RE: How do you debated a Muslim?
March 18, 2013 at 12:24 pm
(This post was last modified: March 18, 2013 at 12:24 pm by ManMachine.)
(March 15, 2013 at 6:52 pm)Gooders1002 Wrote: There is a guy at work who is a Muslim, and he will not let me me get in a word in. Also as I do not who the Quran, what are the pages that show it's not a religion of peace but of its a brutal religion?
Firstly, it's a nonsense using the Qur'an to prove or disprove the nature of the Qur'an, it's recursive and pointless.
Secondly, one of the main features of Islamic study and philosophy is a process called abrogation (Naskh) which is the theory of ongoing reinterpretation of the Qur'an to keep it contrmporary, reveal hidden meanings, clarfiy points of religious significance, etc. This means that the Qur'an is not a static text that can be understood by laypeople through a simple encounter (such as reading it), you need to have a level of understanding in how the verses have been abrogated in the past and it also means context is critical to interpretation. There is no simple method of translating the Qur'an and many different schools of philosophy have grown up around this issue. Anyone who tells you there is one clear interpretation is not telling you the truth.
Finally, the Qur'an is written only to make sense in Arabic (as some words can not directly translated, like the Jewish Torah cannot be translated accurately out of Hebrew) and so any other-language translation is effectively not recognised by many Islamic Schollars as accurate.
There are a lot of online resources you can use, including an online, searchable qur'an. Here's one,
http://quran.com/
But remember my points above...
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
