Discussion with a new age muslim

[Lebneni Murtad]

My friend is a Muslim, he is different. He follows the new age version of Islam.
He knows that I am an atheist, and pragmatic.
He is trying to reconvert me to Islam, I had three debates with him:
His premises are:
Him:We did not evolve, Aliens put us on earth and that they are experimenting with us and the alpha alien is Allah, while satan , demons and angels are also aliens.
We humans are the most preferred over other species, demons are less preffered but they are more advanced.
1st Debate:
I asked him: Do we have free will?
He replied :Yes we have.
I replied: But if god is omniscient, then we don't have free will.
He responded: A teacher gave a student the material to study and if he knows that the student didn't then he/she will fail, and god is like the teacher.
2nd Debate:
Him: Every living creature has a soul and it is based upon energy through the ATP.
He also explained how the ATP functions.
Me: If our energy/soul source is the food we eat and the soul is what built by individuality, character, conciousness, experiences, and for example we both eat the same exact thing why don't we act the same?
Him: The energy changes its form, and god gave u free will.
3rd Debate:
Him: Everything is intelligently designed.
Me: But why do we have useless organs and tissues in our bodies? Like the appendix.
Him:We have the appendix to store the bacteria responsible for breaking down sugars, and if someone has diarrhea the bacteria is stored in the appendix.
Me: Then what do think of Darwinian evolution?
Him: Darwin was only right about natural selection.
Me: Both of the concepts of intelligent design and natural selection contradict each other. If nature is about "survival of the fittest" then no need for intelligent design.
Him: Human beings did not originate from earth, we originated from another planet we are aliens to this earth, but we are adapting to it. Thats why a woman in labour is in severe pain, but other animals like baboons can give birth smoothly, and we can't control our instincts like the aliens can. The aliens want us to follow Islamic doctrine so we can progress, if God revealed himself we would be in chaos, so we are not ready for it.
He told me that his arguments are based on his research, I asked him about his sources but I forgot what they are.
I will be debating him most probably this week, his arguments still haven't persuaded, I know that it is highly probable for other creatures on other planets to exist, but I am still skeptical of his claim.
If we meet up, what should my response be?

[downbeatplumb]

Your friend seems to be a bit of an idiot.

A very amusing idiot though, keep the funny snippets coming.

[brewer]

Direct him to some qualified psychiatrists,...............or scientologists.

[vorlon13]

"Allah was an alien" would get his head on a pike in many locales . . .

[Brian37]

My friend is a Muslim, he is different. He follows the new age version of Islam.
He knows that I am an atheist, and pragmatic.
He is trying to reconvert me to Islam, I had three debates with him:
His premises are:
Him:We did not evolve, Aliens put us on earth and that they are experimenting with us and the alpha alien is Allah, while satan , demons and angels are also aliens.
We humans are the most preferred over other species, demons are less preffered but they are more advanced.
1st Debate:
I asked him: Do we have free will?
He replied :Yes we have.
I replied: But if god is omniscient, then we don't have free will.
He responded: A teacher gave a student the material to study and if he knows that the student didn't then he/she will fail, and god is like the teacher.
2nd Debate:
Him: Every living creature has a soul and it is based upon energy through the ATP.
He also explained how the ATP functions.
Me: If our energy/soul source is the food we eat and the soul is what built by individuality, character, conciousness, experiences, and for example we both eat the same exact thing why don't we act the same?
Him: The energy changes its form, and god gave u free will.
3rd Debate:
Him: Everything is intelligently designed.
Me: But why do we have useless organs and tissues in our bodies? Like the appendix.
Him:We have the appendix to store the bacteria responsible for breaking down sugars, and if someone has diarrhea the bacteria is stored in the appendix.
Me: Then what do think of Darwinian evolution?
Him: Darwin was only right about natural selection.
Me: Both of the concepts of intelligent design and natural selection contradict each other. If nature is about "survival of the fittest" then no need for intelligent design.
Him: Human beings did not originate from earth, we originated from another planet we are aliens to this earth, but we are adapting to it. Thats why a woman in labour is in severe pain, but other animals like baboons can give birth smoothly, and we can't control our instincts like the aliens can. The aliens want us to follow Islamic doctrine so we can progress, if God revealed himself we would be in chaos, so we are not ready for it.
He told me that his arguments are based on his research, I asked him about his sources but I forgot what they are.
I will be debating him most probably this week, his arguments still haven't persuaded, I know that it is highly probable for other creatures on other planets to exist, but I am still skeptical of his claim.
If we meet up, what should my response be?

This is how religion changes throughout history. It is why Mormon's grew. It is why Rasta became a religion. 

I will admit, this is the first time I have run into someone from Islam trying to drastically repackage old crap.

In reality, in real science, scientists know that atoms, as individual atoms, that make up everything, exist all over the universe. But in real science, at least within this solar system it should not surprise anyone if we find microbes say in the water ice caps on Mars or the moons of Jupiter. But as far as intelligent life, no. There are all sorts of flavors of ancient alien crap from the ancient Egyptians being visited and to the Mayans being visited. 

Mormons and Scientologists have really wacky bullshit they claim about life elsewhere. None of that reflects neutral science and what we really know about life and the universe. I promise you it is nonsense and no different than when new age Christians make the same bullshit claims.

It is true humans thought about life being in the stars too, but that is not the same as knowing modern science.

In modern science without religion, scientists would say with the 100s of billions of galaxies in the observable universe it should not shock us to find life elsewhere. But even with knowing that, that other life that might be out there is just as stuck in the macro world and would still have to deal with issue with fuel resources and mass distances. 

You cant mix Islam or Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism or Jewish with Star Trek, because even Star Trek is just a show. 

If you want to know about real science, stick with people like Richard Dawkins evolutionary biologist and QM scientist like Lawrence Krauss and astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson. All of them would say it is highly likely there is life elsewhere, but that still does not need a god of the gaps answer to explain, old mythology or new age are not required.

---

A more realistic theory would be something like the PROVABLE water bear(microscopic extremophile) which has the ability to survive extreme heat and extreme cold. It would be far more likely that a microbe like that piggybacked on a meteor or comet from elsewhere in our solar system or galaxy as our solar system revolved around the center of the galaxy. But outside that, no, anyone trying to say we were visited by little green men, and or trying to use that to point to a religion, is delusional.

It should always be viewed as a red flag when someone says "This says=my religion". Scientific method is not a religion, it is a tool, a neutral process.

[Fake Messiah]

OP, maybe you should ask him how aliens made us since there is no evidence of it and there is no evidence that aliens ever visited Earth. Or that aliens even exist.
If, to him, painful birth is evidence that aliens made us tell him it's because humans walk on two legs, unlike baboons. Besides, there is apparently way even for women to make birth not just unpainful, but full of pleasure. Like orgasmic birth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxB9mnKYr4M

[LastPoet]

Lol, its like a mormon variation of Islam.

[Fake Messiah]

Really for that kind of thinking I recommend you two watch documentary A Journey to Planet Sanity (2013).

[The Grand Nudger]

See, here I am, dumb ass atheist, thinking that our enormous heads might have something to do with the pain felt during childbirth.  Turns out it's cuz we're aliens.

[Aoi Magi]

Ask him to join us here