
Bible or Qur'an: See a verse from either. Can you guess which? - tonyztan
https://bibleorquran.org
======
danielvf
This actually seems really easy. The writing style alone of the Quran is very
distinctive.

(I got one wrong out of eighteen, but that one was because the verse from the
Bible had the word "God" in brackets, which is the usual convention for a word
not being present in the original text. )

~~~
roymurdock
The point is less about style/punctuation and more about thematic content -
they're similar texts with similar stories and overtones. Just 2 different
groups of people using these similar texts to justify very different (how
different?) cultural and societal norms because they are "God's will".

~~~
forgotpwtomain
I don't think they are _very similar_ texts at all, have you read both?

The old testament is a compendium of an entire people's history over a
significant period of time; with one of the primary themes being the this-
worldly reward for correctness / obedience of God's Law where disasters and
tragedy indicate the deviance or transgression from the Law. The Quran is a
revelatory text from a single generation, revealed by God to Muhammad,
primarily providing divine justification for Muhammad's conquests and further
expansion.

If your intent is to suggest they are similar as in terms of laying down God's
law and Morality - sure: but that's the _essence_ of monotheistic religion
more generally.

~~~
roymurdock
I've read both. Yes, similar in laying out God's vision of morality and
justice through parables and stories.

This is the goal explicitly stated on the website:

 _The mission of BibleOrQuran is to educate people about the true nature and
content of the Bible and Qur 'an. False statements such as "81% of the Qur'an
is about killing infidels!" and "The bible teaches only peace!" are commonly
thrown around with little evidence to back them up. Despite their lack of
credibility, however, they still continue to polarize and cause irrational
hate and fear. We hope that by showing random Bible or Qur'an passages, we
show how similar the two texts are and allay many of the fears of Islam and
its teachings._

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> False statements such as "81% of the Qur'an is about killing infidels!" and
> "The bible teaches only peace!" are commonly thrown around with little
> evidence to back them up.

We must be engaged in conversations with very different interlocutors, at
least I don't know of anyone claiming things akin to the above. The new
testament may be peaceful, - but the old testament is downright bloody!

 _O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that
rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the
stones._

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jonshariat
Whats the point of this? Aren't they similar because the Qu'ran, like the
bible, is founded off the Torah (aka old testament)?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_in_Islam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_in_Islam)

~~~
dexzod
I think that's the whole point. They have many similarities. The book "
Opening the Qur'an: Introducing Islam's Holy Book by Walter H. Wagner " does a
great job of introducing the quran to those coming from western point of view.

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jasonkostempski
I'm guessing the majority of both Christians and Muslims would admit, when not
under threat of being kill for saying so, that they don't follow these books
by the letter, not even half of it. What I don't get is, if you don't, why
lump yourself in with the insane bunch that do? Call yourself something else
(that doesn't include the original name) or, better yet, don't give yourself
any label and build an modifiable set of principles based on personal
experience and advice from people you respect, not commandments from people
who say they know better than you.

~~~
mutatio
"Modifiable" is fundamentally contradictory to a core concept of Islam; the
Qur'an (mother of books) is infallible and not open to change by mankind - it
has existed beside God from the beginning and transcends time. This is where
it is quite radically different to Christianity (New Testament).

~~~
jasonkostempski
How could infallible information even be stored in fallible information
storage units a.k.a words? Interpretation by mankind is the same thing as
changing it. Anyway, I'm not saying change or amend the books. Qur'an 2.0
would be carrying forward the "Qur'an" label, the opposite of what I'm talking
about. Christianity amended in the past for whatever reason but I don't think
we'll see that happen again, they're playing the same game. Since the majority
of of people in both camps are visibly not following these books by the
letter, I think it's safe to assume most don't actually believe them 100% and
should stop labeling themselves.

~~~
mutatio
It's a belief system, Muslims believe it was orated to Muhammad, perfectly,
without error (except that one time) - your technical view of information
transfer is disingenuous with the topic at hand; just try your proposal on
moderate, practising Muslims and see how far it gets.

Some of the content of the Old Testament and Qur'an are pretty explicit in
their brutality so I don't see how you would get round that... Redact it?

~~~
jasonkostempski
If most Muslims believe it, why aren't most brutes? Or are most?

> (except that one time)

That made me laugh even though I don't get the reference. What is it?

Also, according to Wikipedia, the Qur'an isn't even believed to be directly
written by Muhammad. Is everyone involved in it's current compilation assumed
to be just as perfect as him?

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draw_down
Interesting, thanks. Does this need to do a round-trip for every question,
though? Seems unnecessary, just spit out 10 of them per request or something.

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qandb
The Bible comes across as better English, but that is a bit unfair, because
the King James translation must initially have sounded awful too.

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o_____________o
I've always wanted to jump into a project that used NLP et al and
theology/mythology experts to map thematic commonalities between the world's
religions and proto-religious texts. I contacted Huston Smith a little too
late.

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FennNaten
Too bad the differences in translation styles make it really easy to spot
which is which without even having to really read. :/ And I'm not even a
native English speaker.

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Neliquat
Out of 12, I got 12 bible verses. Hmm.

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mos_basik
Interesting concept! I'm enjoying playing with it. Reminds me of a Pepsi-
challenge page Microsoft set up comparing Google and Bing search results when
they were launching. I went into that one expecting to be able to tell the
difference, and I was right. Similar feeling here.

As others have pointed out, the internal similarities of the specific
translations mean it doesn't take long for a user to be able to make calls
based on style rather than content. Maybe randomizing translation as well as
passage would help remove that loophole?

The UI could use some love - "input" components should be separate from
"output" components. As it's designed now, I can't simply memorize blue/left
means "pick Bible" and green/right means "pick Qur'an", because I have to
remember that for every _other_ click, blue/left means "get the next question"
and green/right isn't a button right now; it displays my result.

Atm this feels like those implicit social cognition tests from Harvard
([https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html))
Round 1, a pic will pop up, as fast as possible without making errors, press
left arrow if it's a happy face or right arrow if it's a sad face. Round 2,
keys reversed. Round 3, left for light skinned person and right for dark
skinned person; Round 4, reversed. Round 5, left for a happy or light face,
right for a sad or dark face. Etc. Every time the rules change, your responses
slow down for a while because you have to actually process things instead of
acting on instinct.

I don't want to have to think about whether the button I'm about to click will
perform a "Bible" or a "Continue" action, nor do I want to look for whether or
not my answer was correct in the area of the page I've mentally allocated as
"Qur'an".

UI wishlist:

\- Neither choice should be colored green or red; those colors have semantics
attached to them. (I'd probably make them both blue, but making them different
colors from each other is probably fine too)

\- Ability to use the keyboard arrow keys to make a choice, for the sake of
speed

\- If the choice is wrong something big and red should appear (but somewhere
that's NOT one of the buttons or where the passage is displayed)

\- If the choice is right, something big and green _could_ appear (but doesn't
really need to - season to taste)

\- No continue button at all; when will a user of this page ever _not_ want to
continue getting passages? A continue button only really matters if there's
something to lose, like (for instance) using up limited time or scoring low
points by getting a passage before you're ready to start

