>ambiguousness of the Quran is a terrible thing for something as important as the word of God, and has undeniably led to SOOO many more problems than it solves
The Holy Quran isn't ambiguous. It is clear, straight and concise. The problems which you speak about have arised in the 20/21st century and are social, not Islamic problems. They are due to America and other hegemonies physically destroying Middle Eastern countries which lead to social destruction an mass hooliganism which then in cause encourages anti social behavior. In fact, these problems do not occur in non war torn countries (South Asia, South East Asia, Gulf Arab Countries).
The only problems which arise in those countries are due to unislamic practices such as idol worship (South Asia) and ethnic racism (Gulf Arab countries). Idol worship is a much worse sin than racism and that is why South Asian countries have much worse social issues (also because of a large influence of polytheistic culture from India).
>But different muslims do interpret it quite differently, such as in my example of the groups who think they should commit acts of violence in the name of God, and those who don't. They all think their interpretation is the correct or common sense one, so saying "just use common sense and it's clear" doesn't invalidate the claim that it is written in a way that leads to very different interpretations.
These really are usually exceptions to the rule. There are about two billion Muslims out there and hundreds of millions of Muslims understand the context of those lines, even if thousands of lunatics use those lines to justify killing innocent people.
The Qur’an actually doesn’t lead to that many different interpretations and most Muslims lead similar, normal lives, despite the bad economic circumstances they live in. A lot of the disagreements can be rooted in politics and people’s desires. But an honest reading of the text will probably lead to usually similar conclusions.
>But if the book is written in a way that's specifically made to be misusable (the ambiguous and open to interpretation quality that has led to so many problems), for the only advantage of making it beautiful and poetic like the literature of the culture in which it was written, it makes me think that it's the work of men, and not a God.
The Qur’an is obviously not made in a way to be abused. And the Qur’an is obviously not made simply to be beautiful and poetic. God in the Qur’an calls it a guidance to the fearful and there are many revelations where it is supposed to guide behavior and warn people of things to come. It’s not exactly poetry, obviously. And again, it really is clearer than people make it out to be.
See AlsoYếu Lược Tinh Hoa Kinh Duy Ma Cật | Thiện Phúc (Song ngữ Vietnamese-English)Space Marine 2: 6 Tips For Success In OperationsStudies in Jaina History and CulturePage 1183 – Christianity Today>This seems like another can of worms of a discussion, but the idea of God deciding to send some people to a path that will ultimately result in God punishing them, seems more like something a human would come up with to answer the "if God decides everything, are sinners destined to be sinners?" question with "yeah, God decided that too lol".
You will find that that is what is actually in the Qur’an. What answer are you looking for? We don’t know why God does what God does. God does not guide everyone and God wills to punish some people. It is what it is, regardless of how heart breaking that sounds.
But it’s worth noting that God also clearly doesn’t guide and bless many people in the books of the Old Testament and New Testament, so the idea of a God “who loves everyone and guides everyone” isn’t from those books either, despite what believers and/or media executives wrongfully say about God. But I still haven’t finished reading all the books of the New testament to say that for sure.
1/2.
>Same with the "God acts in mysterious ways" cope that can be used to wave away any contraddiction or nonsense.
But it’s clear from the Qur’an and many books of the Bible that God IS very mysterious, even to the Muslims, and they do not know God’s “intentions” – the big WHYs. And this is just how things are.
Some Muslims try to explain things and try to know “the intentions” of God, but that usually causes more problems in the long run, and opens the door for a lot of criticism.
>It doesn't, but that's what I've observed in the literal hundreds of times I've had discussions with muslims. They can be smart in other things, but when it comes to Islam they'll grasp at every straw in the world to conclude that it's flawless and uncriticizable.
See Also12/06 TBH3 Tampa Nekkid 2024That sucks. But there are many intelligent Muslims out there. The people you ran into got emotional and probably made bad arguments while doing so. Faith is a matter of the heart, so it’s usually a very emotional thing. I get emotional too if I’m not careful to actually have a conversation with someone.
Obviously as a believer I say that the Qur’an is flawless and truly wonderful. But I also say that it’s clear that disbelievers will criticize everything regardless. And obviously the Qur’an won’t be flawless to a disbeliever because he won’t think it’s the truth. The Qur’an has many revelations where disbelievers criticize the believers and/or their beliefs.
2/3.
>Ok but that's not what we're discussing here. I'm specifically only talking about how the ambiguousness of the Quran is a terrible thing for something as important as the word of God, and has undeniably led to SOOO many more problems than it solves, and is more plausibly the result of men of those times writing literature the way their culture wrote literature, as opposed to an omniscient God deciding to write it that way.
With all due respect, and I am just genuinely asking, but have you actually read the Qur’an? And if so, did you really find it to be very ambiguous?
An argument can be made that the bad people using the Qur’an to do horrific things really aren’t the majority, regardless of what is being pushed using media platforms.
Some people are just evil, even God in the Qur’an says that. And evil people abuse anything good.
I used to think that the Qur’an may be too ambiguous and too tough to understand and might have some contradictions, then I actually read it and realized that all that was in my head and that I was just listening to what people were saying about the book instead of actually reading it myself.
The Qur’an is much clearer than even many Muslims make it out to be. And the books of the Bible are very clear too (even Jesus’ parables aren’t that hard to understand - yes, some things are difficult, but those are usually the exception and not the rule).
And you can cross reference different English translations of whichever text you are reading and that will give you an even clearer picture.
Just read the whole thing over a long period of weeks or many months and have patience, and take what people say outside of the Qur’an when it comes to religion and Islam with a grain of salt, separating it from what is actually in the Qur’an.
https://www.quran.com is excellent and I recommend playing around with the settings and using word for word translation and setting the bottom translation to include Saheeh International.
The books of the Bible are important to read too, but as a believer of what is in the Qur’an, I reject the outright blasphemous verses, which are surprisingly not that many.
https://www.biblegateway.com is great and it offers many translations of many of the books of the Bible.
https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/ has been useful at least as a list of other relevant “non-canonical” writings, such the books of Enoch and Jubilees and Old Testament and New Testament Apocrypha.
3/3.
I'm sure you've made lots of good arguments here, perhaps even some that would make me change my mind, but the time it would take me to read and respond to your posts isn't worth it for me. Sorry for letting you write all that in vain, but I simply don't care enough to dedicate the multiple hours it would take me to respond, so I concede.
Ma3assalama.
