It seems the discussion started again... but I just can't stay without responding.
Before addressing your points on the authenticity of the Quran, I have to clarify something:
If we assume that you haven't answered the question (this doesn't mean you haven't answered it) everything else you say is pointless.
My major thesis is that the Quran did not authorize ANY other source besides itself. AND: It is wrong to use a potentially corrupted source (like hadiths or the bible) to interpret the Quran.
If we assume that you didn't bring any evidence for the authenticity of the Quran, then you can't say that 'the Quran did not authorize any other source' because we don't know if the Quran is true. I hope you understand what I'm saying.
Hadiths contradict themselves
Hadiths contradict the Quran
Hadiths make the prophet Muhammad look like a bad person while the Quran makes him a good person
Hadiths are filled with lies
My thesis is the Quran did not authorize any other source besides itself. That's it.
There was no need to write all of this. Everything you had to show me was evidence for the authenticity of the Quran. Your saying 'Quran did not authorize any other source' without showing us evidence for its authenticity, is the same like saying 'The Bible says that the Quran is corrupted'. As we don't believe the Bible is authentic, you can't use that to prove something else is not authentic. I hope you undestand what I'm saying because I'm not a native english speaker and I find it difficult to express myself in a simple way. So, you didn't have to write all of that.
To debate this, you must show that the Quran DID authorize another source (hadiths) besides itself. And then I will do a rebuttal and we continue with this.
Its a matter of interpretation. It's not that I can't answer yor point about the Quran being the only source or the Quran being explained in details, but its irrelevant to what we are discussing. We will discuss it later. What I can say for now, and I will leave you and all other Muslims to think about this, is that, I don't believe you are right and 99.99% of Muslim scholars are wrong. All of them have read these verses. How could not a single scholar except Rashad Khalifa (who is not a scholar), some Muslims who follow their desires, and you, undestand it in the right way?
If you start shooting the "science" of Hadiths nonsense. I would like to show ONE case of how the science of hadiths is fundamentally flawed:
The science of hadiths is based on the reliability of the people who spread them. Example:
Person 1 said that person 2 said that person 3 said that person 4 said that the prophet said...
If person 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 are reliable people with good character, then the hadith is authentic and ALL muslims believe in them. Okay, here is a case that shows the science of hadiths are fundamentally flawed:
1.) "Can't the hadith corrupter also lie about the chain of transmission" (person 1 lied about who he got his info from)
2.) How do you know any of these people are reliable--by utilizing hadith sources (circular reasoning)
Is this how the Science of Hadith classifies hadiths?! Are you showing me how does a hadith look like or how does the Science of Hadith classify hadiths? Wow! I can't believe you wrote this. Simply, you don't have an idea about the Science of Hadith my brother. Sincerely, I'm quite dissapointed.
Now to the main point:
From what I have seen until now, its crystal clear the you reject history.
I have to recall some earlier posts from our previous discussion:
When we were discussing Quran 31:6 (And of the people is he who buys the amusement of speech to mislead [others] from the way of Allah without knowledge and who takes it in ridicule. Those will have a humiliating punishment.) You said that 'amusement of speech' refers to hadiths. We see that those people who followed 'amusement of speech' or like you say 'hadiths' will be punished. I said that 'how could so many Muslims, almost all of the Muslims be punished' and I used as an evidence the unambiguous, clear historical fact that Muslims, since the early generations, for 1400 years, are following hadiths. You said that this was circular argument because I was using a hadith to prove hadiths. I also said that, ok, if Muslims in the past followed only the Quran, how did they dissapear? We see many small sects surviving for centuries. How could theose Muslims just dissapear? There was no answer from you. From what you said, it was clear that you rejected history, you rejected something which is known, a clear historical fact. This is important to what we are discussing now.
I asked you to bring me evidence that the Quran is reliable, by using your own standard, by rejecting history. You brought as evidence the manuscripts and the numerical miracle, which are indeed strong arguments. But let's just use your silly standards of rejecting true, well known historical facts:
'How do you know if the manuscript has the same verses revealed to prophet Muhammad? If it was not written during the time of the Prophet, it may have been corrupted by Muslims, the same way like hadiths, the Quran might have been corrupted.' By rejecting history, we can go even further and say: 'How do you know prophet Muhammad existed? Perhaps the Quran was written by Arab poets who combined verses in such ways that it looks like numerical miralce etc, etc, etc....' I can give hudreds of hypothesis if I reject history. Of course, what I said is stupid, but you are saying the same when it comes to the hadiths. I wonder, if a nonmuslim historian or academic asks us Muslims for strong evidence that the Quran is authentic, who is that stupid Muslim who will use the numerical miracle to prove that the Quran is authentic? You have to use historical evidence. Are manuscripts historical evidence? Yes, but then you should accept the whole history that is known to be true. The manuscripts by itself are not evidence, because you don't know what happened before the manuscripts were written. You have to accept the islamic history, and you can say for example that 'Muslims in the time of the Prophet learned the Quran by heart, and they recited it every prayer, and the arabs were known as people who could memorize long poems, and then they wrote it etc.' The historical evidence is indeed overwhelming. Then you can also use the numerical miracle as a supporting argument that the Quran was preserved.
So, if you reject history, then you follow your desires and you pick what is true and what is false. You can't say Quran was preserved while saying that hadiths are not the sayings of the Prophet. As you said in one of your posts, 'get informed'. Learn about hadiths, beacuse what you are doing is only following your desires, even if you said sometime ago that you were 'intellectually honest'; so, please be intellectually honest. I can say: If those Arabs were able to make thousands of false sayings, it was also easy for them to corrupt the Quran, or even to make it look like a numerical miracle. How could they produce so many sayings that were not said by someone? Please think about this.
You also said that you don't reject al hadiths. If this is the case, if you think that something might have been said by the Prophet, then this means that your interpretation of those verses in the Quran where it says that the Quran is detailed and that the Quran did not authorize any other source, is wrong by definition.
My point:
It is not possible that all of those sayings are not from our Prophet. Why would Allah do this to us? If we accept that hadiths, at least some of them are sayings of the Prophet, then your interpretation of the Quran is wrong, which means that Muslim scholars, for 14 centuries, have interpreted them right, and praise be to Allah for this.
It is known that for centuries, Muslims have been following hadiths. There are so many books written, all of them containing hadiths (don't say me now that all of those books are also corrupted and that they weren't written by scholars). The Quran (31:6), according to you, and all other verses which contain the word 'hadith' are refering to hadiths. The same argument again: all scholars, who were also linguists, have read those verses. They didn't interpret it as refering to hadiths of the Prophet. Verse 31 of chapter 6 threatens those who follow "the hadiths" with a humiliating punishment. If you believe that 100% of Muslims (excluding some of them + you) will be punished for this, than the discussion is over, and I can't say anything more. This means that the religion of Allah has failed totally, and this means that Allah is also a failure, everything has failed; OK, except some Muslims + you.