Never argued with people who claim to have got the faith but I have alwayes cosidered the Pascal's wager a mean reason to believe on God
I am sure many religious people would agree with me

Ok Dan. I am confounded. I have looked up some other translations and explanations, and unfortunately, the amount of differing translations and ideas indicate that there has been some sort of 'cover-up' attempted.

I am going to do my best to discover exactly what these terms meant at the time of the prophet. If this can be done, it should be pretty easy to determine whether they are true or false. Unfortunately, as a non-Arab, this will be a long road for me.

I will not bother this forum with my theories any longer. However, if my long and arduous search results in a clear explanation, I will return, and I hope to find a ready audience.

Farewell for now.

Hey, Dooley, I was not trying to chase you off, but to help you to see reason. The verse is clear in both the English and the Arabic. In the ancient world you will find that many people gave a lot of attention to the chest area (especially the heart). For example, the ancient Egyptians thought that all thought and emotion emanated from the heart. This is one of the reasons the heart, among other organs, was preserved during mummification while the brain was pulled out through the nose and discarded. The fear (for the dead) was that the heart would bear witness to the bad deeds of the departed preventing them from moving on to the next life.

With all this attention in the ancient world given to the heart (and, thus, the chest area) it is no wonder that the Qur'an indicates that life begins there (between the backbone and the ribs).

In any case, being confounded is no reason to turn tail and run. If you are seeking the truth, then there is nothing to fear and no reason to run.

Not run, just re-evaluate. I'm not throwing the Quran away just yet. I trust it more than I trust the explanations of Muslim scholars. They seem to have made a hash of this verse, and I don't want to fall into that trap.

I believe with a clear translation its meaning will become apparent.

However, on the other hand, if I can't find a clear translation, this will definitely put my belief on trial. That will mean that the meaning of the Quran has not been preserved, and it will undermine the whole thing.

Also, if the clear translation, should I find it, cannot be understood in a way which does not conflict with well known scientific fact, this will also pose a great problem for its claim to be from God.

The test will be whether the explanation really fits, or if is forced to fit. I rejected Christianity because the explanations Christians gave for Biblical contradictions were clearly forced upon the text. They did not emanate from the text. To be true to myself, and my idea of truth, the Quran will have to actually 'explain itself', not by 'being explained'. I hope this makes sense.

This has been my problem with tafsirs (explanations of the Quran), they seek to explain it. They do not really allow the text to speak for itself.



It's not my reason for believing in God. My reasons are far more personal and subjective, and don't really serve in a scientific discussion. I guess it's an afterthought, which helps to keep me on the path. I don't think Pascal's argument would have converted me, now that you mention it.

For the record the crimes you list are not limited to religious types. Burning and bombing, senseless killings? They have ever been part of the human tapestry. They have been done in the name of racial superiority, political ideologies, for land, water, trade routes and power. You seek to paint religion as the source of all of this evil but that is a false view. I am sure at least as many crimes have been committed against religious people by intolerant groups and individuals, as by them.

Something deeper and common to all people is the source of these evils. Greed, selfishness, intolerance, the desire to be superior to others, a lust for power, ignorance are all on that list and in my personal experience these aren't limited to people belonging to any specific group.

You might want to take a look at your list again. Even when the evils were committed for racial superiority, political ideologies, land, water, trade routes and power, the typical situation has religion behind them. Whether it was the Crusades, the expansion of the Muslim world, the conquest of the New World and any other number of wars that were fought, the VAST majority of them have religion as a cause or reason within them. Even if the people that fought them were not religions, per se, they often used religion as their excuse to get the job done.

I think there is a difference between saying that religion was the cause of those events and saying that religion was used as an excuse in those events. There is no question that many, through deliberate intent or ignorance, have used religion to manipulate or justify horrible things but I don't believe religion can be listed as the root cause of all the evils of the world.

I guess the 'danger' of religion, is the same danger found in any other social, political, philosophical or intellectual structure - they work as lenses that can be used to focus the collective power of a group. Yes it has been misused, and can still be misused, as has everything else, including science, because all of these systems are driven by human beings -some seeking the greater good and some not.

I think if you seek the common denominator of most conflict it is not religion but simple selfishness. Strip away religion and every other cause of conflict and we would be left with nothing but a reflection of ourselves.

Even today, war is still backed by religious issues. Look at the Middle East. Israel has been fought over for millenia and it is still going on. Muslim extremists disrupt American/Iraqi attempts to bring democracy and security to Iraq in the name of Allah. And on ourside many people, albiet ignorant people, blame the entire Muslim religion for acts of war and terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere.

There is no real difference.

You can't blame selfishness when entire groups act because they're brainwashed by some sort of leadership claiming all sorts of crazy stuff. How can blowing up a bomb strapped to your own body be an act of selfishness.? Instead it's just another insane example of how far religious people are willing to go brainwashed as they are.

Shouldn't the true essence of religion be doing good and making this world a better place, instead of starting wars killing thousands? Well, that very same thing often gets torn out of context to justify going to war in the first place.



There are many different groups involved in that conflict all with somewhat different motives, it's not as easy as it sounds when it comes to 'accepting democracy'. Many people in Iraq are not interested in democracy, let alone a foreign country that decides over what's best for them or not dragging them into a war in their own country.

Democracy often is seen by many of them as 'the evil religion of the west' in very much the same way as we tend to be biased about how all muslims are terrorists. They're not.

It makes no sense to force democracy onto a country like this, it just doesn't work that way. Especially when the general consensus has always been that the people in Iraq would rather have no war at all, even if it means accepting Saddam. Security in Iraq has been lots worse ever since that war started and many have died for so called democracy and modernization. Religion or not, it's no wonder a lot of groups genuinely seem to hate America, knowing how US oil interests and even Christianity played a vital role in a war they didn't choose for.

Cheers