Bring a Surah like it (is it a sound argument)

[Mystic]

The Quran said to the people, if you accuse Quran of being fabricated, then bring a Surah like it. As no one has brought a Surah like , it claims it's divine.

This gives the notion that Quran being unique without no one being able to replicate it implies it's divine?

Now to prove this, it is shown no one has made a surah like Quran's. But does this prove that it cannot be done, or just simply that it hasn't.

And another thing, is it possible that a unique literature be brought by a human that cannot be replicated? Is there any proof that if it's style cannot be replicated, that it's divine?

Perhaps examples of literature that is unique and no one has been able to replicate it's style and make something similar to it, will prove that literature having nothing similar to it, does not mean it's divine.

[The Grand Nudger]

What style? Fantasy fiction? Libraries full of it.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

----is it possible that a unique literature be brought by a human that cannot be replicated?

Possible,yes,likely, no.

Is there any proof that if it's style cannot be replicated, that it's divine?

No.

The argument is a 'black swan'. IE That a thing has not been seen or done does not necessarily mean it never will.


9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

On Falsification

Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion or a theory is the logical possibility that the assertion (or the theory) can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then some observation or experiment will produce a reproducible result that is in conflict with it.

The Black Swan

Are all swans white? The classical view of the philosophy of science is that it is the goal of science to "prove" such hypotheses or induce them from observational data. This seems hardly possible, since it would require us to infer a general rule from a number of individual cases, which is logically inadmissible. However, if we find one single black swan, logic allows us to conclude that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

[Minimalist]

The Quran said to the people, if you accuse Quran of being fabricated, then bring a Surah like it. As no one has brought a Surah like , it claims it's divine.

People say lots of silly stuff to claim that their personal Holy Horseshit is special.


It isn't.

[Mystic]

Is there examples of literature that exist that no one has been able to write something similar to them?

[The Grand Nudger]

What, classics? Libraries full of them.

[Mystic]

What, classics? Libraries full of them.

Can you give examples.

[The Grand Nudger]

Take your pick. Mind you, these are only those "classics" in the english language (anyone who suggest that this argument has merit should choose from the children's column).
http://www.wannalearn.com/Classic_Literature/

[KichigaiNeko]

The Quran said to the people, if you accuse Quran of being fabricated, then bring a Surah like it. As no one has brought a Surah like , it claims it's divine.

Bullshit alarm just went off.

As far as I can understand (and my knowledge is limited here) the Qur'an is a direct (plageristic) rip off of the Judaic Torah...hence the disclaimer...bent and twisted to suit the nomadic Saudi of the Arab peninsular

further ...since it was supposedly written at all is the miracle not the content...most Saudi were illiterate at that time period I am to understand

[Angrboda]

I recently attended a debate with a Muslim scholar who made this argument. It's full of holes. First, how do you measure how "like" one example of literature is to another? There is no objective way, and if you depend on the subjective testimony, then non-Muslims will find plenty "similar" and Muslims none at all. So surely, the sura is in the mind of the beholder. This being the case, it becomes a case of, "I believe, thus be it so." In that case, the Quran is just serving as a middleman for blind faith. The second problem is how to eliminate confirmation bias. If you believe the Quran inimitable, everything you see is unlike it, and every sura unique. Finally is the question of what is meant by similar. In the thinking of Heidegger is the notion that there is sameness in difference and difference in sameness. If there weren't similars in two things, they could not be compared, having no common properties; and the Quran and other "differents" certainly have "similars" -- derived from a human language, poetic, prosodic, argumentative, easily situated hermeneutically, etc. But there is also difference in sameness -- two things, no matter how alike, must differ, or be mistaken for the same thing, an identity; difference in spatial location, difference in theme, in audience, in tropes. So how does one measure the sameness in difference in the Quran, and the difference in sameness amongst its sura, without hopelessly falling into subjectivity and rendering your argument vacuous? Muslims try by pointing out how the forms of Arabic literature prior to that time differ from the form of the Quran. Does this prove that it is unique, rather than either simply innovative or poorly written? No. And if it's simply innovative, we have good reason to think that it stands alone not due to the impossibility of copying, but due to the unwillingness of Muslims to do so. Who better than a Muslim scholar to do so? And who less likely to do so?

No, the "perfect Quran" argument is little more than a stand in for other, more assailable arguments.


At that debate, they passed around index cards to write questions on for the Q & A period. Being handicapped, I demurred, but I wanted to ask why he felt so ill of the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu in as close to the original Chinese as possible? Had he even read it? That brings up the other side of the argument, the argument from ignorance. If you haven't examined all the world's examples of literature, what are you measuring the Quran's uniqueness against. The answer is simple, they aren't. They declare a lie to be a fact, and move on. It isn't meant to persuade, but to stymie, and comfort the faithful (who have done basically no comparisons or thinking before accepting this as true).

Indeed, I would say that both the Tao Te Ching and Sun Tzu's Art Of War are inimitable. What does that prove? Nothing.

Next time a Muslim presents you with this argument, demand they produce an original chapter of the Art Of War in classical Chinese.

Let me know your results.

(There are even simpler examples, and more pointed. Suggest they write a new, substantial chapter for, say, Bronte's Jane Eyre, and ask them, if, you were to insert that chapter into Jane Eyre, a reader already familiar with Jane Eyre -- as Muslims are with the Quran -- would not notice the odd chapter in the course of their rereading the book. Indeed, in this case, familiarity does indeed breed contempt, for other forms and examples; what the Muslim perceives as wisdom and beauty is nothing more than the old familiar tunnel vision that afflicts those with more faith than sense.)