How literally should we take the Qur'an ?

[Pat Mustard]

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

The problem when dealing with this issue often is the constant argument that the translation is simply not good enough. English simply cannot encompass the complexity of the Arabic language. Some words have multiple meanings and therefore a certain verse can mean a lot of things. Added to that, is the ever lasting argument of "you are taking it too literally". That verse does not mean that literally, it is merely a poetic expression to show a truth.

No; use "common sense"; the verses do mean what they say exactly.
For example, this verse:

Sura 16
( 15 )   And He has cast into the earth firmly set mountains, lest it shift with you, and [made] rivers and roads, that you may be guided,

Take it "literally". Mountains increase earth's mass. If they don't exist, earth's mass would decrease. Disturb the mass, and you'll disturb the orbit of the planet.

That's all well and good, except for one inconvenient fact. The sum of the earth's mass contained within the crust, of which mountains make up a small part, adds up to 0.5% of the whole. So mountain mass does pretty much zip for maintaining earth's orbit or atmosphere.

Of course that is all assuming that your personal interpretation is what the writers of the qu'ran meant, which it is not, and that the qu'ran is also the received word of god, which it is also not. The qu'ran is simply the most recent interpretation of a bunch of creation mythologies first told in the first cities emerging out of the Fertile Crescent, and is as ignorant of reality as the earlier mythologies.