Dr Simon Reads...

It took half as many posts to tackle the Qur'an as it did the Bible, 120 compared to 248, but it felt like longer sometimes. Perhaps because the Qur'an is written by a single man and deals with pretty much the same topic over and over, whereas the Bible is a compilation of multiple works, some of which are historical, some apocalyptic, some laws or building instruction, some philosophical, some poetic, some a bit of each. From that point of view, I'd have to say that the Bible was the more interesting work to read. Have I learned any great wisdom from the Qur'an? I'd have to say … no, not really. Granted, I probably didn't approach it with a particularly deep understanding of the material in the first place, but that (as with the Bible readthrough) was always my intent. Picking through line by line is still something of a deep dive, and in both books I tried to be alert for symbol and metaphor. Doing it that way, however, it's easy to miss thematic callb...

Humans (al-Naas) My Pretentious Maunderings on Morality. Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0 For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com Humans (al-Naas) 1-6 “ Say, ‘I seek the protection of the Lord of humans, Sovereign of humans, God of humans, from the evil of the sneaky tempter who puts temptations into the breasts of humans, from among the jinn and humans.’” It seems somehow fitting to end the Qur’an with a chapter about humanity, almost as if the book has led from divinity down to humanity. It would be better if that was actually what happens in the text but, shh, let’s not spoil the moment with annoying facts. Here we are at the last book, and like the previou...