Javed Ahmad Ghamidi / Dr. Khalid Zaheer vs Ali Sina
Part XVI
March 5, 2007Dear Mr Ali SinaYou mentioned in response to my last-but-one message that you were responding to it late because you wanted to give the readers time to digest it. However, in response to my last message you were as swift as usual. I take it is a compliment for my last message.If I ignore the foul language, the exaggerated rhetoric, and the unnecessary repetition from your last message and mention some of the prominent points that need to be responded, those were these: i) Whatever I have mentioned as yet to prove the divine origins of the Qur’an was subjective. ii) I haven’t been able to present a clear miracle in the Qur’an. iii) It doesn’t make sense that God should ask Muslims to punish the non-Muslims when He could have punished them Himself. iv) The fact that God would ask Jesus on the Day of Judgment if he made his mother and himself a part of divinity even though He would already know the answer doesn’t make sense. v) Mr Ghamidi should continue to be a part of this debate because it would be read by a large number of Muslim youth too and he should come to the rescue of their faith because your arguments are distancing them from their faith.
I will now take up these points one by one. The Qur’anic message is neither subjective nor objective for the reader. It is subjective and vague for someone who is not interested to accept it, and objective and clear for the one who is genuinely interested in knowing whether it is from God or not. The example of it is like that of a new moon on the horizon. It is there for beholder to see, but not everyone can manage to do so. Only those who have clear eyesight and eagerness to see can manage it. Others too can do it if they sincerely look at the right direction. The Qur’an tells us that faith comes to those who want to believe; God becomes their protecting friend and brings them out of the darkness of unfaith to the light of faith. As for those who don’t want to believe, they are left to exercise their choice of not doing so. That is how the trial of this life is: You believe if you are eager to do so; you don’t believe if you are not. As for the miracle in the Qur’an, I have already presented to you the biggest of them all: the fact that the Qur’an presented from day one with unambiguous clarity that Muhammad, God’s mercy on him, is the messenger of God. It warned its immediate addressees that the implication of this reality is that like in the case of all the nations prior to him who rejected their respective messengers, Muhammad’s nation too would face the same fate. At the time in Makkah when he was accompanied by a handful of socially, economically, and politically weak companions this clear warning was subjected to ridicule by disbelievers quite the same way as you are doing now long after that miracle has clearly taken place right before the eyes of the entire world. If you don’t want to see it, there is no way I can manage to force you do so. The trial of this life is a test of character, which demands that you bow down before the truth that unfolds itself before you. However, if you have some hidden reason to deny the truth, God is not going God punished the enemies of the messengers through the swords of his companions because it was one of the ways He had at His disposal. All resources of this world belong to Him including humans. He does His task in different ways. Even if the enemies were to be destroyed through natural calamities, who could have stopped you from criticizing that too? The important thing is that you too accept that enemies of the prophet were punished the way it was prophesied. However, their punishment doesn’t satisfy your moral taste. I am sure you must be having reservations about the way people got killed in Noah’s flood too. Of course, it happened because God didn’t have you as His consultant and He did things the way He chose to. I am sure that you are far more intelligent than what appears from the questions you have raised against the process of accountability about Jesus. That is precisely what I am trying clarify about the trial of this worldly life: It is not quite as much a trial of intelligence as it is one of character. Since you are bent upon ridiculing the contents of the Qur’an, you have raised the silly question as to why would God ask Jesus if he declared his own divinity and that of his mother. Of course, in the process of a fair trial a judge asks all questions that are important for the trial to appear fair and transparent. It has nothing to do with the fact whether the judge already knows those facts or not. Your prejudice has clearly clouded your intellect to raise such an unintelligent question. You have mentioned that Mr Ghamidi should worry about the fact that thousands of young Muslims are reading this debate. Why should he worry when he knows that all truth-seeking people, Muslims or non-Muslims, would resort to the book of God, the Qur’an, to find which of the two contestants in the debate is presenting the correct version of the Qur’an. The first chapter of Gospel of John confirms that at the time when John the Baptist and Jesus Christ had come to this world, the learned Jews were waiting for another ‘the prophet’. The eighteenth chapter of Book of Deuteronomy promises that a Moses-like prophet would come. Let the people of the world decide who the awaited prophet was. Khalid Zaheer (Words: 1193) |
Dear Mr Ali SinaYou mentioned in response to my last-but-one message that you were responding to it late because you wanted to give the readers time to digest it. However, in response to my last message you were as swift as usual. I take it is a compliment for my last message. |
Dear Dr. Zaheer:
I am accusing your prophet of the most horrendous crimes and instead of trying to defend him you seem to be more interested in talking about the rules of the debate. We are in round seventeen of this debate. Don’t you think it is time to answer to some of the charges brought against Muhammad or try to give proofs that he was not a liar?
If I ignore the foul language, the exaggerated rhetoric, and the unnecessary repetition from your last message and mention some of the prominent points that need to be responded, those were these: i) Whatever I have mentioned as yet to prove the divine origins of the Qur’an was subjective. ii) I haven’t been able to present a clear miracle in the Qur’an. iii) It doesn’t make sense that God should ask Muslims to punish the non-Muslims when He could have punished them Himself. iv) The fact that God would ask Jesus on the Day of Judgment if he made his mother and himself a part of divinity even though He would already know the answer doesn’t make sense. v) Mr Ghamidi should continue to be a part of this debate because it would be read by a large number of Muslim youth too and he should come to the rescue of their faith because your arguments are distancing them from their faith.I will now take up these points one by one.The Qur’anic message is neither subjective nor objective for the reader. It is subjective and vague for someone who is not interested to accept it, and objective and clear for the one who is genuinely interested in knowing whether it is from God or not. The example of it is like that of a new moon on the horizon. It is there for beholder to see, but not everyone can manage to do so. Only those who have clear eyesight and eagerness to see can manage it. Others too can do it if they sincerely look at the right direction. However, the one who doesn’t want to see can deny vehemently that there wasn’t anything visible and can make fun of others who can see.The Qur’an tells us that faith comes to those who want to believe; God becomes their protecting friend and brings them out of the darkness of unfaith to the light of faith. As for those who don’t want to believe, they are left to exercise their choice of not doing so. That is how the trial of this life is: You believe if you are eager to do so; you don’t believe if you are not. |
Things are either subjective or objective. I know of no other category. Something is objective when it is not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice. Objective arguments are based on facts and facts are demonstrable. A subjective argument, on the other hand, exists in the mind and belongs to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought.
When you say there are miracles in the Qur’an, this statement is either objective or it is subjective. If it is objective you must be able to clearly explain it with external facts. For example, the claim that the Earth is revolving around the Sun is an objective claim because it is demonstrable. There is no subjectivity here and you can’t deny it unless you deny the facts. On the other hand, the claim that the Moon is beautiful is subjective. I am sure if you get closer to this planet you won’t find it very attractive. If the miracles in the Qur’an were as clear as the Moon in the sky, all you had to do was to point to them in the Qur’an and everyone would see them. You have not done so despite my repeated requests. Not only can you not point to these miracles, you even accuse those who do not see what you claim to see as not being objective or not having pure hearts. So in lieu of reason, you resort to ad hominem and accuse us of being blind. Therefore it is fair to say that this proverbial Moon that you see in the sky is a hallucination. It is only in the heads of those who choose to believe. If it was real and objective you could show it to us.
You say “The Qur’an tells us that faith comes to those who want to believe.” The translation of this is, ‘Only those who want to be fooled will be fooled.’ This is the same argument that the believers of all faiths and cults make. They say you must have a pure heart and want to believe in order to see the truth of our faith. We discussed this point before. There are thousands of beliefs out there. They are all contradicting each other. Not all of them can be true. We must choose, at most, one of them and discard the rest. Which one? Here is where we have to be objective. If all you have to do is to want to believe then how can you be sure that you are not falling into the trap of a charlatan like Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, David Koresh, Sun Myung Moon, Sai Baba, John de Ruiter, Joseph Kony, Charles Manson and countless other psychopath liars? Please tell us what sets apart Muhammad from these con men? How do we know that Muhammad did not belong to this lot? What did he do and say that sets him apart?
When you want desperately to believe in something you fall into traps. Islam appeals to people who are impressionable and gullible. Consider your own case. You converted to Islam after your father passed away, at a time when you were extremely vulnerable and desperate to believe in something. It just happened that you were born in a Muslim family and Islam was the only religion you knew. Had you been born into a family with a different faith, you would have found your solace in that faith. At first you said that your coming to Islam has been very objective. Now you say that Islam is neither objective nor is it subjective. Of course, this is not possible. One is either pregnant or one is not. You are engaging in the most elemental logical fallacy to cling to your faith and somehow justify your belief. You are far smarter than that and I hope that you realize that these arguments make no sense.
Wanting and being eager to believe will for sure lead you to wrong paths. If you really want to find the truth you must be detached. We should use the scientific method to find the truth. Scientists do not go to the lab with preconceived ideas desperately trying to validate what they already think is true and discarding any evidence contrary to their preconceptions. They put aside all their biases and try to find the truth accepting the fact that truth may be very different from what they had originally postulated. This is how one finds the truth, not by eagerly wanting to believe. Now it is clear why you are unable to see what the rest of the world can see. Your methodology is wrong. Instead of desperately wanting to believe you must be detached and become willing to doubt and to question.
Every great achievement in the world has been attained by men and women who were capable of doubting. This world is built by doubters and not by believers. Doubters are leaders of thoughts. Believers are followers. We say those who are unable to doubt and believe unquestioningly have sheep mentality. There is no pride in believing. Those who are not capable of doubting believe. God gave us a brain to doubt, to question, to wonder and to discover new frontiers and not to believe. Galileo was a doubter. Copernicus was a doubter, Darwin was a doubter. Newton, Einstein and all those who left their mark in the history of science and human understanding were doubters. Zakaria al-Razi, Ibn Sina, al‑Farabi and Khayyam were all doubters. On the other hand, Khomeini was a believer. Not all the believers are stupid but all the stupid people are believers.
As for the miracle in the Qur’an, I have already presented to you the biggest of them all: the fact that the Qur’an presented from day one with unambiguous clarity that Muhammad, God’s mercy on him, is the messenger of God. It warned its immediate addressees that the implication of this reality is that like in the case of all the nations prior to him who rejected their respective messengers, Muhammad’s nation too would face the same fate. At the time in Makkah when he was accompanied by a handful of socially, economically, and politically weak companions this clear warning was subjected to ridicule by disbelievers quite the same way as you are doing now long after that miracle has clearly taken place right before the eyes of the entire world. If you don’t want to see it, there is no way I can manage to force you do so. The trial of this life is a test of character, which demands that you bow down before the truth that unfolds itself before you. However, if you have some hidden reason to deny the truth, God is not going to force you to believe. I would like to ask you as to how have you rejected this miracle? Do you think that the prophet did not clearly prophecy that his enemies are going to be annihilated? If you will say so, I will present the entire Qur’an to prove you wrong. If you say that he did it but there wasn’t anything unusual in his feat as many others have done so like him, I would ask you to name those other individuals who started their mission with similar unambiguous clarity that their message would prevail on the basis of the rule of God that every nation that receives messengers faced similar consequences. You will have to mention a few names and their achievements with clear evidences to show that what Muhammad did wasn’t a miracle of God. If you are unable to present any names and their achievements similar to his, you are admitting that the dominance of Arabian Peninsula achieved by the prophet after he had prophesied it was a miracle of God. |
So you think because Muhammad said, ‘If you don’t believe in me you will be subdued,’ and then raided his victims and subdued them, he was a prophet? This is a blatant logical fallacy. I already answered this fallacious argument in my previous response.
Muhammad signed an agreement with the Meccans that for ten years there should be no hostility among them. Then he broke his treaty after two years, as soon as he became strong, and raided that city. The Meccans were taken by surprise. They were not ready for this raid and not prepared to defend themselves. They had no choice but to negotiate their surrender. What part of this is a miracle? This is a tale of treason and deceit.
If Muhammad had threatened his enemies with divine chastisement and then a calamity had fallen on them without his intervention, and if this had happened every time that he warned people, so no one could discard it as a fluke, then you had a point. But I see no miracle in threatening people and then raiding them and killing them when unarmed. The miracle is in the fact that a billion Muslims see this dastardly act of treachery as a miracle. If what Muhammad did was a miracle, then Genghis Khan also performed many miracles. What was the difference between Muhammad, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Macedonian and Napoléon? The only difference I can see is that Muhammad also lied about being a prophet and those who are gullible enough to believe in him perpetuate this lie and pass it on to the next generations.
It is depressing that intelligent men such as your good selves make these absurd statements. Truth cannot be established by demonstrating who is more ruthless and brute. This is how a narcissist thinks. Muhammad was a narcissist and as such he believed that might is right. By entering in his bubble universe, Muslims have become extensions of his narcissistic mind and they collectively believe in the same absurdities that their prophet believed in. It is illogical to say that because someone was more cunning, was more ruthless and had vanquished his opponents, he must be right. This is the law of jungle. Argumentum ad baculum is not for rational humans. What you think is the greatest miracle of all is nothing but a great fallacy. Truth cannot be determined by the use of force and by subduing your opponent with violence.
God punished the enemies of the messengers through the swords of his companions because it was one of the ways He had at His disposal. All resources of this world belong to Him including humans. He does His task in different ways. Even if the enemies were to be destroyed through natural calamities, who could have stopped you from criticizing that too? The important thing is that you too accept that enemies of the prophet were punished the way it was prophesied. However, their punishment doesn’t satisfy your moral taste. I am sure you must be having reservations about the way people got killed in Noah’s flood too. Of course, it happened because God didn’t have you as His consultant and He did things the way He chose to. |
Whether I like God killing people in natural calamities or not is another story. My question was why Allah asked his believers to murder their kind when even most savage animals rarely do such a thing. If Allah is so desperate to be worshiped and so offended when not, that the only way for him to feel relief is by killing those who reject him, then why does he not kill the rejecters himself? You did not answer this question. You simply said because he can do whatever he likes. This is not an answer. My question was why Allah wants humans to become murderers. If murdering was such a good thing, why do most of good people abhor it? Why do we humans not naturally enjoy the sight of carnage? This tells me that our creator has not made us natural killers. How can Allah be the same creator? How can God make us abhor killing and then order us to kill our kind? What kind of spiritual education is this that involves bloodshed and murder?
If Allah had directly destroyed those who rejected Muhammad then we would know that Muhammad had indeed an invisible friend behind him who was ruthless and bloodthirsty. Of course this would not have meant that Allah is God, but at least we knew that someone called Allah exists outside Muhammad’s imagination. However, when we see Allah completely helpless and Muhammad is doing all the killing himself, we are forced to come to the conclusion that Allah is nothing but Muhammad’s sock puppet and a figment of his own imagination.
In many hadiths we read that Muhammad used to curse his enemies for thirty days and yet no harm came to them. They only were vanquished when he cowardly raided their homes and treacherously took them by surprise. These actions are not godly. How can Muslims not see that? How do you distinguish an evil man and a holy man if not by their actions? You believe that Jesus was a prophet of God. What do you think he meant when he warned people of the false prophets? He said you will recognize them by their fruits. Can’t you see that the actions of Muhammad were all evil? Can you show me a man as evil as him? You overlook all this man’s evil deeds because in your opinion he was a messenger of God. I can’t begin to fathom the absurdity of this line of reasoning. My reasoning tells me that no real God would send a murderer to guide mankind. You think that it is possible for God to send a man who acts like a gangster to guide mankind to the true path. Do you have any proof that he was a prophet? You have produced none so far. You gave big promises that there are miracles in the Quran, but all your claims are debunked, one after another.
I am sure that you are far more intelligent than what appears from the questions you have raised against the process of accountability about Jesus. That is precisely what I am trying clarify about the trial of this worldly life: It is not quite as much a trial of intelligence as it is one of character. Since you are bent upon ridiculing the contents of the Qur’an, you have raised the silly question as to why would God ask Jesus if he declared his own divinity and that of his mother. Of course, in the process of a fair trial a judge asks all questions that are important for the trial to appear fair and transparent. It has nothing to do with the fact whether the judge already knows those facts or not. Your prejudice has clearly clouded your intellect to raise such an unintelligent question. |
I don’t think my question was unintelligent. However since the point is clear, there is no reason for me to dwell on it further. I only add one thing and that is in a trial the judge questions all the parties because he does NOT know the facts and wants to find out the truth. If a judge has already made his mind, before even the trial begins, he is presiding over a kangaroo court. Is this how divine justice in Allah’s court works? What is the point of setting up such a mock trial when the outcome is already decided? Allah knows the facts and so does the defendant. All he has to do is tell the sinner, ‘I am going to send you to hell for such and such violations.’ Trial means finding the facts in order to determine the guilt or innocence. If the facts are already known to the judge it is foolish to set up a kangaroo court and conduct a mock trial.
No matter how you look at Islam it turns out to be a foolish religion.
You have mentioned that Mr Ghamidi should worry about the fact that thousands of young Muslims are reading this debate. Why should he worry when he knows that all truth-seeking people, Muslims or non-Muslims, would resort to the book of God, the Qur’an, to find which of the two contestants in the debate is presenting the correct version of the Qur’an. |
There is only one version of the Qur’an. I am trying to show the world that this book is satanic, while you are trying to make them believe it is a miracle.
The first chapter of Gospel of John confirms that at the time when John the Baptist and Jesus Christ had come to this world, the learned Jews were waiting for another ‘the prophet’. The eighteenth chapter of Book of Deuteronomy promises that a Moses-like prophet would come. Let the people of the world decide who the awaited prophet was.Khalid Zaheer(Words: 1193) |
Deuteronomy 18:15 reads: “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.”
You say this is about Muhammad? Don’t you see that the verse clearly says that this prophet will be raised, “from among your own brothers?” Was Muhammad a Jew? How can anyone in his right mind think this verse is about Muhammad who was not a Jew?
It is important to get into details. It is then that I can show with clarity that every argument Muslims use to prove Islam is a true religion is false.
Now, I am going to ask another question.
Question # 7
If Allah knows who will be a believer and who will be a non-believer and if he has preordained everything, why did he create the non-believers, only to burn them for eternity after they die?
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