Every living thing made from water.

Even the Viking missions were to search for evidence necessary, but not neccarily sufficient for life:
"because the gas chromatograph & mass spectrometer, designed to identify natural organic matter, did not detect organic molecules..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars

----------

Organic molecules are necessary, but not sufficient. Organic molecules do not have to have biological origins.
------

The two Viking spacecraft each carried four types of biological experiments to the surface of Mars in the late 1970s.

The experiments

    1.1 Gas Chromatograph � Mass Spectrometer
    1.2 Gas Exchange
    1.3 Labeled Release
    1.4 Pyrolytic Release

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_biological_experiments

------

Yes, the importance of searching for water is something that occurred after the Viking missions:

�What we found, looking at life on earth in very harsh environments, dry, cold, hot, environments, is that wherever there is water, wherever there is some mechanism for trapping water, life can flourish.

And that's the key.

--------

That's there own words.

The Quran doesn't just say that water is essential for life, as the desert Arabs would have known, but the Quran says that life was created from water. That's more than just an indication of sufficiency. It indicates that it is the most important thing.
While knowledge of this was with the modern world such that they thought that water canals would indicate life, it hadn't sunk in enough to make it part of the mission's search.




Edited by Beebok - 18 November 2012 at 9:06pm

Greetings Beebok,

If ye have doubts, and if ye seek after Truth...

the best attested document in [ancient history]
http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/bible-manuscripts.htm

Dramatically, when the Bible manuscripts are compared to other ancient writings, they stand alone as the best-preserved literary works of all antiquity. Remarkably, there are thousands of existing Old Testament manuscripts and fragments copied throughout the Middle East, Mediterranean and European regions that agree phenomenally with each other. 1 In addition, these texts substantially agree with the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which was translated from Hebrew to Greek some time during the 3rd century BC. 2 The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in Israel in the 1940's and 50's, also provide astounding evidence for the reliability of the ancient transmission of the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. 3

The manuscript evidence for the "New Testament" is also dramatic, with nearly 25,000 ancient manuscripts discovered and archived so far, at least 5,600 of which are copies and fragments in the original Greek. 4 Some manuscript texts date to the early second and third centuries, with the time between the original autographs and our earliest existing fragment being a remarkably short 40-60 years. 5

Interestingly, this manuscript evidence far surpasses the manuscript reliability of other ancient writings that we trust as authentic every day.

Read more at the above provided link.

One only has to read to see prophesy coming true before their very eyes...
Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21
Jeremiah 32:37, Deut. 30:3, Amos 9, Ezekiel 34:12,21-22, Isaiah 43:5-6, Micah 4:6, Jeremiah 23:3, Ezekiel 39:25,27-29, Ezekiel 36:24,28,33-36,38

Salaam.


Edited by Caringheart - 19 November 2012 at 12:42pm

Beebok wrote: The variant readings are not varient scripts. They are ways of saying the same words out loud such as when to pause for inhalation. It has nothing to do with the preservation of the Quran. Bunter is clutching at straws there. Even if one difference in the New Testament scriptures is significant, it shows that it was not preserved by God among the Christians, and so what Christians have does not have God's protection, and so cannot be trusted. Even if less than one percent of the differences are significant, then it shows that there are many hundreds of significant differences.Even if there are no significant differences, it still shows that God did not help the Christians preserve the original, and so, without God's protection, it cannot be trusted.Also, even if there were no differences at all among the Koine Greek transcripts, there is still no Aramaic or Hebrew original (or ability to reproduce it) such that idioms and expressions and multi-meaning words can be understood in the original language, or to verify the meaning

Do you know "Variant readings of the Quran" by Ahmad Ali Al-Imam? The facts seem to be that Uthmans codex was unpointed and rather than make the text plain it amplified the number of possible readings. The point, is that if you want to preserve you must write it down as no oral transmission can be checked. You cannot claim unvaried scripts for the Quran because there are NONE with which you can prove your claim. The only way you can hang on is to claim God preserved the text and by that means you can prove anything.

Edited by bunter - 21 November 2012 at 3:30am

All the readings are of the same words.
The differences are not in the words, but rather in things like where to pause to inhale.
This shows how carefully we perserved the original - that we even kept track of where to pause for breath.

"Variant readings of the Quran" by Ahmad Ali Al-Imam
That book apparently debunks the claims that Bunter makes.
It sounds like Bunter is not familiar with the book that he recommends.
A review on the books states, "...the claims that the qira'at represent evidence of textual corruption is a common claim that is made against the Qur'an - a claim which Dr. Ahmad al-Imam thoroughly debunks."
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/52257268
The books own description states that it does, "...demonstrate the completeness and trustworthiness of the Quran and that no verses are missing..."

"Uthmans codex was unpointed"
So it had a different font for the same words. Trivial.
So it had a different font for the same words. Trivial.
So it had a different font for the same words. Trivial.

"rather than make the text plain it amplified the number of possible readings."
All the readings had the same words.
Also, the many people who memorized it supported whatever was written such that if there were any confusion about a text, there were many who memorized it to know what the correct way would be.

"The point, is that if you want to preserve you must write it down"
It was written down. Different handwritings or fonts make no difference.
But that eliminates the Bible from authenticity.

"no oral transmission can be checked."
Oral transmissions can easily be checked when many people memorize it such that if one gets it wrong the others can correct him.

"You cannot claim unvaried scripts for the Quran because"
All the scripts have the same words.

"The only way you can hang on is to claim God preserved the text"
When we can reproduce the original due to having written it down, and having a text that many memorized since it was so easy that even children can memorize it, then we can know that it is indeed the original, and we can thank God for having caused that to happen.
We can see that God did preserve the text since it is easy to memorize, and many people memorized it who supported each other, and the written and the memorized supported each other.
Nothing like that can be said about the Bible.
It looks like the Christians are clutching at straws in their desperation to compare their altered Bible to the correctly preserved Quran.