Thanks for your response Matt,
I would like to respond paragraph by paragraph. It makes it easier on our discussion and for the readers. In the first part of your comment you state:
“Not all of Islam would say they were corrupted, just like not all of Islam are radical extremists.”
This statement is true. Not all of Islam would agree on these two points. However, what is important, is not what is agreed upon. What is important is the truth. What does Islam use as its sources of truth, and what do they say on these topics? Are there different interpretations? Of course there are. I recognize that the same types of interpretations exist in Christianity. But every religion has an orthodoxy, or fundamental things that it believes that are non-negotiable. I recently asked a Muslim friend of mine what kind of Muslim he was. Was he a Shiia, Sunni, Wahabi? His response was, “I am a Muslim, that stuff doesn’t matter. All Muslims will agree that on that day Allah will not say ‘Oh Sunni, Oh Shiia’ he will say ‘Oh Muslim’”. This quote perfectly illustrates that what I am attempting to analyze is not the most popular intellectual consensus on an issue, but what is taught in the various religious sources themselves as to the nature of these worldviews.
“If we are going to find major errors within Islam lets not forget that Christianity and Judaism also have some major flaws within themselves. Not all of Islam is trying to destroy “western Christian values”. There are those that seek to reform and participate in talks of peace with other religions.”
Again it is important to remember that I am not attempting to use the extremely liberal, or the extremely conservative interpretation as a basis for what these religions believe. I am looking at the basis of the religions themselves. What are the orthodoxies and what are the logical, observable outworking when a human practices said orthodoxies. This is not a conversation to be likened to regional dialect. This is a conversation about what happens when different interpretations of something all originate from one source. Islam had a beginning, as did Judaism and Christianity. It is the sources I intend to explain and analyze. As far as major errors, can you please give me some examples. I will provide one example that in turn I hope with be met with an example of equal magnitude. This is a major loophole in the fundamental Islamic belief that the Qur’an is the infallible, unchangeable, incorruptible final revelation of Allah.
Translated into English this says, “Such of our revelation as We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things?” (*) This verse is a self contradiction of the grandest sorts. It is contained within a text that is meant to be the final revelation of Allah, yet within it contains information that suggests that if a better version of something comes along, it may be adopted as long as Allah wills it. If this is the case, then the Qur’an cannot be the final revelation for the word final requires a cessation of activity. If Allah may reveal more in due time, as he wills it, then his acts of revelations have not ceased and Muhammad is a liar. I hope that this illustrates a little better where I am coming from. I look forward to your response.
(*)English translation taken from The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an, Pickthall, Muhammed Marmaduke William; London, 1930
Ok i will respond in like fashion so as to keep us organized.
1. We cannot pretend that orthodoxy and general practice is based only on the sacred writings of a faith. This is a big sticking point especially among Christians but also found prominently in Islam and Judaism (sorry to keep using these three religions but they are some of the biggest and all follow a more western religious philosophy rather than an eastern one.) I am fond of John Wesley’s work here. He has been credited with developing the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (four points) to come to theological conclusions. These four points are:
Scripture – the Holy Bible (Old and New Testaments)
Tradition – the two millennia history of the Christian Church
Reason – rational thinking and sensible interpretation
Experience – a Christian’s personal and communal journey in Christ
There is no such thing as an unbiased, and pure interpretation, free from the circumstance and will of the community interpreting. Orthodoxies change… they must to survive
2. Well I guess i’ll stick with Christianity here because I know it the best (I know of a couple examples in the Torah, but not well enough to argue for them… more research is needed!). I’ll give you two examples of equal magnitude where the community of faith decided to forgo reason and settle on contradiction in order to maintain peace in the faith… one old, one rather new.
- The first is the doctrine of the Trinity itself which happened around 325 AD at the council of Nicea. How could Christianity explain 3 gods if they were supposed to be a monotheistic religion? They came up with a contradiction of the highest order, that three persons were actually One person, and that this is possible because God is God… anything is possible. This sounds much like the passage in the Qur’an you chose. How could this be both the final revelation and also perhaps not… well because “Knowest thou not that Allah is Able to do all things?”
-The end of the gospel of Mark is a hugely debated issue right now. Mark 16:9-20 by all accounts was not written by the same author that wrote the rest of Mark and the manuscripts that we have for those verses are dated much later then the ones we have for the rest of Mark. By all accounts these few verses at the least are not as reliable, and at most shouldn’t be included in the gospel. However, the community of faith has deemed them part of the canonical gospels (primarily because they talk of the resurrection of Christ) and to remove them would be unforgivable heresy.
By: matt on June 8, 2010
at 11:28 pm