TiredJim

I think your butter analogy is pretty flawed, and you never responded to the carpet comment, but I'll move on anyway.

I've never read the Quran, and I don't claim to be a scholar, but I do find it funny that so many people can find different meanings in the same quotations and you still call it a "perfect" book.

Seems lack of clarity would be a flaw.

And yet, none of this even approaches evidence that Islam is true, so I don't know why I'm letting myself get caught up in this.

emotional

"dahaaha" meaning "ostrich-egg-shaped". Hmmm. That's exactly the argument refuted in the article I gave:

emotional

Check out also all the contradictions:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Contra/index.html

River

Its funny ...you mention lack of clarity as the evildoer. But in actuality the Arabic Quran is so subtle and sharp that no native speaker of Arabic has ever had this many complaints. Honestly , your concept of perfect might vary from the Divine concept of what is Perfect. Many have picked up the Quran and were frustrated...Where is the beginning, where is the end( of the Book)? , they say. The Quran is not a human Book......You won't find expressions like '''Once upon a time.....and ......lived happily ever after. If you are serious about the Quran. Try reading the works, Tafsir( commentaries) by Muslims and Christians ( for Muslims are positively biased and Christians are negatively biased) as well as by " Independent " scholars and Linguists.

River

What exactly are you doing? Do you think you are funny? I have proven you wrong before and you ran away only to come back with a Ubiquitious , ghetto , Orientalist website that relies heavily on Circular reasoning.
Many of these verses are out of context, and quite a few dont even take the subtlies of the Arabic language to consideration.

Like I said earlier....why look for contradictions....when you havent even started reading the text.

emotional

Aha. A wonderful sweeping ad hominem, relieving you of the need to address all those contradictions.

I have read quite a lot of the Qur'an, in the original Arabic language, together with Tafseer Al-Jalalein. My verdict: it's a cheap rip-off of the Bible.

Visit the Freethought Mecca!
http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/

River

Like I said before, the Arabic language is subtle and takes into account a vast multitude of factors. The English language can not always accomodate the complexities of Arabic grammer and lexicon. You are like the newborn who is trying to grasp astrophysics.

River

I don't believe you've read the Qur'an and certainly not in the Arabic. Freethought Mecca is a Freemasonic website, I've been there. You certainly use a lot of Emotion. Not enough Reason.....I do believe I engaged in another Ad Hominem attack..

emotional

Yet Jalaal Ad-Deen As-Suyooti, in his Tafsir, comments upon the verse wal'ard ba'da dhaalika dahaaha thus: basataha ("He spread it out"). Are you saying Jalaal Ad-Deen was unable to grasp the subtleties of Arabic?

If the Arabic language is so flexible as to convey a multitude of meanings, then perhaps the command to perform the Hajj is not a command to perform the Hajj at all. Or I suspect Muslims are guilty of the Humpty Dumpty ploy: words mean what we define them to mean, nothing more, nothing less. How convenient!

emotional

Well then, I have. I can read and write Arabic, and I have a Qur'an with Tafseer at my disposal, and I read it often.

Freethought Mecca is an atheist website, and it seems you haven't read its offerings well. For a start, you can read this article.