What A Bizarre Day!

[Minimalist]

Actually.....it's less that the sun "set" and more like you guys turned off the lights and went to bed.

[Cyberman]

The sad part is we're still in bed, fast asleep, despite all the noise and mess you lot are making.

[Minimalist]

Oh, don't copy us. We're on the verge of electing another war-starting douchebag.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

This was quite interesting and I'm glad you got the opportunity.

I'm really really really fascinated as to why that Christian you mentioned converted to Islam. Were there any reasons given? I've heard of Christian women converting to Islam to marry a Muslim they fell in love with though.

[FallentoReason]

This was quite interesting and I'm glad you got the opportunity.

I'm really really really fascinated as to why that Christian you mentioned converted to Islam. Were there any reasons given? I've heard of Christian women converting to Islam to marry a Muslim they fell in love with though.

There were two things that I gathered as to why he converted.

1) It didn't seem logical to him that a god would have to sacrifice something in order to provide forgiveness and salvation. So he didn't find the Christian God's way of salvation logical. Of course he told me his conversion wasn't overnight, so there must have been other things he was questioning as well for a while.

2) The justification of why the Qur'an is reliable. Mohammed was very well respected in his society because he never lied to anyone. So when he told everyone he had received revelations from god himself, everyone was inclined to believe him. The other component to this that makes it more believable is that he mentions all these scientific facts ahead of his time.

Two things that I think he hasn't thought about (and thus opening the doors to perhaps more emotional reasons for converting) are the nature of salvation according to Mohammed, and a more subtle detail concerning one of the teachings of Mohammed.

i) The Christian and I asked them how salvation works exactly. We got told that we just need to repent and Allah will forgive our sins. The Christian asked where the justice was in that, because there was no punishment whatsoever in that. I.e. it's like a murderer telling the judge at a court that he's really really sorry and that's enough for him to walk away without any penalty. So in essence one could lead an absolutely terrible life and just say you're sorry and you're guaranteed to go to heaven. They couldn't justify this and told us to speak with the Muslim preacher or someone higher above than themselves.

ii) Mohammed teaches that Jesus was just another prophet. He also says that it wasn't Jesus that died on the cross but the traitor Judas Iscariot. He was mistaken to be Jesus because Allah literally transformed his face so that he would look like Jesus.

Because I personally believe the Biblical Jesus isn't real, this rules out Mohammed as being someone that was getting revelation from Allah because he told a fib.

So it was interesting to see that he was rational in his reasons for leaving Christianity, but then I'm not sure what he saw in Islam that was rational to him. Maybe he isn't as informed as some of us with the history of it all.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

...
So it was interesting to see that he was rational in his reasons for leaving Christianity, but then I'm not sure what he saw in Islam that was rational to him. Maybe he isn't as informed as some of us with the history of it all.

Interesting. Seems that the arguments used for believing Islam are very similar to what I've heard for Christianity (i.e. Gospels mention real places in detail, a mass of followers wouldn't have arisen unless Jesus existed and did what the Bible says, etc, etc, etc).

[FallentoReason]

...
So it was interesting to see that he was rational in his reasons for leaving Christianity, but then I'm not sure what he saw in Islam that was rational to him. Maybe he isn't as informed as some of us with the history of it all.

Interesting. Seems that the arguments used for believing Islam are very similar to what I've heard for Christianity (i.e. Gospels mention real places in detail, a mass of followers wouldn't have arisen unless Jesus existed and did what the Bible says, etc, etc, etc).

Yes, very true. He did mention something to me and I was surprised that he was ok with that. "Qur'an" literally means 'the recitation' which is referring to the recitation of Mohammed's revelations amongst that community. How long was this 'recitation' or oral tradition going on for exactly? 10 years he said, until Mohammed was getting close to dying so they got literate people to start writing everything down.

Oral traditions aren't something I find rational to believe in. The OT is the same thing and the Gospels are short bursts of oral tradition i.e. hearsay... The Qur'an boldly states it's no different to this!

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

...
So it was interesting to see that he was rational in his reasons for leaving Christianity, but then I'm not sure what he saw in Islam that was rational to him. Maybe he isn't as informed as some of us with the history of it all.

Interesting. Seems that the arguments used for believing Islam are very similar to what I've heard for Christianity (i.e. Gospels mention real places in detail, a mass of followers wouldn't have arisen unless Jesus existed and did what the Bible says, etc, etc, etc).

Yes, very true. He did mention something to me and I was surprised that he was ok with that. "Qur'an" literally means 'the recitation' which is referring to the recitation of Mohammed's revelations amongst that community. How long was this 'recitation' or oral tradition going on for exactly? 10 years he said, until Mohammed was getting close to dying so they got literate people to start writing everything down.

Oral traditions aren't something I find rational to believe in. The OT is the same thing and the Gospels are short bursts of oral tradition i.e. hearsay... The Qur'an boldly states it's no different to this!

It's really illuminating for me coming from a Christian apologetics background to see apologetical defenses of other religions such as Islam. The arguments I use to use are really no better than what Islam can argue with. It ultimately boils down to which set of unverifiable and unfalsifiable set of spiritual beliefs sound better to you. One might as well just believe in native american religions. And if you look at probably most of the strongest and loudest apologists for any religion, you'll probably find a number of them admit (such as W.L. Craig has) that it was never reason that got them to believe, but just some religious experience. "Reason" is just a tool they have to "regrettably" (I've heard some of them actually say using reason is a necessary evil!) have to use to put out the fires of atheists. To many of them, reason and logic is just another language they have to learn and use to witness to modern heathens just like they might have to learn the tongue of a primitive tribe to spread the word in the 3rd world.

[FallentoReason]

And if you look at probably most of the strongest and loudest apologists for any religion, you'll probably find a number of them admit (such as W.L. Craig has) that it was never reason that got them to believe, but just some religious experience.

After we all left, the Christian told me his greatest evidence for God was the change in his life. But.. why does he attribute it to God and not Allah? Because of where he was born! I conveyed this to them through a little experiment.

I don't know if you read my post earlier where I did a little experiment with them regarding miracles. Basically, if all of us were to witness some sort of event classified as a miracle, then how would we know whose god it was that caused it? The only reason why they would attribute it to their respective god is because of their geographical and thus cultural backgrounds, and of course their biased view of their god as a cause of that. Neither the Christian nor the Muslims said it definitely would have been their god if such a thing happened in front of us. I think they realised that the other party would say it was their god because they were either brought up to believe in that god OR it's the predominant religion in their culture. So they must have realised this is true of them too. Of course neither admitted to it.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

And if you look at probably most of the strongest and loudest apologists for any religion, you'll probably find a number of them admit (such as W.L. Craig has) that it was never reason that got them to believe, but just some religious experience.

After we all left, the Christian told me his greatest evidence for God was the change in his life. But.. why does he attribute it to God and not Allah? Because of where he was born! I conveyed this to them through a little experiment.

I don't know if you read my post earlier where I did a little experiment with them regarding miracles. Basically, if all of us were to witness some sort of event classified as a miracle, then how would we know whose god it was that caused it? The only reason why they would attribute it to their respective god is because of their geographical and thus cultural backgrounds, and of course their biased view of their god as a cause of that. Neither the Christian nor the Muslims said it definitely would have been their god if such a thing happened in front of us. I think they realised that the other party would say it was their god because they were either brought up to believe in that god OR it's the predominant religion in their culture. So they must have realised this is true of them too. Of course neither admitted to it.

Yeah, that's an interesting argument. It's just the "where you grew up" part reminds me too much of a genetic fallacy. And Christians who know their stuff say that you can't automatically assume that a miracle comes from God since demons can perform miracles too.