Miracle

[bennyboy]

Harris, even if early Muslim scholars invented/discovered/were aware of some science, so what? It's only a miracle if this knowledge is attained through supernatural revelation, i.e. from God rather than from observation and study.

You ramble on about passages that you say show awareness of scientific facts or principles that they could not have known. But if they wrote them down, they knew them. IF they knew these things, then the question is HOW did they know them?

If they knew science only through direct revelation from God, and not from their own observations and study, then either God was hopelessly stingy with the amount and quality of science he chose to reveal to them, or they were hopelessly retarded and uneducated in understanding, transcribing, and/or transmitting the complete body of all science, past present and future, which he must have revealed to them.

I think you are avoiding or not understanding one straight point. Although, people were reading these scientific facts in Quran yet they were unaware of the reality because of their incapacity to conceptualize these facts. 7th century people could not be the founder of these scientific facts because they were not even conscious of them.

Give a try yourself to find any trace in the history that someone knew about the expansion of the Universe before Einstein and Hubble especially in seventh century. At least how much I know there is no such evidence in the entire human history.

Second point, the purpose of scientific facts in Quran is not to give science education rather to show the incapacity of humans to produce such concepts in seventh century. By this Quran gives a proof to the future generations that these concepts can only be from God Who is the Creator of everything.

You could go through the various miscellaneous ideas in the Bible, in mythology, and in Greek and Roman literature, and find that among the many ideas presented by them, some of them seem to accord well with modern science.  I mean, the word "atom" has been around for thousands of years.  Is that a miracle, too?
I'd say a couple things about all this:

1)  People in the past were smart, perhaps smarter than today.  So it's only bias that makes you think that someone one or two millenia ago couldn't figure things out. It's also possible that they arrived at a correct view through an incorrect process-- guessing, for example, or extending a philosophical principle into a context in which it shouldn't have been.
2)  The particular passage you are talking about is explainable in other ways than "miracle."  For example, it may be that the idea of expansion was en vogue already at or before that time, and the writers of the Quran simply mentioned it as an aside.  You make the mistake of reading only the passage, and making assumptions without knowing the cultural context in which the passage was written.
3)  Why is everything in religion always so vague and ambiguous?  You say that God wanted to show his greatness by introducing the "miracle" of a Quran writer happening to mention the idea of expansion.  Why didn't he include a picture of the atom? Why didn't he produce the miracle of preventing infant deaths, or genocide, or cars that run on water?

By the way, you missed an important "miracle."  God said "I am the alpha and the omega."  This means that the beginning is the same as the end, which is only possible in a singularity.  Therefore, you should be making the case that the Big Bang singularity is God.  Go quick, run and start a thread about the miracle of black holes!

[paulpablo]

Sense of burning is specific to the skin and few other organs. Other parts of the body have other kind of pain but not the sense caused by fire.

You're agreeing with exactly what I said.  If one other organ senses the pain of fire like skin does then this means you don't just need skin in order to sense the pain of fire.
It doesn't matter if it's just a few other organs that will sense the pain of fire.
Your whole point was that it's miraculous that the quran is saying there is no pain caused by fire apart from on the skin, and the quran is showing this by saying the skin will be replaced.  But there is pain caused by fire by a few other organs as you yourself have just said.

[The Valkyrie]

Miracle:

I got up this morning.

Praise be to Bastet (it was a cat that woke me up).

[paulpablo]

Which organs in human body can sense the heat similar to skin?

In mammals, temperature receptors innervate various tissues including the skin (as cutaneous receptors), cornea and urinary bladder.
That's according to wikipedia
But it really is beside the point.  It isn't necessarily the heat from the flame causing the pain but also what the heat is doing to the body.
This isn't a case of someone sensing heat from a radiator close by, this is someone being thrown into a fire powerful enough to roast through skin.
Close proximity to fire burns holes in things, a tear in the stomach lining would cause pain whether or not the stomach has heat sensors, the actual pain sensation would be cause by the physical damage done by the fire rather than just the bodies thermal receptors.
If you continually burn a live human body through the skin and into the internal organs, and the person is magically being kept alive which is the case in the afterlife according to you, then the fire would burn holes, rip apart and incinerate internal organs.  This might not result in pain being felt via some internal organs but definitely from any internal organ that feels pain from physical damage.

[paulpablo]

Skin is not made of metal and it is a bad conductor of heat.

Why leatherwear are popular in cold countries?

Again this isn't a case of someone standing close to a radiator, someone is being thrown into a consuming fire.  Skin is 2mm thick, even if it is bad at conducting and is being replaced it still wouldn't protect the inside of the body from overheating.
Additionally the quran talks of the skin only being replaced once it has been burnt through, this would definitely result in internal organs being damaged.

[paulpablo]

According to the modern teachings of science, the main idea is that iron on earth is a foreign element, which was not part of earth at the time of its formation. The main idea of this fact goes side by side with the main idea of the verse without any contradiction.

"The cat sat in the hat" Doesn't contradict the teachings of modern science, because cats can sit in hats, but it isn't a miracle, NOT contradicting science doesn't mean something is a miracle.

Ok let me put it this way, if tomorrow scientists discovered iron wasn't a foreign element, would the quran contradict modern science then?

No, because in that instance you would just say that "sent down" means "provided".  You would just change the interpretation to fit whatever you feel like.

The quran uses the term "sent down" In several places to mean "Provided" Doesn't it?

[paulpablo]

This verse says:

“as often as their SKINS are ROASTED THROUGH, WE SHALL CHANGE THEM FOR FRESH SKINS, that they may TASTE THE PENALTY”.

It is clearly stating that arrogant sinners would suffer burning to an extent until their SKINS WILL LOSE THE CHARACTERISTIC OF FEELING PAIN, thus indicating that skin will lose the specific feeling of burning if burnt to a certain extent. TO CONTINUE THE PENALTY FRESH SKINS would be given to them.

No the quran doesn't say that the skin will lose the characteristic of feeling pain.  It doesn't say CONTINUE the penalty.  It says they will taste the penalty.

We will drive them into a Fire. Every time their skins are roasted through We will replace them with other skins so they may taste the punishment.

You need no knowledge of biology to know that when you burn stuff it disappears or turns black and crusty, the quran is simply saying that the burning of the skin hurts and in order to repeat it once the skin has either blistered and melted away, god will replace the skin back to where it was again and burn it again.

If I say I will chop your ear off then replace it with another ear to be chopped off again so you may taste the penalty it's not a miracle, I'm giving you no information about pain receptors.
It's just me making a stupid threat involving primitive brutal methods combined with fairytale magic.

Additionally you still haven't proven that even if you do believe the verse is saying the skin will lose the characteristic of feeling pain that people back then didn't know that severe burns caused numbness.

One more additional point is I can't figure out why you're still insisting this is a miracle. You claim the verse is saying without the skins pain receptors the body will not taste the punishment, yet we have both established and agreed that other organs do sense pain.
You magically keep a person alive and immortal and have a fire roast through them and even once the skin has roasted through the fire will eventually hit and damage other organs that will cause pain.

[paulpablo]

“THIS VERSE DOES NOT CONTRADICT ANY TEACHINGS ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF PAIN FROM AN ANCIENT UNDERSTANDING.”

By looking at your confidence, I have asked you to provide some references from sixth or seventh centuries:

My sources are the quran, which is saying that burning hurts, with no mention of pain receptors or where the pain receptors are or if burnt skin does or does not feel pain once it is burnt.
It isn't saying the old burnt skin feels no pain, it is saying burning skin hurts and burning more skin hurts more.
And I'm quite certain that ancient man understood that burning skin hurt.

[bennyboy]

According to the modern teachings of science, the main idea is that iron on earth is a foreign element, which was not part of earth at the time of its formation. The main idea of this fact goes side by side with the main idea of the verse without any contradiction.

"The cat sat in the hat" Doesn't contradict the teachings of modern science, because cats can sit in hats, but it isn't a miracle, NOT contradicting science doesn't mean something is a miracle.

Here's this thread in a nutshell: Harris is taking things we already know well, and claiming that past knowledge according with current knowledge is a miracle.

To prove a miracle, Harris must do the following: 1) show something that does NOT accord with science in the Quran; 2) show that it is true.  This is my criterion for consideration for miracle (really, just a meaning): that something contradict all we know and believe, and can be shown to be true.

[Excited Penguin]

"The cat sat in the hat" Doesn't contradict the teachings of modern science, because cats can sit in hats, but it isn't a miracle, NOT contradicting science doesn't mean something is a miracle.

Here's this thread in a nutshell: Harris is taking things we already know well, and claiming that past knowledge according with current knowledge is a miracle.

To prove a miracle, Harris must do the following: 1) show something that does NOT accord with science in the Quran; 2) show that it is true.  This is my criterion for consideration for miracle (really, just a meaning): that something contradict all we know and believe, and can be shown to be true.

By your own definition a miracle is impossible even to imagine, whereas a Christian would say Jesus coming down from the sky to raise the dead and take us into heaven would be a miracle, but that can be thought of. You can depict in your mind Jesus doing all those things. You can imagine a dead person coming out of a tomb. Hell, you see it on TV all the time. You can imagine heaven as some sort of place where ancient greeks used to chill out.