Here is a post that takes a look at the textual reliability, scientific reliability, prophetic accuracy and historical accuracy.
Excerpt:
While the list of historical inaccuracies and anachronisms is vast, one has been selected for discussion here. Surah 20 relays the incident of the golden calf. In Surah 20:85-88, 95 we read:
“He [Allah] said, ‘We have tempted thy people since thou didist leave them. The Samaratin has led them into error.’ Then Moses returned…and we cast them [(gold) ornaments], as the Samaritan also threw them, into the fire.’ (Then he brought out for them a Calf, a mere body that lowed; and they said, ‘This is your god, and the god of Moses, whom he has forgotten.’)…Moses said, ‘And thou, Samaritan, what was thy business?’”
Now, let us consider this for just a moment. How can a Samaritan have led the Israelites astray at the time of Moses (approx 1400 BC) when the city of Samaria was founded by King Omri in about 870 B.C? The Samaritans did not exist until after the exile of the Northern kingdom of Israel and the resettlement of the area under king Sargon II in 722 B.C. with non-Israelites who then adopt a syncretism [mixture] between the religion of the Jews and their own polytheistic background. The Samaritans did not exist until 530 years after Moses. By this mistake alone, the Qur’an can be rendered unreliable and certainly not an inerrant work of God.
This is important, because Muslims think that the Qu’ran is without error.
A majority of Republicans who agree with the tea party movement give House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) positive reviews for his role in debt negotiations in a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll. The speaker’s high marks represent a crucial link between the highly energized political movement and the Republican establishment as attention pivots back to the 2012 election cycle.
[…]After Republicans cut a deal on Sunday reducing the deficit with spending cuts alone – a key GOP and tea party priority – there is little doubt that the tea party movement has emerged as a powerful and sustained force in national politics.
[…]Tea party Republicans are significantly more tuned in than others to the 2012 presidential contest, according to another survey. Overall, more than eight in 10 are closely following the campaign, said the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. Some 42 percent of Republicans who strongly support the tea party said they’re following it “very closely,” roughly twice the number of Democrats (17 percent), independents (19 percent) and Republicans overall (21 percent) who say so.
Tea party Republicans make up nearly one-quarter of registered voters in swing states. While tea party Republicans make up 17 percent of registered voters in states that favored Obama by 10 points or more according to June and July Post-ABC polls, they make up 23 percent of voters in states decided by single digit margins. That’s identical to the 23 percent of voters in heavily McCain states who identify as tea party Republicans.
Elections matter. Make sure you start engaging your friends now.
We live in an interesting, ever-changing, and challenging day. As Christians, learning to navigate such a reality can be very confusing and intimidating. In one of Jesus’ central teachings, he commands us to love our neighbor (cf. Mark 12:31). And while we can and should often do this by meeting physical needs, there is another vital, but often overlooked, application of this passage. We need to stand up for the possibility of truth. We need to protect the endangered species of honest disagreement concerning the nature of reality. Today a not so subtle battle is raging from newspapers columns to college classrooms concerning the nature of tolerance. There are 2 competing definitions:
False Tolerance: We can make no judgments at all about the truth of others’ beliefs.
True Tolerance: We allow others the freedom to hold beliefs which we judge to be false.
If we cannot tell our neighbors or ourselves the truth about reality, then we cannot really love them. Because love involves seeking another’s highest good, and goodness is anchored in reality (after all, the truth sets us free). We must fight the false tolerance that seeks to intellectually bully our culture into agreeing that every viewpoint (especially when it comes to religion and morality) is equally valid. We must speak up in love for the possibility of truth. Loving our neighbor requires this.
Loving someone doesn’t mean telling them lies to make them feel good so that they will like you and you will feel good. That’s not love, that’s selfishness.
