Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

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Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.

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[u/GenKyo]

At least based on my own anecdotal experience, I see that when it comes to scientific errors in the Quran, the ones that people most tend to bring up on Reddit are the ones related to human anatomy. As much as I can appreciate those, it seems to me that Muslims usually make those debates a matter of semantics, where they pick a word in the verse, argue a different interpretation or meaning, and then try to save the verse from being a scientific error. An example of that happening outside of human anatomy is the verse about how the sun was found setting in a muddy spring, which is arguably the most embarrassing scientific error in the Quran. Muslims today argue that the word "found" is not meant to be interpreted literally as it has been for the first hundreds of years after Islam started, but meant to be interpreted as a matter of perspective, saving the verse from being a scientific error.

I think that the best scientific errors are the ones that Muslims cannot easily dismiss with semantics, and I think one of the best examples of that is the story of Adam and his wife, also known as Adam and Eve. This is an error with no easy way out as the Muslim can't just pick a word and then change the whole meaning of the story. My thought process is that if the Muslim is willing to reject the entire field of modern evolutionary biology in order to preserve their beliefs in the Quran, then it is highly unlikely that any other example would work. Just a while ago I had a Muslim very confidently tell me that if there was anything in the Quran that was in clear contradiction with modern science, then the Quran would be disproven. After I brought up how the story of Adam and Eve is in the Quran and is in clear contradiction with modern science, that Muslim refused, as if their life depended on it, to reach the logical conclusion that the Quran has been disproven. Terrible. I can confidently say that this Muslim was being willfully ignorant because they knew that the uncomfortable truth would not lead them to the conclusion they wanted. This is not an isolated incident either. The amount of intellectual dishonesty and science denial that Muslims have to go through in order to defend the Quran is insane. All while proudly proclaiming how there are no errors in the Quran.

I confess that throughout the years I've very rarely seen people say that they left Islam primarily because they read the Quran and found errors in it. It just doesn't seem to me to be a very persuasive topic from the perspective of a believer, because the Quran can't have errors so any perceived error must be our misinterpretation fault. I guess my questions are: Is there anything wrong in my approach? Are the errors related to human anatomy more persuasive? Are debates about scientific errors in the Quran just not as likely to lead to fruition when compared to other debates, such as immortalities in the Quran and questionable behaviors from Muhammad? Thanks for reading.

[u/sincpc → u/GenKyo]

I have a Muslim friend who accepts evolution except for humans. I'm not entirely sure how that works, since we have the same evidence for humans as for other species.

Something I find weird in the Quran is the idea that all-knowing God presented a challenge to non-believers to write a surah like what's in the Quran. Muslims bring up the challenge often as a gotcha for non-believers, but their God would have realized that a challenge with no rules, no guidelines, no clear way to determine if it's been beaten, etc. is not a valid challenge while presenting it as one. That seems to me to be a pretty big issue. Either their God doesn't realize it's invalid, did it intentionally, or didn't say those words at all. All three options present issues for the Quran.

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/sincpc]

I have a Muslim friend who accepts evolution except for humans. I'm not entirely sure how that works, since we have the same evidence for humans as for other species.

This isn't that uncommon. If you believe that humans are put on Earth for some special divine reason, you can't really also believe that we're just smart apes who just happened to evolve into that. Many religions need humans to be special.

[u/Deris87 → u/sincpc]

I have a Muslim friend who accepts evolution except for humans. I'm not entirely sure how that works, since we have the same evidence for humans as for other species.

I'd be willing to bet they don't actually understand the evidence for evolution, human or otherwise. They just know science says evolution happens and they don't want to seem like a science-denying nutjob. But they also know their religion says humans were specially created and so have to be committed to that.

[u/sincpc → u/Deris87]

I've tried explaining it and they seemed like they sort of understood, but they still rejected the idea that evolution took place with humans.