Sacred text that has not been altered by man?

[shaolin]

EXCUSE THE TYPING ERRORS, IM RUSHING. oops! lol

[Marblehead]

Hi Marblehead, hope all is well with you!

 

 

Hi Shaolin,

 

All is great, Thanks. Like wishes to you.

 

Yes, I expected a rebuttal from you. At least you kept it civilized. My compliments for that.

 

It is true, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove what I have said or what you have said because there are no supportable facts. All we have is the words of various men. Some were supporting, others were not.

 

So we are left with making our own choices. That's the beautiful thing about free will - we can believe anything we wish to believe.

 

However, I was not being partial because I speak to all religions in the same manner. I do try very hard to never insult the followers and believers. If I ever deny anyone of their right to belive in any religion I have at that exact time denied myself the right to believe in none of them.

 

Revelations. Ah! One of the most screwed up books of the Christian Bible. I have no idea what kind of drugs John was on when he wrote that but if anyone ever finds out for sure they should warn the world against ever taking any of them.

[Marblehead]

Marblehead,

 

There is only one all powerful unlimited THING that exists. Everything else is limited and reliant. This unlimited originator is the only thing worthy of worship.

 

One God, many human minds that have been given free will and intelligence.

 

Im happy to go over each poing in detail, its difficult on a forum where we can all chip in with more questions, so please be patient. We can go very deep and should do , to give the topic its due.

 

Hi Shaolin,

 

Thanks for the offer. I agree that there was a beginning cause. You call it God and I call it Tzujan.

 

I agree that everything manifest (physical) has limits. Somehow the mind of man has outgrown this limitation. I make no value judgements though.

 

You know, the oldest monotheistic religion (and there are still followers) is Zoroasterianism and it was Zarathustra's claim that God gave us free will and intelligence (at least the capacity for it).

 

As to discussing the Quran, I have little interest but if there is interest in that by other members then by all means, start a discussion and see what happens. Afterall, Buddhism is openly discussed here.

 

I have no intention of trying to discredit the Quran or the followers of the belief system. It has many excellent teachings in it just as the Bible and other religious documents have. But I feel it is only fair for me to point out that all these documents were written by man regardless as to how it was claimed that the writings were inspired.

[Marblehead]

EXCUSE THE TYPING ERRORS, IM RUSHING. oops! lol

 

Hehehe. I would be a hypocrite if I ever criticized anyone's typing errors. I amke so many of them myself.

 

(Yes, the "amke" was intentional. Hehehe.)

[thelerner]

 

As to discussing the Quran, I have little interest but if there is interest in that by other members then by all means, start a discussion and see what happens. Afterall, Buddhism is openly discussed here.

 

I have no intention of trying to discredit the Quran or the followers of the belief system. It has many excellent teachings in it just as the Bible and other religious documents have. But I feel it is only fair for me to point out that all these documents were written by man regardless as to how it was claimed that the writings were inspired.

 

I'd add I don't think you're (shaolin) an honest person to talk to about it either. You seem more then willing to lie or slander when it suits your prejudices.

 

For example in another post you said the Talmud states- Jesus should be boiled in excrement. Only problem is, it doesn't. You were taught a lie and because it suits your prejudice you repeat it.

 

You are on equal moral footing with the person who copied and pasted posts on why Islam is a dirty vicious religion. Like you, he had many cut & pastes, but thankfully people here pointed out grabbing quotes out of context is wrong.

 

Its good to discuss things with open minded people, but zealots are a bore.

 

 

Michael

[leo17]

The Quran is the only text that I know of that has not been altered by man. It even offers a challenge to the whole of mankind and spirts in order to test its authenticity and to try and discredit it.

 

The Quran was either made by man, being an arab or non arab, or God. All texts written by man will naturally have human attributes such as having the posibility of contradictions, errors, and having the ability to be changed and revised.

 

The Quran states "If you doubt that this is revelation from God, then produce just one verse like it and seek help from whoever you like from man and spirit. But you will never be able to do it , so beware of the fire , whose fuel is men( who worship other than God) and stones ( the idols that were taken as objects of worship by mankind).

 

The idols were followed and worshipped and they will be placed in the fire and their followers will follow them in to it.

 

The biggest idol worshipped today is money, but idols include anything that is worshipped in any way, including by love, fear, reverence, reliance, obedience, etc.

 

 

So its a simple challenge that if met, would descredit and nullify the authenticity of the Quran as being revelation from God.

 

To produce a verse "like it", would mean a single verse of the same length of the smallest one in the Quran which is about 4 lines.

 

Similar in language, style, grammer, rythm and meaning.

 

This has not been done since the Quran was revealed over 1,420 years ago.

 

The pagan arabs could not do it and they recognised the greatness of the text and no one actually claimed that Muhammad wrote it himself. The Quran was revealled over a perion of 23 years and its style , meaning and grammer are totally different to all recorded speech of Muhammad. People were constantly looking for evidence that he produced it himself, but his speech was totally different to that of the Quran. That means if he was a fraud, he would have had to scan his speech before he said anything for over 20 years.

In addition to that, anybody who has ever studied Muhammad's history knows that he was not a learned man in the way others were. He was empathic where most men were brutal, and humble where other men would have been egotistic. They should also know that upon his arrival to his village as a baby his village began to prosper more, yet with any miracles that concerned him he never took credit for any of them; he gave credit to a higher power.

 

One thing that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have in common is their message: "there is one only god." They all brought this message to societies where idolatry was common in hopes of uniting their people. Even if everybody has a different view of who/what god is, you can't deny that they all believe in something that has total dominance over everything. I personally believe that whatever I can do there is someone/something that can do so much more without losing as much power as I do (if any at all).

[strawdog65]

 

 

I have no intention of trying to discredit the Quran or the followers of the belief system. It has many excellent teachings in it just as the Bible and other religious documents have. But I feel it is only fair for me to point out that all these documents were written by man regardless as to how it was claimed that the writings were inspired.

 

 

I have been holding back in entering this discussion.

 

I have stated similar thoughts...about the origination of any religious minded

text. There are NO writings untouched/unchanged by man/womankind. There is no

true "Manna from heaven", everything ever written has been filtered through the

hand of man/womankind.

 

Unless someone can prove instant mental transmission from some divine being to all

followers of some group somewhere in the world....to me it's all just a never ending

stream of mental masturbation brought to some sort of orgiastic divine finale.

 

Want to be crazy? OK, here's how you do it... use quotes and passages from the

very same book you are proposing to be holy...to PROVE it IS holy. Holy crap!

Well wow!!!! If the book says it's holy... than that's just got to be true!

 

(The preceding was not an actual believer, just a non-committal soul with a bit

of well deserved sarcasm!)

 

 

The furor which is brought to the surface every time someone points out the

incongruent puzzle of presented facts to be taken as truth, amazes me.

 

Is it not blatantly obvious to people of rational cognitive abilities...

that the Idea of any religious work unchanged by man, is in it's self a

non-sense idea? An Oxymoron of grand proportion.

 

It makes me ponder the gullibility of the masses and their lack of

asking first and foremost Why?

 

Nothing is so, just because it is what you are taught.

 

Are we not more than puppets?

 

God is a lie...spoon fed through various "messiah's" to the masses.

 

Virtuous teachings exist independently of the credited teachers...

These teachings which were discovered over and over, independently

by different teachers over the millennia are discovered because...

they are complete truisms which will always surface to the mind which

is in harmony with the TAO.

 

As far as belief systems that have a God/supreme being/holy flying spaghetti monster...

Belief is by it's own nature incontrovertible and any discussion to prove or disprove it

as something real(or)holy is only the grandest of fool's errands.

 

I Peacefully disagree with any assertion that there is a"divine" being,

and that any words scribbled on a page are enough of a reason to condone

the murder of any other living human being, just because they do not

believe in the same "easter bunny" as you.

 

Besides...the Lorax would kill me if I worshipped you.

 

 

Peace to you my contentious brothers/sisters!

Edited November 20, 2010 by strawdog65

[leo17]

Every copy of the Qur'an contains the original Arabic text, and the original pages can also still be found in the Middle East. Saying that any religious texts that are deemed sacred just because the scriptures say so in order to prove that they're not sacred is quite offensive to those who believe in them, not to mention it works both ways--and neither side can actually prove the other wrong because they are both going on faith that they're right. It's true that every text was written by man--but that's true in the literal sense. It doesn't mean that those people weren't receiving the word of God and it doesn't discredit anybody who believes in those texts because they're going on their faith what they read is true, just like you're going on your faith that it's not true. It's fine expressing your own opinions but be careful how you word your phrases if you are truly concerned with not offending others (talking to everybody here).

 

I still don't understand how anybody who can believe in metaphysics can't/won't believe that there is something greater than himself. But I guess I won't worry about it all the same.

[Marblehead]

I have been holding back in entering this discussion.

 

 

Yes, many people will hold back from getting involved is such discussions. And this is good in a way because it is very difficult to discuss these subjects (this one in particular) without offending and insulting believers of the various religions.

 

Religions have always been a part of man's history. It was and still is a way to get answers to some of the questions we have that have not been satisfactorily answered by other means.

 

However, if we allow religion to have too powerful a role in our life we become nothing more than sheep. But still, some people enjoy being sheep. Who am I to judge?

 

But back to the point, the religion, any religion, hopefully, was created for the purpose of helping the individuals of a culture live more peacefully with their fellow beings. I don't see a problem with this.

 

Where I see the problem is when the leaders use this power over their people that they have attained for their own personal desires and greed. And worse, to use this power to descriminate against non-believers and even make war and kill those who will not accept all the fairy tales that somehow get included in all religions.

 

If a culture has a kind and loving god it is likely that the believers will be kind and loving. If a people's god is an angry and vengeful god then the people will likely be angry and vengeful.

 

It all depends on who is writing the books.

[Stigweard]

So I am looking for a sacred text that has not been altered by man in the scence that man has removed some part of it or added some part so translation does not count. Anyone know of others besides the koran and by my definition the tao te ching?

 

Now suposibly the koran has not been changed since it was first written down but some scholars debate on this.

 

Cause like with the bible i know that sections of it were edited by man and such.

I think it may have been the hopi indians that created the proverb:

 

"The only holy book untouched by man is nature itself ... each day a new page, each turning of the moon a new chapter, each return of the sun a new volume."

 

[leo17]

It all depends on who is writing the books.

I don't think it's just that. Much of it depends on an individuals understanding of the original scripture and/or its translation. Whenever a scripture is translated it loses some of its original meaning. Even when languages are closely related, they're not 100% the same.

 

As I said before, the Qur'an's original Arabic text has been preserved in all copies. But the translations do change. According to what I've read in the case of the Bible, the original (written) language was Greek because Aramaic didn't yet have an alphabet. So it's very possible that some things did not stay the same. I don't know about the Torah because I've never looked in it nor do I read Hebrew.

 

And you're right, some people do use religion as a means to oppress others (pilgrims of "new world" and their treatment of the Indigenous peoples, Atlantic slave traders, The Crusades, Al Qaeda, etc.). But others will use sheer power to oppress others without necessarily using religion to do so (Chinese government's treatment of minority groups, Nazi's treatment of many non-Anglo groups in WWII, Japan's bombing and terrorizing during WWII etc.) and sometimes people begin to worship things on their own (idolaters, anybody who becomes addicted to something/someone, etc.)

[Marblehead]

[shaolin]

Hi Micheal,

 

You made some assumptions , but you're entitled to your opinion.

 

I posted refferences for quotes in the Talmud, you can deny them or bring evidence to refute them if you wish.

[leo17]

I think I know what you're saying and it's believable to anyone who might not have studied his history. But if you have studied it you might find it very difficult to believe that the ones closest to him (emotionally, not biologically) would attempt something like that. Abu Bakr, though he was not related, was Muhammad's oldest and closest friend as if they were brothers (in fact, Abu Bakr's mother was Muhammad's wet nurse when they were babies). He was also among the first to believe that Muhammad was getting revelation from God and accepted Islam for himself. He always put his life on the line for Muhammad (which became a regular thing for most people when the religion) and he was saddened to admit to the masses that Muhammad had died when it finally happened. I doubt he would've gone through all that over the course of 2+ decades just to put himself in power.

 

As for the many scribes who were taught to memorise the Qur'an, that still goes on today in many eastern countries. Young people are taught to memorize every single verse word for word through daily repetition, that way should anything happen to the physical copies there are numerous copies still left in their minds and can recreate it from memory even if they don't actually speak Arabic (their alphabets are almost the same).

[shaolin]

Hi Marblehead,

 

The topic is about sacred texts unaltered by man, so the only text I know of is the Quran.

 

I agree with you with regards to One unlimited powerful force that originated everything else which is limited.

 

Its existance and attributes are whats important, not what we label it. Names and labels can be problematic.

 

The Quran is not actually written. It is a series of words from the unlimited power that were revealled to Muhammad who narrated them and ask for them to be written.

 

I accept it was written by man, just like dictation of speech, but it was not produced by man and it has been and still is preserved.

 

It was mentioned by another poster in this thread that Muhammad was not a well educated man and was not capable of producing the Quran.

 

There is a good book by a french scientist called "THE QURAN AND MODERN SCIENCE" by Maurice Bucaille.

 

 

We can have general unspecific opinions about any issue, and say all books are the same or classify all beliefs as religion, but if we specify we can come to solid conclusions.

 

The first monotheistic religion was haneefa, which started with Adam and continued to Muhammad and shared names and periods known as judaism, christianity and islam. All are monotheistic in their original form.

 

I accept that zaroastrianism could have started as a monotheistic religion that later became idolatry by worshipping the Sun.

 

There was a king called Darius the first and he reffered to God as Ahuramazda. he was monotheistic and rejected polythism and idolatry.

 

Islam says that many nations were sent messengers and they would speak their native language. But I dont have enough knowledge to talk about him.

 

I love discussing with you and I have great respect for you.

[thelerner]

Hi Micheal,

 

You made some assumptions , but you're entitled to your opinion.

Hi shaolin,

 

Actually I looked into the Quran world is flat thing. There are some sites that have some solid information. If you disregard the hatemongers (like shaolin**more on this later) and look to intelligent thoughtful people you find most of the relevant quotes are poetic and subject isn't cosmology. You can't really figure out what early moslems thought about the shape of the world from it.

 

More telling is that later Islamic astronomers and mathematicians built on Greek and Roman learning to not only model the earth but to get the diameter much closer then the Greeks previously had. The western world owes the East greatly because it kept classical learning alive during the Western dark ages.

 

I calll shaolin a hatemonger because he said Moslems are taught in there holy books to murder others, to rape, lie, steal and have sex with 3 year olds. In many ways he was echoing GoldisHeavy's early post on Dirty Islam. I just thought it was wrong.

 

Oops, my bad, shaolin is MOSLEM hatemonger. He was just using the same form as GoldIsHeavy though I think Gold's post had Moslems having sex w/ 6 year olds and shaolin placed Jews having sex with 3 year olds. He's so competitive.

 

Dollar to donuts he's never seen much less read the Talmud. I assume he's taken the KuKluxKlan (or equivalent) course in it, but thats not saying much. Some of his quotes are outright lies others are taken out of context. (like 2 scholars in 30 A.D. damning whoever gave the Egyptians horses during Genesis ..boom you have a quote). Its the dictionary is a book full of dirty words fallacy.

 

Its the exact same as the Dirty Islam post. Hate warms some people. Its kinda like there true religion and its sad. As if generating hate give them power. Shaolin wrote his Jews are taught evil in a post that had nothing to do with religion, but some people are so full of hate that they can't keep it in.

 

The shame is shaolin never had the opportunity to take a real course in the Talmud, if he did he'd be a better man. Its not the information in the books (9 to 12depending), but the method of learning. The Talmud has long sections of arguments about ..everything, legal, moral, religious. Its studied in 2's, each student is expected to learn both sides as well as the history and context of each dilemma. You may not agree with a side, but you have to understand it. No cut & paste allowed.

 

shaolin is able to grasp that Islam is nuanced and has context, but his prejudice keeps him from understanding that other things do too. Learning has to go beyond convenient catch phrases that warm our dark side.

 

Michael

[Marblehead]

Okay. I make this post for the sole purpose of stating that I will not get involved in any discussion of personalities of the members here. I have no reason to and I have no bones to pick with anyone at the moment.

 

As long as there is a discussion close to the concept of the opening post and the discussion is what I feel is worthwhile for someone I will participate.

 

I submitted myself to this thread so I will speak to whatever I have even just a very small bit of understanding, even if my understanding is skewed.

[Marblehead]

Hi Shaolin,

 

Let's see how this goes. My knowledge of Islam is minimal at best.

 

I accept it was written by man, just like dictation of speech, but it was not produced by man and it has been and still is preserved.

 

Yes, the founders of religions generally attribute their revelations to god speaking to them. Please understand that I do not hold to any concept at all of any god. For purposes of this discussion I will call myself an Atheist.

 

So, for me, this first premise of 'the word of god' is negated. The founder surely heard something. Revelations so profound that they never thought that they were their own thoughts but rather the words of Who? why, god, of course. Who else could be so profound?

 

But, we do agree that what is written was written by man.

 

We can have general unspecific opinions about any issue, and say all books are the same or classify all beliefs as religion, but if we specify we can come to solid conclusions.

 

I would agree that there surely are differences between all the various religions. But there truely are thing in common in all of them.

 

Oh, BTW, unless I am quoting someone, everything I say is my understanding and/or my opinion. I take full responsibility for everything I say even if I am found to be wrong.

 

No, all religious books are not the same. But they all were written by man. So were not even written down because the culture had no written language, for example, all the Native North American nations.

 

Just a side note: While I call myself a Taoist my spirituality is based with the Cherokee on the Southeast US. It is rather difficult to get any good, varifiable information on the subject because the original recording was done by Christians and they really made a mess of it.

 

The first monotheistic religion was haneefa, which started with Adam and continued to Muhammad and shared names and periods known as judaism, christianity and islam. All are monotheistic in their original form.

 

I accept that zaroastrianism could have started as a monotheistic religion that later became idolatry by worshipping the Sun.

 

What I said about the Zoroastrian religion I failed to include the words "that is still followed today". Yes, there are some who still follow the original teachings but most have included other gods and a devil, as you pointed out. The original teaching is vague because not much of the original recording has survived.

 

I love discussing with you and I have great respect for you.

 

Thank you for the compliment.

 

We can continue the discussion until you get bored or I run out of things to add to the discussion.

[thelerner]

shaolin, I hold you in a much lesser degree then Marblehead.

 

Misc. but witty insults that have been taken down due to poor taste. I'll just PM them.

 

 

 

Michael

[Stigweard]

Heya Folks,

 

I know current line of discussion is filled with contention and there are some passionate views. I'd just like to add in the polite reminder to be mindful of our Moderation Guidelines, specifically:

 

* Insulting other members

* Discrimination whether based on gender, race, religion, culture or creed

 

Perhaps a review of our Principles of Interfaith dialogue might help.

 

Thank you for your consideration on this ... carry on

 

<-- Moderation Team -->

[shaolin]

Hi Marblehead,

 

Its a good point in that Muhammad dictated to others who wrote it and how do we know there was no corruption from that start.

 

It was not just Abu Bakr and Ali that he narrated to but up to over 150 companions. This was at different times and in different locations.

 

They memorised the verses and Muhammad checked them verbatim. Thats why the quran is memorised by muslims all over the world and each verse is identical. Even if all the paper qurans were to be lost or destroyed, the quran would still exist in its pure form.

 

Its the chain of narration (isnad). There is only one quran that can never be changed or polluted.

[shaolin]

Mihcael,

 

No hate , just quotes from the Talmud. I gave no personal opinion.

 

If we want to talk of violence then we can see it everywhere in the Torah or old testament.

 

It clearly orders the killing of non jewish men , women, children and even animals. These are the laws of old testament war.

 

Also the first suicide bomber was Jewish according to the old testament it was Sampson.

 

He killed over 3000 people with the jaw of an ass and was being rediculed by many people after his eyes were plucked out. He was chained to pillars and asked Jehova or Yaweh (God) to give him strength and he "killed more people with his death than he did in his life" when he pushed the pillars and killed himself and every one else in the temple.

 

This forum is open and free. We can question and criticise everything and this is healthy, but personal attacks and abuse are not helpful nor needed.

People are people and ideas are ideas, no need to be disrespectful.

 

We're discussing sacred texts and this is an open topic that everyone can critcise and give their opinions on.

[Marblehead]

Hi Marblehead,

 

Its a good point in that Muhammad dictated to others who wrote it and how do we know there was no corruption from that start.

 

It was not just Abu Bakr and Ali that he narrated to but up to over 150 companions. This was at different times and in different locations.

 

They memorised the verses and Muhammad checked them verbatim. Thats why the quran is memorised by muslims all over the world and each verse is identical. Even if all the paper qurans were to be lost or destroyed, the quran would still exist in its pure form.

 

Its the chain of narration (isnad). There is only one quran that can never be changed or polluted.

 

Okay.

 

You have taken me to the point where I have nothing further to say. My knowledge is very limited regarding the subject. I have no interest in the Islamic religion so I won't be doing any research.

 

Most religions are created to favor the people of the culture where the religion was founded and pretty much denigrates all other religions and their followers. These are the ways of man. If any religion falls into this category then I would say that the religion is based in man's greed and corrupted by descrimination and not based on any loving and caring god.

 

And I am not pointing only to Islam in the above statement but to all religions. If the religion does not celebrate the family of man then it is a religion for the benefit of only one group of men at the expense of all others. That, in my opinion, would be contrary to the will of any god because all humankind as well as all universal things are holy in the eyes of the creation.

 

So it is my opinion that if there is anything written in any of these sacred books that descriminates against any other group or culture of people it is a false teaching - a teaching of greedy men, not of a loving god.

 

I believe that there is nothing sacred about anything man does or has created. The only sacred things in this universe are those things that are beyond the control and manipulation on man. The only thing I have found that falls into this category are the processes of nature (Tzujan). Even Tao has been corrupted by man through his needless destruction of various aspects of this planet we live on.

 

Well, I did talk a little more, didn't I? Hehehe.

[goldisheavy]

The Quran is the only text that I know of that has not been altered by man.

 

This is a lie.

 

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

 

http://www.muslimhope.com/ChangesInTheQuran.htm

[Apech]

This is a lie.

 

http://en.wikipedia..../Satanic_Verses

 

http://www.muslimhop...sInTheQuran.htm

 

*sigh*

 

Another way of putting this is that it is an opinion which can be disputed.