re who has read rushdie s the satanic verses in article bu edu jaeger buphy bu edu gregg jaeger writes yes the qur an discusses this point in several ways some of them quite directly for example it says that if god were to appear them there would be no need for faith and belief as the evidence would be definitive ah excellent so why doesn t she appear to me i m a little weak in the blind faith department besides she doesn t even really need to appear how about oh say a little tip something like put your all on in the at the dog races perhaps in a dream or vision how do we know that muhammed didn t just go out into the desert and smoke something would a person who was high write so well and with such consistency i m afraid i don t know arabic i have only read translations i wouldn t know it if it were well written consistent though is one thing the quran is not and have you read it in arabic besides some of my best writing has been done under the influence of shall we say consciousness altering substances and how do we know that the scribes he dictated the quran to didn t screw up or put in their own little verses they d have to be very good to do so without destroying the beauty and literary quality of text arabic text yes so how do we know they weren t very good again assuming that the quran is beautfully written and why can muhammed marry more than four women when no other muslim is allowed to muhammad did not exceed the number after the revelation regulating the number of wives a man could marry but before it ok i retract this point although i might still say that once he knew he should have done something about it although i think the biggest insult to islam is that the majority of its followers would want to suppress a book sight unseen on the say so of some holy guy not to mention murder the author i agree but is it really true that this is the case i haven t interviewed all muslims about this i would really like it if this were false but i can t take it on your say so what are your sources another case of judging principles on the basis of those who claim to follow them what other basis do we have to judge a system especially when we can t get a consistent picture of what islam really is do i believe khomeini do i go by the imam of the mosque in mecca or perhaps the guy in new jersey or perhaps you say i should go only by the quran ok whose translation and what about things like and wherever you find idolators kill them s shamim mohamed uunet noao cmcl arizona shamim shamim cs arizona edu take this cross and garlic here s a mezuzah if he s jewish a page of the koran if he s a muslim and if he s a zen buddhist you re on your own member of the league for programming freedom write to lpf uunet uu net
