Adam and Yves

Chapter 2:30-40 tell the story of Adam and Iblis. Again. I have never gotten the point of this. God tells Adam the names of everything, then he asks the angels the names. Being angels they're all suckuppy and just say they don't know, they don't say “How the fuck should we know? It wasn't us you just got done telling, dumbass, it was Adam” like you or I would. Already this is going off the rails. Then he tells Adam to tell them the names, and when he's done god turns to the angels and rubs it in:

"(2:33)Did I not tell you that I know the unknown of the heavens and the earth,”

What's up with that? Sounds like a snotty little third grade bully saying “See how smart I am; nyah nyah na-nyaa nyah”. Then he tells the angels to bow down to Adam. WTF, Why? Because he told him and not them? That sucks dromedary dick.

Muslims tell me it's a parable: Adam = humans; Angels = every other critter there is; humans are the master race because they know more. I'm not buying that. It's the same old same old; every religion's gotta be better than everybody else. In fact, that's about ALL religions do, and then go around “having dominion.” If you won't bow down they go all Old Testament on your ass. Three cheers for Iblis for being the only one with the nads to stand up for himself.

This happened before the Garden of Eden, unless you wanna pull that silly 'then' = 'moreover' bit. The koran says

(31) Then He gave Adam knowledge of the nature and reality of all things and everything

In that case, what's the point of the Tree of Knowledge? He already knew everything, including whether it was a good idea to eat the apple. He ate it so it must have been the right thing to do. God was saying “Don't eat this or you will learn what you already know.” Sure, that makes sense.

Adam wasn't alone in that garden, either. God told him “Both you and your spouse go.” Spouse, spouse, what was that name again? Steena, Steve, something like that ... oh yeah, Yves, that was it.

(* note: That French name, 'Yves', is pronounced exactly like 'Eve'. In case you dint know. )

Earth First!?

(2:29) He made for you all that lies within the earth, then turning to the firmament He proportioned several skies:

Got it: earth first, then skies. But wait,79:30 sez sky first, then earth.

79:27-30 Are ye the harder to create, or is the heaven that He built? He raised the height thereof and ordered it; And He made dark the night thereof, and He brought forth the morn thereof. And after that He spread the earth ....
2:29 He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth. Then turned He to the heaven, and fashioned it as seven heavens.

Oh, oh yeah, we already decided this wasn't a problem. Ch41 was all Earth First! too, remember, and it turned out 'then' is a translation of tumma It can mean 'after that', or it can mean 'also, moreover'; so they're off the hook.

But Oh Noes! We still don't know which was created first. Oh dear oh dear, what SHALL we do? We'll just look in the bible—it tells us they were both made on the same day (Gen2:4), but it still doesn't say which came first. Oh my, oh my, such a problem. I know, we'll look in THIS book:

Earth came last, dummies.

Singing the Quran

The Koran is in the headlines! Yay?
No; boo, hiss.

A musician in Iran used verses from the koran in his songs and they sentenced him to FIVE YEARS IN PRISON!

Double You Tea Eff?
Not all muslims do, but fuckwit-muslims say you can't sing the Koran. Here's the fatwa. Why not? Well, if you don't have paint you need to watch dry or anything else important to do, you could read this and find out, but I'll save you the trouble: It leads to adultery. Really it does, every time I hear Rihanna I run out in the street and start humping the first stranger I see. Just can't help myself.

The main thing they do with the koran is sing it! There's international competitions! Listen to this and tell me it's just conversational Arabic. Tell me a cop's going to sound exactly like that when he writes you a traffic ticket. Sorry, FAIL. Singing the Quran can be pretty though, and useful too. Here's one where you can listen to Ch2 and cure black magic at the same time, in case that's giving you troubles.

There's a special set of rules for quran reading that tell you how to sing it. It's called tajweed, and it's a whole industry. We're not supposed to call it 'singing', though, we're supposed to call it 'reciting', or else fundy muslim panties will knot up and wedgie them just oh to death, coz calling it 'singing' is rude and disrespectful and we should change the English language for them. Well, y'know what, buddy? It might be something else in Arabic, but in English it's singing.

Cashew OWNS this question here. Worth reading.

All the koran says about it is this one line, back in the earliest suras

(73:4) ... recite the Qur'an in slow, measured rhythmic tones.

The happines haters have taken that itty bitty pimple of advice, squeezed it and picked it and infected it so it grew into this whole festering pustule of idiocy. To them, I dedicate this song about the koran.

(If that player acts up try this quicktime link)

Faking It.

2:7-18

(2:8) And there are some who, though they say: "We believe in God and the Last Day," (in reality) do not believe.

... and man, god hates them motherfuckers. He spends the next twelve verses telling us so. He even illustrates, with the world's worstest metaphor.

(2:17) They are like a man who kindles a fire, and when its glow has illumined the air God takes away their light leaving them in the dark where they will not be able to see.

Ok, yeah, so let's see, a guy who pretends to believe is like some other guy who a) makes a fire, and b) has god take it away. Oh. How about he's like a camel that goes surfing and a shark eats him? Or how about this one? He's like a teacher who gets caught in a time machine, and goes back the the 7^th century, and TEACHES YOU HOW TO MAKE AN ANALOGY?

Anyhow, it's bad to fake it. So much for Pascal's wager, huh?

God put a Seal on my Heart

2:6-7

When I first picked up the koran and tried to read it, from the beginning y'know like it was a real book, this is as far as I got:

(2:6) As for those who deny, it is all the same if you warn them or not, they will not believe.
(2:7) God has sealed their hearts and ears, and veiled their eyes. For them is great deprivation.

He keeps saying this, so it must be important, but it's hard to figure out. If it won't make any difference, what's the point of warning anybody? Mo spends all his time warning people, so ... ???

If god sealed their hearts and all, god must want them that way. Trying to undo it is going against god's will. But god sent Mo to undo what he did in the first place, even though he knows it won't work .... ??? God is stupid? What?

Bafflegab!

I guess I got all obscure and shit on this post. It was talking about Ziauddin Sardar's explanation of 2:2. It's a perfect example of why I usually don't go with the muslim version of things. Every damn time the secular, or even christian, people give me logic and facts, up against Koranists who give me muddle headed, gibbering bafflegab (I like that word; too bad it's not obscene so I could use it more) like this.

In reading the opening verses of al-Baqara, we immediately come to a cautionary note. English translations of the Qur'an differ, each giving slightly different shades of meaning and implication - as pointed out by a number of correspondents, including Richard Kimber.

OK. Like some say “the furthest mosque” and others say “Jerusalem”. Pretty damn obvious what they're trying to 'imply'* with that. Cautionary, no shit. [* 'imply': v. to lie about].

It seems to me it is not a matter of picking one translation over another; it is more a case of seeing the various constructions of English words offered by different translators as highlighting the many implications and layered meanings of the text.

Woo, Bafflegab! LOL. It seems to ME a case of seeing which one of those translation is accurate, and which ones are trying to whitewash things.

The arabic is ----

So, our reading of the chapter begins with the self-assertion that this is the Book, the Sacred Text, or Divine Writ; a guidance from God -

Bullshit; it doesn't say any of that crap. All it says is: it's a book, and, there's no doubt in it.

(2:2) This is The Book free of doubt and involution, [Ahmed Ali]
[2:2] This is the Book; in it is guidance sure, without doubt, [Yusuf Ali]
[2:2] This Book, there is no doubt in it, [Shakir]>

So half a sentence in he's claiming “that is the book” means “this is the Sacred Text of God”. Why not claim it means “Here's a taco” or “unicorns give good head”?

----snip----

OT, but this got me wondering why everybody translates “that” as “this”. Here's an explanation, sorta.

"Like as a person held in mean estimation is indicated by hadha which denotes a thing that is near, so, on account of its high degree of estimation a thing that is approved is indicated by dhalika, whereby one indicates a thing that is remote."

See? 'This' means something you don't like, and 'that' means something good. Oh those goddammed nuns. They told me 'this' for close, 'that' for far away, and I've been saying it that way all my life. What a sap I've been! Then there's this:

“Palmer translates the word dhalika as that, and thinks that its rendering as this is an error”.

He went ahead and wrote it even when he knew it was wrong? WTF? Granted, if you don't change it it sounds pretty stupid, but if that's what a bear shits, dude, you write “bear shit”, not “Teen Spirit”.

----snip------

Getting back to Sardar, he was all ... the chapter begins with the self-assertion that this is ... a guidance from God–of this we should have no doubt. Therefore, this is "the book in which there is no doubt". I cannot parse this. Unless he actually means 'the book claims it's from god, therefore we can't doubt it.' Can he mean that? Please say no.

The straightforward declaration that this is God's word [which it didn't declare; why not talk about those unicorns?] recognises the human capacity to doubt. Throughout, the Qur'an takes doubt seriously. Damn straight. You doubt Mo and your skin will burn off, you drink pus, ...pretty serious, all right. It is presented as a continuum which stretches from being an essential aid to belief Huh? Guess I haven't gotten to those chapters yet. So far it's just: doubt → burn in hell; ask questions → burn in hell. Rinse. Repeat. all the way to a blinkered determination not to believe under any circumstances. Doubt is a function of our free will; we are free to accept or reject belief in God who speaks to us through the Qur'an. If everything is preordained, and written in the big book in the sky, any free will we have is pretty much useless, but when just questioning it gets you hung by your tits, this is your idea of taking doubts seriously?

Repeatedly, the Qur'an engages with various kinds of doubt.[huh?] Oh, “engaged with” means “condemn to everlasting torment.” I get it. The CIA “engaged with” Sheik Mohammed.It offers arguments to test our doubts and arrive, by a rational process,ROFLMAO. “rational”. hee hee.at conviction in the uniqueness of the Qur'an, the truth of its origin and the guidance it contains.Giggle. 'rational conviction” Bwa ha ha. Snort.

For example, a little later in al-Baqara we read: "If you have doubts about the revelation we have sent down to our servant, then produce a single surah like it." (23)Now see right there I have doubts that just about anybody couldn't write a surah like it. No matter how shitty they were, a bunch of lines written on paper would be "like it". Voila. Harry Potter. Moby Dick. Facebook.

The distinctive use of Arabic language in the Qur'an, unlike any other Arabic text, makes it inimitable and is testimony to its authorship, to its being a work that in structure and scope is beyond human capability.Hey, this bit is so stupid I wrote a whole post about it; if you have doubts that I was right, then produce a single post like it. So there, smarty-pants; see, you're not the only one who can toss out meaningless little third grade taunts.

The text itself, when examined, questioned by a doubting mind, leads to the conclusion its origin is not human but a revelation of the divine. This thought entered my cortex, routed through the logic circuits, shorted them out, and emerged as “compressed blue unicorns weightlessly cavort in traffic buns of hopscotch”. Best I could do, sorry; but does it make any less sense than the original?