Quran

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Tell me you don't know how to read without telling me you don't know how to read.

I can find about anything on google, if I want. And see subjects in almost everything. 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Especially because Jews are on average more intelligent than Christians.

Do you mean educated or actually intelligent?  And if intelligent, then by what measure?

Edited February 20, 2023 by Calm

[Hamilton Porter]

40 minutes ago, Calm said:

Do you mean educated or actually intelligent?  And if intelligent, then by what measure?

IQs

[pogi]

On 2/18/2023 at 7:35 PM, Hamilton Porter said:

This thread is for Latter-day Saints who've read or are reading the Quran.

 

Can you give a brief overview of what this is about so I can determine if it is worth my time?

[Hamilton Porter]

10 minutes ago, pogi said:

Can you give a brief overview of what this is about so I can determine if it is worth my time?

It's about recontextualizing and reconstructing the Annunciation narrative in the Quran with other texts.

But I mainly just wanted to start a thread on the Quran.

[Hamilton Porter]

This looks interesting.

Author is a Sephardic Jew.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211350/jews-and-the-quran

Edited February 20, 2023 by Hamilton Porter

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

IQs

Then there is a good chance that it isn’t really intelligence Jews (as a group) possess more than Christians, but somethings else quite worthwhile to possess in our culture.

Quote

Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achievement, economic success, even greater health, and longevity. Is that because they are more intelligent? Not necessarily. New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test. And harnessing that motivation might be as important to later success as so-called native intelligence. 

Researchers have long debated what IQ tests actually measure, and whether average differences in IQ scores--such as those between different ethnic groups--reflect differences in intelligence, social and economic factors, or both. The debate moved heavily into the public arena with the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, which suggested that the lower average IQ scores of some ethnic groups, such as African-Americans and Hispanics, were due in large part to genetic differences between them and Caucasian groups. That view has been challenged by many scientists. For example, in his 2009 book "Intelligence and How to Get It," Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, argued that differences in IQ scores largely disappear when researchers control for social and economic factors. 

New work, led by Angela Lee Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and reported online today in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explores the effect of motivation on how well people perform on IQ tests. While subjects taking such tests are usually instructed to try as hard as they can, previous research has shown that not everyone makes the maximum effort. A number of studies have found that subjects who are promised monetary rewards for doing well on IQ and other cognitive tests score significantly higher.

https://www.science.org/content/article/what-does-iq-really-measure

[SeekingUnderstanding]

11 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

 don't think an inverse-relationship of truth and page volume is a broadly applicable standard.

Isn’t that the point? Someone writing 500 pages on something has no impact on whether it’s true. There is no correlation between a paper’s length and its truthfulness. Humans and expert at seeing patterns and correlations where none exist. The mere fact that an apologist wrote 500 pages on a subject is not evidence one way or another. 
 

Sean Carrol can give a five minute, or five year overview of the standard model of particle physics. And Ken Ham can do the same on young earth creationism. The fact that someone managed to write 500 pages (500 pages!?) means nothing. 
 

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by SeekingUnderstanding

[Hamilton Porter]

44 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Isn’t that the point? Someone writing 500 pages on something has no impact on whether it’s true. There is no correlation between a paper’s length and its truthfulness.

If you understood his point you wouldn't have tried to argue that a convincing book should be short.

Sit this one out, Billy Bob.

[Hamilton Porter]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Then there is a good chance that it isn’t really intelligence Jews (as a group) possess more than Christians, but somethings else quite worthwhile to possess in our culture.

https://www.science.org/content/article/what-does-iq-really-measure

I understand the point. But it still must be super obnoxious for a Jew to hear something from a Christian insinuating he doesn't know his own faith.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Hamilton Porter

[pogi]

10 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

It's about recontextualizing and reconstructing the Annunciation narrative in the Quran with other texts.

But I mainly just wanted to start a thread on the Quran.

Is it an attempt to make the Quran another, another testament of the divinity of Jesus Christ?

Muhammad was a true but misunderstood prophet of God?  Something like that? 

[OGHoosier]

4 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Isn’t that the point? Someone writing 500 pages on something has no impact on whether it’s true. There is no correlation between a paper’s length and its truthfulness. Humans and expert at seeing patterns and correlations where none exist. The mere fact that an apologist wrote 500 pages on a subject is not evidence one way or another. 
 

Sean Carrol can give a five minute, or five year overview of the standard model of particle physics. And Ken Ham can do the same on young earth creationism. The fact that someone managed to write 500 pages (500 pages!?) means nothing. 
 

 

You're quite right that length of text is not identical with truth. This makes your earlier comment rather confusing, as you suggested that truth only needs one page.

That argument is, of course, manifestly absurd, as analyzing multiple lines of evidence requires space. 500 pages is an indication, if not a demonstration, that there is some content to be dealt with.

[Pyreaux]

14 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

If you understood his point you wouldn't have tried to argue that a convincing book should be short.

Sit this one out, Billy Bob.

Chill man, it looks like you're starting to take it personally.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Hamilton Porter]

This looks interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jeffersons-Quran-Islam-Founders/dp/0307388395/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2TAQWS7M9D3JP&keywords=thomas+jefferson+quran&qid=1676950374&sprefix=thomas+jefferson+quran%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-1

 

[Hamilton Porter]

8 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

 

Del

Edited February 21, 2023 by Hamilton Porter

[Niblo]

‘And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their progeny and made them bear witness concerning themselves, “Am I not your Lord?” they said, “Yea, we bear witness” – lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, “Truly of this we were heedless,”’ (Sūrah, al-Aʿrāf:172).

Shaykh Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes:

‘This verse is in many ways the cornerstone of Islamic sacred history and anthropology and establishes that the fundamental relationship between God and all human beings is premised upon the simple, unmediated recognition of His Lordship at the moment of their pretemporal creation.

 ‘The event recounted in this verse is widely referred to as a pretemporal covenant (mīthāq) or pact (ʿahd) – although these terms do not appear in the verse itself – made by God with all of humanity prior to their earthly existence.

‘It is connected by commentators with a pretemporal covenant between God and the prophets (3:81; 33:7) and considered by some to be subsequent to it.  The Quran mentions covenants or pacts between God and the believers generally (5:1, 7; 6:152; 13:20, 25; 16:91, 95; 57:8) as well as covenants with Abraham (2:124–25), the Israelites (2:40, 63, 83–84, 93; 4:154; 5:70), the Christians (5:14), and the People of the Book collectively (3:187). But the making of the covenant described in the present verse is unmediated and universal – contracted directly between God and all humanity – and can thus be interpreted as the basis of all later and specific covenants mediated by the prophets.

'This verse is also connected with the Quranic notion of the fiṭrah, the primordial nature (30:30) with which all human beings were originally endowed, indicating that the innate recognition of God’s Oneness constitutes the essence of being human (see 30:30c).

 ‘Even though human beings do not remember the pretemporal covenant, their testimony to God’s Lordship is understood to have left an indelible imprint upon their souls and to have established moral responsibility for them. 

 ‘When these souls are engendered in earthly bodies and reach the age of moral understanding and accountability, the innate knowledge is reawakened in those who believe by their encounter with prophetic teachings, scriptures, and Divine laws, which serve as a reminder and renewal of their initial covenant with God.  Therefore, if a child dies before reaching the age of moral and religious responsibility, he or she is considered to have died according to the first covenant (mīthāq) and the original fiṭrah, and so in a state of moral purity.

 ‘Some commentators have argued that it is precisely this human inability to remember the event described in this verse that points to its symbolic nature and thus reject the idea that a pretemporal covenant, of which most human beings are not conscious and that they cannot recall, could be the basis of a responsibility that is binding upon them. When this verse is read in the wider Quranic context and juxtaposed with Quranic prophetic history, however, this pretemporal recognition of God’s Lordship can be understood as creating an innate disposition in human beings toward recognizing and worshipping God during earthly life and toward accepting the prophets and the messages they bring as “reminders” of what human beings already know inwardly, but have merely forgotten.’ (‘The Study Qur’an’; my emphasis).

You will note that each of us enjoyed a ‘fundamental relationship’ with Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) at the moment of our ‘pretemporal creation’.  Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) in by no means unique in this regard.

 

Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) says this, concerning Yeshua’s conception:

 ‘People of the Book, do not go to excess in your religion, and do not say anything about Allāh except the truth: the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was nothing more than a messenger of Allāh, His word (‘wakalimatuhu’), directed to Mary, a spirit (‘warūḥun’) from Him.  So believe in Allāh and His messengers and do not speak of three – stop (this), that is better for you – Allāh is only one God, He is far above having a son, everything in the heavens and earth belongs to Him and He is the best one to trust.’ (Al-Nisa: 171).

The word ‘wakalimatuhu’ is derived from the root ‘kāf lām mīm’; and refers – not to the Logos (the Second Person of the Trinity, as understood by Trinitarians) – but to speech; to a spoken word – to any spoken word.

The word ‘warūḥun’ is derived from the root ‘rā wāw ḥā’; and comes from the form ‘rūḥ’; meaning ‘soul’; ‘spirit’; and ‘inspiration’.  When applied to Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) it refers to his spirit soul.  We all possess  such a soul.

Shaykh Nasr writes:

‘Jesus is a sign unto mankind in that he serves as a proof of God’s Power as Creator (IK), since his birth shows that God is capable of bringing a child into being without a father, just as He was capable of bringing Adam into being without a mother or a father. Through his miraculous conception and birth and his speaking as an infant (vv. 30–33), Jesus is also a sign or proof of his own prophethood and of his mother’s innocence . Cf. 23:50, where Mary and Jesus together are said to constitute a sign. Jesus is also a mercy from God to Mary and to those who believe in him and are guided by him’ (‘The Study Qur’an’).

 

Consider this:

‘The angel said, ‘Mary, Allāh gives you news of a word (‘bikalimatin’) from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, who will be held in honour in this world and the next, who will be one of those brought near to Allāh.  He will speak to people in his infancy and in his adulthood.  He will be one of the righteous.’ (Al‘Imran: 45-46).

‘Bikalimatin’ is derived from the same root (‘kāf lām mīm’) as ‘wakalimatuhu’ and, as you might expect, also refers to a spoken word. 

Al‘Imran continues: 

‘She said, ‘My Lord, how can I have a son when no man has touched me?’ (The angel) said, ‘This is how Allāh creates what He will: when He has ordained something, He says only, "Be" (‘kun’), and it is.’ (Verse 47).

Yeshua is indeed a word from Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla); and that word is ‘Be’; the command that brought Yeshua – and everything else – into being.

[Pyreaux]

5 hours ago, Niblo said:

‘And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their progeny and made them bear witness concerning themselves, “Am I not your Lord?” they said, “Yea, we bear witness” – lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, “Truly of this we were heedless,”’ (Sūrah, al-Aʿrāf:172).

Shaykh Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes:

‘This verse is in many ways the cornerstone of Islamic sacred history and anthropology and establishes that the fundamental relationship between God and all human beings is premised upon the simple, unmediated recognition of His Lordship at the moment of their pretemporal creation.

 ‘The event recounted in this verse is widely referred to as a pretemporal covenant (mīthāq) or pact (ʿahd) – although these terms do not appear in the verse itself – made by God with all of humanity prior to their earthly existence.

‘It is connected by commentators with a pretemporal covenant between God and the prophets (3:81; 33:7) and considered by some to be subsequent to it.  The Quran mentions covenants or pacts between God and the believers generally (5:1, 7; 6:152; 13:20, 25; 16:91, 95; 57:8) as well as covenants with Abraham (2:124–25), the Israelites (2:40, 63, 83–84, 93; 4:154; 5:70), the Christians (5:14), and the People of the Book collectively (3:187). But the making of the covenant described in the present verse is unmediated and universal – contracted directly between God and all humanity – and can thus be interpreted as the basis of all later and specific covenants mediated by the prophets.

'This verse is also connected with the Quranic notion of the fiṭrah, the primordial nature (30:30) with which all human beings were originally endowed, indicating that the innate recognition of God’s Oneness constitutes the essence of being human (see 30:30c).

 ‘Even though human beings do not remember the pretemporal covenant, their testimony to God’s Lordship is understood to have left an indelible imprint upon their souls and to have established moral responsibility for them. 

 ‘When these souls are engendered in earthly bodies and reach the age of moral understanding and accountability, the innate knowledge is reawakened in those who believe by their encounter with prophetic teachings, scriptures, and Divine laws, which serve as a reminder and renewal of their initial covenant with God.  Therefore, if a child dies before reaching the age of moral and religious responsibility, he or she is considered to have died according to the first covenant (mīthāq) and the original fiṭrah, and so in a state of moral purity.

 ‘Some commentators have argued that it is precisely this human inability to remember the event described in this verse that points to its symbolic nature and thus reject the idea that a pretemporal covenant, of which most human beings are not conscious and that they cannot recall, could be the basis of a responsibility that is binding upon them. When this verse is read in the wider Quranic context and juxtaposed with Quranic prophetic history, however, this pretemporal recognition of God’s Lordship can be understood as creating an innate disposition in human beings toward recognizing and worshipping God during earthly life and toward accepting the prophets and the messages they bring as “reminders” of what human beings already know inwardly, but have merely forgotten.’ (‘The Study Qur’an’; my emphasis).

You will note that each of us enjoyed a ‘fundamental relationship’ with Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) at the moment of our ‘pretemporal creation’.  Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) in by no means unique in this regard.

 

Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla) says this, concerning Yeshua’s conception:

 ‘People of the Book, do not go to excess in your religion, and do not say anything about Allāh except the truth: the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was nothing more than a messenger of Allāh, His word (‘wakalimatuhu’), directed to Mary, a spirit (‘warūḥun’) from Him.  So believe in Allāh and His messengers and do not speak of three – stop (this), that is better for you – Allāh is only one God, He is far above having a son, everything in the heavens and earth belongs to Him and He is the best one to trust.’ (Al-Nisa: 171).

The word ‘wakalimatuhu’ is derived from the root ‘kāf lām mīm’; and refers – not to the Logos (the Second Person of the Trinity, as understood by Trinitarians) – but to speech; to a spoken word – to any spoken word.

The word ‘warūḥun’ is derived from the root ‘rā wāw ḥā’; and comes from the form ‘rūḥ’; meaning ‘soul’; ‘spirit’; and ‘inspiration’.  When applied to Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) it refers to his spirit soul.  We all possess such a soul.

Shaykh Nasr writes:

‘Jesus is a sign unto mankind in that he serves as a proof of God’s Power as Creator (IK), since his birth shows that God is capable of bringing a child into being without a father, just as He was capable of bringing Adam into being without a mother or a father. Through his miraculous conception and birth and his speaking as an infant (vv. 30–33), Jesus is also a sign or proof of his own prophethood and of his mother’s innocence . Cf. 23:50, where Mary and Jesus together are said to constitute a sign. Jesus is also a mercy from God to Mary and to those who believe in him and are guided by him’ (‘The Study Qur’an’).

 

Consider this:

‘The angel said, ‘Mary, Allāh gives you news of a word (‘bikalimatin’) from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, who will be held in honour in this world and the next, who will be one of those brought near to Allāh.  He will speak to people in his infancy and in his adulthood.  He will be one of the righteous.’ (Al‘Imran: 45-46).

‘Bikalimatin’ is derived from the same root (‘kāf lām mīm’) as ‘wakalimatuhu’ and, as you might expect, also refers to a spoken word. 

Al‘Imran continues: 

‘She said, ‘My Lord, how can I have a son when no man has touched me?’ (The angel) said, ‘This is how Allāh creates what He will: when He has ordained something, He says only, "Be" (‘kun’), and it is.’ (Verse 47).

Yeshua is indeed a word from Allāh (subḥānahu ūta'āla); and that word is ‘Be’; the command that brought Yeshua – and everything else – into being.

Thank you for coming over. I am no expert in Islam, just a few observations, as I fixate on how to plug into what I know and studied. There is this dispute over the definition of a "son", in commentaries I read explains a narrow definition of son as the product of lust, which is why Allah is above animal lust that is required to sire children. Jesus is an undisputed product of Allah and indeed has no human father, similar to Adam, yet the Bible authors consider Adam by virtue of being created by God, without a father, Adam is loosely called a son "of God" (Luke 3:38), I also believe when the Bible says King Melchizedek has "no father", is loosely called a "son of God" (Hebrews 7), I believe he did have parents, it was just the royal covenant that made any king into a "son" in an adopted sense (2 Sam 7:14; Psa 2:7). Christians by becoming royal priests become adopted as God's "sons" (John 1:12), just like Jesus. Jesus was an angel/messenger given the title of "son" (Hebrews 1). It might be that the Quran is responding to Romans who were telling people, like the Muslims, that Jesus was made by Jupiter who went unto Mary and conceived a son as Justin Martyr tells, and they needed to remember Mary was a virgin.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Pyreaux

[InCognitus]

32 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

I believe he did have parents, it was just the royal covenant that made any king into a "son" in an adopted sense (2 Sam 7:2; Psa 2:7).

Did you mean 2 Sam 7:14?  Or could you explain how verse 2 fits?

[Pyreaux]

24 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

Did you mean 2 Sam 7:14?

"I will be his father, and he will be my son." Yes.

[Pyreaux]

Divine Sonship, in "the Book", God had not literally conceived but rather adopted heavenly angels to be his begotten “Sons”, only "begotten" by the designation of “son”, and in a similar fashion, humans through the adoption of the Lord, the kings of Israel and Christians are “born again”, made new “sons of God”.

In the Quran a “son” is presumed to be a natural sonship, but in Biblical contexts it also can describe even unnatural sons, such as adopted sons. In the law of adoption, even adopted sons becomes legally a begotten son though they weren’t begotten at all, and they are considered reborn and begotten the day they were adopted, not the day they were naturally born.

So, Psalm 2:7 the Davidic King sings, The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you." The Lord simply declares someone as His a "son", then they just are.

Thus, the Bible says that angels, Adam, Melchizedek, Solomon and Christ are all “sons” of God, all true in their own contexts. None were born of God by any from natural conception. Allah is said to be "above" the carnal act of "begetting sons". Undignified to attribute to him lustful desires.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Tacenda]

On 2/21/2023 at 4:25 AM, Hamilton Porter said:

Del

Hamilton, your avatar is celebrating 30 years in March at the U of U, for Sandlot, the cast all grown up will be speaking after a showing of the movie. Thought of getting tickets. 

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Hamilton, your avatar is celebrating 30 years in March at the U of U, for Sandlot, the cast all grown up will be speaking after a showing of the movie. Thought of getting tickets. 

"You're killin' me, smalls." Had a missionary who quoted that line like it was a normal phrase, he picked the habit of saying it from his old companion, and never seen the movie.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Tacenda]

16 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

"You're killin' me, smalls." Had a missionary who quoted that line like it was normal phrase, he picked the habit of saying it from his old companion, and never seen the movie.

I say it too, it might be a Utah thing. One of the neighborhoods they filmed in was nearby mine growing up and took me back to my childhood days.

[The Nehor]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:07 PM, Hamilton Porter said:

IQs

Oh boy.

Tell me you are an idiot without telling me you are an idiot.

[theplains]

On 2/26/2023 at 4:17 PM, Pyreaux said:

Thank you for coming over. I am no expert in Islam, just a few observations, as I fixate on how to plug into what I know and studied. There is this dispute over the definition of a "son", in commentaries I read explains a narrow definition of son as the product of lust, which is why Allah is above animal lust that is required to sire children.

Including @Niblo too.

I found this website. https://www.alislam.org/library/books/christianity_facts_to_fiction/chapter_1.html

It gives a clear explanation of how Muslims understand the term 'son of God', which is in
a literal way (source: https://quran.com/)

Sura 10:68:

They say, “Allah has offspring.” Glory be to Him! He is the Self-Sufficient. To Him 
belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. You have no proof of 
this! Do you say about Allah what you do not know?

Sura 6:101:

˹He is˺ the Originator of the heavens and earth. How could He have children when He has 
no mate? He created all things and has ˹perfect˺ knowledge of everything.

In regards to your comment about lust.  I don't believe lust is involved when human families 
sire children.  If you do, you may want to consider the teaching of the celestial Sireship in
Religion 430-431 - Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual.

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by theplains