The Persecution Complex

What is the persecution complex? There are two opposing beliefs about persecution which I refer to as the persecution complex. The first one says that just because you are being persecuted, you must therefore be doing the will of God, while the second one says that because you are not doing the will of God, you are therefore being indirectly punished by God! Almost all of us have experienced or even fallen for at least one of these two beliefs if not both through the different seasons of life. In this article, I'm going to expand on these two beliefs and expose their falsehood and the danger that they pose to our walk with God, as well as our testimonies.

The first radical and wrong view of persecution resorts to scare mongering tactics to scare people of the consequences of following Christ to the point that most people they witness to falsely conclude that they'd be better off without Christ in their lives. The only people that they manage to convince are the people who easily fall for this type of persecution complex, and they think that just because they are being "persecuted", that it somehow proves that they are the true church, or that they are the true believers while ignoring all the other people in the world who are also being persecuted for different reasons!

The second one, only talks about the blessings of following Christ and creates the illusion that God is not going to let anything bad happen to us if we decide to follow Him. This group usually preaches about what is known as rapture where they teach that God is going to rapture the true believers during the tribulations of the last days so they won't have to deal with the anti-Christ! There's even another group that teaches there's no such a thing as anti-Christ and anti-Christ has already come and gone in 70 A.D. and we are now living in the kingdom time, both of which are completely false, unbiblical and easy to debunk. This group manages to convince the people who prefer fantasy to reality, because it doesn't take a genius to read through the Bible and see that bad things happen to believers all the time even though God tends to bring good out of evil. You don't really need to read through the Bible for this one; you just need to look around! 

These two radical groups are one of the most destructive groups among Christians that I have seen. The reality is that the Bible promises both blessings, prosperity as well as persecution and suffering for Christ's sake, and yet at the same time it makes it abundantly clear that we would live a much better, blessed, joyful and fulfilling life if we allow God into our life than not! Perhaps Mark 8:35 is one of my favorite verses to go to, when it comes to this topic where Jesus says, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it." He doesn't say whoever wants to save their life will save it, neither does he say that whoever follows him will not lose their life as a result of following him!

The amount of deception in this world is mind-blowing and can be depressing and crippling if we focus on what our enemies are doing. This is where we can take a step back, breathe in and find rest in God's promises by focusing on what God is doing. Romans 8:28 is one of my favorite verses when it comes to what God is doing. Paul says, "For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

Bible Study: Reprobates #2

In chapter 3 of the Gospel of Mark, we read,"The teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.” So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.” —Mark 3:22-30

In this passage, Jesus not only explains how someone can blaspheme the Holy Spirit, but also goes on and declares that this type of blasphemy will never be forgiven for it is an eternal sin. Unfortunately, there are many religious people today who tend to attribute the works of the Holy Spirit to demons. Charismatic and Pentecostal churches are constantly under attack today by certain religious groups and the miracles that take place in these congregations are attributed to demons. Whether these people are guilty of an eternal sin or not is God's job to judge, but from the above passage, we can conclude that what they do, at least appears to be a good example of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. There are also atheists who tend to participate in a challenge where they blaspheme the Holy Spirit in a YouTube video in order to buy a ticket to Hell; even though given the criteria and the explanation in this passage, what they do is ignorant and does not really appear to be a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, their willingness to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and go to Hell alarms the bell that they may have been given over to a reprobate mind.

When Jesus was on the Cross, one of the things that He said was, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Luke 23:34. Could blasphemy against the Holy Spirit be forgiven because the person who has done it has done so ignorantly? I would say yes it's possible in my opinion. After all, we can't really compare the miracles that Jesus performed with 100% success rate to the miracles that are taking place today. Having said that, blaspheming the Holy Spirit is a serious sin as warned in scriptures, and it would not be a wise thing to attribute someone's miraculous testimony to Satan and demons, no matter how skeptic you are. Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death, so if you're not sure whether someone's miraculous testimony is true or not, remain skeptic, and do not attribute it to demons, and ask yourself the question that Jesus asked, which is how can Satan drive out Satan!

Bible Study: Reprobates #1

One of  the most famous passages in the Bible that speaks of reprobates is Proverbs 1:22-33. Starting at verse 22, it says, “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you—when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me, since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord. Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

It sounds pretty harsh, doesn't it? Some might tell you that this passage is written in the Old Testament and it does not apply to the new covenant. They might even quote Romans 10:13 and say look, under the new covenant, whoever calls on the name of the Lord, will be saved; so this means that it's never too late! But Paul in Romans 10:13 is quoting from Joel 2:32 which is in the Old Testament and it doesn't say whenever, it says whoever. You see, salvation has always been by grace through faith, and as we read in Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Malachi 3:6 tells us that God does not change and we know that God's patience is not infinite. The reprobate in Proverbs 1 is the person who has continually rejected God, and has refused to repent at God's rebuke and has grown harder and harder and has thought to himself that he will save repentance for when he's on his deathbed or close to death, thinking he can deceive God, and in this way sin without worrying about paying the price of sin.

The reprobate in Proverbs 1 seems to be someone who wants to abuse the spirit of grace. The reprobate in Proverbs 1 is someone who only remembers God during disasters and when everything is going well, he doesn't want to have anything to do with God. He's done this, not just once, or twice or three times but so much so that God's patience has run out. Pharaoh might be a good example. His heart had grown calloused and he was a wicked man; as a result, God hardened him in his rebellion and gave him over to his wicked desires. Exodus 9:16 tells us that God spared Pharaoh by raising him up in order that His name might be proclaimed in all the earth. In other words, when Pharaoh became a reprobate, God didn't immediately slain him, but allowed him to live a little longer in order to accomplish a purpose through him, which was to proclaim His name among all the earth. Also, notice that during the plagues, Pharaoh chose to harden himself on multiple occasions which gives us the impression that he still had a chance to repent.

Some people like to take Exodus 4:21 out of context and say that God hardened Pharaoh's heart and therefore it was God's fault, otherwise Pharaoh would've repented and obeyed God. But God says in the previous chapter, in Exodus 3:19, "For I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him." You see, the Bible doesn't have to tell us how many times God has rebuked Pharaoh through his conscience, the Holy Spirit, or other means. There is absolutely no place in the Bible where God arbitrarily hardens someone. Biblical hardening of heart is always a type of judgement which is known as judicial hardening. Having said that, it's noteworthy that not everyone who's hardened is a reprobate. For example, Paul in the book of Romans tells us that Israel has experienced a hardening in part—Romans 11:25. But he also asks a rhetorical question in verse 11, "Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?", and answers it, "Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious."

Bible Study: What Is The Nature of Hell?

John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life". As it is taught in Christianity, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, paid the price that we deserve to pay, so that anyone who believes in Him, should not perish, but be saved from God's wrath, which is yet to come.

Now, if the debt or wages of sin is an infinite debt, and it requires never-ending torture/torment in Hell, then Jesus Christ should still be on the Cross, otherwise we're still in our sins! Traditionalists argue that Jesus Christ, was a perfect God/Man, therefore He didn't need to suffer for eternity to pay the infinite debt that we owe to God. There is a problem with this logic though; an infinite being cannot possibly suffer for a finite period of time and replace it with an infinite period of suffering! It's simple Maths. It just doesn't add up! And of course He had to be perfect and innocent, otherwise He would be just like one of us, in need of redemption!

Having said that, God commands the Israelites in the Torah, to be just. As Exodus 21:24 states, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot". Punishing a criminal infinitely for a finite crime, is against God's nature. Traditionalists argue that because God is an infinite being, any rebellion or sin is ultimately against Him, and therefore the debt will be infinite. However, there's a problem with this logic; first of all, as the Bible says, God is just. He never says that people should be punished based on the offendee, but based on the offense! He says that everyone should be treated equally! And rebellion against God also has a punishment which was introduced to Adam in the very beginning. The punishment is "death" as stated in Genesis 2:17 by God Himself. In fact, it was the Serpent who deceived Adam in Genesis 3, saying that the punishment is not death! "The serpent said to the woman, 'You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil'". Genesis 3:4-5. Perhaps one of the most popular verses in the New Testament is Romans 6:23 where Paul says "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". Interestingly enough, even if the debt is infinite, the fact is that literal death is an infinite punishment, because it is irreversible and its result will last for all eternity!

Traditionalists argue that "death" shouldn't be taken literally in this context, and that the true interpretation is "separation from God". But there's again a problem with this claim, because God makes it crystal clear in Genesis 3 that it's a literal death and its true interpretation is in fact "annihilation"! In Genesis 3:19, God says "For dust you are and to dust you will return". I don't think God could possibly be any clearer, about what "death" really means in this context.

Why I Don't Believe In Calvinism

You've probably heard the endless discussion(s) among Calvinists and non-Calvinists with regards to soteriology. I'm not going to bore you with those discussions, I'm only going to tell you why I don't believe in Calvinism or double predestination. You can become convinced too, you just need to sit down and have a genuine talk about it with God.

Me: God, there are places in the Bible that talks about predestination. If you have predestined who goes to hell and who goes to heaven, why do you ask people to choose life, repent and call upon Your name? Have you predestined the second part as well?

God: Because I have predestined whoever repents and calls upon my name to be saved and no son, I have not predestined the second part. People have genuine free-will and that's the ultimate reason why some will end up in hell.

Me: That makes sense. To be honest, this is exactly what I thought until I came to know the Calvinists, you know? And then they almost got me to believe in double predestination.

God: Yeah that happens a lot and it's because the enemy loves to twist my words. This is why you need to read the Bible through prayers, and ask me to help you understand it in context. Remember, I said do not call anyone your teacher; you only have one teacher and he is the Messiah.

Me: Thanks God. I'll make sure I do that from now on. LOVE YOU HEAPS Abba! Words can't explain how much I love you, and how much I'm thankful for the Cross <3

God: Love you too son <3

Biblical Apologetics: Debunking Deism

Deism is a belief that there is a God who has created the universe but remains apart from it, and therefore we don't have any revelations. This worldview begs the question: if there are no revelations from this God, and this God stays apart from creation, then how on earth can we know anything about this God? The main problem with Deism is very much like the problem with Atheism; whether you're willing to acknowledge the fact that there is a God or not, you can't claim to know if this God is guiding you, deceiving you, or just experimenting with something and you're part of the experiment. As long as you can't answer this question, you can't claim to know anything to any degree, because you don't have any evidence or records of this God in human history whatsoever to appeal to and make a case for why we should trust our cognitive faculties that are created by this anonymous God.

But the Christian God is a personal God, and He has spoken and revealed Himself to us, not only through His Creation, consciousness, and conscience but also most specifically through the Scriptures, or the Bible, written throughout human history.

Most of the deists I know are agnostic; in other words, they're not making any knowledge claims about this God they're appealing to and are open to the truth of the Gospel. In such cases, witnessing or arguing takes a different path, and the historical evidence for the resurrection would be a good start. On the other hand, there are deists who are hard-core and anti-theist. They actually claim that all religions are false, and they try to justify their ability to reason by appealing to an anonymous God. But, as I said above, this will beg the question of what basis they are trusting something that has been designed by an anonymous God, whom we have no idea what is up to.

Now, the objection they might have to us questioning their blind faith will go something like this: “The same thing applies to everyone or any theist. You too can't know if the God of the Bible is deceiving you or not.” This is the tu quoque fallacy, and by committing this fallacy, not only do they refute themselves by undermining their trust in their cognitive faculties and generalizing it by making a truth claim about everyone else, but they are also wrong about the Christian worldview.

According to the Christian worldview, as I explained above, the Creator of the universe is a personal God, and He has revealed the truth to us such that we're without excuse. That's how we can be absolutely certain that child molestation is immoral. It would be ludicrous to say that there might be a god or a supernatural power who is deceiving us about this issue and that child molestation could be moral! Not only that, but the Christian God has been present from the beginning of Creation and has warned His Creation from the very beginning about what would happen if they disobey Him. The book of Genesis is one of the reasons the Bible stands out.

Now, if they want to appeal to a personal God—which is what Pantheists usually do—then they will need an objective source of divine revelation to justify what they're saying, which is something that both Deists and Pantheists are afraid of. The main reason Deists don't like to affiliate themselves with any religion is that they don't like to appeal to divine revelations or a book, so to speak.

If they want to claim that the only divine revelation they're appealing to is through our consciousness and conscience—which is what Pantheists do—then we can press them on more difficult moral issues such as same-sex relationships or incest, for instance, and they need to demonstrate how we can tell who's got the right revelation from God: them or those who disagree with them? The point is to demonstrate that without a written revelation, we can't have an objective source, and everyone can claim to have a divine revelation every day, and we won't have a way of telling who's telling the truth.

They might say that written revelations are also subjective and open to interpretation because they're written by men, and that's correct, which is why we expect a rational God to reveal the written revelations throughout history within different generations, with prophecies and signs, and make it stand out among all the other counterfeits. If you look into history, there's only one revelation like that: the Bible. This is the very reason why the Bible is still the best-seller in the world, except, of course, in countries that have banned it and resort to censorship to make indoctrination easier.

If you haven't read my article on debunking atheism, I strongly recommend that you read it. If you learn how to debunk atheism, then you can use the same arguments to debunk almost any worldview, especially those that do not appeal to properly preserved and reliable divine revelation from God throughout human history—which is pretty much every single non-Abrahamic worldview out there!

The only worldviews that appeal to infallible divine revelations from God throughout human history are the Abrahamic worldviews, and among them, Christianity stands out, mainly because of having more than 300 prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament and the resurrection case. I also explained in another article why Islam cannot be true, and I am planning to write articles on debunking the other cults that exist within the Abrahamic worldview, plus the Jewish objections to Jesus.

I believe the articles that I have written on debunking Islam, Atheism, and Deism so far are enough to debunk all non-Abrahamic worldviews, plus Islam, which is an Abrahamic worldview that appears to be the closest one to Christianity but is just a counterfeit and is easy to debunk. Also, the same reasoning that I have used in this article can be used to debunk ridiculous analogies, such as why not Magical Pixies, Santa, Zeus, etc.

Seeking The Truth

Based on my own personal experience, these are the steps that you're required to take if you're genuinely seeking the truth and you're desperate for answers:

1. Thou shall shut down the mainstream media, for they are weapons of mass deception.
2. Thou shall not care what people would think about you, should the truth be unpopular.
3. Thou shall be prepared for the costs, even if it means you're going to lose everything.
4. Thou shall not trust anyone, including yourself, but wholly and only trust your Creator.
5. Thou shall ask, and thou shall receive!

Thou shall find the truth, and the truth shall set you free!

Now, you might take issue with step 4, because I say you shall not even trust yourself but only trust your Creator. You might ask: "How do we know if we have a Creator in the first place?" Or "How will we know if our Creator is telling us the truth or not?"

Romans 1:18-22 tells us that everybody knows there's a Creator from the things that have been made because God has made it clear to them, such that they're without excuse. It goes on and tells us that sometimes people suppress the truth, and as a result, their thinking becomes foolish, even though they profess to be wise. I tried to demonstrate the foolishness of denying God in my previous article, Debunking Atheism. I showed in my article how the naturalistic and/or atheistic worldview self-destructs and gets reduced to absurdity.

There are two problems with the second question. First, it's self-undermining; in other words, it presupposes that there is a way to know if our Creator is deceiving us or not while it goes on and expects a satisfying answer, which would be impossible should we be living in a world where its creator is deceiving us. The second problem with this question is that it presupposes that the Creator of everything and everyone does not have the ability to reveal and/or prove the truth to us, such that afterwards we'll know that it's the truth and that He's not deceiving us; in other words, it poses a limit on God that would be hypothetically impossible.

Biblical Apologetics: Debunking Atheism

I will begin this article with a quote from Claudia Pavonis: “How is it that a man borne from nature can use his intelligence to somehow come to the conclusion that the nature he is borne from is unintelligent? This is the very definition of an oxymoron,” and a quote from Isaac Newton: "In the absence of all other evidence, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence." As these quotes suggest, the evidence for God, Creation, and Intelligent Design is so apparent that denying it reduces one's worldview to absurdity. My main goal in this article is to demonstrate that for a naturalist or atheist to conclude that God doesn't exist, God must exist. Therefore, atheism and naturalism are self-refuting worldviews. In other words, atheism self-destructs, much like Islam, as I showed in my previous article.

Atheists often present themselves as being on neutral ground, inviting theists to board their "airplane" to argue for the existence of God. Many theists fall into this trap, and no matter how they argue, they ultimately end up at the unbeliever’s destination. The real neutral ground, however, is where both parties acknowledge the existence of God, because without that acknowledgment, no one can make knowledge claims or prove anything, as I will demonstrate.

It's clear that in order to reason or reach a conclusion, one must have the ability to reason, which is typically referred to as 'intelligence' or 'intelligibility.' If nature is all there is, with no intelligent design behind it, then our thoughts must be bound by the laws of nature. This would mean we can’t possess free will, intelligence, or the ability to reason. Our thoughts would be as insignificant as chemical reactions elsewhere in nature. If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. In this scenario, the difference between my thoughts and an atheist's thoughts would be no different than the difference between shaking a bottle of Mountain Dew and one of Dr. Pepper—you simply fizz atheistically, and I fizz theistically. This means that atheism isn’t held because it’s true or neutral, but rather because of chemical reactions in the brain beyond one’s control. Without God, everything becomes meaningless.

Many people instinctively understand this, even if they can’t fully articulate it. They get that without God, nothing has ultimate meaning, even if they struggle to express why. Rejecting this truth requires significant intellectual and emotional effort, which is unhealthy. Most atheists I’ve spoken with either acknowledge this truth or refuse to debate their epistemology, suppressing the truth to the point where they deny the existence of truth itself and claim relativism, while still making knowledge claims. This contradiction is common, and their reaction is similar to that of Muslims when faced with the self-refuting nature of their worldview; they either become angry or attempt to change the subject. People often feel threatened by arguments that challenge their deeply held beliefs, and instead of confronting them, they choose to ignore them. This is cognitive dissonance in action.

Atheists may respond with, "This is a strawman definition of atheism. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God, gods, or the supernatural due to a lack of evidence. Your argument is based on ignorance—saying, 'I don't know, therefore God exists'—a version of the god-of-the-gaps argument. You're shifting the burden of proof." This is a misrepresentation of my argument, but I will address it. First, it doesn’t matter how atheism is defined—an atheist is living according to a belief that there is no God, which makes it a worldview. They might claim their worldview allows for God, but they interpret all evidence through atheistic presuppositions, which always lead back to atheism. I’m not arguing from ignorance; I’m arguing for the impossibility of the contrary, to show that atheism is self-refuting. For an atheist to refute this, they must demonstrate how their worldview can account for intelligence or intelligibility. They can’t, and they know it. In fact, they argue from ignorance by assuming things that can never be justified within their worldview. If you press them, their epistemology will be revealed as a series of unsubstantiated assumptions that cannot be justified by their view of the world.

Finally, this is not shifting the burden of proof. The burden of proof presupposes truth and a method for knowing the truth, which requires intelligibility—something that an atheistic worldview cannot provide. If you're an atheist and you understand this argument, you have no choice but to abandon your current worldview and begin exploring deistic or theistic worldviews, acknowledging that God or some form of the supernatural is not only real but necessary for intelligibility. Without this, even your ability to reason would be questionable, and you'd have no reason to trust your cognitive faculties to seek the truth.

Another common atheist defense is: "Okay, fine. I can't account for logic, intelligibility, or rationality, but neither can YOU! I can't know the truth, but neither can YOU!" This is the tu-quoque fallacy, and in making this argument, atheists admit that debating is pointless because there’s no such thing as truth—or if there is, we can't know it—which itself is a truth claim. They don’t realize that they are contradicting themselves. By making these statements, they refute themselves repeatedly and intellectually dishonestly claim that an all-knowing Creator cannot reveal the truth to us in a way that we can know. They fail to see that appealing to an omniscient God doesn't lead to circular reasoning, which is based on question-begging assumptions and blind faith.

To recap, it’s easy to get atheists to admit that according to their worldview, morality is subjective; in fact, most atheists already agree with this. With a little more effort, we can show that everything in their worldview is subjective and a matter of opinion, and no one can prove anything. Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool has said in his heart: 'There is no God.'" Proverbs 18:2 says, "Fools find no pleasure in understanding but only delight in airing their own opinions." And Proverbs 26:4-5 gives us guidance on how to answer the fool, which is essentially what I’m doing here: rather than allowing the conversation to proceed based on opinions, I aim to demonstrate the folly of denying God.

I’ll conclude this article with a quote from David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics. His argument addresses atheists who try to justify their reasoning by appealing to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, random mutation, and natural selection. He argues, “Many atheists believe that argumentation can prove God doesn't exist. But if Naturalism is true, human reasoning ability is unreliable on a fundamental level and can’t prove anything, let alone theological or metaphysical claims. Hence, Naturalism is self-refuting, for it undermines any confidence we might have in our ability to defend it. If we are to trust our reasoning ability, it must be grounded in something other than random mutation and natural selection. Theism offers such a foundation.”

Biblical Apologetics: Debunking Islam

What about Islam? What about the Quran? How do you know Muslims aren't right, and you're not heading to their Hell? You've probably heard these questions from skeptics, haven't you? It's often a reaction to Pascal's Wager. For those who aren't familiar, Pascal's Wager is a weak argument some Christians use, claiming that if unbelievers are right, no one will know, but if Christians are right, unbelievers will lose big time. The problem with this argument is that Christianity isn't the only religion claiming to be the only way to God—so, what about Islam?

Islam is unique in that it strictly teaches that it is the only way, and those who reject it will go to Hell. In this post, I aim to demonstrate that Islam is a self-refuting religion that has to borrow from Judeo-Christian Scriptures to make its case. Notice that I won’t be using the promotion of violence in the Quran or Hadith against Islam, as is common in Christian and non-Christian opposition. Using violence in an apologetic context is an example of the argumentum ad baculum fallacy. Simply because a religion promotes violence doesn’t mean it’s false. Disliking something doesn’t make it untrue; concluding that it is, is a non-sequitur.

Before continuing, let's address the question: "Is Allah the same God that Jews and Christians worship?" This is a tricky question, and the answer isn’t as clear-cut as many would want. A short answer is yes, Allah is the same God. "Allah" is simply the Arabic term for God, even used by Arab Christians. However, what about the famous Islamic saying, often seen on flags like those of ISIS or Saudi Arabia, "There is no God but Allah"? There is indeed a more generic Arabic term for "God," "Elah," used in this oath. I personally believe "Allah" is a specific name rather than just a generic word for God, derived from Aramaic, the language from which modern Arabic comes. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that Allah was the chief deity worshiped by the Meccan pantheists before the advent of Islam.

To cut to the point, if we dig too deep, we might say that no, Allah is not the same God as worshipped by Jews and Christians, nor is it a generic term for God in Arabic. I believe Arab Christians may have been misled by their language on this matter. But setting aside these complexities, we can agree that Allah of the Quran claims to be the same God that Jews and Christians worship. Therefore, it's logical to assume that Muslims "think" they worship the same Abrahamic God. However, even if they do worship the same God, it doesn’t mean they are saved, because according to the Gospel, worship alone doesn't save us from sin. True worship is a privilege that brings us into God’s presence, but that’s a separate issue.

Now, any rational person would agree that if Allah of the Quran claims to be the same God worshipped by Jews and Christians, the Quran should align with both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The reason for this is simple: new revelations fulfill old ones. In Christianity, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, also known as the Tanakh. Christianity doesn’t claim that the Hebrew Bible has been corrupted or changed, as this would undermine Christianity itself. Instead, Christians use the Hebrew Bible to prove that the Gospel fulfills what was promised in the Old Testament and is a new revelation from God.

The question is: does Islam follow the same logic? The answer is no, it does not. The teachings in the Quran contain contradictions to both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, so much so that Muslims claim the Bible has been corrupted. This claim violates basic logic and common sense and undermines Islam and the Quran, proving to any rational person that Islam is self-refuting.

It gets more interesting. The Quran includes verses that affirm the inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Allah commands Muhammad to let Christians judge the Quran by the Gospel, and in one place, Allah even tells Muhammad to ask the "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians) if he doubts the new revelations. This is shocking and raises the question: how can there be over a billion Muslims in the world? The answer is simple: most Muslims haven’t even read their own book, let alone the Bible. Unfortunately, the same is true for many Christians. People are often blindly following the crowd. But what about the leaders of Islam? The ones who study these issues and still promote the Quran? How can they not see this contradiction? The answer is cognitive dissonance—people would rather stick with their beliefs than think critically.

One might object, asking, “What about you? Don’t you see contradictions in the Bible? Isn’t the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament?” These objections would be valid if Christians claimed the Hebrew Bible had been corrupted and then picked and chose passages to support the New Testament, as Muslim apologists do with the Bible. But that’s not what Christians claim. For every alleged contradiction in the Bible, whether in the Old or New Testament, there’s at least one explanation; you just need to research it. People who raise objections like these haven’t studied the issues. They are following the crowd, just like many Muslims.

To recap, the Quran affirms the inspiration, preservation, and authority of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Yet it contradicts those Scriptures on fundamental doctrines like Jesus' death, resurrection, and deity. By affirming Scriptures that contradict Islam, the Quran self-destructs. I recommend watching a video by David Wood, called The Islamic Dilemma. Google it and it should come up!

My Background & Testimony

Everybody has a story. Everybody is on a journey. Everybody is seeking the ultimate truth. Everybody is looking for the ultimate purpose in life. I wasn’t exempt either until I finally found what I was looking for. Where do I start? It’s kind of a long story, and the last thing I want to do is bore my readers with the details. So, without further ado, let’s get straight to the point.

I’m Persian by descent, from Tehran, the capital of Iran. I was born and raised in a devout Muslim family—the Shiite sect of Islam, to be specific. The name my parents chose for me was the name of the founder of Islam, Mohammad. Like everybody else, I learned and practiced Islam, and at the time, it seemed like the only legitimate religion in the world. This was mainly because of how people are indoctrinated by the mainstream media, schools, and the lack of free speech; almost all Islamic states in the world are pretty isolated. I could never completely believe in everything written in the Quran. I always had philosophical and theological questions that were left unanswered. I remember how the idea of eternal conscious torment was something I could never grasp; I couldn’t understand how and why God would send people to a place called Hell instead of punishing them and then ending their existence. I couldn’t see how the traditional Hell—one that even the majority of Christians seem to believe in—could be a just punishment.

Apart from my questions, I always found following the Sharia almost impossible and often found myself guilty of breaking its rules repeatedly. But I didn’t give up until I moved to Australia to study. After I arrived, I gradually broke more rules, and within a year, I decided to let go of Islam completely and become a Deist. In case you don’t know, Deism is the belief that there is most definitely a God/Creator, but that all religions are man-made and untrustworthy. I felt pretty comfortable with that position and made all sorts of friends. Deep down, I still knew what was right and wrong, and I often found myself doing what was wrong. Feeling guilty before God is a very unpleasant experience, as you all know. No matter how much you suppress the truth, there will come a time when you can’t suppress it anymore, and the convictions can sometimes be crippling. In my conversations with God, I would often point the finger at Him, asking, “Why did You create me? Why do You let me live? Why don’t You just end my life? I feel like I can’t be who You want me to be; You expect too much from me!”

Anyway, I graduated from university, found a job, and was waiting for my permanent visa when a movie about the Bible caught my attention. I decided to watch it. I have to admit, the movie touched me profoundly; it was as if God was speaking to me through it. At the time, I had many convictions in my heart—not for breaking the Sharia, but for breaking the very basic laws of morality that I believed were written in my conscience. I was also dealing with a worsening physical injury. The movie broke me down into tears. All of a sudden, I was madly in love with Jesus. I knew He was different from anyone else in history. But that wasn’t enough, was it? Surely, I needed to research and determine how much of this movie was based on historical facts. What could I really know about Jesus?

The idea of Jesus being called the Son of God was troubling to me, perhaps because I had been strictly taught by the Quran that it’s blasphemous to associate a partner with God or call Jesus the Son of God. Beyond that, the idea of God having a Son went against almost everything I believed about God and His unity.

So, I started extensive research. I watched a couple of debates, and after the second one, it was almost as clear as day that Islam was wrong on many levels—it just didn’t make sense. Islam seemed to steal from the Bible, which it considers corrupted, to make its case. Whether the Bible has changed or not, Muslim apologists in these debates seemed dishonest, often taking verses from the Bible out of context to support their arguments. But that wasn’t enough for me. I read parts of the Bible, and its words deeply affected me. I became confused as hell. On one hand, Islam seemed like a cult; on the other hand, something was holding me back. I thought to myself, “If Islam is a cult, then perhaps all religions are cults. Or perhaps there’s no God at all?”

As soon as the thought of atheism arose, a voice yelled through my conscience, as if I was speaking to myself, saying, “You know that God is real. Regardless of what any religion says, you can’t deny Him.” I found myself talking to God, saying, “God, I can’t say You don’t exist. Among all the people in history who have claimed to be sent by You, I’m finding it hard to say Jesus was a phony. Please help me, God. I can’t know what the truth is. I’m lost, and words can’t explain how desperate I am. I’m certain that I cannot know the truth unless You reveal it to me.”

Immediately after this conversation, I stopped crying. A profound peace came over me, and I somehow knew that Jesus is the way. I decided to follow Him immediately. It may seem like a hasty decision since I hadn’t read the whole Bible yet, but I trusted my intuition. The experience of God’s presence was real—it was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life.

That night, I had the strangest dream. I was being beaten by an evil character who threatened to kill me if I didn’t return to Islam. Crying and yelling, I declared that I had made my decision and would never go back to Islam. When I woke up, I realized I had never experienced such peace. It was as if a demon had left me.

Of course, the journey wasn’t easy. I encountered intellectual and emotional challenges, faced good arguments against Christianity, and grappled with doubt. But every time I prayed, I felt reassured of the truth of Christianity. Through this process, God also taught me how to intellectually address those arguments, and I plan to document some of that in this blog.