What's your honest opinion of...

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

ahlycotc wrote:

Directions are relative. If I look straight up, that could be considered North. If I look straight ahead (assuming that's North), I would also be facing North.

What the hell is the point of your question though?

If Islam dictates that one has to face towards Mecca while praying, how are you supposed to do this on the other side of the world? Perhaps those who wrote the Koran did not take this into account in writing it because they believed the Earth was flat.

Indeed. But I understand the modern view is that you face whichever direction you would head in if you were to fly an airplane in as straight a line as possible to Mecca. I guess prayers are subject to gravitational forces and can bend along with the curvature of the Earth...or something.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:If Islam dictates that one has to face towards Mecca while praying, how are you supposed to do this on the other side of the world? Perhaps those who wrote the Koran did not take this into account in writing it because they believed the Earth was flat.

That's a fair point actually.

But then you could apply this to anyone who uses directions.

Generally speaking on the sea you can't see further than 30 miles away simply because of the Earth's curve. So if you're in a ship and ask the captain "Where is our destination?" and he said "50 miles straight ahead"....you know what he means. Facing Mecca could very well have assumed that the world is flat in the past, but now you could just assume that they mean if you go in the direction you're facing you'll end up in Mecca.

Is this covered in the Koran? Surely God would have known about the curve of the Earth if he created it.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Is this covered in the Koran? Surely God would have known about the curve of the Earth if he created it.

Could be wrong here but its seen as egg shaped in the koran apparently ?

That can't be true, the Koran is infallible, and the Earth isn't egg-shaped.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Is this covered in the Koran? Surely God would have known about the curve of the Earth if he created it.

Maybe he did, but that knowledge wasn't transferred to the Koran. We're still ignorant to many things and they're not in the Koran either. The Koran is a book for Humans to learn the way of God (or something along those lines...) not a book to prove what God knows.

I don't remember for sure what Muslims say about how the Koran came about...but I'm going to assume that a Human wrote it. Whether or not people want to claim it came around in some magic, it's most likely that someone wrote it.

That human, being in a time where they didn't know the Earth was round, wouldn't know any better. Proving that a human was ignorant doesn't really prove (or disprove) anything.

Koran is meant to be the word of god

NZG wrote:Koran is meant to be the word of god

Obviously, but what's the context? Is God supposed to have dictated it, or magically sent it down or something?

The Bible is supposed to be the word of God, yet it was written by men who did not even claim to have met/spoken to God or w/e... I think many were not even alive at the time of the events? (not that I believe Jesus or Muhammed etc did meet/speak to God either).

I can write a book and say it's meant to be the word of NZG

Lux wrote:

NZG wrote:Koran is meant to be the word of god

Obviously, but what's the context? Is God supposed to have dictated it, or magically sent it down or something?

The Bible is supposed to be the word of God, yet it was written by men who did not even claim to have met/spoken to God or w/e... I think many were not even alive at the time of the events? (not that I believe Jesus or Muhammed etc did meet/speak to God either).

I can write a book and say it's meant to be the word of NZG

I'm pretty sure that Muhammad said he'd received the first revelation in a cave from the angel Gabriel. Then he is said to have received subsequent revelations in the decades that followed.

it [Bible] was written by men who did not even claim to have met/spoken to God or w/e

I don't know where to even begin with that.

Juventino. wrote:I'm pretty sure that Muhammad said he'd received the first revelation in a cave from the angel Gabriel. Then he is said to have received subsequent revelations in the decades that followed.

Juventino. wrote:
I don't know where to even begin with that.

What I say, and what someone so long ago says has no real difference in weight. Well, except that you know for sure that I said what I said, and something I say I've done could possibly be confirmed.

Unproven claims without any realistic reasoning or record don't mean much to me.

But at the same time the idea of a God cannot be ruled out. Just don't trust anything to do with religion that involves humans, essentially most of it.

That's your take on the matter and I respect that. Now I fully understand why you said the things that I quoted.