Taxi Driver

[SofaKingHigh]

So, I went to see the Deftones, Peace be upon them, on Friday and in the Taxi on the way home I got talking to Muhammad, our taxi driver.  Muhammad, of course, is a Muslim.

I asked if he minded if I spoke to him about his faith, we danced through a few hoops at first, with me trying hard not to offend him.  Eventually we had a decent enough rapport that I could ask why, out of the thousands of religions out there, his was the truth.

His answer troubled me because, well, it was so bad.  He said islam was the truth because all other religions had been changed, but that islam was still in it's original form, untouched.  He then went onto use the Bible has en example, citing how many revisions and versions of the bible their have been throughout the years.  How could the word of God be changed by man so many times?

This throws up so many questions, that my head starts to hurt, but how does the fact that a book hasn't changed since it's initial release, so to speak, prove a book is written by God?  As I tried to point out to him, it only proves that the book hasn't been changed.  No more.

I was expecting something much more, but that's probably why none of this shite ever appealed to me........ when I offered an alternative explanation; that the reason he was a Muslim was the fact that he grew up in Afghanistan, he went pretty quiet for a while, before quickly changing the subject.

[Homeless Nutter]

Yeah, well - all religious people seem to have some - more or less convoluted - way of rationalizing their supposed choice of faith. Naturally, the truth in most cases is, that they were forcibly indoctrinated by their particular religion/denomination, before they even knew other faiths existed, or indeed before they could reliably distinguish reality from fantasy. But they couldn't simply admit that, because that would allow too much room for troublesome question, whether they were lucky enough to have been born into the "right" system of beliefs. Hence all the conflicting narratives and trash-talk between religions.

The only thing that seems to be able to unite all the different kinds of theists - however briefly - is atheism, because it undermines the whole concept of believing in nonsense and paying money for it. That's when a catholic and a protestant, a muslim and a hindu, a baptist and a slightly different kind of baptist can pretend to put their differences aside and allow for one another's existence, each trying to somehow justify believing in fairy-tales, by not being the only ones to do so.

But it's good to remember, that it's by no means an easy, or a reliable coalition and that at the end of the day, deep down they all consider each other deluded, abhorrent and damned...

[ReptilianPeon]

Given that we have the original text of the Epic of Gilgamesh it proves that text hasn't changed. But you won't find people assigning special meaning to that. If people care about something they will make sure that it is preserved - the Quran is no different.

Uthman, one of Muhammad's contemporaries (assuming Muhammad existed), had loads of Qurans destroyed so it's impossible to know whether we really have the original. Supposedly he standardized the Quran - and you can make of that what you wish - through a process of "controlled transmission", unlike the Bible where textual variations are not looked down upon. I think Uthman was a noob.

Muhammad, we are told, was illiterate so he had to have a scribe write it down for him. Many Arabic words, like many words in English,  can have different meanings depending on the context they are used in. So Muhammad would have had to explain what the words meant in the given context, and we have to assume that he never changed his mind. Mind - that's an excellent example of a word in English that has a different meaning depending on the context. The word English itself has a different meaning depending on the context.

Yet people who like to twist the Quran, the desperate salespeople as I like to call them, would like you to believe Arabic is a unique language and that other languages don't have words having several different meanings depending on the context that they are used in. I really don't think Arabic is the best choice for the words of Allah. Would have been better to pick an Indo-European language given how many BILLIONS more speak Indo-European languages as opposed to Afro-Asiatic languages.

But, you know, Allah doesn't have foresight. That's why Allah created Iblis and we have all these people going to hellfire thanks to the meddling of Iblis. And that's why Jewish and Christian scripture became corrupted. Allah is such a silly-billy!

[Wyrd of Gawd]

So, I went to see the Deftones, Peace be upon them, on Friday and in the Taxi on the way home I got talking to Muhammad, our taxi driver.  Muhammad, of course, is a Muslim.

I asked if he minded if I spoke to him about his faith, we danced through a few hoops at first, with me trying hard not to offend him.  Eventually we had a decent enough rapport that I could ask why, out of the thousands of religions out there, his was the truth.

His answer troubled me because, well, it was so bad.  He said islam was the truth because all other religions had been changed, but that islam was still in it's original form, untouched.  He then went onto use the Bible has en example, citing how many revisions and versions of the bible their have been throughout the years.  How could the word of God be changed by man so many times?

This throws up so many questions, that my head starts to hurt, but how does the fact that a book hasn't changed since it's initial release, so to speak, prove a book is written by God?  As I tried to point out to him, it only proves that the book hasn't been changed.  No more.

I was expecting something much more, but that's probably why none of this shite ever appealed to me........ when I offered an alternative explanation; that the reason he was a Muslim was the fact that he grew up in Afghanistan, he went pretty quiet for a while, before quickly changing the subject.

Of course the Koran has changed.  Where does the idiot think those numbered verses came from?  They sure as hell weren't in the orginal.

[account_inactive]

he went pretty quiet for a while, before quickly changing the subject.

At least he didn't blow himself up.