I love religion!

[Purple Rabbit]

No, many religious people teach that the followers should not question, and should believe in things that there is little evidence for. (A Muslim would argue the Qur’an is proof of God’s existence. I know that’s a circular argument, but I’ve seen it used. Therefore you can’t say there is NO evidence, but there is certainly no ‘scientific’ evidence.)

That is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard an atheist claim. Circular arguments are not evidence but flaws in reasoning.

No, it was a comment containing both a theist view and an atheist view in one. The trick in understanding ideas is to see things from another point of view in order to examine your own. My post contains two ideas:

Theist: God exists, and He shows Himself to humanity via prophets and so on, therefore the Qur’an is evidence that God exists.

Atheist: There is no scientific, empirical evidence that God exists.

You have gone from the assumption that God doesn’t exist to the conclusion that the Qur’an is wrong. If the Qur’an is right, it’s not circular, as God caused the Holy text, and therefore it is evidence. Only from a non-believer’s view is that incorrect. I don’t necessarily agree with Descartes either on things, but I still try to see his view when reading his works.

I side with Leo here. Either your remark is silly or you are extremely sloppy with defining the terms you use. Though evidence in a broad sense may include everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion, in debate not all 'evidence' is seen as valid evidence.

Reasoning from the Qur’an texts that assert that god exists, to conclude that god exists is circular reasoning. Like saying that a Purple Rabbit in the 26th dimension exists because I say so, is circular. To identify circular reasoning it's totally irrellevant whether or not the Qur’an is right. The reasoning is circular nonetheless. Circular reasoning is fallacious reasoning, it does not stick as valid argument in any serious debate accepting the rules of informal logic. It does not mean that the opposite is true (i.e. that god does not exist) or that there can be no other proof, but simply that it is not a valid argument. Also the identification of circular argument as such, is not a prescription for what alternatively should identify as valid argument. You bring up empirical evidence yourself as an acceptable alternative but non-empirical deductional proof is valid also in debate. Still you put the words in the mouth of the atheist that all evidence must be empirical.

In trying to see "things from another point of view in order to examine your own" you stretch yourself beyond the boundary of logic and forget that both theists and atheists implicitly or explicitly accept the rules of informal logic in which circular reasoning is fallacious when engaging in debate. This is necessary to be able to communicate. If a theist or atheist chooses to accept what is considered illogic such as the circular reasoning in your examples all gates to hell are open for we should accept on word alone all assertions being made. There is no halfway into the realm of illogic. Once you let in illogic all argument disintegrates.

So if you mean the word 'evidence' to include invalid evidence, circular reasoning counts as evidence brought to the table. But accepting this as evidence in that sense does not make it valid evidence. It is clear however that both theists an atheists want their evidence to be not just evidence in that broad sense but also valid evidence under the rules of logic.