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Is the Bible or Koran the reveled word of a god? For Christians and Muslims this is the central question about the existence of god.
A. If there is adequate evidence that a god is the source (the divine revelation) for a particular book of scripture, then there's no reason for someone who believes in that god to engage in any other argument about its existence. Adequate evidence that god is the source of scripture is all thats needed. Arguments about first cause, intelligent design, and fine tuning of the universe, etc. are not relevant or necessary. B. If there is not clear evidence that a god is the source for the Koran or Bible, then even if all the other arguments for existence of a god are true, they are only arguments for a generic hypothetical god, not the Christian or Muslim god. C. There are only two types of information in religious scripture that, if true, would indicate a creator god was the scripture source. This would be information that could not be obtained solely by humans at the time the original scriptures were written. All other accounts, facts, stories are things people are capable of creating. The two types of information that only a god could have revealed are:
D. The claims of prophecies and scientific facts revealed in scripture do not have enough specific detail to allow verification, and creative interpretation is necessary to match them with any current event or knowledge. An account of prophecy fullfillment written after the event occured is not a prophecy. Stories of miracles are not evidence of divine revelation because these accounts can be created by people, and cannot be verified. E. Without adequate evidence of god contribution, a book of scripture and the god it represents are only inventions of the human imagination. Belief that a god must exist, does not imply that any particular book of scripture has a god as its source. The scripture itself must contain clear evidence that it is the revelation of a god. F. For a Christian or Muslim, arguments about god as the first cause, order and complexity, the source of morality, Pascals Wager, etc. are only interesting intellectual exercises, because the god these arguments propose is a generic hypothetical god that is not connected to any specific book of scripture.
Stories containing wisdom, miracles, moral lessons, even accurate history of the era is not evidence that the scripture was the revelation of a god. People could have been the source of this information. A god did not write the Quran or the Bible. People wrote them, and people are capable of ambition, grand visions, and self-delusion. These books were written hundreds of years past, and the compilation may have spanned hundreds of years. During that process, stories changed during oral recital or translation. Some characters and stories from one religion are similar to tales and myths from other religions. From a broad overview of religious history, it is not difficult to understand how these stories evolved from century to century and culture to culture. Someone came along who thought they had a better idea about what god is or should be, and composed a new or revised scripture. These scriptures are claimed to be the words of a god, but just a claim is weak evidence. As is usually the case with human creativity, these new stories were never completely original, but used appealing parts of existing religions. There is no "pure" copy or original of these books, so it is impossible to know how far copies of copies have progressively deviated. If today someone said they were a religious prophet, and knew the word of god, everyone would have doubts. Why should we have less doubt about claims made centuries earlier?
Scriptures are hard to understand, and open to many different interpretations. This lack of clarity has created much debate and hundreds of different Christian sects. The Koran also has different sects. This from text that was allegedly the revelation of a god who is an all powerful supernatural entity.
There have been many religions, but no known instance of the same religion originating in two separate places. If a god inspired a religion, why would it restrict the initial revelation to only one place? It is interesting that the Bible and Quran have no reference to any land or people outside those known by the authors who wrote them. Why were many other places and cultures kept in ignorance and denied the opportunity to benefit from this enlightenment. A god would have knowledge of all lands, and some mention of them would have spread the religion faster. It would have also verified the gods supernatural nature. This is additional evidence that human imagination is the sole source of religious scripture.
These books are essential to the validity of each religion they support because they are the foundation for faith in the god of that religion. If the scriptures are not the revelations or the direct inspiration of a god then the credibility of the scripture, and existence of the related god has not been established.
ALLEGED PROPHECIES FROM THE BIBLE The end of the world and the return of Jesus is near. This is a popular biblical prophesy, and for centuries it has been preached that this time is near. Some preachers have stated exact dates or years that have passed.
Israel will be restored. Recently, belief in this prophesy is bolstered by the idea that Israel was restored in 1948. 1. The most fundamental problem with this prophecy is how it affects the people who believed it. They believe a god gave them that land, intended for them to live there, and this belief caused migration and support. It's the belief that caused the event, not the invisible hand of a god. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 3. Most of this Biblical prophecy rests on statements from the Bible itself. Using statements from a book to prove the same book is not proof. If those supporting statements about dates and places came from sources other than the Bible, this prophecy would be more creditable.
ALLEGED PROPHECIES FROM THE KORAN "Their skins will bear witness against them as to what they have been doing" (41:21) Interpreted as a prophecy about using finger prints to identify criminals, etc. The scripture text does not contain the words finger or print, and in most cases finger prints do not say anything about what a person has done. One can imagine many intrepretations of this phrase such as: They have been lying lazily in the sun and not attending their duties. Blood, oils, or other substance on their skin indicate what they have been doing. Non of these are related to modern finger print technology. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "They will alter Allah's creation." (4:120) This prophecy is supposed to predict plastic surgery, genetic engineering, and cloning. Nothing like those words appear in the text, and the reference to altering could be interpreted to mean any thing in the world. Why assume it meant people? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "and the sun and the moon: all (celestial bodies) swim along, each in it's rounded course" The claim here is that this predicted modern discoveries about the planets and universe. Most scientist and skeptics would choose a simpler interpretation. One that does not involve a miracle of revelation. The first such simple interpretation that comes to mind is that the text ment the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies were going around the earth. This interpretation does not require divine revelation, just observation. If an observer in that, or a preceeding, era is standing on the earth, and sees the following events. 1. The sun and moon come up from one end of the earth. 2. They make an arc in the sky as they go overhead. 3. They then go down at the other end, presumably to go underneath and come again in the orginal place. The observer would conclude that the moon and sun are going around the earth. The moon and sun also appear bigger when rising and setting so this gives additional evidence to the observer that they are moving along an arc/circle/rounded course. Observing all other celestial bodies would produce the same conclusion. Everything is moving in an arc, i.e. "rounded course". So this text could have easily been the product of one or many observers watching the sky and coming to that conclusion. That conclusion is of course wrong. The sun does not circle the earth.
These observations may have been made in another culture centuries earlier, and passed orally to other lands. If there were specific statements about which bodies rotated around which, and what scientific principles were involved in maintaing their positions, then you might have a scientific prophesy.
When given a choice between two interpretations: 1. One that involves a miracle of revelation or, 2. One that is the product of simple observation Which one is the most reasonable?
The words "scientific" and "facts" are not correct terms to use when describing these verses. You will find very few scientists, outside the Muslim community, that think these are scientific facts or prophesies.
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