been able to destroy such evidence in order to protect the argument that the Koran is a mere transcription of what the angel Gabriel whispered to Mohammed.
This nature of the Koran versus the nature of the Bible is reflected in the following: Jews and Christians accept that the truth is for us to decide as a community and as individuals, and that it is normal and maybe even good that there are differences of opinion. We are suspicious of cults under dogmatic leaders. Muslims, on the other hand, are inclined to be authoritarian. They have a book of literally true revelation that ordinary people cannot read (even if they know Arabic) and need an authority to tell them what it means.
This is Free Republic, not democratic underground. Please refrain from needless profanity, it cheapens the conversation and demeans your character.
Akhenaten
Akhenaten known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV, was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten
...
>>Muslims, on the other hand, are inclined to be authoritarian
Ask Galileo and Giorandano Bruno, two original (albeit posthumous) members of the “Infidels of every denomination” club - about the inclination towards being authoritarian.
Kind of like Fundamentalist Protestants who say the Bible is the “ultimate authority,” when actually only G-d is the Ultimate Authority.
>>The koran was not created, it was fabricated.
A more recent rendition of the imitative act can be observe in the craftsmanship of Jose Smith and his “Reformed Egyptian” cult in the former territory of Deseret.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=America%27s+Islam+Mormonism
It seems your authoritative opinion on the subject is less than catholic (that’s a small “c”).
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=LOGOS+Living+Word
According to the traditional view, the Koran was spoken by the angel Gabriel to Mohammad,
Mohammad who, unlike his wife Khadijah's uncle - "Waraqah ibn Nawfal. This scholar reportedly had translated the Bible from Hebrew into Arabic."... was illiterate.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=was+the+prophet+muhammad+illiterate
"Islam did not rise except through Ali's sword and Khadijah's wealth,"
I see you apply the standard that if a Christian ever in history deviates from our present understanding of religious freedom, all Christians are forever condemned. You have learned well from Barack Obama prayer breakfast speech of 2015.
It doesn’t surprise me that any person or institution falls short of his or its understanding of religious freedom (or any other aspect of what is right and what is wrong), no less how people hundreds of years in the future understand religious freedom (and other aspects of what is right and what is wrong).
Since this thread concerns what is different about the Bible and the Koran, you sound like you believe there is truth that is eternal. Perhaps this is because you are a Muslim.
The Koran says that its truth was known by man from the beginning (all of us used to be Muslims), and then the Jews and Christians came along and corrupted the truth. This corruption required a new revelation of the eternal truth through Mohammed.
If you are a Muslim, you would judge people all through time by the Koran. And, by projection, a Muslim might think anybody else would similarly judge people all through time by their current understanding of the truth.
For Jews and Christians, there is a process of discovery along with revelation. We, as a people, in communication with each other, deepen our understanding of the truth, and we, as individuals, should consider differences of opinion to be normal and even good. This is an Enlightenment idea. It was not yet developed before although, looking back, we can find hints of this in scripture and earlier scholars.
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