Convert me if you can

[barboft]

No. It's because he / she is pretending. That's the reason.

[Edwardo Piet]

Why do you think he is pretending? Because you don't agree with him?

[DeistPaladin]

What you're asking is pointless. You're pretending to be interested in something when really you're not interested. What is your true aim here?

I'm interested in knowing why, besides childhood indoctrination, would anyone put any stock in this religion at all. I understand why people would convert to Christianity. The slick package they offer would con the unwary and uninformed. I don't understand how anyone could find Islam remotely convincing.

[barboft]

My posts keep getting removed.

[Edwardo Piet]

If you have a problem such as that I suggest that you contact a staff member.

[barboft]

Can't you come out of retirement and fix it?

[GodIsNotGreat]

I'm interested in knowing why, besides childhood indoctrination, would anyone put any stock in this religion at all. I understand why people would convert to Christianity. The slick package they offer would con the unwary and uninformed. I don't understand how anyone could find Islam remotely convincing.

Muslim reasons would be:

1. Islam is more monotheistic. The Christian trinity is polytheistic, they associate partners with God.
2. The poetic beauty of the Qur'an being proof of divine origin.
3. The most common method of Muslim brainwashing nowadays is the scientific miracles of the Qur'an. They're incredibly deceptive and a lot of Muslims use them to rationalise their belief.
4. They also whitewash Islamic history, glorifying Mohammed and explain away the nastier verses of the Qur'an.

[Ashendant]

And this reveals a contradiction between two of your arguments on Islam and Christianity, which are:

1. Islam seems to be far more crude than Christianity for several reasons.
2. That there's not a dime's worth of difference between Islam and Christianity, which you have clearly said in this thread.

In my country we had 3 shepherds that saw the virgin mary and predicted the 2 world wars and the attempt of assassination of the pope... and a severe case of selective mass hallucination

[Rayaan]

I'll just pose the question are you certain that the Hadiths are so universally accepted as true by mainstream Muslims?

Yes, hadiths as a whole are accepted as true by mainstream Muslims, but not all of them are accepted as 100% true because there are varying degrees of authenticity depending on the number of narrators, the isnad, meaning, translation, logical consistency, and other aspects of the hadiths. Therefore, the early scholars of Islam developed a way of classifying the hadiths according to their level of authenticity. And there are a vast amount of literature and Islamic books on the topic of hadith classification. Here's a link with a brief introduction:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/...ences.html

The Muslims who reject hadiths and only accept the Quran are amongst the minority, they are in a fringe group of Islam. They are mostly the modern revisionist Muslims.

If that's the case, I'd consider it to be the analog to the Book of Acts of the Apostles, which has been incorporated into the Bible as canon but nonetheless serves the same purpose. This argument's a wash.

The Hadiths have never been incorporated into the Quran as the Book of Acts were incorporated into the Bible.

Also, hadiths are not analogous to the Book of Acts because the many of the hadiths have been passed down with a sound chain of transmission and they were narrated by many different people whose exact names and their relation to the Prophet (pbuh) are also recorded, and from a scholarly perspective, The Acts of the Apostles clearly does not have the same level of authenticity as the statements that are compiled in Sahih al-Bukhari. You shouldn't even question about this anymore.

The first contrasts the case for Islam with the case for Christianity.
The second deals with what these religions preach, represent, the nature of their god, the nature of their afterlife, the nature of their moral code, and what they do to the people and nations that adopt them.
One is about whether or not its true.
The second is about what these religions are.
Clear?

Thanks for clarifying that. But still, it's wrong which I'm going to explain in the comments below.

The Christians have a slick package of supposed eye-witnesses and the traditions of a church established by Jesus and his apostles and disciples who would have personally known him or lived within his lifetime.

Oh, so the "slick package" are the supposed eye-witnesses of the apostles and disciplines of Jesus. This means the Muslim package is not as "slick" then (which is a good thing).

Muslims have some guy who came along much later who wouldn't have known squat about Jesus except what he was told from the very people who he claims got it all wrong. Clear?

Then tell me, exactly what are those things which Muhammad said that people got it all wrong about Jesus?

Fine but do any of these eye-witness accounts offer any testimony about Jesus?

The eye-witness accounts do not offer any testimony about Jesus because the Muslims didn't even see Jesus. The hadiths only trace back to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Again, it's about who knew Jesus better.

1. God knew Jesus better, not the people.

2. What Muhammad knew about Jesus was revealed to him from God in the same way that Jesus knew things about the previous prophets.

You are desperate to believe Rayaan. Only when you lose that desperation will you be able to see clearly.

Not desperate to believe, because I already believe. I would never try to intentionally fool myself into believing as if I'm "desperate" to believe. What's the point of it?

Either show me some evidence or stop wasting my time.

Oh yeah, that's the ultimate killer sentence which all theists are afraid to answer ...

But it's good to know that you still haven't given up on being a skeptic. So, just keep your mind open like this because you never know when you might find some evidence.

[DeistPaladin]

Oh, so the "slick package" are the supposed eye-witnesses of the apostles and disciplines of Jesus. This means the Muslim package is not as "slick" then (which is a good thing).

Agreed. A crude lie is better than a slick one because it's easier to spot.

Then tell me, exactly what are those things which Muhammad said that people got it all wrong about Jesus?

That he was divine, an intercessor for mortals with God, who's sacrifice redeemed us from sin. That much all the branches of Christianity seemed to agree on.

The eye-witness accounts do not offer any testimony about Jesus because the Muslims didn't even see Jesus. The hadiths only trace back to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Then the Hadiths don't offer any evidence as to which religion got it right about Jesus and thus aren't relevant to this discussion.

1. God knew Jesus better, not the people.

So we're back to why didn't God tell the Christians instead of some guy while he was alone in a cave?

Not desperate to believe, because I already believe. I would never try to intentionally fool myself into believing as if I'm "desperate" to believe. What's the point of it?

Many believers are unsure of their own faith and know, somewhere deep in their minds, that it's all baloney. That's why they get so angry when their faith is challenged.