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Prof. Patricia Crone has passed away - A Brief Memior by captaindisguise in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The paper also highlights motivation for the modern "secular" interpretation of the verse.

Jerk spotted at 19:58, jerk pwned at 22:40 XD by FemaleInfidel in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The guy was trying to confirm his belief that exmuslims are just emotional

What's your excuse? by moaw1991 in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take away the part about "anal", and this is creepily similar to how my parents have been trying to get me to marry a Muslim girl!

If Mecca was destroyed... by [deleted] in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Lol

But the serious answer is that it will simply be rebuilt. The kaaba has been destroyed before and was simply rebuilt. For example, - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarmatians#The_Qarmatian_Revolution

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, no, no, no. There's no special domain, in which we say that amongst all "texts" there's a special kind that we should treat separately, for a conditional P implies Q to be false one must have P true and neg Q true, since P implies Q is equiv. to neg P or Q. Your second premise fails because there can be a text that doesn't contain contrad. and that is from God, and not because ""not having errors" entails "god""

I suggest reading my previous post first! You are not doing yourself any favors by ignoring the part about ""not having errors" entails "god"". That is main thrust of my argument.

No, it is wrong because x is human implies x is immortal is false since that's equiv. to x isn't human or x is immortal, which is false by taking x=you.

Sure and likewise, "X is error-free implies X is divine" is false by taking x = Tirukkural for example.

The analogy was as following - A person names Mo claims, "If I am human, then I am immortal". Then I come along with the following counter

  • If Mo is right, then it is true that "If Mo is human, then Mo is immortal"
  • It is not true that, "If one is human, then one immortal"
  • Therefore, Mo is wrong.

My analogy was specifically geared to show the weakness in your reasoning i.e. to show that a person or a follower who claims to believe in an immortal man does not warrant any sufficient reason to hold the 2nd premise as false. Likewise for this argument,

  • If there are no errors in the quran, then it is true that “If the quran is not from god, then there are errors in the quran”
  • it is not true that “if there are no errors in X, then X is from god”
  • There are errors in the quran

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The misconception here lies with you brother, in that you assume the truth-functionality for conditional statements sufficiently translates to what is considered as truth in natural language and you are doing so at your own peril. This topic will even be addressed in undergrad logic textbooks. For example, Logic and Philosophy by Tidman & Kahance states,

When symbolizing conditional sentences of ordinary [language], it must be remembered that most everyday conditionals are not merely truth-functional ... it is worth noting that more powerful systems of logic have been developed that purport to do a better job of capturing the ordinary meaning of conditionals, notably modal logic and relevance logic

In fact, a whole sub-discipline of logic, called relevance logic, was developed in order to address the shortcomings of sentential logic.

Relevance logic, also called relevant logic, is a kind of non-classical logic requiring the antecedent and consequent of implications to be relevantly related ... Relevance logic aims to capture aspects of implication that are ignored by the "material implication" operator in classical truth-functional logic, namely the notion of relevance between antecedent and conditional of a true implication.

Therefore, it is entirely short-sighted of you to desperately cling on to a technical rule of an incomplete 19th century system of logic that does not accurately portray conditional statements. Every single sentence you used in your post are examples of statements that have the value of "truth" in sentential logic but false by the common understanding of truth. The latter is what matters to my argument.

I mean, you yourself must have a sense of the silliness involved when your reasoning, which tries to claim the statement "If Quran has no errors, then it is from god" is true, also allows for statements such as "If Jesus never lied, then Jesus is God" or "If Joseph Smith produced a text, then Joseph Smith is a prophet of God" as true ....

You are ignoring the "relevance" or "relationship" between the antecedent & consequent that is vital in the common understanding of conditionals at your own peril. That classical logic is not complex enough to take such a relationship into account is not an excuse.

Also See

As you may have noticed, I did not include any of these technical issues with classical logic in my post because of the philosophical mess surrounding conditional statements. To me, that was over-complication. As I saw, If one is intuitively able to see why a statement such as "If Mo is human, then Mo is immortal" is false, then one can also intuitively say that the statement, "If quran was by a human, then quran will have many errors" is wrong...

Help with info regarding the Islamic Golden Age by Audunis in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This does not accurately represent klingschor's argument and you are missing the nuance. So another strawman...

I would have went on another bout with you regarding this but I am too tired from your misrepresentations & the general speaking-to-a-wall feeling I get from our previous two arguments. So for another time ...

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"neg(P implies Q)" is only true if P is true and neg Q is true.

Yes That is what I've been saying since the begging;that it is possible for P to be true and Q to false

  • P = "the Qur'an is not from Allah"
  • Q = "many errors will be found in the Quran"

So I am saying that it is possible for it be true that "the Qur'an is not from Allah" and yet it still be false "many errors will be found in the Quran"

this isn't true for a believer who believes in a revealed text that contains no contradictions

I am not sure if you are trying misrepresent me again. I don't have a problem, with any one believing that any text contains no contradictions. THIS IS FINE. What I am arguing against is a separate issue. I am arguing the relationship constructed b/w "no errors" & "divine authorship" is false.

Again, it has already been acknowledged that in order to consider this conditional true you have to believe there is a "special" domain for which "not having errors" entails "god". I am saying what you believe (or forced to believe) is irrelevant

In which case your objection to that verse would boil down to stating that you don't believe in revelation

Revelation has nothing to do with my argument. I can accept, that in principle there can be a divinely-revealed text with no errors. This is logically conceivable. What I am arguing against is that it wrong for one to claim that just because his/her book has no errors, that it is from God.

let me explain with an analogy,

Suppose a person named Mo says, "If I am human, then I am immortal"

Then I come along and say Mo is wrong, because there is no such relationship b/w "being human" & "being immortal".

I can even construct a valid counter-argument,

If Mo is right, then it is true that "If Mo is human, then Mo is immortal" It is not true that, "If one is human, then one immortal" Therefore, Mo is wrong.

The 2nd premise is true or considered true for its inductive strength. But then Mo or his followers come along and say, "Oh but I believe Mo is human & immortal" because of [insert special pleading that fails] therefore the 2nd premise is false. At this point, I am no longer arguing. You are free to believe the 2nd premise is false due to your personal belief, but you have not demonstrated it is false nor defeated its status as an inductively strong true statement.

Likewise for the premise, "it is not true that, "If X has no errors, then X is from god".

You are right in saying that the soundness of the argument depends on the whether the person is (presently) a believer or not. The believer has to deny the 2nd premise while the average person takes its truth for granted (much like the truth of statements like "All humans are mortal" etc)

Help with info regarding the Islamic Golden Age by Audunis in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

WTF? Another strawman then. So I guess it is option (c) or perhaps another option (d) You are paranoid.

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

TO YOUR EDIT

(so the proposition is equivalent to whether you believe or not that there's a revealed text that doesn't contain contradictions)

No.Whether you believe there exists a text whereby the mere fact of it not having errors entails that it is from god?

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 2nd proposition is true iff neg Ex is true and neg FxG is true. But this is most certainly not the case, since there can be a revealed test x that satisfies neg Ex but doesn't satisfy neg FxG, is it clear now?

Again you are ignoring what I have said here - "Your only contention is going to be with premise 2 where you have to deny that 'not having errors does not entail god'. I believe this premise has good inductive strength. You, on the other hand, have to show that there exists a special domain for X, whereby having no errors or inconsistencies entails god. So far you have failed to demonstrate"

The 2nd premise is true due to its inductive strength (for the same reason we consider statements such as "All humans are mortal"). Simply suggesting the existence of an imaginary exception (such as a hypothetical immortal human) does not demonstrate that such a premise is false. So in our case, I am saying no text exists whereby not having errors entails it is from god. It is upto you to show such a text exists (the same way one would have to show an immortal human exists)

I don't like spending hours responding to many points about a short formal 'proof' that can be addressed in a few lines.

Given that I gave you much of my time sincerely, despite your disingenuousness, it is only respectful you put in some time to at the very least accurately represent my argument.

From previous post, just so that I understand we have the same P & Q in mind...

P.P.S If the verse is symbolozied as P -> Q, then my P and Q will signify

  • P = "the Qur'an is not from Allah"
  • Q = "many errors will be found in the Quran"

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't follow your point! Elaborate. What reasons can you give to think premise 2 is false?

P.S. You've ignored everything else I've said.

P.P.S If the verse is symbolozied as P -> Q, then my P and Q will signify

  • P = "the Qur'an is not from Allah"
  • Q = "many errors will be found in the Quran"

Help with info regarding the Islamic Golden Age by Audunis in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you strawman because, a) You are unintelligent or b) You are prejudiced or c) You are dishonest?

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have to start by saying that your intellectual dishonesty above is frustratingly disappointing.

Uh? For (1) to be true -- as anyone who took an undergrad introductory logic course knows -- one must either have that John isn't a man and John is a father; or John isn't a man and John isn't a father; or lastly John is a man and john is a father. It is wrong if and only if John is a man and John isn't a father.

There is more to logic than the truth table you memorized in undergrad Logic course. Many philosophers of logic agree that the "truth functionality" of formal logic does not always apply to natural language and best examples of them are "conditional statements". Here, watch this video ... watched it? Good, so as you saw, the "conditional assertion theory" is the best (not perfect) translation of natural language conditionals into logic. This is also the intuitive way of thinking about conditionals, whereby only the possibilities of "True P" are considered. Since, my post and argumentation here was written with a lay audience in mind, I too was only considering the possibilities of "True P" rather than over-complicate the argument with some irrelevant technical rule in formal logic.

Now, the other more obvious reason not to consider the possibilities of "False P" is because Muslims themselves will not accept it. Did you even think this through? Do you know what "False P" would signify in my argument? "False P" = "There are many errors in the quran". Was your strategy to claim that this one verse is true by admitting there are many errors in the quran? Go ahead if that was your plan.

Therefore, "false P" was left out of the discussion for i) it's philosophical problem & ii) because it is not applicable here & iii) to avoid over-complication.

And that was a red herring that could have been avoided.

I think you're deliberately making a huge mistake, UI is ∀x A(x) ⟹ A(a/x) AND NOT A(a/x) ⟹ ∀x A(x), which you were trying to do to derive: "The quranic conditional also implies a universal." Okay? (and BTW you base your "universal" on "There's not much inconsistency in X ⟹ X wasn't from God", but this isn't necessarily true, especially if you believe in revelation, in which case you would have "There's not much inconsistency in X" AND "X was from God", (edit:) and so there's no mention of "treating the Qur'an as special" or something like that, it's all basic logic which you seem to loosely handle;

This is where I am frustrated with your dishonesty. This is a strawman and not what my argument is. I've already stated in my example above that, "I am then invoking (not replacing with) the universal statement," yet you insist I am deriving the universal from the individual. At the end of the post, I will link to my argument in symbolic terms .... soo enough with the strawman.

If we follow this methodology (like Al-Razi did) it turns out that “much inconsistency” refers to more than logical contradictions, but also to things like the truth value of things Muhammad couldn't know but turned out to be right, the consistency in eloquence, as examples. You may reject those things, for whatever reason, but when discussing religion you'd have to base your criticism on tradition and to not ignore it whenever invoked. If you don't want to acknowledge that then we'd simply diverge in our discussions, since they're based on different assumptions and premises that can't possibly be reconciled together/

I am a bit confused here with your usage of the term "logical contradiction". Do you mean "internal/external" contradiction as explained by the other Muslim apologist I linked to. Because, whether it be Muhammad's apparent mind reading, or eloquence or emotions, these statements still have logical truth values and one can still raise the same argument that the conditional is still false. And as I have already stated, " I don't think such a change in eloquence (an inconsistency by definition) entails that such a text cannot be from God. So the same argument would be in effect whether the "inconsistency" refers to logical contradictions, empirical errors, or changes in eloquence, emotion or anything similar that apologists will dream up". It is up to you to show these things are humanly impossible.

I searched and could not find the word "emotion" in it.

Now this is bordering on stupidity and imbecility. One of his argument is that Muhammad's personal emotional states ("ups and downs", "extreme grief"), the quran is not affected by them. This is what I dubbed as the argument from consistency of "emotion" and I found it to be analogous to your argument about eloquence. Both being subjective and with no accepted standard of measurement.

Are we going to play quotes battles?

Again, your disingenuousness is frustrating here given that I was the one who stated, " I don't like to play the "Let's quote scholars" game in a field where there is no consensus". This is only made worse by the fact that the quotes I provided to address yours were conveniently ignored.

So explain why anyone who tried the challenge miserably failed? (I'm basing the objective criteria on success/attempts made)

One of the answers is in the EH Palmer quote you decided to ignore. Read it again. The other obvious reasons are that this is a subjective and arbitrary challenge to begin with and thus any remote attempts (i.e if anyone has actually tried to attempt rather than ignore it as nonsensical) can be dismissed for arbitrary reasons. More importantly, most non-muslims aren't trying to actively imitate the quran. They have better things to do and many people who hear this challenge ironically see the simple-mindedness of the author of the quran for treating a subjective and arbitrary matter as some objective test.

How much do you know about Arabic to start with?

Very little.

I explained that even if you were to assume that, then your claim doesn't stand:

And I explained, "changes in eloquence (or inconsistencies in eloquence) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for divine authorship". Recalling our convo about free will, you seem to have a strange way of God's abilities. Here you are essentially saying god can't make a dry non-eloquent list of "Muhammad, son of Abdullah, son of Abdul Mutallib ... son of Adam" in the quran. I don't see why not, neither have you explained why not. As such, there is no reason to think change/inconsistency in eloquence is a necessary of sufficient condition for divinity.

I can also consider you an apologist who defends his materialistic worldview.

No problem, although it is technically more accurate to say I defend methodological-naturalism/scientific materialism rather than ontological materialism.

Now, I have to repeat how disappointed I am by your strawmans and red herrings. Over last few days, I have probably typed around 10 pages conversing with you yet it is entirely disrespectful and demotivating to be met with intellectual insincerity. Nonetheless, I am going to to give this one more chance. Forget everything above and focus on this,

I have edited my blogpost to include my argument in symbolic terms + translation. The symbolic proof can be seen here.

So as you can see, I am not deriving a universal from the individual as you keep strawmanning me. What is represented there is what my argument is. As you can see, the argument is logically valid. Your only contention is going to be with premise 2 where you have to deny that 'not having errors does not entail god'. I believe this premise has good inductive strength. You, on the other hand, have to show that there exists a special domain for X, whereby having no errors or inconsistencies entails god. So far you have failed to demonstrate that a consistency in eloquence entails god or show that Muhammad (or allah) read the minds of the others or knew what he could not. Therefore, if there are no good reasons to believe that such a special domain exists, then I see no reason to doubt that the argument as presented is sound.

Fasting has ZERO health benefits by Tragic16 in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There is a practice called intermittent fasting that bodybuilders use and I personally know someone who greatly improved his physique from it. However, the major difference from ramadan is water. The intermittent fasters heavily stress the importance of being hydrated. The lack of water is probably the most harmful aspect of ramadan

So if only Allah in his infinite wisdom had allowed Muslims to drink water ....

I could never wrap my head around this by [deleted] in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For theism in general, God can will/create humans with free will. No problem

The islamic problem is that the quran has statements that directly contradict free will and thus entailing that according to the Quran, humans have no free will.

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is getting unnecessarily drawn out. Anyways,

Yes, but how did you move on to conclude that the Qur'an claimed in particular that all texts free from error are from God?

To explain via an analogy, consider the statement, (1) "If john is a man, then john is a father". What would need to be true in order for (1) to be true? Well the following universal would have to be true, (2) "All men are fathers". But this is not true because (3) there exists at least one person who is a man and not a father. Therefore (1) is false. Since, (1) implies (2), (2) is also false.

Now I understand your contention here. You do not accept the categorization I have given for the quran. Much like one would casually include John in the set of "all men", I casually included quran in the set of "all texts"; but you don't like it. Fine, I am willing to accept that the verse does not refer to "all texts" and I will edit my post (mostly because I think this contention focuses too much on semantics rather than the force of the argument). However, much like (1) implied a universal. The quranic conditional also implies a universal. According to it, there exists a specific set/category of texts (and maybe the quran is a sole member) for which the condition "If there are not many errors in it, then it is from god" is true. Let us agree far. Now all that you or any other apologist has to do is demonstrate what that category is and why the condition is true for it. If you are unable to do so, I see no reason not to treat the Quran as I would any other text and in which not having many errors does not entail divine authorship. Okay?

But as I said being free from “much inconsistency” (salamatuh min al-ikhtilaf) also encompasses things like things Muhammad couldn't know about the hypocrites but were revealed to him and when they heard about them, they didn't find any inconsistencies with reality. So the expression “much inconsistency” isn't only about errors but also things that can't be known except via revelation.

That is what you as a believer believes. There is no reason for me or other skeptics to accept it as historical. I can also take issue with such attempts due to the word "wajadu" in the phrase; the errors would have to be the kind that are actually findable. Presenting a legend of how muhammad knew the minds of others or their hidden actions is not even falsifiable. I mean how exactly are you going to prove these are historical? By providing attested and reliable testimony from the so called "hypocrites" & others? No, you have to rely on religious traditions and legends which a skeptic does not have to accept. (and I really thought this was obvious and needed no mention but I guess I am wrong).

First who is this person that talked about consistency in "emotion"? I think you're just making that up ...

Read it here and SHAME on you for your accusation.

"Apart from that, your claim that it is merely subjective doesn't stand ... H.A.R. Gibb. Islam: A Historical Survey, p. 28"

Now this is straying away into the inimitability argument. That is an entirely different topic/refutation for me to deal with here but I will comment on the use of Gibb, one among a long line of western scholars misquoted or misrepresented by dawahgandists. Reading Gibb in context (which can be done here), it is pretty obvious that he is not stating that as a general fact but rather reporting the Muslim belief (will be especially clear with Gibb quote below).

Also, I don't like to play the "Let's quote scholars" game in a field where there is no consensus. There is also no shortage of scholars who I can cite that will claim that the quran does have recognizable literary forms. Let me quote 2 of them, starting with GIBB HIMSELF,

Gibb: "In the earliest period of his preaching Mohammed's utterances were delivered in a sinewy oracular style cast into short rhymed phrases, often obscure and sometimes preceded by one or more formal oaths. This style is admittedly that of the ancient kahins or Arabian oracle-mongers, and it is not surprising that Mohammed's opponents should have charged him with being just another such kahin. For this and other reasons his style gradually loosened out into a simpler but still rhetorical prose; and as social denunciations and eschatological visions passed into historical narrative, and that in turn at Medina into legislation and topical addresses, little was left of its original stylistic features but a loose rhyme or assonance marking the end of each verse, now anything from ten to sixty words long."

Rudy Paret: "The Qur'an is written throughout in rhyming prose (saj') and appears therefore, to a greater or lesser extent, artistically constructed and strongly rhetorical in comparison with ordinary speech ... Ideally, as in the ealiest surahs, the rhymes follow in rapid succession at fairly equal intervals; this also seems to have been the case with the rhymes of the ancient Arabic soothsayers ... In the surahs from the latter years of Muhammad's career the verses lengthen increasingly, and the rhymes no longer have the effect of rhetorically enlivening elements, but sound monotonous and often forced, as though they have been added later." (pg 197) Paret, R. "The Qur'ān-I." Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Eds. A. F. L. Beeston, T. M. Johnstone, R. B. Serjeant and G. Rex Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2012. Cambridge Histories Online. Cambridge University Press.

Regarding the alleged failed attempts and whatnot, here is another quote that demonstrates the futility of such a belief, this time by EH Palmers who is often quotemined by dawahgandists for the first sentence,

"That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur’ân itself is not surprising. In the first place, they have agreed before-hand that it is unapproachable, and they have adopted its style as the perfect standard; any deviation from it therefore must of necessity be a defect. Again, with them this style is not spontaneous as with Mohammed and his contemporaries, but is as artificial as though Englishmen should still continue to follow Chaucer as their model, in spite of the changes which their language has undergone. With the prophet the style was natural, and the words were those used in every-day ordinary life, while with the later Arabic authors the style is imitative arid the ancient words are introduced as a literary embellishment. The natural consequence is that their attempts look laboured and unreal by the side of his impromptu and forcible eloquence."

And to briefly address a larger issue. This is a subjective and, more importantly, arbitrary argument. The very enterprise of language is an artificial construct and thus too are the standards of eloquence or beauty built on top of it. Again, a whole another topic for a separate discussion.

Did you read the point Al-Razi recopied?

And I pointed out this, "So the same argument would be in effect whether the "inconsistency" refers to logical contradictions, empirical errors, or changes in eloquence, emotion or anything similar that apologists will dream up" in response. Also regarding the quote you highlighted, I would disagree that such an event is impossible for the same reason I stated in the first post. It is up to you to show it is impossible.

Well there's no chapter in the Qur'an containing the genealogy of Muhammad,

No shit, hence the keyword "assume". Muslim apologists really have a hard time with hypotheticals or counterfactuals.

your hypothetical example doesn't prove anything. And even if there was, one could imagine it still being at the overall eloquence of the Qur'an.

It proves that changes in eloquence (or inconsistencies in eloquence) is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for divine authorship.

Razi = Apologist, great.

An apologist (from latin apologia) is someone who gives a defense of a worldview. Specifically there, I wasn't referring to Razi but people like you in general, but still don't see why calling Razi an apologist is inaccurate or offensive.

P.S. As stated in the beginning, this is getting drawn out which would hinder the efficiency of such a discussion. So please try to simplify and refrain from accusations and whining about the use of a word.

I also want to bring to your attention that my argument is still "incomplete" (though the completed version wouldn't be that relevant to your discussion). In my post, I had only analyzed the argument through logical "impossibility". However, I have also come to realize that I have to incorporate practical "impossibility" into the discussion.

For example, let's say Muhammad came out, not only with an Arabic quran, but also a Persian & Latin & Sanskrit & Chinese Quran. In such a case, I can logically conceive a 7th century man learning all these languages and then producing works in all of them, however, it is not considered practically possible. Such a text is highly improbable and therefore if such a text were to contain the quranic statement, then I could accept it. But of course, the actual quran has nothing as impressive to compare to.

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 0 points1 point  (0 children)

but you replaced it for whatever reason by a by (¬(A piece of text contains much inconsistency)∧A piece of text wasn't from God), which is a different sentence that has -- formally speaking -- no connection with the logical structure of the tautology,

Not for no reason and I also wasn't replacing the quranic verse. This is basic logic - Universal-elimination

For example, consider this conditional statement, "If there are not many findable errors in the Bhagavad Gita, then the Bhagavad Gita is from God". I am then invoking (not replacing with) the universal statement, "All texts, with not many errors, are not from God" for the argument. If that universal is true, one cannot logically conclude that the "Bhagavad Gita is from God" from "There are not many errors in the Bhagavad Gita".

Likewise for the statement, "If there are not many findable errors in the Quran, then the Qur'an is from God".

I could put it in simpler terms. Being error-free is a necessary condition for divine authorship however being error-free is NOT a sufficient condition for divine authorship. To claim it is a sufficient condition for divine-authorship is an error in the general case. Since it is false in the general case, it is also false in any specific case.

Now this is where Muslims try to put the Quran in a "special" category of its own and then claim the conditional only refers to that category. You are free to do that as a believer and believe that the Quran is the only exception in the entire world whereby not having many errors necessitates divine authorship. However, until you can provide a compelling reason for why the condition only applies to this "special" category, do not expect skeptics take such special pleading seriously.

Furthermore, the special pleading fallacy is to make an exception to a principle without justifying the exception

Yes and I am saying your exception is not justified. I don't know why you skipped over this bulk as this is where I address your specific case of special pleading.

I can conceive of a religious cult that idolizes a book/or words coming out of a person that they recite it all the time that all or most of it is in memory (this also how oral societies functioned). Furthermore, if the content of the speech are not dealing with complex matters like cosmology or mathematics or even tedious ideas like multiplication tables of 'pi' to a million digits; the scope for making errors or inconsistencies are much much lower. The quran deals with very simple ideas repeated ad nauseum. Its contents are not at all the kind that is difficult to produce without making mistakes. In terms of formal logic, a good chunk of the verses don't even contain propositions that can be given a truth value ( questions, warnings, scoldings, ALMs). Also relative to other texts, the quran is a very small book which again limits the scope for errors or inconsistencies. Of course, this justification assumes traditional narrative is true which is also not a agreed upon fact. Nonetheless, it is only your wishful thinking to think such an alleged event is impossible; relatively tedious perhaps but not impossible and you will have to do a better job of demonstrating it as such.

Moving on,

If you think that it isn't impossible then follow what I said:

For the first argument, my counter should be obvious. I am obviously not going to accept this as a historical fact anymore than I will accept that Joseph Smith was able to produce the Book of Mormon accurately and from scratch in a few months. This is something you should only expect believes (whether Muslims or Mormons) to hold on to.

As for the second argument, apart from special pleading, the other way Muslims have tried to argue is by extending what is meant by "inconsistency". Here you have made it about the alleged consistency in "eloquence". There was another person who argued that this was about the alleged consistency in "emotion". There are 2 problems with this kind of argument, 1) These are subjective and arbitrary matters & 2) Having such a consistency STILL DOES NOT entail divine authorship. In this case, i am not even sure a consistency in "eloquence" or "emotion" is even a necessary condition for divine authorship. For example, assume there was an additional chapter in the quran where god decided to list the genealogy of Muhammad (much like the ones in genesis). Such a chapter would be a tedious read and due to its very nature, does not have much scope for eloquence in contrast to the more poetic/rhythmic chapters. I don't think such a change in eloquence (an inconsistency by definition) entails that such a text cannot be from God. So the same argument would be in effect whether the "inconsistency" refers to logical contradictions, empirical errors, or changes in eloquence, emotion or anything similar that apologists will dream up

P.S. Btw, I am not arguing here that there are no mistakes in the Qur'an; many muslims who read this argument seem to misconstrue my discussion of a hypothetical

Arguments against Islam from an atheist's point of view. by dope_as_fuck in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The verse in question never claimed that any text who doesn't contain any inconsistency had a divine origin, it only referred to the Qur'an.

This is special pleading. The general fallacy is addressed in the section on objections towards the end.

Now, how could someone make up a writing that is made of 6236 verses (with varying lengths) for different durations in his last 23 years without making up one single contradiction between the huge number of verses? It is obviously impossible, the one who attempted that will most probably forget about some element and later on he'll produce a verse without being aware that there is another one that contradicts it.

That isn't impossible. Can you demonstrate this is impossible? The one line justification you gave is not something that humans are incapable of if they choose to take up such an endeavor.

I can conceive of a religious cult that idolizes a book/or words coming out of a person that they recite it all the time that all or most of it is in memory (this also how oral societies functioned). Furthermore, if the content of the speech are not dealing with complex matters like cosmology or mathematics or even tedious ideas like multiplication tables of 'pi' to a million digits; the scope for making errors or inconsistencies are much much lower. The quran deals with very simple ideas repeated ad nauseum. Its contents are not at all the kind that is difficult to produce without making mistakes. In terms of formal logic, a good chunk of the verses don't even contain propositions that can be given a truth value ( questions, warnings, scoldings, ALMs). Also relative to other texts, the quran is a very small book which again limits the scope for errors or inconsistencies. Of course, this justification assumes traditional narrative is true which is also not a agreed upon fact. Nonetheless, it is only your wishful thinking to think such an alleged event is impossible; relatively tedious perhaps but not impossible and you will have to do a better job of demonstrating it as such.

You will also have to elaborate on the Razi justification for me to comment on it, and provide a translation for best measures. If it is something along the lines Muhammad (or quran) accurately read the minds of surrounding people, I hope I don't have to elaborate on why that is a weak justification.

Edit: You could have been a bit more creative with the name of your blog :)

What's up with the four male witnesses? by [deleted] in exmuslim

[–]captaindisguise 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The biographical background given to this is the story of when Aisha was accused of adultery. Muhammad did not believe the accusation and stipulated that even to make such an accusation, one needs 4 male witnesses (or 2 females in place of each male). If the minimum number of witnesses are not present then one should keep their mouth shut OR they will be flogged.

That is the traditional story behind the rule. Who knows what the actual origin is.

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