Gabriella,
But before you can even consider that you’d need to explain what “supernatural” means and to demonstrate its existence at all. Only once you’ve done that could you trouble yourself with what populates it.
Supernatural is a description for something that is outside the various currently known rules and explanations of the natural world that science has come up with based on demonstrable evidence. In this case for example, we are given various descriptions of an entity in the Quran that does not seem to conform to explanations derived using repeatable, testable, demonstrable methods e.g. unique, eternal, no beginning and no end, beyond time and space, nothing like it in this world, etc etc.
I do not need to demonstrate that the supernatural exists as I am not making an argument that it exists - I am merely communicating my belief in order to confirm that I am a theist - as we are on a discussion forum of theists and atheists.
Which is fine except that very often religious people will tell you that the existence of a supernatural god is a “hard fact”.
True some/ many religious people may express a belief that god is a "hard fact" - I think this is done to convey the strength or certainty of their belief. But as they provide no repeatable, testable, demonstrable evidence for god, which means their belief is based on interpretations of subjective experiences, on the testimony of others, and on aesthetics, presumably the way we use language would categorise what they express as a belief rather than fact. People in society have broadly adopted the view that society should show respect for other people's beliefs within certain limits, maybe because they see it as a way of reducing violent conflict in society and because they want respect shown for their own beliefs and aesthetics. Of course there will be some problems in accommodating conflicting beliefs - and as part of the process of a functioning society, these conflicting beliefs are identified and debated, which all takes time. No system is perfect but discussing the issues seems to be a good starting point to managing conflicts.
That’s not the point though. The point is the (supposed) authority that follows reifying an authoritative god claim into a hard fact claim. In “the realm of possibilities” a god that might be that might have rules on eg homosexuality is perhaps a matter of aesthetics. Jump from that to hard facts territory though (ie a god that is and that does have rules on eg homosexuality) and “god hates gays” is a much a fact as gravity is a fact (witness Vlad’s dullard assertions of objective morality for example), and so those who think that will tend to behave accordingly.
When beliefs are held by a substantial part of the population, regardless of what the beliefs are, they will influence the rules that society comes up with to regulate its behaviour and morality. Adding a god belief into the mix is one method of persuasion, but there are plenty of others e.g. fighting for a cause, a political belief, beliefs about race or culture or nation states or abstract notions of freedom, honour etc. which are also down to aesthetics and can't be demonstrated as hard facts. A religious person stating "god hates gays" seems to be voicing one of their own aesthetic preferences - and by that I mean that there may be many people who experience a "yuk" reaction to the thoughts /visualisation of sexual acts, but only some of them will express it in public and seek to influence large groups of society to enforce rules and try to control people to prevent people from engaging in a particularly activity. They may have various reasons such as a self-serving agenda, preservation of power or creating a particular sort of order and conformity in society, but it seems to come down to aesthetics and particular types of people with the ability to persuade and influence large groups of people into going in a particular direction. Despite it being an imperfect system, democracy and politics and discussion seems to be the preferred way for the individuals who make up society to come up with ways of regulating competing beliefs in society. So I assume you don't want people to stop expressing their beliefs or engaging in the current system to regulate beliefs.
You referred to a god handing down his rules via an angel. Either you think this god and angel are allegorical characters (akin to the hare and the tortoise) or you think they actually exist(ed) regardless of the stories told about them. I thought you believed the latter, but if instead you think that god/angel are epistemically equivalent to hare/tortoise then well and good.
I don't think they are similar to the hare and tortoise - I assume Aesop made it clear that was a fictional story, whereas it is not stated in the Quran that these are fictional stories to illustrate some point. As I have stated many times before, I believe that the supernatural entity described in the Quran is real albeit that I don't know how much of the description is literal as opposed to allegorical or illustrative due to the constraints of language, but I am not claiming or making an argument that it is real or that the contents of the Quran is fact as I have no way to demonstrate that it is real or factually correct. So for me it remains a belief, not fact. Islam was pitched to its adherents as a way of regulating their behaviour as individuals within society based on a belief in the truth of what is stated in the Quran, and the Quran does state that some parts of it are allegorical and some parts should be taken literally, and only the supernatural entity described in the Quran knows for certain which parts are allegorical and which parts are literal. This has given some space for interpretation and application of the guidance in the Quran, depending on time and location and context.
