rawe wrote:
Hi Javeca,

Thanks for sharing such a personal experience. Now this was happened after you left JWs right? In regards to the Quran, well of course, I don't know what it reads like in Arabic since I can't read that language. I would say some aspects are clear, such as the anti-Trinity stance, but it doesn't have the wide scope of the Bible (a collection of books spanning perhaps 1000 years/multiple authors/some history/some poetry/some mythology/some proverbial/some teachings & instructions and some prophetic & visionary). However in general I would agree, the Quran seemed rather muddled and very repetition to me.

Yeah, I left the JW's when I was 20 years old.

I don't know how the Qur'an reads in Arabic either, I thought about getting the Arabic Rosetta Stone modules, so I could learn to read it in Arabic but after finding that article by Mr. Puin, I decided not to bother, I wouldn't get anything out of reading it in Arabic either. There are other secular translational study articles that make similar statements about the Qur'an. I see no reason to doubt them.
What do you think it would take (if anything) to convince you to become an atheist?
I don't see anything that would convince me to become an atheist. I hold the opinion, base on interviews I have seen of prominent atheists, such as Dawkins, Hitchins and Smith, are extremely arrogant and bitter people. The most extreme being Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the founder of American Atheists, if the reports can be believed, she was noted to be brash, profane and vulgar, that she had a reputation for being abrasive and turning friends and allies into enemies, that she was notoriously tight-fisted and always looking for ways to enrich her empire. You find similar traits in even more famous atheists like Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and Kim Jong Ill. Understand something up front, I am not saying being atheists made them into genocidal monsters. However I do hold the belief, it was atheism which made it possible for them to be genocidal monsters.

"In the hegemonic state there is neither right nor law; there are only directives and regulations which the director may change daily and apply with what discrimination he pleases which the wards must obey. The wards have one freedom only: to obey without asking questions. "
Ludwig von Mises -- Human Action p. 199; p. 198