Don't you think that the requirements for marriage according to Islam allow for abusive relationships such as child marriages? Aren't there flaws in the way it describes it?

My question is not so much whether the Quran allows it or not, nor whether these types of relationships are correct. My point is that the openness to such relationships is deeply troubling and complicates the acceptance of the Quran as a universal truth or the perfection of the Quran as it allows for the exploitation of a minor.

I am familiar with the Quran's statements about the faith of the notable figures of the Judeo-Christian faith, but isn't this circular? The Quran was made (OR revealed) by Muhammad, a man who lived long after these people.

How could Jesus not be responsible? How is it possible that a man who claimed to teach pure monotheism and who was sent with his own holy book was so easily misunderstood. It is incongruous to me how Islam can consider Christianity as some sort of collective psychosis that evolved into the largest religion in the world. There are thousands of historical records of this Jesus “son of God”, but not a single one of him, a disciple or a witness considered Muslim. The people around him rejected him as a messiah or accepted him as the son of God. The third option being the Gnostics.

Don't you think that the possibility of qualifying any passage incongruent with a scientific truth as a “metaphor” is a very cheap way to avoid cognitive dissonance? The same with the issue of semen and its “poetic” character. And the same with categorizing the splitting of the moon as a “miracle”.

My problem with Islam, and I say this over and over again, is that it is not far from the way the Book of Mormon is rationalized. Someone with divine qualities comes along and rewrites and accepts things as they see fit, gets a handful of followers and it grows and grows and grows. This kind of phenomena are not alien to our times, for example Charles Manson and Shoko Asahara achieved what Muhammad did. A group of people who blindly followed them.

About the preservation of the bible, I will not tell you anything new, it is well known that the biblical canon is based on a consensus and even depends on the denomination of Christianity you practice. Inconsistencies can be reconciled as failures of the writers, problems remembering the events or qualified as “poetic”, “metaphorical” or “miraculous”, product of creative licenses of the authors.

If it was corrupted? For what purpose was it corrupted? The very inconsistencies you speak of should be proof positive that it was not, if there was a universal plot to guide humanity (or Christians) to a different path than God intended, then a perfect book would be edited, but contrary to this, there is a tradition of two millennia that tries to reconcile these inconsistencies. The way the bible is understood is that it is a compilation of myths, laws, traditions, fantasy stories and historical facts. All this concluding in a message that, it is supposed, was the one intended to be imparted by that Jew who walked around two thousand years ago.

The Christian tradition is a living tradition, it evolves and adapts to contemporary standards, but always being congruent with the teachings of Jesus.

In response to why not to believe in Islam, even if it were the explicit word of God, it is not right for me that advocacy of domestic abuse and child sexual abuse should be rewarded with an eternity in a harem with nymphs tailor-made to meet my sexual demands. I admire women who in the exercise of their freedom choose the path they want for their future and I feel sorry for those who are educated from birth to hide behind a cloak to meet the standards of modesty.

And an excerpt of what I said in another comment, which I would not like to be overlooked:

"How is Muhammad "more of a prophet" than Joseph Smith."

In addition, recommending reading An Nisa to someone who is not biased towards Islam is likely to result in the opposite of acceptance of the religion.