The Bible vs. The Quran
I posed this question to someone called CreationPhysics on Twitter (please try to ignore the glaring oxymoron) but I received no reply.
Christians claim to know that the Bible is the inerrant word of God because of fulfilled prophecies, among other things which I will touch on in a moment. However, the argument of fulfilled prophecies is one of the most frequently used argument I have personally encountered in my debates with Christians against the validity of the Bible. So here is my question:
The Quran contains fulfilled prophecies as well. How does a Christian know that the god they are worshiping is the right one (assuming that any god exists) and that Allah isn't perhaps the one true god, since an equal amount of evidence points to this being the case?
The authors of the Quran were divinely inspired by Allah in the same way as the authors of the Bible were divinely inspired by God. We similarly only know this because they say as much in the religious texts. Both the Quran and the Bible are canonised texts, although the Quran was only canonised in 650 AD since Islam is a somewhat younger religion than Christianity.
The Quran is replete with prophecies, miracles, prophets, and commands, and was also not written by one man but by many divinely inspired men. It even has archaeological evidence to back up its claims in much the same way as the Bible does.
Another argument Christians frequently use proclaiming the Bible as divinely inspired and infallible is the argument from facts, which essentially runs along the lines of: the Bible contains accurate scientific facts about the Earth that are way before its time.
One of the many verses generally singled out for this include Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Other than the fact that it is plain to see that these types of verses are wildly open to interpretation, my primary point regarding this is that the Quran has many such scientific facts. Not only that, there are far more of them than there are in the Bible and they are much more in line with modern medical, scientific and anthropological knowledge than the meager facts presented in the Bible are. Bearing in mind the approximate 600 year difference in the age of the religions, since Christians claim the authors of the Bible were divinely inspired surely their eternal, omniscient deity would not have been effected by this minuscule time variation. The Quran is, in this instance, arguably a much more reliable text from a theistic, theological perspective.
There are also texts written around the same time as the Quran sharing the same content as the Quran in much the same way as the Bible has the Dead Sea Scrolls and Homer has the Homeric Cycle.
Indeed, there are many rationalised (note: not rational) arguments regarding the authenticity of the Quran. One of the primary ones include apparent knowledge that the Quran was written at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and approved by him, the only religious document in history to be received by the religious figure about whom it was written.
Yet, through all of this, Muslims worship Allah and Christians worship Yahweh/Jehovah. How do Christians make the decision between the two gods? What makes the magic of the Bible more likely than the magic of the Quran when they are equally feasible? Is it simply a coincidence of geographical birth that leads Christians to believe in the Christian deity? And if so, how can any Christian be sure that what they believe is utterly true rather than merely circumstantial, especially since belief in the Christian god is faith-based and therefore reliant on a lack of empirical evidence?
Christians claim to know that the Bible is the inerrant word of God because of fulfilled prophecies, among other things which I will touch on in a moment. However, the argument of fulfilled prophecies is one of the most frequently used argument I have personally encountered in my debates with Christians against the validity of the Bible. So here is my question:
The Quran contains fulfilled prophecies as well. How does a Christian know that the god they are worshiping is the right one (assuming that any god exists) and that Allah isn't perhaps the one true god, since an equal amount of evidence points to this being the case?
The authors of the Quran were divinely inspired by Allah in the same way as the authors of the Bible were divinely inspired by God. We similarly only know this because they say as much in the religious texts. Both the Quran and the Bible are canonised texts, although the Quran was only canonised in 650 AD since Islam is a somewhat younger religion than Christianity.
The Quran is replete with prophecies, miracles, prophets, and commands, and was also not written by one man but by many divinely inspired men. It even has archaeological evidence to back up its claims in much the same way as the Bible does.
Another argument Christians frequently use proclaiming the Bible as divinely inspired and infallible is the argument from facts, which essentially runs along the lines of: the Bible contains accurate scientific facts about the Earth that are way before its time.
One of the many verses generally singled out for this include Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Other than the fact that it is plain to see that these types of verses are wildly open to interpretation, my primary point regarding this is that the Quran has many such scientific facts. Not only that, there are far more of them than there are in the Bible and they are much more in line with modern medical, scientific and anthropological knowledge than the meager facts presented in the Bible are. Bearing in mind the approximate 600 year difference in the age of the religions, since Christians claim the authors of the Bible were divinely inspired surely their eternal, omniscient deity would not have been effected by this minuscule time variation. The Quran is, in this instance, arguably a much more reliable text from a theistic, theological perspective.
There are also texts written around the same time as the Quran sharing the same content as the Quran in much the same way as the Bible has the Dead Sea Scrolls and Homer has the Homeric Cycle.
Indeed, there are many rationalised (note: not rational) arguments regarding the authenticity of the Quran. One of the primary ones include apparent knowledge that the Quran was written at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and approved by him, the only religious document in history to be received by the religious figure about whom it was written.
Yet, through all of this, Muslims worship Allah and Christians worship Yahweh/Jehovah. How do Christians make the decision between the two gods? What makes the magic of the Bible more likely than the magic of the Quran when they are equally feasible? Is it simply a coincidence of geographical birth that leads Christians to believe in the Christian deity? And if so, how can any Christian be sure that what they believe is utterly true rather than merely circumstantial, especially since belief in the Christian god is faith-based and therefore reliant on a lack of empirical evidence?
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Comment by Wesley on June 29, 2010 at 11:41pm -
And don't forget about the Guru Granth Sahib of the sikhs... or the Gita or Vedas and Upanishads of the hindu's.
The present age of the universe according to hindu cosmology is much closer to what we find than that proposed by either Christianity or Islam.
If Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok are correct and the universe follows a cyclic paradigm......then it will further bolster the hindu cosmological model.
How will theists from Christianity and Islam feel about switching religions if it turns out that the hindu cosmology is the only religious model that resembles the current scientific model?
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Comment by Galen on July 25, 2010 at 9:58am -
The question itself is meaningless. "Allah" isn't the name of the muslim god, it's the Arabic word for "God." Just like "Dios" isn't the spanish name of some spanish god, it's just the spanish word for "God." Allah ("God") is the same god as that of the Christians and Jews. They all 3 worship the exact same god, they just have a different take on what he's done and said.
As a Christian, I would've pointed this out in response to your question and stated that it makes perfect sense for the Quran to have fulfilled prophecies since it came from the same God.
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Comment by Deedee on July 25, 2010 at 11:25am -
Why are there two very different religions if Allah and the Christian God are one and the same? Is this god not omniscient and omnipotent? Does he know he has given two very different sets of rules/dogma? Can't he get his story straight? So does this "one and the same god" have two heavens and two hells? Are the Christians going to the Muslim hell and the Muslims going to the Christian hell? Which set of rules do we follow to avoid hell?
Think, use your reasoning powers. There is no god.
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Comment by Henry Ruddle on July 25, 2010 at 6:44pm -
You were looking for a rational argument from a believer? It must have been with a wink. The fulfilled prophesies in the Bible are manufactured, most glaringly in the Gospel stories. It's why the early Christians renamed the Hebrew Bible the "Old Testament." If you go with the Pat Robertson explanation, Islam isn't even a religion. The bottom line with any sort of believer is that they will go to whatever lengths are necessary to bend logic, bend history, bend science, bend rhetoric into whatever shape is necessary to have their beliefs make sense. And the conversation is the same with any believer -- Christian, Muslim, alien abductee, ghost hunter, you name it.
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Comment by Deedee on July 26, 2010 at 9:12am
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No, believers have no rational argument as you know. I was trying to startle, and maybe even infuse some doubt, and if it is possible to do so with people afflicted with the "virus"...think. You are so right about believers they will go to any length to defend their illusion/delusion, but they have to side-step reason to do it. Believers fear death, and this fear is why they need to believe. However, in doing so they are losing the only life they will have. So sad.
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Comment by Galen on July 30, 2010 at 9:28am
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@Deedee - I think you're confused on my position. I'm an atheist. I was clarifying a common misconception about "Allah" vs "God" not defending the religious position.
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Comment by Deedee on July 31, 2010 at 9:40am
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Sorry, Galen, I did misunderstand.
Believers would rather assume that Allah and the Christian God are different. It makes it easier for them to say they have the only "true" religion, and worship the only true God. I was just trying to jolt them with a little questioning nudge. I do agree with you.
Thanks for nudging me.
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