Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “search”, came with a link to other Qur’anic prophecies:
A barrel load of scientific Koranic prophecies available here.
In Faith Versus Fact there’s a section about how fundamentalists Muslims try to reconcile the Qur’an with modern science in exactly the same way: through extremely loose interpretations of the text.
It will sound and look even more accurate when read in the original Arabic script. It’s too bad so many just don’t know Arabic – otherwise, it’d be plain to them.
Looked at from the outside, the prohibition in (some septs of) Islam on translating the Koran from it’s original Mediaeval Arabic into any “less perfect” language without a corresponding compulsion on believers to learn at least some level of Mediaeval Arabic is strikingly parallel to the reaction of Henry 8-of-6 to the translation of the Bible from it’s derivative Latin into Mediaeval English (he had offenders burned at the stake, when his agents got hold of them). “It’s obscene that common people can read and understand the holy book!” The open publication by the Church of Mormon (are they polytheists or polyandrous? – I can never remember which.) of the “golden plates” is another fine counter example.
How much of an imposition is it, I wonder, for children inculcated into (some septs of) Judaism to have to learn at least some Archaic Hebrew? His Jerryness of CeilingCat may have 0.25€ on that point.
Of course, that point about “some septs of [insert religion here]” is part of the point – if the believers don’t know what the religion says, then how can they have an opinion diverging from that of the (current) theocracy?
Who is Henry 8-of-6? Surely not Henry VIII of England? Because he completely changed his tune on the subject after the split with Rome and actually authorised the publication of The Great Bible.
This one hits home. I hear this justification all the time, and not from only worshippers. There has to be some kind of name for this fallacy.
As a prime example, “the Nostradamus Effect” might be a good name. But I’d be fairly surprised if someone wasn’t “quote mining” Cicero or Zeno of Citium for evidence in favour of Stoicism at about the same time that Brian Cohen (of Nazareth) was failing to hear the Sermon on the Mount from the back of the crowd.
I would call this an ambiguity fallacy. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ambiguity
Prophesies to prove god. I would call this the “backward delusional fallacy.”
I love it when they say a prophecy or verse is ‘proved’ by modern science.
For example, a verse that if you squint, might show that the universe is expanding.
And thus, that fact could not have been known, so it is divine evidence – it just happens that we only KNEW it was divine and a prophecy AFTER science actually discovered it.
BUT: I always want to ask – what if science now discovers (uncovers?) that the expanding universe (say) is incorrect, and a new observation shows we were mistaken.
Would they then abandon the Bible/Koran because it says something incorrect?
This is the problem with hitching your wagon to scientific theories – it is an attempt to add gravitas, but it forgets that science is constantly revising and changing our understanding, and so could just as easily upend their pet prophecy.