Miracle

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Indeed. If they'd have written 1+1=3, would that be true as well? If you believe everything they write after a certain point, you are prepared to believe anything. That's not a good position for anyone concerned at all with reality.

I'm sure when you believe in a flying donkey you'll believe anything.

Skip to 4:41 of the below video:

[bennyboy]

Quran is not a science encyclopaedia. The scientific facts mentioned in Quran are more than sufficient to manifest the miraculous nature of Quran.

Exactly wrong.  Science is an organized system of physical observation and inquiry.  Therefore, if the "facts" in the Quran are science, they were made by people making physical observations-- the exact opposite of miracle.  Here are the possibilities as I see them:
1)  The writers of the Quran knew some things, or knew people who knew some things, and included them in the Quran.
2)  The writers of the Quran said a bunch of things that you or others interpret as science, but which only appear so to you because of confirmation bias.
3)  The writers of the Quran operated on revelation, in which Allah revealed the truth to them, but which they lacked the capacity to understand and therefore were unable to express in any detail that a modern educated person would find sufficient.

Your position is 3.  You think the Quran is miraculous, because people who couldn't have known things nevertheless wrote them down.  My position is a mix of 1 and 2: first, the Arabs were not nearly as uneducated or unobservant as you think they were, and so they did something actually resembling science, even in those early days; they followed the Romans, who had libraries FULL of physical observations and scientific discoveries, drawn from all over the Roman empire and its millions of citizens.  Second, you cherry pick this or that sentence, and explain a meaning which you say is clear, but is not clear to anyone who doesn't already hold your position; obvious bias is obvious bias.

The problem with your position is that the "science" in the Quran is of such spotty and poor quality that it serves no real use.  It is just barely enough of a hint that you can read into it what you want; it offers nothing beyond that: no improvement to the quality of human life, no information sufficiently detailed that an unbiased 3rd party can establish it to represent actual scientific knowledge.

You are also very clearly guilty of special pleading.  You claim the Quran is miraculous in that it talks about orbiting bodies; but you then say "It's not a scientific textbook" when the most important detail of all, that the Earth orbits the sun, is completely omitted.

1. You are trying to make a match between people living in 2015 with all their sophisticated gadgets, knowledge, and modern means of transport with the people who were living in 7th century Arabian Desert with camels and donkeys.

I'm constantly amazed that such a devout muslim has such a low opinion of the Arabs of that time.  You seem to think they were ignorant fucking idiots.  Anyway, I'm trying to make a match between people with eyes, language, and oceanside cliffs, who could have observed the apparent barrier between river and ocean water, based on its color.

2. The things, which are obvious to you, were not obvious to them. For example, you know what stars are but to ancient people it was not obvious to what they are looking at, in the night sky.

Why take this example, when it is not currently being discussed?

3. That is the reason in history you cannot find anything about halocline or about something even similar to it.

Who cares?  I am not disputing who mentioned the halocline.  I'm disputing that either the halocline, or its discovery and expression, was an act of your fairy tale god.

The time when Prophet Mohammad received first few verses at the age of 40, there exists not a single Muslim in the world. Here are first two verses of that first revelation:

“PROCLAIM! (OR READ!) IN THE NAME OF THY LORD AND CHERISHER, WHO CREATED-”
“CREATED MAN, OUT OF A (MERE) CLOT OF CONGEALED BLOOD:”
Al 'Alaq (96)
-Verses 1 – 2-

Please pay attention to the second verse, which is giving a scientific fact that contemporary embryologists discovered only in 20th century.

It's also factually inaccurate.  Man is created out of sperm and egg, neither of which is a clot of congealed blood.  This is the part, now, where you special plead: "Yeah, but the Quran is not a science textbook."

“For them will be Gardens of Eternity; beneath them rivers will flow; they will be adorned therein with bracelets of gold, and they will wear green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade: They will recline therein on raised thrones. How good the recompense! How beautiful a couch to recline on!”
Al Kahfi (18)
-Verse 30 – 31-

That sounds fantastic!  Literally.

[paulpablo]

2. The things, which are obvious to you, were not obvious to them. For example, you know what stars are but to ancient people it was not obvious to what they are looking at, in the night sky.

It was obvious to ancient people who read the quran what stars were, there's an in depth scientific description of what stars are.

And indeed We have adorned the nearest heaven with lamps, and We have made such lamps (as) missiles to drive away the Shayatin (devils), and have prepared for them the torment of the blazing Fire.      

  
Lamps which are also used as missiles to fire at devils. 
Plus this verse shows whoever wrote the quran has a strange understanding of the sun and the moon.

It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to Law).

Unless the quran is saying that the sun and the moon are rotating around the earth at opposite sides of the earth and can't catch up to one another this verse makes no sense.

[bennyboy]

Plus this verse shows whoever wrote the quran has a strange understanding of the sun and the moon.

Here's the thing. The stuff that is basically correct (or can be made to sound correct with a bit of word salad), is a "miracle." The stuff that is wrong or conspicuously absent (like the fact that the EARTH also revolves in an orbit) is a parable, or "The Quran isn't a science textbook. The science is so miraculous that it doesn't need detailed facts, or any practical application. It just has to convince me that my Momma's religion is the right one."

Ambiguous BS + word salad + special pleading = Allah is great!

[robvalue]

Donkey dicks. Does the Quran have those?

[bennyboy]

Donkey dicks. Does the Quran have those?

They couldn't possibly have known about donkey dicks, because nobody narrated it to them.

[Alex K]

Created from blood clots? What nonsense is this How does that even remotely resemble a concrete *nontrivial* prediction about anything in embryology. And by nontrivial I mean beyond the fact that embryos have blood that can in principle clot.

I'd say what is miraculous is how the level of scholarship has declined in the muslim world after such auspicious beginnings...

[Cyberman]

Here's an article with, among other things, a well-known video of Hamza Tzortzis, the muslim William Lane Craig, getting his blood-clot arse handed to him on a plate by PZ Myers and AronRa in Dublin a few years ago. The look on his face when he learned that Myers is a biologist is epic.

[Alex K]

Oh right, Tzortzis! That is where I heard this crap before.

[Pizza]

I just realized something about appeals to "miracles." Coincidences (a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection) can happen even if a god exists. Coincidences can't be ruled out a priori in the way apologists would like.