When you first come to Islam, there is no doubt you will become that individual that just wants to scream everything you know from the top of your lungs- trust me, I've been there and done that. Knowledge truly is power and I remember coming across various debates regarding religion, all of which gave me comfort that my belief is the truth. There was one debate in particular that has stayed with me ever since and that was the "Islam vs Atheism" debate between Professor Lawrence Krauss and Hamza Tzortsis. I left feeling inspired by the level of intellect and knowledge put forward on the side of Hamza- he has since been kind enough to share his knowledge and answer a few questions I had! If you want to learn more, you can purchase Hamza's book via- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Divine-Reality-Islam-Mirage-Atheism-x/dp/0996545387/
Hate crime and Islamophobia have many causes. However, I think the Muslim community should empower themselves and not fall for the social pathology of victimhood (please note: being victimised and adopting the psychology of victimhood are two different things). Victimhood essentially views power as binary: one group (or person) has the power, the other doesn’t. From an Islamic spiritual point of view, all power is from and belongs to Allah. Therefore, we should see hate and Islamophobia as manifestations of Allah’s will. This Divine will is based on a Divine Wisdom, and it happens as a result of Allah’s will and power. So we should see the agents of this hate as empty “tools” that Allah uses to bring about His will. This means that haters do not have intrinsic power. How should this affect our psychological state? Well, it should make us realise that we must connect to Allah and do what He has guided us to do in these circumstances. This is empowering because we now turn our focus away from the hate our All-Powerful, The-Merciful Lord. Although there are many things we can do, a key principle involves turning haters in to close friends. How?
The Qur’an makes it clear:
Respond to evil with something better.
“And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel [evil] by that [deed] which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend.” The Qur’an, Chapter 41, Verse 34
If that doesn’t work, then always reply with words of peace:
“And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily, and when the ignorant address them [harshly], they say [words of] peace.” The Qur’an, Chapter 25, Verse 63
Another key principle is to not be blinded by hatred. Don’t let hatred make you swerve from fairness. You may even learn something from those who hate you.
“And do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.” The Qur’an, Chapter 5, Verse 8
Don’t give up on using these timeless principles. Remember, the reward for goodness, is good itself:
“Is the reward for good [anything] but good?” The Qur’an, Chapter 55, Verse 60
What is the link between Christianity, Islam and Judaism? Did Allah create all 3 religions and can all People of the Book attain heaven?
The link is Oneness. The Prophetic story of Jesus, Moses and Muhammad (peace be upon them all) is a story of calling people to know, love, obey and worship God; who is uniquely One, transcendent and unlike anything. However, over time the previous spiritual traditions have been corrupted. Human errors, insertions and ideologies have entered the previous scriptures. Allah revealed these religions over time to give people the opportunity to know and love Him. Anyone who affirmed the oneness of Allah and directed all of their internal and external actions to Him alone would be eligible for Divine bliss. Today, if someone accepts that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is His final messenger has made paradise eligible for them. Anyone who actively rejects this has run away from God’s guidance and mercy, thereby removing themselves from eternal bliss.
Associating partners with God is the gravest sin. The consequence of this sin is that the one who dies in such a state and has not repented dies in a state of disbelief. This will never be forgiven by God:
“Indeed, God does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills. And he who associates others with God has certainly committed a tremendous sin.”
However, if one associates partners with God and repents to Him and returns to the path of oneness, he or she will be forgiven, and their transgressions will be transformed into good deeds:
“And those who invoke not any other deity along with God… Except those who repent and believe, and do righteous deeds; for those, God will change their sins into good deeds, and God is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
The one who has associated partners with God and has never repented, and dies in that state (and has no excuse), has essentially oppressed themselves by closing the door to God’s mercy. Their hearts have ‘eternally’ rejected God’s guidance and mercy; therefore they have alienated themselves from the Divine. Those who reject God will plead to go back to earth to do righteousness, but their hearts have ‘eternally’ rejected:
“[For such is the state of the disbelievers], until, when death comes to one of them, he says, ‘My Lord, send me back that I might do righteousness in that which I left behind.’ No! It is only a word he is saying.”
This self-imposed spiritual reality is a form of denial. The person has denied all the just and fair opportunities that God has given them to embrace His mercy and love:
“And God has not wronged them, but they wrong themselves.”
“This because of that which your hands had sent forward. And indeed, God is not unjust to His slaves.”
It must be noted that according to Islamic theology if someone was not given the right message of Islam they will have an excuse and will be tested on the Day of Judgment. God is The-Just and no one will be treated unjustly. This is why when a non-Muslim has passed away it is considered unislamic to pass judgement on their final abode. No one knows what is in someone else’s heart and whether someone was given the right message in the right way. However, from a creedal and societal point of view, non-Muslims who died will be buried as non-Muslims. This does not mean that this is their final judgement. In reality, God is maximally and perfectly just and merciful, so no one will be treated unmercifully and no one will be treated unjustly.
People who have heard the message of Islam in a sound and correct way will have to answer for their denial. However, whoever dies without having heard the message of Islam, or heard it in a distorted form, will be given an opportunity to accept the truth. The following traditions comes to mind:
“There are four (who will protest) to God on the Day of Resurrection: the deaf man who never heard anything, the insane man, the very old man, and the man who died during the fatrah (the interval between the time of Jesus (upon whom be peace) and the time of Muhammad ï·º. The deaf man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I never heard anything.’ The insane man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but the children ran after me and threw stones at me.’ The very old man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I did not understand anything.’ The man who died during the fatrah will say, ‘O Lord, no Messenger from You came to me.’ He will accept their promises of obedience, then word will be sent to them to enter the Fire. By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, if they enter it, it will be cool and safe for them.” (Ahmad and Ibn Hibban)
There are other hadiths and verses of the Qur’an that indicate that God will not allow anyone to enter hell until people have been given the correct message of Islam.
Echoing the principles from the various verses of the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions, Al-Ghazali summarises this nuanced approach. He argues that people who never heard the message of Islam will have an excuse: “In fact, I would say that, God willing, most of the Byzantine Christians and the Turks of this age will be included in God’s mercy. I’m referring here to those who live in the farthest regions of Byzantium and Anatolia who have not come into contact with the message… They are excused.”
Al-Ghazali also argues that the people who heard negative things of the Prophet Muhammad and his message will also be excused: “These people knew the name ‘Muhammad’, but nothing of his character or his qualities. Instead, all they heard since childhood is that a liar and imposter called ‘Muhammad’ claimed to be a prophet… This party, in my opinion, is like the first party. For even though they’ve heard his name, they heard the opposite of what his true qualities were. And this does not provide enough incentive for them to investigate [his true status].”
The true teachings of Islam are a barrier to extremism. In my view, all forms of extremism are based on an ‘ideological hardness’ that hardens people’s hearts. What I mean by this is that people adopt non-negotiable, binary and negative assumptions about the world and other people. This makes one group of people ‘otherize’ another. Otherization is not simply labelling people as belonging to other groups. This is natural and part of modern society. Otherization usually happens when one group describes another group in a negative way and maintains that each member is the same. This hardens people’s hearts and prevents them from positively engaging with other people who seem to be different. Islam does not otherize people. It does not assert that everyone who is not a Muslim is ultimately doomed or evil. The Qur’an makes it quite clear that people constituting other groups “are not all alike” and describes them some of them as “upright” . The Qur’an also applies this concept to believers too; some are righteous and some are not. Nevertheless, Islam teaches that every human being must be treated with mercy, compassion and fairness.
Was there anyone or anything in particular that brought you to Islam?
When I first learnt about Islam, two aspects fascinated me. The first was the certainty that emanated from my Muslim friends. The second was their social and spiritual practices; both eventually led me to accept Islam. This is not the space to go into detail about my conversion, but there was a point when, although I was intellectually convinced in the rational foundations of Islam, that still was not enough for me to embrace Islam. So I started adopting two practices. First, I started to learn some chapters of the Qur’an in Arabic and pray several of the five daily prayers that Muslims carry out as part of their spiritual practice. When I used to prostrate, which is a part of the Islamic prayer, I would talk to God, asking for His guidance. I did this after receiving a spiritual insight of my brother’s friend, Amir Islahi. He was studying medicine at university, but he would visit my college campus and give us advice. Since I had Muslim friends, I would listen to him; echoing the words of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, Amir once said that you are closest to God during prostration, so speak to Him.
I found this profound because the face reflects who we are. Many times it represents our ego and vanity, yet Muslims humble themselves and acknowledge that they are nothing compared to God. In that submission they find themselves servants of the One that created them. In prostration, the physical station of humility and egolessness, Muslims speak to God. So I started talking to Him too, and begged for guidance. Dr. Amir Islahi is now my friend, but I do not think he knows the impact of those few words he spoke to me over 15 years ago.
Second, I began to have more conversations with a school friend of mine, Moynul Ahmed. He would come to my house and speak to me about Islam, and I would ask him questions. However, early on in the process I was intellectually convinced, but my heart was dead. Nothing I knew about the truth of Islam had been internalised. In this struggle to combine what I knew with what I felt, I met Moynul outside my house and sat in his car on 4 October 2002. To be honest, I do not really remember what he told me, but I remember how I felt. He expressed a profound and poetic description of the certainty of death. I cannot recall the exact words; to do so would be like catching a black cat in the dark. However, it hit me hard and somehow opened a door that seemed to have been locked, allowing my certainty in the truth of Islam to affect my heart.
Human beings do not enjoy thinking about death. It creates the realisation within us that all of the attachments we have built in this world will cease to be. Significantly, it awakens us to the brutal fact that we will no longer exist on this planet. We have to face the reality of an inevitable personal apocalypse. There have been many philosophical theories about death. For example, some thinkers have held that death is like a permanent sleep. Others have explained that death is to be considered part of life, something which every person must come to terms with in order to live well; part of what is involved in accepting our finitude. Some thinkers have claimed that death is a transition from this life to an afterlife, which includes the eternal life of bliss via Divine mercy, or pain because of our insistence on rejecting the mercy and guidance of God.
Whatever our views on death are, we can all agree is that it is a subject that we do not think about enough. This may sound morbid, but there is a profound benefit in reflecting on death—it brings about the realisation that life is short. Pondering our finite nature helps diminish our egos and our selfish desires no longer seem that important. Our ephemeral attachments to the material world are put into perspective and our lives are questioned—all of which offer great benefit. As the 11th century theologian Al-Ghazali said, “...in the recollection of death there is reward and merit.”2 Contemplating death provokes thought and gives us a window of opportunity to reflect on the nature of our existence.
Considering death answered questions on how I should view life. It taught me to measure how much importance I should attach to material things. In viewing my life through the lens of death, I entered an emotional and intellectual space where I could assess my situation on this planet. How did I come to be? What should I be doing here? Where am I going? Death was the driving force behind these critical questions, because the moment I recognised that this life is short, that one day I will breathe my last, it put everything into perspective.
To understand what I went through, I want you to reflect on death; imagine you are here one minute and the next you are no more. You have probably experienced loved ones that have passed away; how did you feel? Did you feel loneliness, emptiness and lack of attachment to the things you used to take so seriously? Now, if you were to taste death this instant, as every human being eventually will, what would that mean to you? What would you do differently with your life if you were given the chance to go back? What thoughts and ideas would you take more seriously? What would your outlook be if you could relive your life having experienced the tragic reality of death?
The sad thing about death is that we cannot go back. This realisation weighed heavily on my mind. Deeply reflecting on death led me to the conclusion that life is short and that I wanted to transform it for the better without delay. The very next morning I took a taxi to London Central Mosque and embraced Islam. The date was October 5, 2002.
When I first learnt about Islam, two aspects fascinated me. The first was the certainty that emanated from my Muslim friends. The second was their social and spiritual practices; both eventually led me to accept Islam. This is not the space to go into detail about my conversion, but there was a point when, although I was intellectually convinced in the rational foundations of Islam, that still was not enough for me to embrace Islam. So I started adopting two practices. First, I started to learn some chapters of the Qur’an in Arabic and pray several of the five daily prayers that Muslims carry out as part of their spiritual practice. When I used to prostrate, which is a part of the Islamic prayer, I would talk to God, asking for His guidance. I did this after receiving a spiritual insight of my brother’s friend, Amir Islahi. He was studying medicine at university, but he would visit my college campus and give us advice. Since I had Muslim friends, I would listen to him; echoing the words of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم, Amir once said that you are closest to God during prostration, so speak to Him.
I found this profound because the face reflects who we are. Many times it represents our ego and vanity, yet Muslims humble themselves and acknowledge that they are nothing compared to God. In that submission they find themselves servants of the One that created them. In prostration, the physical station of humility and egolessness, Muslims speak to God. So I started talking to Him too, and begged for guidance. Dr. Amir Islahi is now my friend, but I do not think he knows the impact of those few words he spoke to me over 15 years ago.
Second, I began to have more conversations with a school friend of mine, Moynul Ahmed. He would come to my house and speak to me about Islam, and I would ask him questions. However, early on in the process I was intellectually convinced, but my heart was dead. Nothing I knew about the truth of Islam had been internalised. In this struggle to combine what I knew with what I felt, I met Moynul outside my house and sat in his car on 4 October 2002. To be honest, I do not really remember what he told me, but I remember how I felt. He expressed a profound and poetic description of the certainty of death. I cannot recall the exact words; to do so would be like catching a black cat in the dark. However, it hit me hard and somehow opened a door that seemed to have been locked, allowing my certainty in the truth of Islam to affect my heart.
Human beings do not enjoy thinking about death. It creates the realisation within us that all of the attachments we have built in this world will cease to be. Significantly, it awakens us to the brutal fact that we will no longer exist on this planet. We have to face the reality of an inevitable personal apocalypse. There have been many philosophical theories about death. For example, some thinkers have held that death is like a permanent sleep. Others have explained that death is to be considered part of life, something which every person must come to terms with in order to live well; part of what is involved in accepting our finitude. Some thinkers have claimed that death is a transition from this life to an afterlife, which includes the eternal life of bliss via Divine mercy, or pain because of our insistence on rejecting the mercy and guidance of God.
Whatever our views on death are, we can all agree is that it is a subject that we do not think about enough. This may sound morbid, but there is a profound benefit in reflecting on death—it brings about the realisation that life is short. Pondering our finite nature helps diminish our egos and our selfish desires no longer seem that important. Our ephemeral attachments to the material world are put into perspective and our lives are questioned—all of which offer great benefit. As the 11th century theologian Al-Ghazali said, “...in the recollection of death there is reward and merit.”2 Contemplating death provokes thought and gives us a window of opportunity to reflect on the nature of our existence.
Considering death answered questions on how I should view life. It taught me to measure how much importance I should attach to material things. In viewing my life through the lens of death, I entered an emotional and intellectual space where I could assess my situation on this planet. How did I come to be? What should I be doing here? Where am I going? Death was the driving force behind these critical questions, because the moment I recognised that this life is short, that one day I will breathe my last, it put everything into perspective.
To understand what I went through, I want you to reflect on death; imagine you are here one minute and the next you are no more. You have probably experienced loved ones that have passed away; how did you feel? Did you feel loneliness, emptiness and lack of attachment to the things you used to take so seriously? Now, if you were to taste death this instant, as every human being eventually will, what would that mean to you? What would you do differently with your life if you were given the chance to go back? What thoughts and ideas would you take more seriously? What would your outlook be if you could relive your life having experienced the tragic reality of death?
The sad thing about death is that we cannot go back. This realisation weighed heavily on my mind. Deeply reflecting on death led me to the conclusion that life is short and that I wanted to transform it for the better without delay. The very next morning I took a taxi to London Central Mosque and embraced Islam. The date was October 5, 2002.
Is there anything you miss from your life before Islam?
Not really. Islam is not a gang that you join. One scholar said "I didn't join bani [the tribe of] Islam". Embracing Islam did not involve deleting my past or old self. The good traits and the positive aspects of my life that I had prior to Islam are still with me. Hopefully I have improved on them. That is the struggle. To traverse the path of breaking the ego and getting closer to Allah.
One of our forgotten enemies is the inner me. This is a fundamental component of Islamic spirituality; the understanding that a major cause of our evils is rooted in the ego. Consider the key symbol of evil in the Qur'an: shaytaan. He suffered from a grotesquely large ego. His disbelief was actually due to his arrogance.
The shataanic (interestingly the root of this word means to be far; in essence one has removed themselves from Allah's mercy) character believes he is is always right, never wrong. He always wants to look good, never look bad. He never wants to be imposed upon, he is the one who imposes on others. He believes he knows better and that he is worthy of admiration and praise. We all have these traits and we must struggle to get rid of them through salah, dhikr, etc.
Not really. Islam is not a gang that you join. One scholar said "I didn't join bani [the tribe of] Islam". Embracing Islam did not involve deleting my past or old self. The good traits and the positive aspects of my life that I had prior to Islam are still with me. Hopefully I have improved on them. That is the struggle. To traverse the path of breaking the ego and getting closer to Allah.
One of our forgotten enemies is the inner me. This is a fundamental component of Islamic spirituality; the understanding that a major cause of our evils is rooted in the ego. Consider the key symbol of evil in the Qur'an: shaytaan. He suffered from a grotesquely large ego. His disbelief was actually due to his arrogance.
The shataanic (interestingly the root of this word means to be far; in essence one has removed themselves from Allah's mercy) character believes he is is always right, never wrong. He always wants to look good, never look bad. He never wants to be imposed upon, he is the one who imposes on others. He believes he knows better and that he is worthy of admiration and praise. We all have these traits and we must struggle to get rid of them through salah, dhikr, etc.
What books can you recommend for someone just starting to learn about Islam?
This is a very good question. Some that come to mind are:
Islam: The Natural Way by Abdul Wahid Hamid
Purification of the Heart by Hamza Yusuf
The Eternal Challenge by Abu Zakariya
Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah by Abu Zakariya
On Love, Intimacy and Contentment by Al-Ghazali (translated by ITS)
Breaking the Two Desires by Al-Ghazali (translated by ITS)
Being Muslim: A Practical Guide by Asad Tarsin
Read chapters 14 and 15 of The Divine Reality by Me (shameless plug)
The Most Beautiful Names of Allah by Samira Khawaldeh (my preferred booklet on this topic is "Know God, Know Good" www.iera.org/God)
The Heart of Islam by S H Nasr
Some of these books require study, and I wouldn't necessarily agree with all of their content, but it's a good start.
This is a very good question. Some that come to mind are:
Islam: The Natural Way by Abdul Wahid Hamid
Purification of the Heart by Hamza Yusuf
The Eternal Challenge by Abu Zakariya
Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah by Abu Zakariya
On Love, Intimacy and Contentment by Al-Ghazali (translated by ITS)
Breaking the Two Desires by Al-Ghazali (translated by ITS)
Being Muslim: A Practical Guide by Asad Tarsin
Read chapters 14 and 15 of The Divine Reality by Me (shameless plug)
The Most Beautiful Names of Allah by Samira Khawaldeh (my preferred booklet on this topic is "Know God, Know Good" www.iera.org/God)
The Heart of Islam by S H Nasr
Some of these books require study, and I wouldn't necessarily agree with all of their content, but it's a good start.
What advice would you give to young people wanting to get married? Is it realistic or has media romanticised it?
There's a few pieces of advice I'd like to give:
1. Be yourself. An authentic version of who you are. Don't present yourself as your aspirations. Mention your faults first, if your future spouse is willing to live with them, then everything else is a bonus. Don't lie about who you are.
2. Manage expectations. Do not agree to things you know you will not do. The worse thing that can happen is that your future spouse falls in love an illusion. And when they realise who you really are they find it difficult to cope with the psychological betrayal.
3. Don't go for looks alone. People become far more attractive when they have higher qualities such as spirituality, compassion, forbearance, patience, love, etc.
4. It's easy to be a good Muslim when it's "all good". See how your future spouse reacted to life's problems. If they came closer to Allah, then there's something there, if they removed themselves from Allah and His Deen, then there are serious issues. Life will not be rosy. But when the proverbial hits the fan, make sure you're with a life partner that understands that running away from Allah does harm, and coming closer to Him is a path to goodness: in trials and fortunes.
5. Character. Character. Character. When life hits you in the face, nothing will beat loyalty, love, worship and forgiveness.
There's a few pieces of advice I'd like to give:
1. Be yourself. An authentic version of who you are. Don't present yourself as your aspirations. Mention your faults first, if your future spouse is willing to live with them, then everything else is a bonus. Don't lie about who you are.
2. Manage expectations. Do not agree to things you know you will not do. The worse thing that can happen is that your future spouse falls in love an illusion. And when they realise who you really are they find it difficult to cope with the psychological betrayal.
3. Don't go for looks alone. People become far more attractive when they have higher qualities such as spirituality, compassion, forbearance, patience, love, etc.
4. It's easy to be a good Muslim when it's "all good". See how your future spouse reacted to life's problems. If they came closer to Allah, then there's something there, if they removed themselves from Allah and His Deen, then there are serious issues. Life will not be rosy. But when the proverbial hits the fan, make sure you're with a life partner that understands that running away from Allah does harm, and coming closer to Him is a path to goodness: in trials and fortunes.
5. Character. Character. Character. When life hits you in the face, nothing will beat loyalty, love, worship and forgiveness.
How should Muslims combat Islamaphobia and hate crime against them?
Hate crime and Islamophobia have many causes. However, I think the Muslim community should empower themselves and not fall for the social pathology of victimhood (please note: being victimised and adopting the psychology of victimhood are two different things). Victimhood essentially views power as binary: one group (or person) has the power, the other doesn’t. From an Islamic spiritual point of view, all power is from and belongs to Allah. Therefore, we should see hate and Islamophobia as manifestations of Allah’s will. This Divine will is based on a Divine Wisdom, and it happens as a result of Allah’s will and power. So we should see the agents of this hate as empty “tools” that Allah uses to bring about His will. This means that haters do not have intrinsic power. How should this affect our psychological state? Well, it should make us realise that we must connect to Allah and do what He has guided us to do in these circumstances. This is empowering because we now turn our focus away from the hate our All-Powerful, The-Merciful Lord. Although there are many things we can do, a key principle involves turning haters in to close friends. How?
The Qur’an makes it clear:
Respond to evil with something better.
“And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel [evil] by that [deed] which is better; and thereupon the one whom between you and him is enmity [will become] as though he was a devoted friend.” The Qur’an, Chapter 41, Verse 34
If that doesn’t work, then always reply with words of peace:
“And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily, and when the ignorant address them [harshly], they say [words of] peace.” The Qur’an, Chapter 25, Verse 63
Another key principle is to not be blinded by hatred. Don’t let hatred make you swerve from fairness. You may even learn something from those who hate you.
“And do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.” The Qur’an, Chapter 5, Verse 8
Don’t give up on using these timeless principles. Remember, the reward for goodness, is good itself:
“Is the reward for good [anything] but good?” The Qur’an, Chapter 55, Verse 60
In your opinion, are reverts treated differently in the Muslim community?
The Muslim community is not a monolith. However, from my experience (which is limited) converts to Islam are usually treated in the number of following ways:
· Spoon-fed
· Mistreated
· Mistrusted
· Embraced
I believe the best way to support new Muslims is with education. What I mean by education is empowering new Muslims through the knowledge of Allah. The more one knows their Lord, and seeks to get closer to Him, life’s problems will be easier to deal with. Problems do not disappear the moment one becomes a Muslim, there’s no point of “spoon feeding” them, because you will not always be able to be there. However Allah is always there. Given new Muslims the necessary spiritual and social tools to deal with the journey of life, they will grow and become beacons of light for their communities.
The Muslim community is not a monolith. However, from my experience (which is limited) converts to Islam are usually treated in the number of following ways:
· Spoon-fed
· Mistreated
· Mistrusted
· Embraced
I believe the best way to support new Muslims is with education. What I mean by education is empowering new Muslims through the knowledge of Allah. The more one knows their Lord, and seeks to get closer to Him, life’s problems will be easier to deal with. Problems do not disappear the moment one becomes a Muslim, there’s no point of “spoon feeding” them, because you will not always be able to be there. However Allah is always there. Given new Muslims the necessary spiritual and social tools to deal with the journey of life, they will grow and become beacons of light for their communities.
What is the single most effective argument for disproving Christianity?
I believe most Christians truly believe they have a loving relationship with God. We must respect this. Spewing out intellectual arguments against Christianity doesn’t always work. We must embody the Prophetic practice and the Quranic ethic of compassion, tolerance, forbearance, etc. However, from a purely intellectual point of view there are some powerful objections to mainstream Biblical Christianity.
Firstly, there is the incoherence of the trinity. The mainstream conception of the trinity is based on the idea of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each person in the trinity is individual, however they are supposedly all eternal and co-equal and each one of them is fully God. According to mainstream Christianity the 2nd person of the trinity, The Son, took on human flesh in the bodily form of Jesus. Jesus is said to be both fully God and fully man. As a result of the incarnation, humanity has been permanently incorporated into the Godhead. The Godhead, The Son, after incarnation changed to include the “inseparable divine and human” nature. Jesus will now forever will exist in heaven as a glorified man and God at the same time. Before the incarnation there was just The Son. After incarnation The Son, as God, became The Son, as inseparably God and Human. If the trinity is an unchanging part of God’s essence, then God’s nature has changed according to Christianity. This contradicts Biblical doctrine that God is: “everlasting” [Psalm 93:2] and “does not change” [James 1:1] This is a huge theological and philosophical problem for Trinitarians.
There are more issue with the trinity but this should suffice.
Another argument involves the Christian atonement and blood sacrifice doctrine. According to the Bible the wages of sin is “is death.” [Romans, 6:23], therefore God supposedly sacrificed His son:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John, 3:16]
However, this atonement and blood sacrifice theology contradicts the perfect and pure nature of God. Sacrificing His “son” is unjust, unmerciful and unloving. Why? Because Allah forgives all sins without any intermediary. His servants just have to repent and establish a relationship with Him. This relationship is direct without any intermediaries. Allah does not require any other entities to forgive your sins. His mercy is not limited by human sin. This is a more forgiving and loving conception of God.
Also, the atonement and sacrifice doctrine is fundamentally unjust. For humanity’s sins someone else was sacrificed and tortured. This doesn’t make any sense. Since God is perfectly just why would He sacrifice someone who was not to blame? Islam maintains that no one should burden the sins of others. In summary, the Islamic conception of God is more merciful and more just. The mainstream Christian conception of God is unjust and there are limits to God’s mercy and forgiveness, because someone must be sacrificed and there must be blood atonement.
Lastly, the Bible as we have it today lacks historical integrity. Most theological positions come from the Bible therefore going straight to the source/foundations is far more productive. If the foundations are weak or false, then what emanates from the foundations is also false. Here’s an argument.
For revelation to be Divine, it must have historical integrity. Its authenticity must be established.
The Bible we have today is not authentic; it cannot be traced back to its origins.
Therefore the Bible we have today is not from the Divine.
The evidence to back this up is huge. However, the most striking piece of evidence is the criteria of canonicity. Professor Bruce Metzger maintains that a criteria for making the Bible into an authoritative text was that the teaching of the texts they were assessing had to agree with the Church’s teachings: “A basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to what was called the rule of faith, that is the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition recognised as normative by the Church. Just as under the Old Testament the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of the predictions but by the agreement of the substance of the prophecy with the fundamentals of Israel’s religion, so also under the new covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content.”
However there is a huge problem with this. The Church attempted to establish the basis of its worldview by reference to an agreed upon text, the Bible. Yet, the key criterion to establish the Bible was that its contents had to agree with what as recognised as normative in the Church tradition. But this exposes a vicious circle:
The Church’s teachings and traditions are true because they come from the Bible. The Bible is true because it agrees with the Church’s teachings and traditions. Spot the circular argument!
I believe most Christians truly believe they have a loving relationship with God. We must respect this. Spewing out intellectual arguments against Christianity doesn’t always work. We must embody the Prophetic practice and the Quranic ethic of compassion, tolerance, forbearance, etc. However, from a purely intellectual point of view there are some powerful objections to mainstream Biblical Christianity.
Firstly, there is the incoherence of the trinity. The mainstream conception of the trinity is based on the idea of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each person in the trinity is individual, however they are supposedly all eternal and co-equal and each one of them is fully God. According to mainstream Christianity the 2nd person of the trinity, The Son, took on human flesh in the bodily form of Jesus. Jesus is said to be both fully God and fully man. As a result of the incarnation, humanity has been permanently incorporated into the Godhead. The Godhead, The Son, after incarnation changed to include the “inseparable divine and human” nature. Jesus will now forever will exist in heaven as a glorified man and God at the same time. Before the incarnation there was just The Son. After incarnation The Son, as God, became The Son, as inseparably God and Human. If the trinity is an unchanging part of God’s essence, then God’s nature has changed according to Christianity. This contradicts Biblical doctrine that God is: “everlasting” [Psalm 93:2] and “does not change” [James 1:1] This is a huge theological and philosophical problem for Trinitarians.
There are more issue with the trinity but this should suffice.
Another argument involves the Christian atonement and blood sacrifice doctrine. According to the Bible the wages of sin is “is death.” [Romans, 6:23], therefore God supposedly sacrificed His son:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John, 3:16]
However, this atonement and blood sacrifice theology contradicts the perfect and pure nature of God. Sacrificing His “son” is unjust, unmerciful and unloving. Why? Because Allah forgives all sins without any intermediary. His servants just have to repent and establish a relationship with Him. This relationship is direct without any intermediaries. Allah does not require any other entities to forgive your sins. His mercy is not limited by human sin. This is a more forgiving and loving conception of God.
Also, the atonement and sacrifice doctrine is fundamentally unjust. For humanity’s sins someone else was sacrificed and tortured. This doesn’t make any sense. Since God is perfectly just why would He sacrifice someone who was not to blame? Islam maintains that no one should burden the sins of others. In summary, the Islamic conception of God is more merciful and more just. The mainstream Christian conception of God is unjust and there are limits to God’s mercy and forgiveness, because someone must be sacrificed and there must be blood atonement.
Lastly, the Bible as we have it today lacks historical integrity. Most theological positions come from the Bible therefore going straight to the source/foundations is far more productive. If the foundations are weak or false, then what emanates from the foundations is also false. Here’s an argument.
For revelation to be Divine, it must have historical integrity. Its authenticity must be established.
The Bible we have today is not authentic; it cannot be traced back to its origins.
Therefore the Bible we have today is not from the Divine.
The evidence to back this up is huge. However, the most striking piece of evidence is the criteria of canonicity. Professor Bruce Metzger maintains that a criteria for making the Bible into an authoritative text was that the teaching of the texts they were assessing had to agree with the Church’s teachings: “A basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to what was called the rule of faith, that is the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition recognised as normative by the Church. Just as under the Old Testament the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of the predictions but by the agreement of the substance of the prophecy with the fundamentals of Israel’s religion, so also under the new covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content.”
However there is a huge problem with this. The Church attempted to establish the basis of its worldview by reference to an agreed upon text, the Bible. Yet, the key criterion to establish the Bible was that its contents had to agree with what as recognised as normative in the Church tradition. But this exposes a vicious circle:
The Church’s teachings and traditions are true because they come from the Bible. The Bible is true because it agrees with the Church’s teachings and traditions. Spot the circular argument!
What is the link between Christianity, Islam and Judaism? Did Allah create all 3 religions and can all People of the Book attain heaven?
The link is Oneness. The Prophetic story of Jesus, Moses and Muhammad (peace be upon them all) is a story of calling people to know, love, obey and worship God; who is uniquely One, transcendent and unlike anything. However, over time the previous spiritual traditions have been corrupted. Human errors, insertions and ideologies have entered the previous scriptures. Allah revealed these religions over time to give people the opportunity to know and love Him. Anyone who affirmed the oneness of Allah and directed all of their internal and external actions to Him alone would be eligible for Divine bliss. Today, if someone accepts that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is His final messenger has made paradise eligible for them. Anyone who actively rejects this has run away from God’s guidance and mercy, thereby removing themselves from eternal bliss.
Associating partners with God is the gravest sin. The consequence of this sin is that the one who dies in such a state and has not repented dies in a state of disbelief. This will never be forgiven by God:
“Indeed, God does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills. And he who associates others with God has certainly committed a tremendous sin.”
However, if one associates partners with God and repents to Him and returns to the path of oneness, he or she will be forgiven, and their transgressions will be transformed into good deeds:
“And those who invoke not any other deity along with God… Except those who repent and believe, and do righteous deeds; for those, God will change their sins into good deeds, and God is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
The one who has associated partners with God and has never repented, and dies in that state (and has no excuse), has essentially oppressed themselves by closing the door to God’s mercy. Their hearts have ‘eternally’ rejected God’s guidance and mercy; therefore they have alienated themselves from the Divine. Those who reject God will plead to go back to earth to do righteousness, but their hearts have ‘eternally’ rejected:
“[For such is the state of the disbelievers], until, when death comes to one of them, he says, ‘My Lord, send me back that I might do righteousness in that which I left behind.’ No! It is only a word he is saying.”
This self-imposed spiritual reality is a form of denial. The person has denied all the just and fair opportunities that God has given them to embrace His mercy and love:
“And God has not wronged them, but they wrong themselves.”
“This because of that which your hands had sent forward. And indeed, God is not unjust to His slaves.”
It must be noted that according to Islamic theology if someone was not given the right message of Islam they will have an excuse and will be tested on the Day of Judgment. God is The-Just and no one will be treated unjustly. This is why when a non-Muslim has passed away it is considered unislamic to pass judgement on their final abode. No one knows what is in someone else’s heart and whether someone was given the right message in the right way. However, from a creedal and societal point of view, non-Muslims who died will be buried as non-Muslims. This does not mean that this is their final judgement. In reality, God is maximally and perfectly just and merciful, so no one will be treated unmercifully and no one will be treated unjustly.
People who have heard the message of Islam in a sound and correct way will have to answer for their denial. However, whoever dies without having heard the message of Islam, or heard it in a distorted form, will be given an opportunity to accept the truth. The following traditions comes to mind:
“There are four (who will protest) to God on the Day of Resurrection: the deaf man who never heard anything, the insane man, the very old man, and the man who died during the fatrah (the interval between the time of Jesus (upon whom be peace) and the time of Muhammad ï·º. The deaf man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I never heard anything.’ The insane man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but the children ran after me and threw stones at me.’ The very old man will say, ‘O Lord, Islam came but I did not understand anything.’ The man who died during the fatrah will say, ‘O Lord, no Messenger from You came to me.’ He will accept their promises of obedience, then word will be sent to them to enter the Fire. By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, if they enter it, it will be cool and safe for them.” (Ahmad and Ibn Hibban)
There are other hadiths and verses of the Qur’an that indicate that God will not allow anyone to enter hell until people have been given the correct message of Islam.
Echoing the principles from the various verses of the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions, Al-Ghazali summarises this nuanced approach. He argues that people who never heard the message of Islam will have an excuse: “In fact, I would say that, God willing, most of the Byzantine Christians and the Turks of this age will be included in God’s mercy. I’m referring here to those who live in the farthest regions of Byzantium and Anatolia who have not come into contact with the message… They are excused.”
Al-Ghazali also argues that the people who heard negative things of the Prophet Muhammad and his message will also be excused: “These people knew the name ‘Muhammad’, but nothing of his character or his qualities. Instead, all they heard since childhood is that a liar and imposter called ‘Muhammad’ claimed to be a prophet… This party, in my opinion, is like the first party. For even though they’ve heard his name, they heard the opposite of what his true qualities were. And this does not provide enough incentive for them to investigate [his true status].”
The true teachings of Islam are a barrier to extremism. In my view, all forms of extremism are based on an ‘ideological hardness’ that hardens people’s hearts. What I mean by this is that people adopt non-negotiable, binary and negative assumptions about the world and other people. This makes one group of people ‘otherize’ another. Otherization is not simply labelling people as belonging to other groups. This is natural and part of modern society. Otherization usually happens when one group describes another group in a negative way and maintains that each member is the same. This hardens people’s hearts and prevents them from positively engaging with other people who seem to be different. Islam does not otherize people. It does not assert that everyone who is not a Muslim is ultimately doomed or evil. The Qur’an makes it quite clear that people constituting other groups “are not all alike” and describes them some of them as “upright” . The Qur’an also applies this concept to believers too; some are righteous and some are not. Nevertheless, Islam teaches that every human being must be treated with mercy, compassion and fairness.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
There’s lots of advice that comes to mind. However, what is jumping out at the moment is:
Starve the ego, feed the soul.
Compassion beautifies everything.
What is the single most effective argument for disproving Christianity?
I believe most Christians truly believe they have a loving relationship with God. We must respect this. Spewing out intellectual arguments against Christianity doesn’t always work. We must embody the Prophetic practice and the Quranic ethic of compassion, tolerance, forbearance, etc. However, from a purely intellectual point of view there are some powerful objections to mainstream Biblical Christianity.
Firstly, there is the incoherence of the trinity. The mainstream conception of the trinity is based on the idea of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each person in the trinity is individual, however they are supposedly all eternal and co-equal and each one of them is fully God. According to mainstream Christianity the 2nd person of the trinity, The Son, took on human flesh in the bodily form of Jesus. Jesus is said to be both fully God and fully man. As a result of the incarnation, humanity has been permanently incorporated into the Godhead. The Godhead, The Son, after incarnation changed to include the “inseparable divine and human” nature. Jesus will now forever will exist in heaven as a glorified man and God at the same time. Before the incarnation there was just The Son. After incarnation The Son, as God, became The Son, as inseparably God and Human. If the trinity is an unchanging part of God’s essence, then God’s nature has changed according to Christianity. This contradicts Biblical doctrine that God is: “everlasting” [Psalm 93:2] and “does not change” [James 1:1] This is a huge theological and philosophical problem for Trinitarians.
There are more issue with the trinity but this should suffice.
Another argument involves the Christian atonement and blood sacrifice doctrine. According to the Bible the wages of sin is “is death.” [Romans, 6:23], therefore God supposedly sacrificed His son:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John, 3:16]
However, this atonement and blood sacrifice theology contradicts the perfect and pure nature of God. Sacrificing His “son” is unjust, unmerciful and unloving. Why? Because Allah forgives all sins without any intermediary. His servants just have to repent and establish a relationship with Him. This relationship is direct without any intermediaries. Allah does not require any other entities to forgive your sins. His mercy is not limited by human sin. This is a more forgiving and loving conception of God.
Also, the atonement and sacrifice doctrine is fundamentally unjust. For humanity’s sins someone else was sacrificed and tortured. This doesn’t make any sense. Since God is perfectly just why would He sacrifice someone who was not to blame? Islam maintains that no one should burden the sins of others. In summary, the Islamic conception of God is more merciful and more just. The mainstream Christian conception of God is unjust and there are limits to God’s mercy and forgiveness, because someone must be sacrificed and there must be blood atonement.
Lastly, the Bible as we have it today lacks historical integrity. Most theological positions come from the Bible therefore going straight to the source/foundations is far more productive. If the foundations are weak or false, then what emanates from the foundations is also false. Here’s an argument.
For revelation to be Divine, it must have historical integrity. Its authenticity must be established.
The Bible we have today is not authentic; it cannot be traced back to its origins.
Therefore the Bible we have today is not from the Divine.
The evidence to back this up is huge. However, the most striking piece of evidence is the criteria of canonicity. Professor Bruce Metzger maintains that a criteria for making the Bible into an authoritative text was that the teaching of the texts they were assessing had to agree with the Church’s teachings: “A basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to what was called the rule of faith, that is the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition recognised as normative by the Church. Just as under the Old Testament the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of the predictions but by the agreement of the substance of the prophecy with the fundamentals of Israel’s religion, so also under the new covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content.”
However there is a huge problem with this. The Church attempted to establish the basis of its worldview by reference to an agreed upon text, the Bible. Yet, the key criterion to establish the Bible was that its contents had to agree with what as recognised as normative in the Church tradition. But this exposes a vicious circle:
The Church’s teachings and traditions are true because they come from the Bible. The Bible is true because it agrees with the Church’s teachings and traditions. Spot the circular argument!
I know it is hard to break down, but, what is the single best argument for proving God's existence?
Gods existence (or the basic idea of creator or ultimate cause) is a self-evident truth. Like with all self-evident truths the onus of proof is on the one who challenges them. We consider many beliefs to be self-evidently true. This means the belief can be described as natural or true by default. Some of them include:
· The uniformity of nature
· The law of causality
· The reality of the past
· The validity of our reasoning
· The existence of other minds
· The existence of an external world
When someone questions these truths, we do not blindly accept their conclusions, and we usually reply, “What evidence do you have to reject them?”.
These truths are self-evident because they are characterised by being:
· Universal: Not a product of a specific culture, they are cross-cultural.
· Untaught: Not based on information transfer. They are not acquired via information external to your introspection and senses. In other words, they are not learnt via acquiring knowledge.
· Natural: Formed due to the natural functioning of the human psyche.
· Intuitive: The most easy and simple interpretation of the world.
Let’s apply the above features to the belief that the past is real.
The reality of the past is a self-evident truth because it is universal, untaught, natural and intuitive. It is a universal truth because most—if not all—cultures have a belief in the past, from a point of view that the past was once the present. The belief in the past is also untaught because when someone first realises that the past was an actual state of affairs, it is not based on someone telling them or any type of learning. No one grows up being told by his or her parents that the past was real. This belief is acquired via their own experience. The reality of the past is also natural. People with normal rational faculties agree that the past consists of things that happened. Finally, the belief that the past once happened is the simplest interpretation of our experiences and it is based on an innate understanding of the world. To claim that the past is an illusion raises more problems than it solves.
God: a self-evident truth
Just like the belief that the past was once the present, the existence of God is also a self-evident truth. What is meant by ‘God’ in this article is the basic concept of a creator, a nonhuman personal cause or designer. It does not refer to a particular religious conception of a deity or God. The following discussion explains why the belief in this basic idea of God is universal, untaught, natural and intuitive.
Universal
The basic underlying idea of a creator, or a supernatural cause for the universe, is cross-cultural. It is not contingent on culture but transcends it, like the belief in causality and the existence of other minds. For example, the idea of other people having minds exists in all cultures, a belief held by most rational people. The existence of God or a supernatural cause is a universally held belief and not the product of one specific culture. Different conceptions of God are held in various cultures, but this does not negate the basic idea of a creator or nonhuman personal cause.
In spite of the number of atheists in the world, the belief in God is universal. A universal belief does not mean every single person on the planet must believe in it. A cross-cultural consensus is enough evidence to substantiate the claim that people universally believe in God’s existence. Evidently, there are many more theists than atheists in the world, and this has been the case from the beginning of recorded history.
Untaught
Self-evident truths do not need to be taught or learnt. For example, for me to know what spaghetti is, I require information of western cuisine and Italian culture. I cannot know what spaghetti is merely by reflecting on it. By contrast, you do not require any information, whether from culture or education, to know a creator for things exists. This may be the reason why sociologists and anthropologists argue that even if atheist children were stranded on a desert island, they would come to believe that something created the island. Our understanding of God differs, but the underlying belief in a cause or creator is based on our own reflections.
Some atheists exclaim, “God is no different than believing in the spaghetti monster”. This objection is obviously false. Self-evident truths do not require external information. The idea that monsters exist, or even that spaghetti exists, requires information transfer. No one acquires knowledge of monsters or spaghetti by their own intuitions or introspection. Therefore, the spaghetti monster is not a self-evident truth; thus, the comparison with God cannot be made. Diverting our attention from the context of this chapter, this objection also fails, as there are many good arguments for God’s existence and no good arguments for the existence of a spaghetti monster.
Natural
Belief in some type of supernatural designer or cause is based on the natural functioning of the human psyche. The concept of God’s self-evident existence has been a topic of scholarly discussion in the Islamic intellectual tradition. The classical scholar Ibn Taymiyyah explained that “affirmation of a Maker is firmly-rooted in the hearts of all men… it is from the binding necessities of their creation….” The 12th century scholar Al-Raghib al-Asfahani similarly asserts that knowledge of God “is firmly-rooted in the soul”. As well as the Islamic position, a wealth of research in various fields supports the conclusion that we are meant to see the world as created and designed.
In this light however, there are some very powerful arguments for God’s existence. One argument I like is the argument from dependency (or contingency). Here is a summary:
Imagine you walk out of your house and on your street you find a row of dominoes that stretch far beyond what your eyes can see. You start to hear a noise that gets slightly louder as time passes. This noise is familiar to you, as you used to play with dominoes as a child; it is the sound of them falling. Eventually, you see this amazing display of falling dominoes approaching you. You greatly admire how the basic laws of physics can produce such a remarkable spectacle; however, you are also saddened because the last domino has now fallen a few inches away from your feet. Still excited about what has just happened, you decide to walk down the street to find the first domino, hoping to meet the person responsible for producing this wonderful experience.
Keeping the above scenario in mind, I want to ask you a few questions. As you walk down your street, will you eventually reach where the chain of dominoes began? Or will you keep on walking forever? The obvious response is that you will eventually find the first domino. However, I want you to ask why. The reason you know that you will find the first domino is because you understand that if the domino chain went on forever, the last domino that fell by your feet would never have fallen. An infinite number of dominoes would have to fall before the last domino could fall. Yet an infinite amount of falling dominoes would take an infinite amount of time to fall. In other words, the last domino would never fall. Putting this in simple terms, you know that in order for the last domino to fall, the domino behind must fall prior to it, and for that domino to fall, the domino behind it must fall prior to it. If this went on forever, the last domino would never fall.
Sticking with the analogy, I want to ask you another question. Let’s say, walking down the street, you finally come across the first domino which led to the falling of the entire chain. What would your thoughts be about the first domino? Would you think this domino fell ‘by itself’? In other words, do you think the falling of the first domino can somehow be explained without referring to anything external to it? Clearly not; that runs against the grain of our basic intuition about reality. Nothing really happens on its own. Everything requires an explanation of some sort. So the first domino’s fall had to have been triggered by something else—a person, the wind or a thing hitting it, etc. Whatever this ‘something else’ is, it has to form a part of our explanation of falling dominoes.
So to sum up our reflections thus far: neither could the chain of dominoes contain an infinite number of items, nor could the first domino start falling for no reason whatsoever.
This above analogy is a summary of the argument from dependency. The universe is somewhat like a row of dominoes. The universe and everything within it is dependent. They cannot depend on something else, which in turn depends on something else, forever. The only plausible explanation is that the universe, and everything within it, has to depend on someone or something, whose existence is in some ways independent from the universe (and anything else for that matter). Put differently, this thing must not be ‘dependent’ the way the universe is, because that would just add one more domino to the chain, which would then require an explanation. Therefore, there must be an independent and eternal Being that everything depends upon. Simple as this sounds, in order to understand this argument, I will have to define what I mean by dependent. But you’ll have to ready my book for more details!
There’s lots of advice that comes to mind. However, what is jumping out at the moment is:
Starve the ego, feed the soul.
Compassion beautifies everything.
What is the single most effective argument for disproving Christianity?
I believe most Christians truly believe they have a loving relationship with God. We must respect this. Spewing out intellectual arguments against Christianity doesn’t always work. We must embody the Prophetic practice and the Quranic ethic of compassion, tolerance, forbearance, etc. However, from a purely intellectual point of view there are some powerful objections to mainstream Biblical Christianity.
Firstly, there is the incoherence of the trinity. The mainstream conception of the trinity is based on the idea of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each person in the trinity is individual, however they are supposedly all eternal and co-equal and each one of them is fully God. According to mainstream Christianity the 2nd person of the trinity, The Son, took on human flesh in the bodily form of Jesus. Jesus is said to be both fully God and fully man. As a result of the incarnation, humanity has been permanently incorporated into the Godhead. The Godhead, The Son, after incarnation changed to include the “inseparable divine and human” nature. Jesus will now forever will exist in heaven as a glorified man and God at the same time. Before the incarnation there was just The Son. After incarnation The Son, as God, became The Son, as inseparably God and Human. If the trinity is an unchanging part of God’s essence, then God’s nature has changed according to Christianity. This contradicts Biblical doctrine that God is: “everlasting” [Psalm 93:2] and “does not change” [James 1:1] This is a huge theological and philosophical problem for Trinitarians.
There are more issue with the trinity but this should suffice.
Another argument involves the Christian atonement and blood sacrifice doctrine. According to the Bible the wages of sin is “is death.” [Romans, 6:23], therefore God supposedly sacrificed His son:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John, 3:16]
However, this atonement and blood sacrifice theology contradicts the perfect and pure nature of God. Sacrificing His “son” is unjust, unmerciful and unloving. Why? Because Allah forgives all sins without any intermediary. His servants just have to repent and establish a relationship with Him. This relationship is direct without any intermediaries. Allah does not require any other entities to forgive your sins. His mercy is not limited by human sin. This is a more forgiving and loving conception of God.
Also, the atonement and sacrifice doctrine is fundamentally unjust. For humanity’s sins someone else was sacrificed and tortured. This doesn’t make any sense. Since God is perfectly just why would He sacrifice someone who was not to blame? Islam maintains that no one should burden the sins of others. In summary, the Islamic conception of God is more merciful and more just. The mainstream Christian conception of God is unjust and there are limits to God’s mercy and forgiveness, because someone must be sacrificed and there must be blood atonement.
Lastly, the Bible as we have it today lacks historical integrity. Most theological positions come from the Bible therefore going straight to the source/foundations is far more productive. If the foundations are weak or false, then what emanates from the foundations is also false. Here’s an argument.
For revelation to be Divine, it must have historical integrity. Its authenticity must be established.
The Bible we have today is not authentic; it cannot be traced back to its origins.
Therefore the Bible we have today is not from the Divine.
The evidence to back this up is huge. However, the most striking piece of evidence is the criteria of canonicity. Professor Bruce Metzger maintains that a criteria for making the Bible into an authoritative text was that the teaching of the texts they were assessing had to agree with the Church’s teachings: “A basic prerequisite for canonicity was conformity to what was called the rule of faith, that is the congruity of a given document with the basic Christian tradition recognised as normative by the Church. Just as under the Old Testament the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of the predictions but by the agreement of the substance of the prophecy with the fundamentals of Israel’s religion, so also under the new covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content.”
However there is a huge problem with this. The Church attempted to establish the basis of its worldview by reference to an agreed upon text, the Bible. Yet, the key criterion to establish the Bible was that its contents had to agree with what as recognised as normative in the Church tradition. But this exposes a vicious circle:
The Church’s teachings and traditions are true because they come from the Bible. The Bible is true because it agrees with the Church’s teachings and traditions. Spot the circular argument!
I know it is hard to break down, but, what is the single best argument for proving God's existence?
Gods existence (or the basic idea of creator or ultimate cause) is a self-evident truth. Like with all self-evident truths the onus of proof is on the one who challenges them. We consider many beliefs to be self-evidently true. This means the belief can be described as natural or true by default. Some of them include:
· The uniformity of nature
· The law of causality
· The reality of the past
· The validity of our reasoning
· The existence of other minds
· The existence of an external world
When someone questions these truths, we do not blindly accept their conclusions, and we usually reply, “What evidence do you have to reject them?”.
These truths are self-evident because they are characterised by being:
· Universal: Not a product of a specific culture, they are cross-cultural.
· Untaught: Not based on information transfer. They are not acquired via information external to your introspection and senses. In other words, they are not learnt via acquiring knowledge.
· Natural: Formed due to the natural functioning of the human psyche.
· Intuitive: The most easy and simple interpretation of the world.
Let’s apply the above features to the belief that the past is real.
The reality of the past is a self-evident truth because it is universal, untaught, natural and intuitive. It is a universal truth because most—if not all—cultures have a belief in the past, from a point of view that the past was once the present. The belief in the past is also untaught because when someone first realises that the past was an actual state of affairs, it is not based on someone telling them or any type of learning. No one grows up being told by his or her parents that the past was real. This belief is acquired via their own experience. The reality of the past is also natural. People with normal rational faculties agree that the past consists of things that happened. Finally, the belief that the past once happened is the simplest interpretation of our experiences and it is based on an innate understanding of the world. To claim that the past is an illusion raises more problems than it solves.
God: a self-evident truth
Just like the belief that the past was once the present, the existence of God is also a self-evident truth. What is meant by ‘God’ in this article is the basic concept of a creator, a nonhuman personal cause or designer. It does not refer to a particular religious conception of a deity or God. The following discussion explains why the belief in this basic idea of God is universal, untaught, natural and intuitive.
Universal
The basic underlying idea of a creator, or a supernatural cause for the universe, is cross-cultural. It is not contingent on culture but transcends it, like the belief in causality and the existence of other minds. For example, the idea of other people having minds exists in all cultures, a belief held by most rational people. The existence of God or a supernatural cause is a universally held belief and not the product of one specific culture. Different conceptions of God are held in various cultures, but this does not negate the basic idea of a creator or nonhuman personal cause.
In spite of the number of atheists in the world, the belief in God is universal. A universal belief does not mean every single person on the planet must believe in it. A cross-cultural consensus is enough evidence to substantiate the claim that people universally believe in God’s existence. Evidently, there are many more theists than atheists in the world, and this has been the case from the beginning of recorded history.
Untaught
Self-evident truths do not need to be taught or learnt. For example, for me to know what spaghetti is, I require information of western cuisine and Italian culture. I cannot know what spaghetti is merely by reflecting on it. By contrast, you do not require any information, whether from culture or education, to know a creator for things exists. This may be the reason why sociologists and anthropologists argue that even if atheist children were stranded on a desert island, they would come to believe that something created the island. Our understanding of God differs, but the underlying belief in a cause or creator is based on our own reflections.
Some atheists exclaim, “God is no different than believing in the spaghetti monster”. This objection is obviously false. Self-evident truths do not require external information. The idea that monsters exist, or even that spaghetti exists, requires information transfer. No one acquires knowledge of monsters or spaghetti by their own intuitions or introspection. Therefore, the spaghetti monster is not a self-evident truth; thus, the comparison with God cannot be made. Diverting our attention from the context of this chapter, this objection also fails, as there are many good arguments for God’s existence and no good arguments for the existence of a spaghetti monster.
Natural
Belief in some type of supernatural designer or cause is based on the natural functioning of the human psyche. The concept of God’s self-evident existence has been a topic of scholarly discussion in the Islamic intellectual tradition. The classical scholar Ibn Taymiyyah explained that “affirmation of a Maker is firmly-rooted in the hearts of all men… it is from the binding necessities of their creation….” The 12th century scholar Al-Raghib al-Asfahani similarly asserts that knowledge of God “is firmly-rooted in the soul”. As well as the Islamic position, a wealth of research in various fields supports the conclusion that we are meant to see the world as created and designed.
In this light however, there are some very powerful arguments for God’s existence. One argument I like is the argument from dependency (or contingency). Here is a summary:
Imagine you walk out of your house and on your street you find a row of dominoes that stretch far beyond what your eyes can see. You start to hear a noise that gets slightly louder as time passes. This noise is familiar to you, as you used to play with dominoes as a child; it is the sound of them falling. Eventually, you see this amazing display of falling dominoes approaching you. You greatly admire how the basic laws of physics can produce such a remarkable spectacle; however, you are also saddened because the last domino has now fallen a few inches away from your feet. Still excited about what has just happened, you decide to walk down the street to find the first domino, hoping to meet the person responsible for producing this wonderful experience.
Keeping the above scenario in mind, I want to ask you a few questions. As you walk down your street, will you eventually reach where the chain of dominoes began? Or will you keep on walking forever? The obvious response is that you will eventually find the first domino. However, I want you to ask why. The reason you know that you will find the first domino is because you understand that if the domino chain went on forever, the last domino that fell by your feet would never have fallen. An infinite number of dominoes would have to fall before the last domino could fall. Yet an infinite amount of falling dominoes would take an infinite amount of time to fall. In other words, the last domino would never fall. Putting this in simple terms, you know that in order for the last domino to fall, the domino behind must fall prior to it, and for that domino to fall, the domino behind it must fall prior to it. If this went on forever, the last domino would never fall.
Sticking with the analogy, I want to ask you another question. Let’s say, walking down the street, you finally come across the first domino which led to the falling of the entire chain. What would your thoughts be about the first domino? Would you think this domino fell ‘by itself’? In other words, do you think the falling of the first domino can somehow be explained without referring to anything external to it? Clearly not; that runs against the grain of our basic intuition about reality. Nothing really happens on its own. Everything requires an explanation of some sort. So the first domino’s fall had to have been triggered by something else—a person, the wind or a thing hitting it, etc. Whatever this ‘something else’ is, it has to form a part of our explanation of falling dominoes.
So to sum up our reflections thus far: neither could the chain of dominoes contain an infinite number of items, nor could the first domino start falling for no reason whatsoever.
This above analogy is a summary of the argument from dependency. The universe is somewhat like a row of dominoes. The universe and everything within it is dependent. They cannot depend on something else, which in turn depends on something else, forever. The only plausible explanation is that the universe, and everything within it, has to depend on someone or something, whose existence is in some ways independent from the universe (and anything else for that matter). Put differently, this thing must not be ‘dependent’ the way the universe is, because that would just add one more domino to the chain, which would then require an explanation. Therefore, there must be an independent and eternal Being that everything depends upon. Simple as this sounds, in order to understand this argument, I will have to define what I mean by dependent. But you’ll have to ready my book for more details!
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