I renounced my faith in the divinity of the Qur'an today

nimnimak_11

The Qur'an is both beautiful, powerful, eloquent, appealing, profound, and seductive. The one word I wish I could use to describe it is "true".

I won't get into a super detailed post but today I came to the conclusion that the Qur'an, the absolute crux of my faith, is not the divine word of God. I converted 3 years ago from a family with no Muslims. I read the Qur'an, fasted, and prayed. I loved everything about Islam and it was the most beautiful thing to happen to me. My life turned around and my way of thinking changed. I've had doubts every once in a while but never substantial ones. Only now have I truly sought to look at the Qur'an objectively and whether or not a perfect God sent this book as a message for all mankind for all time.

It comes after deep study and logical thought. I basically started feeling true doubt about a month ago. I kept going back to the source of my faith which is the Qur'an. I would always laugh derisively of how Christians put so much stock in the Bible when it is clearly full of contradiction and it is illogical so I knew I had to put my own scripture under the magnifying glass.

I don't even know if Christians care if some of the Bible is wrong but the crux of Qur'anic authority and relevance is that the Qur'an is the DIRECT WORD OF GOD. Every single verse is a miracle! Every single letter was uttered by the Divine. That means if even one LETTER of this book disagrees with science, reality, logic, or human reason then I must question the entirety of the revelation.

So I scoured the Qur'an for contradiction, immorality, and anything that would suggest that a being less than perfect created it. I used my own translation of the Qur'an, online testimonies, online videos, and different translations and found several verses which simply don't reconcile with my logic, reason, and rationality as a human being. These verses do NOT come from a perfect God and therefore I must reject the revelation's claim to divinity.

By comparing the ATTRIBUTES of God laid out by the Qur'an and contrasting it with the realities of the actual revelation and its message I can not honestly say that this book is from God. Despite how much I want to believe that the Qur'an and Islam are true, I must be honest with myself.

It truly pains me to say that I must now as a seeker of truth, renounce my faith in the divinity of the Qur'an this day.

Peace Faithful Jinn

I've read your first post and found it interesting. Hope you don't mind but I have not read the 27 of pages that have gone on here as I am pretty preoccupied with another thread.

I just wanted to know

What's your situation with regards to your belief in God? Did that come first then christianity or the other way around?
Do you think the book (quran) benefited you in terms of morality and the reverence of God? (i'm not saying that this would then be evidence that it's divine. Just curious about it's effect on others)
Was the Quran the crux of your faith in God? What's your current understanding of God (does it exist? Is it almighty, alknowing etc. or limited?)

I was an agnostic but more inlcined towards athiesm, then I became theistic then believing in the Quran. So from somone going from no faith to God then Quran, I'm interested to find out more about someone who gave thought and consideration before concluding the lack of divinity with regards to the Quran.

GODsubmitter

I am interested on what you meant by the underlined.

I meant what I wrote )

Faithful-Jinn

Peace Faithful Jinn

I've read your first post and found it interesting. Hope you don't mind but I have not read the 27 of pages that have gone on here as I am pretty preoccupied with another thread.

I just wanted to know

What's your situation with regards to your belief in God? Did that come first then christianity or the other way around?

Huh? Christianity? I'm not a Christian I was agnostic then I started believing strongly in God and then I converted to Islam. Now I'm reverting back to agnosticism.

Do you think the book (quran) benefited you in terms of morality and the reverence of God? (i'm not saying that this would then be evidence that it's divine. Just curious about it's effect on others)

The Qur'an benefited me greatly in morality and reverence for God. I became a different person and looked at life in a new way. Religion can be very effective in making people act more moral. I just don't think it's true.

Was the Quran the crux of your faith in God? What's your current understanding of God (does it exist? Is it almighty, alknowing etc. or limited?)

I reject the Abrahamic idea of God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims present. I believe they are all false and no different than any other religions that existed in human history. I don't believe any human being spoke to God or that God gave any human being a book.

I was an agnostic but more inlcined towards athiesm, then I became theistic then believing in the Quran. So from somone going from no faith to God then Quran, I'm interested to find out more about someone who gave thought and consideration before concluding the lack of divinity with regards to the Quran.

At first it was very difficult to accept the possibility that the Bible wasn't divine but after much research, thought, and prayer I concluded that the Qur'an, like every other book in human existence, is man made.

Raaajah

At first it was very difficult to accept the possibility that the Bible wasn't divine but after much research, thought, and prayer I concluded that the Qur'an, like every other book in human existence, is man made.

Life is full of confusions no doubt! Agnoist to Christian to muslim to atheist .......

Since you have concluded that Quran is man made then the burden of proof lies with you, just prove it so others can benefit

Faithful-Jinn

Life is full of confusions no doubt! Agnoist to Christian to muslim to atheist .......

Since you have concluded that Quran is man made then the burden of proof lies with you, just prove it so others can benefit

That was a mistype. I meant to say the Qur'an. I was never a real Christian. I simply believed in God and since I live in a Christian society that was how I thought about God. But I never really strongly believed in Christianity. I believed in God but not Christianity does that make sense?

As for the burden of proof there is nothing I can show you that you will accept as proof. Nobody can disprove religion. That's the whole thing about it. It's an unfalsifiable belief.

But just because it's unfalsifiable doesn't mean it's true.

I refuse to accept nonsensical stories and centuries old books as facts. There are a lot of holes in Islam and the Abrahamic faiths in general and we could discuss them for days but a believer will never accept them as issues.

I can only discuss and hope that other people who once had the same belief will be able to question the validity of their beliefs?

good_logic

Peace Faithful-Jinn.

What next? Please keep us informed if you wish to.

The Lord says there is no escape from HIM, except back to HIM. If not while we are living, then when we die.

Unless of course , we can stop ourselves from dying.

Best of luck.

Peace.

aabdul

If people can only believe if God wills them to believe (10.100) why would He then punish people who were destined to disbelieve by His own command? The believers would look at my skepticism and say I have a disease in my heart. If that is true then God put it there.

There is no substance in the above statement. Allah does not guide or send people astray whimsically based on his WILL. Such an understanding among many people is a BIG corruption in Islam.

I have seen you post stating you have read so many books and watched so many videos. Please read the following book by Allama Parwez. It will be another new life for you. Insha Allah

http//www.tolueislam.org/Parwez/kt/KT.htm

GODsubmitter

There is no substance in the above statement. Allah does not guide or send people astray whimsically based on his WILL. Such an understanding among many people is a BIG corruption in Islam.

I have seen you post stating you have read so many books and watched so many videos. Please read the following book by Allama Parwez. It will be another new life for you. Insha Allah
http//www.tolueislam.org/Parwez/kt/KT.htm

But why do you direct him (or anybody) to other books? Here the discussion is about the divinity of the Qur'an! Not about other books INSPIRED by Qur'an! Of course there are many books that inspired many other books in the history of literature. jedi

The point here is how a man fares with the book called Qur'an. Without auxiliaries!
It is the only book that is considered by so many people to be A LITERAL WORD of God every letter, dot and line! Is it?

I reject the Abrahamic idea of God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims present. I believe they are all false and no different than any other religions that existed in human history. I don't believe any human being spoke to God or that God gave any human being a book.

I agree, with one exception, ! and that is Jews claiming they witnessed collectively the event of Divine presence, having the recorded line of witnesses
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEg_Oys4NkA&feature=player_embedded
(Rational Approach To Divine Origin of Judaism)
The video is very well made and quite funny to watch! yes
(it was one-time-only event in history, quite another thing what they did afterwards).

I concluded that the Qur'an, like every other book in human existence, is man made.

I also think that!

Dear @Faithful Jinn,
Your posts are hugely intelligent and balanced, and very serious. I admire your honesty and sincerity in sharing your struggles and insights with us all.
It helps me very much because I am struggling with the same issues as you.
sun

nimnimak_11

The Qur'an benefited me greatly in morality and reverence for God. I became a different person and looked at life in a new way. Religion can be very effective in making people act more moral. I just don't think it's true.

Fair enough

At first it was very difficult to accept the possibility that the Bible wasn't divine but after much research, thought, and prayer I concluded that the Qur'an, like every other book in human existence, is man made.

I think the difference between you and I is that the Quran was the crux of your faith (hence the revert to agnosticism) but if the Quran is proven false (and it can be proven false if there are contradictions in it) this would do nothing with regards to my faith in God.

For me it's rationally difficult to reject God. The best defence I've heard is that the Universe is the way it is because there are an infinite amount of other Universes thus the exact conditions, laws, arrangement and organisation that is here is purely down to an inevitable outcome of infinity.

IMO this is less likely than to accept the existence of God. I can defend this in depth. But I don't not want to derail your thread.

With regards to the Quran, what did you make of the "scientific" verses? Such as the development of the baby in the mother's womb...the big bang....the mountains acting as stabalisers?

Also What did you make of 19?

nimnimak_11

Life is full of confusions no doubt! Agnoist to Christian to muslim to atheist .......

Since you have concluded that Quran is man made then the burden of proof lies with you, just prove it so others can benefit

The other options is to prove that it is not man made. The burden of proof is then on those who claim it is not man made. If we cannot provide such proof, then we cannot claim the book is divine/divinely inspired. This would be unfounded.

In the case that we cannot provide such proof, we have more reason to reject the divinity of the book then we have to accept it's divinity. Since if it was divine, it would provide signs.

Thus the burden of proof, is more upon the one who claims the book is divine than the one who claims it is not.
IMO there is proof.

Zulf

Dear all,

Too whom are we trying to prove things anyway?
The acceptance of reality doesn't depend on ways to prove it. It depends on us to have capacity to see it.
The problem is not in the proof. The problem is in us being blind or not.
Stop chasing external proof. Search inside yourself instead!

huruf

Dear all,

Too whom are we trying to prove things anyway?
The acceptance of reality doesn't depend on ways to prove it. It depends on us to have capacity to see it.
The problem is not in the proof. The problem is in us being blind or not.
Stop chasing external proof. Search inside yourself instead!

Indeed.

In the same way that you cannot give visual evidence to convince a blind, nor sound envidence to convince a deaf, it is useless to attempt to proof spiritual truths to people who do not have that sense or do not use it.

Salaam

Faithful-Jinn

Fair enough

I think the difference between you and I is that the Quran was the crux of your faith (hence the revert to agnosticism) but if the Quran is proven false (and it can be proven false if there are contradictions in it) this would do nothing with regards to my faith in God.

The thing is though if I accept the Abrahamic narrative of the Almighty God and that narrative is proved false in my mind then I reject the entirety of the Abrahamic God. For example if you don't base your beliefs on a holy book or scripture what are you basing them on? When you perform deeds, or pray, or fast, or feed a homeless man, you think you are pleasing God right? If you have no holy book to base your actions on then how do you know you are pleasing God? Without a basis for your beliefs, any action you take is just coming from your own mind and personal bias.

Without a basis for your beliefs you are only performing actions in the hope of pleasing God. You have no true basis to know what is pleasing and displeasing to the Creator. People do things in hope of an afterlife and salvation but what are you basing this hope on? The promises of a book. Without this book you would have no clue on what God deems as sin and as righteousness.

It would all be coming from your own mind.

For me it's rationally difficult to reject God. The best defence I've heard is that the Universe is the way it is because there are an infinite amount of other Universes thus the exact conditions, laws, arrangement and organisation that is here is purely down to an inevitable outcome of infinity.

IMO this is less likely than to accept the existence of God. I can defend this in depth. But I don't not want to derail your thread.

With regards to the Quran, what did you make of the "scientific" verses? Such as the development of the baby in the mother's womb...the big bang....the mountains acting as stabalisers?

Also What did you make of 19?

I believe the "scientific verses" are so vague in the original language that they can be interpreted and reinterpreted in multiple ways. Furthermore I think that human beings back then had some of this knowledge or ideas and that it is not divine simply to be correct on a vague scientific thought.

Actually I was reading a book on the History of World Religions and I found a verse in either the Baghavad Gita or the Zoroastrian scriptures about the universe expanding. I apologize for not remembering exactly which and I'll look for it, but the fact is that even thousands of years before Muhammad, human beings were having these ideas. There is nothing divine about it. I simply saw the divine because that is what I wanted to see and what I was looking for. The mind can do many things.

As for the 19 "miracle" it is hogwash to me. Numerical codes? I'm sure you can find tons of numerical coincidences in any large book. I've seen a program about the Bible called the "Bible code". People were able to find details about world events and what not in the Bible. They claimed that in the books of the Bible they could predict world catastrophes. I then find it funny that the only events they could find, were ones that had already happened and that they had to look for. It was not a miracle it was probability. In any book so vast of course you can find numerical and letter combinations that are not what they appear. I bet if you take a Harry Potter book you can find tuns of numerical and letter codes. Does that make it divine?

Jafar

The thing is though if I accept the Abrahamic narrative of the Almighty God and that narrative is proved false in my mind then I reject the entirety of the Abrahamic God. For example if you don't base your beliefs on a holy book or scripture what are you basing them on? When you perform deeds, or pray, or fast, or feed a homeless man, you think you are pleasing God right?

Nope.... and this is the 'fundamental differences'..
Those who do good deeds do it for their own soul.... and the same goes for those who do the opposite...

If you have no holy book to base your actions on then how do you know you are pleasing God? Without a basis for your beliefs, any action you take is just coming from your own mind and personal bias.

Thus this statement is irrelevant...

Actually I was reading a book on the History of World Religions and I found a verse in either the Baghavad Gita or the Zoroastrian scriptures about the universe expanding. I apologize for not remembering exactly which and I'll look for it, but the fact is that even thousands of years before Muhammad, human beings were having these ideas. There is nothing divine about it. I simply saw the divine because that is what I wanted to see and what I was looking for. The mind can do many things.

I think Gita goes 'further more' than that...
Krishn explained that this universe is created, expanded and shall be destroyed and many others shall be created and destroyed and it goes on and on and on... Gita is among the oldest book which explained regarding the existence of a 'soul' and 'things which happens are supposed to be happened'...

AND.. why don't you 'change your viewing angle'??

Perhaps Gita IS "divinely inspired"..

After that; you shall found it 'ridiculous' on those who says
"Only those who accepted Gita shall go to heaven the rest shall go to hell!!"..
A quite popular 'dogma' especially on this forum.... just replace "Gita" with "Quran"...

As for the 19 "miracle" it is hogwash to me. Numerical codes? I'm sure you can find tons of numerical coincidences in any large book. I've seen a program about the Bible called the "Bible code". People were able to find details about world events and what not in the Bible. They claimed that in the books of the Bible they could predict world catastrophes. I then find it funny that the only events they could find, were ones that had already happened and that they had to look for. It was not a miracle it was probability. In any book so vast of course you can find numerical and letter combinations that are not what they appear. I bet if you take a Harry Potter book you can find tuns of numerical and letter codes. Does that make it divine?

Nope...

Salam / Peace

Zulf

Running around in fear trying to please God thru bending, bowing, doing gestures with the hands, paying money to the religious institution, utter "respectful" words about acclaimed messengers/prophets/saints, displaying doing good symbolic deeds etc and on, is to me a rather shallow practice. It is mostly method. You put your trust and responsibility into some methods of worship. It is to me like you just sit at home and send your body to do the worshiping. Your spirit stays back at home relaxing, fooling itself thinking it will get all the credit for the methods executed by the body.

I think you, FJ, agree to this and more or less has said the same thing.

I too, object to this sort of approach, and I think there is no loss in leaving such an approach. You are actually wise to do that.

At the same time I also feel that you are not leaving the Methodical Religion of Fear due to seeing the deeper reality, but rather you leave it due to the discovering of the artificiality of it, which is an observation that in itself may deserve credit. But I feel you are missing the main point, you are missing half the picture... which is the presence of an intelligent force. This is not the typical Abrahamitic God as promoted by Religions of Man. It is rather something, which one should be very careful labeling with words or names. Once you associate something with it, you are losing sight of it. I feel you are lost in between the fairyland of Religions of Man and all its characters. But the main point you should look into, is not whether some scripture or some God of Old makes sense. Don't use the ridiculous fairytale Stories of Man as an excuse or escape away from the reality behind all. Dump the books. Look within. There is a huge difference between seeking the underlying truth of all, and seeking to expose the truth, or lack of truth, about religious stories or books or any other external creation. I think you have long have seen through the illusion of many things. You have seen what is NOT there. Now, don't let this insight stop you from seeing what actually IS there. Don't stop halfway, ending up nowhere. Go deeper, and never mind the religious concepts people want you to swallow. Go inside yourself.
Just fill your mind with a desire to find the truth which is there, in and behind everything. Don't look to see what is false. Shift your focus to find what is instead true. Stay in this desire, and let it come to you. Relax, it cannot be forced, it can not be figured out. Let it reveal itself to you as and when you are ready. Allow it to come... you just need to desire it.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but I don't know how to better describe what is in my mind.
Cheers

Faithful-Jinn

Nope.... and this is the 'fundamental differences'..
Those who do good deeds do it for their own soul.... and the same goes for those who do the opposite...

How do you know what a good deed is?

nimnimak_11

For example if you don't base your beliefs on a holy book or scripture what are you basing them on?

Reason. Reason always comes first ahead of a translation of the Quran (could be a wrong translation/interpretation and I believe the odds of a distorted translation are more than a distorted reason IMO).

I'm not going to uphold that which I can't verify with my Aql/reason. Perhaps this is why if someone proved an obvious flaw in the Quran that rendered it man made for sure, I would have no issue as my belief in God and morality have been derived much from experience and verified by reason rather than just accepted because the Quran says it.

I would still think of the book as there being an inspiration to a man (not divine, just progressive like you had with plato and so on) At the moment the evidence for it's divinity outweighs the evidence for it's non-divinity. Still, divine or not, I would not uphold that which I do not understand unless it is simple and not harmful to anyone and the interpretation is extremely without controversy (such as not eating pork)

When you perform deeds, or pray, or fast, or feed a homeless man, you think you are pleasing God right?

Not exactly. That is only small fraction of what passes through my mind. The primary aspect for me is that I am enhancing my character to encompass all the good attributes. Attributes in light of competence and beneficence.

Competence being how determined, persistent, patient, effective, efficient, organised, charismatic etc. one is as these contribute to attaining and maintaining things which is important to self-sufficiency and happiness.

Beneficence being how generous, forgiving, cooperative, united one can be with regards to others.

If you have no holy book to base your actions on then how do you know you are pleasing God? Without a basis for your beliefs, any action you take is just coming from your own mind and personal bias.

In my three years of philosophy at Uni, I came to form the belief that only one thing can be perfect. That which is almighty, alknowing, self-sufficient (always in the best state), immortal and beneficent. If you think about it, nothing else can be perfect (if you have examples, give them)

If you look at the above, everything comes down to the most effective self-sufficiency (competence....almigty, alknowing etc.) and most effective/appropriate other-sufficiency (beneficence.....forgiving, merciful, noble, generous)

As that is what it is to be perfect IMO, my goal is to be ideal in the sense that my character encompasses as much goodness as can be drawn. Thus the good deeds are not for the God, they are for me. But I do believe that God blesses and favours whom it wills on the basis of character and since beneficence is an important attribute to character, you could say in some ways that I am ultimately just pleasing God. But not in the way that you think.

Without a basis for your beliefs, any action you take is just coming from your own mind and personal bias.

I've had many discussions. No one can objectively deny that the perfect is what I have roughly outline above using reason. Can you think of something more accurate to that which is perfect?
This is sort of foundational to the rest of my beliefs.

I believe the "scientific verses" are so vague in the original language that they can be interpreted and reinterpreted in multiple ways. Furthermore I think that human beings back then had some of this knowledge or ideas and that it is not divine simply to be correct on a vague scientific thought

Fair enough. I think I need to take another look and verify this, it's sort of become dogmatically held now.

I apologize for not remembering exactly which and I'll look for it, but the fact is that even thousands of years before Muhammad, human beings were having these ideas

That's ok but I will have another look at the verses that are "scientific" in the Quran and i'l get back to you on that for a separate discussion if you don't mind.

As for the 19 "miracle" it is hogwash to me. Numerical codes? I'm sure you can find tons of numerical coincidences in any large book. I've seen a program about the Bible called the "Bible code". People were able to find details about world events and what not in the Bible. They claimed that in the books of the Bible they could predict world catastrophes. I then find it funny that the only events they could find, were ones that had already happened and that they had to look for. It was not a miracle it was probability. In any book so vast of course you can find numerical and letter combinations that are not what they appear. I bet if you take a Harry Potter book you can find tuns of numerical and letter codes. Does that make it divine?

IMO coincidence and purpose can be distinguished easily at times. Regarding 19, I've looked at it and you cannot liken to the bible code. With 19 there is sufficiently credible assertion of it at chapter 74 (so it's not just Let's sit down, see if we can find a numerical pattern and call it a miracle) The initials from the alphabet that start the chapters also convey that this pattern was intended not coincidental.
The rest of it would take a poetic/linguistic and creative genius WITH a computer to achieve this mathematical task

and the way it works IMO is beyond coincidence (what key things divide by 19 from numbers to letters to words that are inter-related) which left me with two options

a) The work of highly intelligent aliens with computers (since there were no computers 1400 years ago)
b) Divine inspiration

I took b.

Without this book you would have no clue on what God deems as sin and as righteousness.

I strongly disagree here. Intuition and reason do a good job of this. Three people find 3 pounds, they know that they should split it 3 ways. This is logical. So much of morality you can pin down with the principle of fairness and justice. The rest of it you can rationally recognise in light of what reason conveys regarding competence and benficence.

Faithful-Jinn

Running around in fear trying to please God thru bending, bowing, doing gestures with the hands, paying money to the religious institution, utter "respectful" words about acclaimed messengers/prophets/saints, displaying doing good symbolic deeds etc and on, is to me a rather shallow practice. It is mostly method. You put your trust and responsibility into some methods of worship. It is to me like you just sit at home and send your body to do the worshiping. Your spirit stays back at home relaxing, fooling itself thinking it will get all the credit for the methods executed by the body.

I think you, FJ, agree to this and more or less has said the same thing.

I too, object to this sort of approach, and I think there is no loss in leaving such an approach. You are actually wise to do that.

At the same time I also feel that you are not leaving the Methodical Religion of Fear due to seeing the deeper reality, but rather you leave it due to the discovering of the artificiality of it, which is an observation that in itself may deserve credit. But I feel you are missing the main point, you are missing half the picture... which is the presence of an intelligent force. This is not the typical Abrahamitic God as promoted by Religions of Man. It is rather something, which one should be very careful labeling with words or names. Once you associate something with it, you are losing sight of it. I feel you are lost in between the fairyland of Religions of Man and all its characters. But the main point you should look into, is not whether some scripture or some God of Old makes sense. Don't use the ridiculous fairytale Stories of Man as an excuse or escape away from the reality behind all. Dump the books. Look within. There is a huge difference between seeking the underlying truth of all, and seeking to expose the truth, or lack of truth, about religious stories or books or any other external creation. I think you have long have seen through the illusion of many things. You have seen what is NOT there. Now, don't let this insight stop you from seeing what actually IS there. Don't stop halfway, ending up nowhere. Go deeper, and never mind the religious concepts people want you to swallow. Go inside yourself.
Just fill your mind with a desire to find the truth which is there, in and behind everything. Don't look to see what is false. Shift your focus to find what is instead true. Stay in this desire, and let it come to you. Relax, it cannot be forced, it can not be figured out. Let it reveal itself to you as and when you are ready. Allow it to come... you just need to desire it.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but I don't know how to better describe what is in my mind.
Cheers

I understand what you're saying but it has no appeal to me. Basically you are saying to disregard institutionalized religion but at the same time do you not believe in the concept of God as described in the Qur'an? Do you not believe in the infallibility of a book?

The idea that we should all look inside ourselves and find some deep reality or purpose is nonsense. It is simply an emotional feeling that our own minds create. If I look inside myself I can find anything my mind creates.

The Muslim looks inside himself and sees Allah.
The Christian looks inside himself and sees Jesus.

Everyone sees what they want to see.

As for not putting a name or label to God that is nonsense. If you cannot define God, then God is whatever you want God to be. Religion teaches that God is too great for human knowledge then it claims to have intimate knowledge about the character, intent, attributes, likes, and dislikes of the very same God it claims is too great to understand or limit. It's a big hypocrisy.

I felt God many times in my life. I experienced His presence on several occasions. This feeling of God was an emotion. No different than any other emotion.

This emotion I used to attribute to God is called numinous.

I get the same feeling when I hold a newborn baby, or see a beautiful sight in nature like a forest, mountain, or waterfall.

It is nothing more than an emotion and it says nothing about the realities of the universe.

To suggest that without any holy books or religious influence I would believe in Islam is actually absurd. If religion never existed and I had no concept of heaven, hell, sin, angels, judgment, blessings, revelation and all the things that Islam preaches, I would not wake up one morning and believe in it. The FACT is that religion arises out of a tradition, and that this tradition teaches untestable, nonsensical ideas and you cannot separate your beliefs from this tradition if you claim that the Qur'an is a book from God.

If you say the Qur'an is the word of God you're making many claims about life, the universe, and reality that are simply nonsensical. You can't say to forget about holy books and dogma while at the same time believing in the Qur'an as divine revelation.

Jafar

How do you know what a good deed is?

How do you know what a bad deed is?

Faithful-Jinn

Reason. Reason always comes first ahead of a translation of the Quran (could be a wrong translation/interpretation and I believe the odds of a distorted translation are more than a distorted reason IMO).

I'm not going to uphold that which I can't verify with my Aql/reason. Perhaps this is why if someone proved an obvious flaw in the Quran that rendered it man made for sure, I would have no issue as my belief in God and morality have been derived much from experience and verified by reason rather than just accepted because the Quran says it.

Precisely. My reason tells me to think for myself instead of living myself trying to appease the authority of a 7th century book written by men.

Furthermore in the Qur'an there are verses that outright condone hitting your wife and taking female captives of war. These female captives are one of the categories of women whom God allows sexual relations with. This disagrees with my own personal morals yet God condones it. So if my reason trumps God then I must accept my reason and discard God.

I would still think of the book as there being an inspiration to a man (not divine, just progressive like you had with plato and so on) At the moment the evidence for it's divinity outweighs the evidence for it's non-divinity. Still, divine or not, I would not uphold that which I do not understand unless it is simple and not harmful to anyone and the interpretation is extremely without controversy (such as not eating pork)
Not exactly. That is only small fraction of what passes through my mind. The primary aspect for me is that I am enhancing my character to encompass all the good attributes. Attributes in light of competence and beneficence.

Competence being how determined, persistent, patient, effective, efficient, organised, charismatic etc. one is as these contribute to attaining and maintaining things which is important to self-sufficiency and happiness.

Beneficence being how generous, forgiving, cooperative, united one can be with regards to others.
In my three years of philosophy at Uni, I came to form the belief that only one thing can be perfect. That which is almighty, alknowing, self-sufficient (always in the best state), immortal and beneficent. If you think about it, nothing else can be perfect (if you have examples, give them)

If you look at the above, everything comes down to the most effective self-sufficiency (competence....almigty, alknowing etc.) and most effective/appropriate other-sufficiency (beneficence.....forgiving, merciful, noble, generous)

As that is what it is to be perfect IMO, my goal is to be ideal in the sense that my character encompasses as much goodness as can be drawn. Thus the good deeds are not for the God, they are for me. But I do believe that God blesses and favours whom it wills on the basis of character and since beneficence is an important attribute to character, you could say in some ways that I am ultimately just pleasing God. But not in the way that you think.
I've had many discussions. No one can objectively deny that the perfect is what I have roughly outline above using reason. Can you think of something more accurate to that which is perfect?
This is sort of foundational to the rest of my beliefs.

Defining perfection is a large leap from proving that The Perfect exists.

I strongly disagree here. Intuition and reason do a good job of this. Three people find 3 pounds, they know that they should split it 3 ways. This is logical. So much of morality you can pin down with the principle of fairness and justice. The rest of it you can rationally recognise in light of what reason conveys regarding competence and benficence.

This is crazy. You cannot say that intuition tells us what is and isn't pleasing in the eyes of God. This would mean that what is pleasing to God is subjective and changes with each human being and that the Abrahamic concepts of righteousness and sin mean nothing.

What is pleasing to God isn't something you feel in your mind. That is simply what you THINK is pleasing to God.

Your analogy of people finding 3 pounds is a weak analogy with no bearing about the concept of knowing how to please God. In addition, intuition is another creation of the mind. Religion offers nothing tangible or testable about reality. All it does is provide emotional stimulation. I can get the same thing from Islam as I can with any other religion. There is nothing uniquely divine about Islam to distinguish it from any other man made religion.

I can be the best person I can be without a false God or man made holy book. There is nothing divine about having reason. In fact religion is an enemy of reason.

As for the 19 'miracle' I won't comment any further on that now because it's immaterial to me.