How literally should we take the Qur'an ?

[Cyberman]

So.....Which came before; really? earth, sun ?? you're asking the wrong question.

Sun. You're giving the wrong answer.

[ignoramus]

So Atlas, you are actually trying to prove to us that the qu'ran was indeed inspired by God's knowledge?
The ancient greeks came up with some good maths too... Still used today ...
How on earth did they work all that stuff out without Zeus helping them?
How many Millenia before Allah was that?
Nobody believed any of that crap before the crusades ...
Christianity and Islam was forced onto people, simple as that...

It was part of spreading one's culture and values onto others.

[GUBU]

Atlas in my last post I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, supposing that you were willing to listen to facts and adjust your thoughts accordingly. Seeing as you responded to my point with pigshit I see no reason to be so generous.

Taking the verse you quote literally, allah states unequivocally that the earth is flat (mountains are described in the passage as if they were stones laid on a flat map to stop it blowing in the breeze), an assertion contradiced by reality. Therefore allah, if he exists, is a dumbfuck moron worthy of our pity, not our worship.

[R00tKiT]

I am finding myself in a bit of a maze when trying to "prove" the inaccurate statements in the Quran. 

If you're finding yourself in a maze, you shouldn't be asserting that there are inaccurate statements in the first place.

You often hear Muslims claim how their book contains scientific knowledge that could not have possibly been discovered in that age, ergo some superior intelligence must have dictated it.

That's a fact. Read the verse, "And We created from water every living thing" (21:30) for example. According to the biological classification known as the two-domain system, all living organisms are either:

- Archaea
- or Bacteria

Eukaryotes (=Archaea) are made of eukaryotic cells (duh), and the cytoplasm of such cells is about 80% water. For bacteria, most of a bacterial cell is water (about 70%), so both categories of living organisms are largely made of water.

This fact couldn't have been known by anyone in the prophet PBUH's time, and it could have been easily falsified. There is nothing left to say, this verse is a miracle.

[The Grand Nudger]

Are you really sure you want anyone to take the quran literally, Kloro? I take it literally..and look at what happened to me.

[R00tKiT]

Are you really sure you want anyone to take the quran literally, Kloro?  I take it literally..and look at what happened to me.

lol, you can't be serious. Let me rehearse to you what I was always being saying when it comes to atheists discussing the Qur'an:

If you don't believe in God, it's pointless to try and refute any religious scripture, what's the point? You might say you're just trying to expose some purported flaws in these books, but that doesn't help in the case of the Qur'an. The problem of language barrier is very serious and important when it comes to reading the holy book of Islam, given that the Qur'an's chief feature is its linguistic merit. I grew up in an Arabic speaking country and followed formal courses in Islam with (obviously) arabic speaking people, and I can't count the number of times when someone misunderstands the meaning of simple and popular verses, sometimes because they don't know what a given word means, and sometimes because they are unable to parse the sentence as a result of weak understanding of Arabic grammar. 

People experiencing difficulty writing/reading/understanding classical/standard arabic is a ubiquitous problem in the Arab World. For non-native speakers, it's (obviously?) a non starter to directly try to study the Qur'an, let alone criticize it, it's laughable, seriously. It's as if you ask someone who is struggling to know the keyboard of a piano to play Mozart's sonatas. This is true of course for any book in Classical Arabic, not just the Qur'an. The religious significance of the latter, however, and its multiple references to places, cultures, beliefs, etc. makes it impossible for an amateur to study it seriously. It's just not possible, not something you do in your spare time. 

I will probably never understand why some people try to come across as very knowledgeable when it comes to assessing religious texts, and always end up making very basic mistakes in their hasty criticisms.

[The Grand Nudger]

So.......no?

[Deesse23]

That's a fact. Read the verse, "And We created from water every living thing" (21:30) for example. According to the biological classification known as the two-domain system, all living organisms are either:

..... living organisms are largely made of water.

This fact couldn't have been known by anyone in the prophet PBUH's time, and it could have been easily falsified. There is nothing left to say, this verse is a miracle.

"We created from water every living thing" = every living thing is largely water

The only miracle is why you have such low standards to believe in stupid shit, any why you have such a strong drive to reconcile this shit with what we know to be true.

[pocaracas]

That's a fact. Read the verse, "And We created from water every living thing" (21:30) for example. According to the biological classification known as the two-domain system, all living organisms are either:

..... living organisms are largely made of water.

This fact couldn't have been known by anyone in the prophet PBUH's time, and it could have been easily falsified. There is nothing left to say, this verse is a miracle.

"We created from water every living thing" = every living thing is largely water

The only miracle is why you have such low standards to believe in stupid shit, any why you have such a strong drive to reconcile this shit with what we know to be true.

Because he thinks that, back then, this was not known to humanity, unless it was handed down from a higher power.
As if populations didn't gather around bodies of water for a reason during the previous thousands of years. As if ancient Greeks didn't already postulate that water was key to life.

'water is the source of all life'
attributed to Thales of Miletus (624-546 BC)

[Angrboda]

The root cause likely has as much to do with him as it does with religion. You can't fix stupid.