I am sorry. I seem not to have a clear idea of what I am looking for, precisely. Let me see... When you hear a political speech, it is usually easy to deconstruct all the resources used? The buzzwords. The appeals to emotion, tradition, ridicule. The syntactical construction, alliteration, anaphores. Rythm, pauses. Specific ways the phrases are constructed to transmit a precise feeling. Applause Lights. All those tools... Now, the Qran was written fourteen centuries ago. Surely its rethorical structure can be broken piecemeal and reduced to its elementary components. We live in a reductionist universe, don't we?
The problem is, I am not familiar with a specific, systematic method of doing this properly and rigoursly, without letting my emotions get in the way. It's not been much time since I relinquished my old beliefs, and I get really emotional and bothered and confused when reading this stuff again. I don't like feeling that way. I want to tidy my mind till I feel I have understood the Islam phenomenon utterly and completely. I want to Dissolve The Question.
When I am confronted with a religious apologist I don't want to only be able to say: "You are wrong".
I know most people here are more familiar with Bible and Torah analysis, but I thought perhaps some of you could direct me to something that may help me understand what powers my own religion's texts, how they work on people's minds, which would help me in Raising The Sanity Waterline if it comes to that.
The problem is, look at your examples. Half of them are terms from rhetoric and literature in general, while the other half are philosophy/psychology/logic. There's not going to be any reference that covers both halves, because that would not map neatly onto any purpose (even an atheist polemicist with an interest in literary criticism wouldn't write such a work).
(It's my first time posting an article, so please go easy on me.)
I wonder if anyone ever fully analysed the Qran and all the resources it uses to tug at the feelings of the reader? It is a remarkably persuasive (if not at all convincing) book, even if I say so myself as an ex Muslim. I've started recognizing some patterns since I started reading this site, but I'd like to know if there is a full-blown, complete, exhaustive deconstruction of that book, that is not dripped in islamophobia, ethnocentrism, and other common failures I have seen in Western theologians when applied to Islam. Not a book about "How the Qran is evil" or "How the Qran is Wrong" or "How IT'S A FAAAKE" but "How, precisely, it manipulates you". Can anyone here point me towards such a work?
And where is the markup help in this blog? I can't seem to find it and it frustrates the hell out of me when I'm commenting usual posts.