Koran

Weak point Bowman. People still argue whether Shakespeare write all of those plays. Question is who does the evidence point to, and then interested people can make their own personal decision, which of course can be very different. The fact that some sections were clearly written to cover some of Muhammad's actions and label them as acceptable, leads me to conclude that Muhammad or someone close to him wrote at least part of the Koran. In addition, since there were many more historical records of that period compared to Christ's time, and millions of Arab's believe the Koran records Muhammad's communications of the revelations he felt he received, that adds some more weight to my confidence. But clearly there is alot that we do not know about the distant past, and I am open to changing my opinion if some new evidence is uncovered.

The Koran is ABOUT the Biblical Jesus Christ - which took place hundreds of years prior, in the first place....so how could 'Muhammad' have more historical evidence than the Jesus being written about?

Its hard to believe that you read anything at all...

Thanks for asking Bryancambell! Certainly the Koran (again, at least the English translation I read) instructs readers to have total faith in the Bible. Could you ask your friend what contribution Muslims believe that Mohammad had to the writing of the Koran and its communicated messages?

This is what I asked my best friend who is Iranian Shiite, I asked if Mohammad got information from the bible, how in the heck did the Koran become the way it is and said to be true by Muslims? If the bible was written before the Koran, that says that the bible is more accurate in biblical information than the Koran itself, most definitely! Bible is 100% true.

I don't know Bowman. I came away from my English Translation of the Koran surprised at how much the Koran gave respect to the Bible. They had negative things to say about Christians and especially Jewish people, mostly to give examples of nonbelief having negative consequence, but the Koran I read had only positive things to say about the Old and New Testament.

The Koran was rather short on the details of the Bible stories,

and other stories played out in Arabia, because the authors seemed to be focusing on making a logical point that throughout history God has been sent messengers to warn people to start believing. If these people did not believe then they were killed. So people should believe in, and follow Mohammad, especially into war, or they were going to suffer a natural disaster or were going to burn in hell at the Judgment Day. The view I get from the Koran, that for me adds more support to the belief that Mohammad or his close supporters wrote it, is that it was a way to drum up an army of people willing to die for Mohammad, at a time when he was under attack or attacking. His believers were fighting for God, giving their money to Mohammad to fund the effort, and that all helped them beat armies significantly greater in size, until all of Arabia was theirs.

Society often demonizes certain people, cultures, races, etc. I tend to read the books that this bias would tell you not to read. So I, a white Irish person, raised catholic, am reading the Koran. Not as scary as you would think. Basically Mohammed felt that after Abraham and Moses (and the rest of the Apostles) there was Jesus. And after Jesus there was him. Basically he felt that the claim that Jesus and the holy spirit were one with God (trinity), was created by humans, and that even Jesus himself treated God as separate and better than him. Clearly the beginning of the Koran claims women are inferior and really speaks negatively about Jewish people. But nothing much of substance yet (I am up to the chapter called The Table). Waiting to see the evidence for Mohammed being a prophet.

As far as terrorism, as expected, there are some passages that encourage physical punishment of non-believers that do not seek peace with Muslims, but there are also passages encouraging Muslims to ignore and forgive non-belief. A lot of emphasis, as in most religions, for believers to donate money and not run away in the middle of a battle.

As T_Laurich has pointed out, I have not answered the question "Why", with regard to my reading an English translation of the Koran consistently, so I will not attempt to answer that question again. But what I walk away with after reading it is a better idea of the author's intentions and inner self (whoever that author might be), aided by some knowledge of the history of the period in which it was written.

Can I ask you, as a former Muslim, do Muslims believe that the ideas and writings in the Koran reflect the ideas and spoken words of Mohammad?

I feel like I am pulling teeth sometimes Juliet84, so let me clarify based on your answer. Do Muslims believe that God gave his words to Muhammad, who then spoke those Words, and someone that heard them wrote them down into what became the Koran (because Muhammad could not write)? A Yes or No would be greatly appreciated.

Muslims believe that the words in the Koran came directly from god himself. It has nothing to do with Muhammad's ideas and his own words whatsoever. Hadith, on the other hand, is a sunnah (a way of life prescribed as normative for Muslims on the basis of the teachings and practices of Muhammad and interpretations).The Muslims believe that the angel gabriel came down to Muhammad and spoke god's words directly to him for the purpose of spreading them to people.

Christian apologetics and myself debated that this so-called "angel" was actually a devil 'in disguise' pretending to be an angel because as you know, devil is manipulative, and deceitful. We tend to think that we can detect liars and evil in obvious ways, but they are smarter than what we think. They can manipulate you, embedding the goodness and badness in the same line as you can see in the Koran, the goodness become bad and badness become good..this kind of combinations...because when human beings see even a little of goodness in something, they would accept it in their life. So this is a kind of manipulation and deception that certain human beings cannot see like these poor Muslims.

When Jesus died on the cross, it is a glory and triumph of the kingdom of God, glory to human beings because our sins is cleansed and we should not live in fear anymore. But the devil wants to win and therefore creating this other 'religion' so that the people are diverted into a wrong path.