What about Islam? What about the Quran? How do you know Muslims aren't right, and you're not going to their Hell? You've probably heard these questions from skeptics, haven't you? It's mostly a reaction to Pascal's Wager. For those of you who don't know what Pascal's Wager is, it's a weak argument used by some Christians which says to unbelievers that if they're right, no one will know, but if Christians are right, then the unbelievers will lose big time. The reason this argument is weak is because Christianity is not the only religion that claims to be the only way to God, or is it? What about Islam? Perhaps Islam is the only world religion that humanity is facing today which strictly preaches that Islam is the only way and those who reject it, will go to Hell. In this post of mine I am going to demolish the legitimacy of Islam such that by the end of my post any rational person would become absolutely convinced that Islam is a self-refuting religion that has to steal from the Judeo-Christian Scriptures in order to make its case. Notice carefully how I won't use the promotion of violence in the Quran or Hadith as a leverage against Islam; something that is very common among Christians and non-Christians who oppose Islam. Appeals to the violence of Islam in an apologetic context is a variant of the argumentum ad baculum fallacy. Simply because a religion promotes violence, it doesn't mean that it isn't true; in other words, just because you don't like something, it doesn't necessarily mean it's false; to conclude that therefore it's false, is a non-sequitur.
Before I continue, perhaps it would be best to address the question “Is Allah the same God that Jews and Christians worship?” This is a very tricky question and the answer isn't really as black and white as many people would want it to be. Perhaps the short answer is yes, Allah is the same God. In fact, Allah is just a generic Arabic term which is even used by Arab Christians to refer to God. It's kind of like “God” in English. But what about the famous Islamic saying which we even see on Islamic flags like ISIS or Saudi Arabia that states “There is no God but Allah?” It looks like there is a more generic term for "God" in Arabic other than Allah which is “Elah” in this famous Islamic oath. That's correct, and I personally think "Allah" is a specific name other than just a generic word for God and it's derived from Aramaic which is the language that today's modern Arabic comes from, and there are people who say that it used to be the name of the "moon god" in the Arabian Peninsula before Islam was founded. To cut the long story short, if we get too technical, the answer is no, Allah is not the same God that Jews and Christians worship, neither is it a generic term for "God" in Arabic and I believe that Arab Christians have been deceived by their language when it comes to this word. But if we get rid of all these deep technical analysis, I think we can at least agree that Allah of the Quran claims to be the same God that Jews and Christians worship and therefore, it's logical to grant the fact that Muslims “think” they worship the same Abrahamic God that Jews and Christians worship and even if we grant that they worship the same God, it doesn't mean they are saved, because according to the Gospel, worshiping God isn't going to save us from our sins, in fact true worship is a privilege by which we can enter into God's rest or presence, but that's a different topic.
Now every logical person would agree that if this is the case, and Allah of the Quran claims to be the same God that Jews and Christians worship, then Quran should be compatible and reconcilable with both the Jewish and Christian Holy Scriptures. The obvious reason for this is the fact that new revelations are fulfillments of old revelations. We see this in Christianity, the New Testament or the Gospel so as to speak, is the fulfillment of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible, also known as "Tanakh". In other words, Christianity doesn't claim that the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible has changed or is corrupted because that would undermine Christianity; instead, Christians use the Hebrew Bible to prove that the Gospel is not only the fulfillment of what was promised by God in the Hebrew Bible, but also a new revelation from God. Now the question is "Does Islam follow in the same footsteps of Christianity or the basic logic of how revelation from God is supposed to work?" The answer is "No. It does not." The teachings in the Quran have clear and irreconcilable contradictions with what we see in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, so much so that Muslims today have to claim that the Bible has been tampered with; a claim that not only violates the very basic laws of logic and common sense, but also undermines Islam and the Quran, and proves to any rational person that Islam is a self-refuting religion which makes it a fraud regardless of whether the Bible is true or not.
But it gets even more interesting than that. There are clear verses in the Quran that are advocating the inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Allah even goes on and commands Muhammad to let the Christians judge the Quran by what Allah has revealed to them in the Gospel, and in one place Allah even goes further and commands Muhammad to go and ask the people of the book(Jews and Christians) if he doubts whether the new revelations are from God or not! It almost blows the mind of anyone who studies this from outside away and raises the massive question of how on earth can then we have more than a billion Muslims in the world? The answer is simple. The majority of Muslims haven't even read their own book, let alone the Bible. Unfortunately the same thing might be true about most Christians; in other words, we're living in a world where the majority of people are blindly following the crowds. But what about those who lead in Islam? Those who have studied these issues and still go on and preach Islam, and promote the Quran? Can't they see this clear and massive contradiction which lies on the very basis and foundation of their worldview? The answer is cognitive dissonance; the majority of people would rather die than think, and there are some who think they think, while they don't really think deep enough, especially about the foundation of their worldview. Now one might raise an objection to my reasoning here and accuse me of using a double standard by saying something like “What about you yourself? Can't you see the clear contradictions in the Bible? Can't you see how the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament?” These objections would be valid only if Christians had claimed that the Hebrew Bible has been tampered with, and then they went on picking and choosing what they wanted like what Muslim apologists do with the Bible, in order to prove the New Testament. But that's not what Christians claim or do at all. For every single “alleged” contradiction in the Bible, whether in the New Testament or the Old Testament or between them, there is at least one answer or explanation; you just need to learn how to Google. People who usually raise objections like this haven't studied these issues. They are no different than the majority of Muslims. They are just following the crowds and as a result they repeat the same mistakes that the people who lead them are making. What about their leaders? Haven't they studied these issues? Why would they go on and spread misinformation like the leaders of Muslims do? The answer is cognitive dissonance again. The popular leaders of atheism or skepticism in this world think they think, but they don't really think deep enough about the foundation of their worldview. I will get into Atheism, Naturalism, Deism, Pluralism and Skepticism in separate articles and will try to demonstrate the folly of denying God and Intelligent Design, and will also address some of the dilemmas of Deism and Pluralism.
To recap, the Quran affirms the inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Judeo-Christian scriptures (including the Torah and the Gospel). Yet the Quran contradicts the Judeo-Christian scriptures on fundamental doctrines(e.g., Jesus' death, resurrection, and deity). By affirming scriptures that contradict Islam, the Quran self-destructs. I'd like to recommend the following video by David Wood, one of my favourite Christian apologists of the century. David was raised atheist and has a great testimony which I would totally recommend you to watch it on his YouTube channel; he also has great materials with regards to debunking Atheism and Islam, and his website is Www.AnsweringMuslims.Com
