Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
Why Islam Is Wrong
The very first thing that makes me think the Quran is not an inspired book of God, but is instead the inspired book of a false prophet is this verse
Surah 2:106
"We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?"
What this verse is saying is that an earlier verse or rule given by God can be ignored if another, better one is replacing it. Ask yourself, why would God, the almighty, the all knowing, need to implement a safety valve so he can change his mind? God would know the present, the past and the future. He would know what rules he expects to be followed for all time and would never need to add any kind of safety valve in case he changed his mind. A man who is pretending to be spiritually divine however, he would need a verse like this. So that when in the future he happens to realize he cornered himself into a rule he doesn't like, he can break the rule and just give a "newer, better" rule and say it was a revelation of God. Any book that is supposed to be from God, that has a safety valve built into it gives me plenty of reason to doubt it.
How the Quran came about.
Supposedly, the angel Gabriel revealed the Quran to Muhammad in the years of 610-632 AD. Then Muhammad recited the Quran (About 80,000 words) to his Companions to write down and for them to memorize. By the time of Muhammad's death, the Quran still had not been gathered into one book. Some 12 years after Muhammad's death, Caliph Uthman began gathering it together and it took him 24 years to do so. He then ordered all existing personal and individual copies and dialects of the Quran to be burned.
Let's use logic here. Though Muhammad was a Prophet, he was still a man. Yet he had to reveal the entire 80,000 words of the Quran to his Companions from his memory after it was revealed to him from Gabriel. Then those companions memorized all 80,000 words or so. When Muhammad died there was still no collection of the entire Quran put together. It wasnt for another 36 years later before Uthman gathered the sources and had all the original ones burned.... why? Because there were too many variations of the Quran. Why? because they were simple human beings trying to remember approximately 80,000 words for many years. And we all know how that little experiment works, where you tell a short story to someone and that person repeats it to someone else and they repeat it and so on. By the end of the group, the original story had morphed into something completely different. No matter how intelligent these men were, there was bound to be variations and a lot of them. So Uthman ordered them all burned and put one new Quran out to everyone. In fact, Al-Bukkari, who traveled over the lands to gather all of the traditions of the "Learned" came to a conclusion that out of 600,000 traditions ascertained by him to be (at that time) current, only 4000 of them were authentic. Anyone can tell you the Quran is perfect and uncorrupted, just like anyone can tell you that I am the greatest writer of all time. But if you simply use your own brain and a little logic, you quickly realize neither is likely true.
Already we have reasons to believe that the Quran is not the true word of God as it is likely very different from the original words and God would not need a safety valve.
Many of the stories in the Quran were stolen from other books from the time.
Gunter Luling asserts that around one third of the Quran has pre-Islamic Christian origins. Scholar Oddbjorn Leirvik states "The Quran and Hadith have been clearly influenced by the non-canonical Christianity that prevailed in the Arab peninsula and further in Abyssinia" prior to Islam. Much of the Quran material about the selection and upbringing of Mary parallels that of the Protovangellium of James. Even many of the stories of Jesus childhood come from books like the Infancy Story of Thomas. Some scholars believe, and rightly so, that the dependence of the Quran on pre-existing sources is just more evidence of the Quran being of purely human origin. I mean, think about it. Would God need to copy stories from other books? Then if he did, would he steal stories out of books considered to be false to begin with?
Even the Companions of Muhammad had many arguments on which surahs were part of the Quran and which ones were not.
When even those who were given the Quran right from the lips of Muhammad are arguing whether certain surahs are part of the Quran or not, doesn't that scream to you that it must have already been altered to the point of not being the same book reveal by Gabriel to begin with? I mean if you even believe it was ever revealed by Gabriel to begin with. Just by what little I have mentioned so far, any intelligent man would in the very least be questioning its authenticity, but that isn't even the worst of it.
Jesus in Islam
Islam believes Jesus never actually died on the cross. They believe that it was an illusion and God took him up while he was still alive. They believe that God put Judas Iscariot in Jesus' place as a punishment for betraying Him. ...... First off, even most atheist historians admit that Jesus died on the cross. That the crucifixion did in fact happen. Jesus when he returned showed his disciples the holes in his wrists and feet and the hole in his side where he was pierced. If Jesus suffered through the scourging and being nailed to the cross, what would be the sense to switch him just before he died? If God was going to spare him, he would have spared him all the suffering. But most of the disciples died horrible deaths because they truly believed Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. Men will die for their beliefs if they are strong enough beliefs, but no man is going to die to support what he knows is a lie. An entire group of men are not all going to die for a lie without at least one of them breaking down to save his life. The fact the disciples died for their beliefs says they either saw Jesus on the cross and die, or they saw the wounds when he returned to life, or both. So either all of the disciples who were killed were willing to die for a lie, or they had very good reason to believe Jesus had actually died on the cross and had risen again on the third day. And no man, much less an entire group of men, is going to be willing to be beheaded, stoned to death or crucified over what they know to be a lie. Atheist historians will say Jesus died on the cross. Simple logic says He died on the cross and rose again. Islam can say what it wants but there is enough evidence to show the Quran is wrong about that.
Here is where it gets really juicy. Islam does agree that Jesus was a true prophet of God. Islam even ranks Jesus as second only to Muhammad. But it says Jesus was just a prophet and not the Son of God and He was not God. OK, but the Bible says Jesus even stated he is the Son of God. He made many references to himself as being God. Like calling himself the First and the Last, or another time calling himself the Alpha and Omega. He referred to himself as "I Am". All exact references to what God called himself throughout the Bible. So this leaves us with only two possibilities. 1) Jesus was speaking the truth and he was God and the Son of God. Which means the Quran and Islam is wrong. OR 2) Jesus is not the Son of God and He is not God. Which would mean he was either a crazy man to make such statements or he was a Liar. Either way he would then be a false Prophet. Which would make Islam wrong for saying he is a true prophet of God. IF Jesus is the Son of God, Islam is wrong. If Jesus is not the Son of God, then Islam is still wrong. When Muhammad created the Quran, he truly painted himself into a corner with this and proved the Quran is not the inspired word of God.
The only explanation I have heard on this is that Islam believes the Bible has been corrupted and Jesus never actually made those statements. But we already know this is a false statement and we know it for a fact. One article that explains how the Quran itself says the Bible is right can be found at https://www.str.org/blog/if-the-quran-is-true-then-it%E2%80%99s-false#.WwyJloopCM8 This article was written to explain how they tend to deal with converting Muslims to Christianity, so if you are Muslim and do not want to get upset reading that, skip the first few paragraphs and get right into the thick of why the Quran proves the bible is correct.
Of course there are plenty of other smaller problems with the Quran. To name a few quick ones....
In Surah 20:85-88 During the story of Moses, a Samaritan is blamed for leading the people astray. Which is impossible because Moses was around over 500 years before the first Samaritan existed.
Surah 18:86 Tells us the Sun sets into a muddy spring. Since the sun rises and sets due to the planet rotating and the diameter of the sun is 109 times larger than the diameter of the Earth, its pretty clear this is completely off base.
The Quran teaches us that shooting stars are from angels throwing stars at demons trying to sneak up close to Heaven. The only problem with this is that shooting stars aren't even actually stars. They aren't even out in space. They are bits of debris or meteorites coming into our atmosphere and burning up.
The Quran gets important people in the Bible mixed up.
Multiple times it gets Mary, the mother of Jesus, confused with the sister of Moses and Aaron. It says Mary;s mother is the wife of Imran (which is Moses mother.) So once again the Quran doesn't know who one of its main characters is. If it was truly inspired by God, I would think God would know who Mary is and if Jesus is His son or a false prophet.
These are not cases like people bring up about the Bible, saying because they don't agree on how many angels were in the tomb, it is reason to believe you cant trust the accuracy of the Bible. These are reasons to question the truth of the Quran because they are dramatic differences or problems with the belief structure. Minor contradictions are signs that man wrote it. Nothing more. And man did write the Quran and the Bible. Minor differences however, are not proof that a book is not inspired by God. Minor problems do not prove that an entire religion is wrong. Major problems can however. And we have some major problems in the Quran.
Just for the fun of it.
I want to end this with a comparison of the leaders of Islam and Christianity.
Muhammad was a good man to begin with but was treated bad. He is in a cave and is visited by Gabriel, the angel, who reveals the Quran to him. He was born a regular man and died a regular man.
Jesus was born of a virgin birth, he never sinned, he willingly went to a horrible death for no other reason than to save us from our sins.
Surah 2:106
"We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?"
What this verse is saying is that an earlier verse or rule given by God can be ignored if another, better one is replacing it. Ask yourself, why would God, the almighty, the all knowing, need to implement a safety valve so he can change his mind? God would know the present, the past and the future. He would know what rules he expects to be followed for all time and would never need to add any kind of safety valve in case he changed his mind. A man who is pretending to be spiritually divine however, he would need a verse like this. So that when in the future he happens to realize he cornered himself into a rule he doesn't like, he can break the rule and just give a "newer, better" rule and say it was a revelation of God. Any book that is supposed to be from God, that has a safety valve built into it gives me plenty of reason to doubt it.
How the Quran came about.
Supposedly, the angel Gabriel revealed the Quran to Muhammad in the years of 610-632 AD. Then Muhammad recited the Quran (About 80,000 words) to his Companions to write down and for them to memorize. By the time of Muhammad's death, the Quran still had not been gathered into one book. Some 12 years after Muhammad's death, Caliph Uthman began gathering it together and it took him 24 years to do so. He then ordered all existing personal and individual copies and dialects of the Quran to be burned.
Let's use logic here. Though Muhammad was a Prophet, he was still a man. Yet he had to reveal the entire 80,000 words of the Quran to his Companions from his memory after it was revealed to him from Gabriel. Then those companions memorized all 80,000 words or so. When Muhammad died there was still no collection of the entire Quran put together. It wasnt for another 36 years later before Uthman gathered the sources and had all the original ones burned.... why? Because there were too many variations of the Quran. Why? because they were simple human beings trying to remember approximately 80,000 words for many years. And we all know how that little experiment works, where you tell a short story to someone and that person repeats it to someone else and they repeat it and so on. By the end of the group, the original story had morphed into something completely different. No matter how intelligent these men were, there was bound to be variations and a lot of them. So Uthman ordered them all burned and put one new Quran out to everyone. In fact, Al-Bukkari, who traveled over the lands to gather all of the traditions of the "Learned" came to a conclusion that out of 600,000 traditions ascertained by him to be (at that time) current, only 4000 of them were authentic. Anyone can tell you the Quran is perfect and uncorrupted, just like anyone can tell you that I am the greatest writer of all time. But if you simply use your own brain and a little logic, you quickly realize neither is likely true.
Already we have reasons to believe that the Quran is not the true word of God as it is likely very different from the original words and God would not need a safety valve.
Many of the stories in the Quran were stolen from other books from the time.
Gunter Luling asserts that around one third of the Quran has pre-Islamic Christian origins. Scholar Oddbjorn Leirvik states "The Quran and Hadith have been clearly influenced by the non-canonical Christianity that prevailed in the Arab peninsula and further in Abyssinia" prior to Islam. Much of the Quran material about the selection and upbringing of Mary parallels that of the Protovangellium of James. Even many of the stories of Jesus childhood come from books like the Infancy Story of Thomas. Some scholars believe, and rightly so, that the dependence of the Quran on pre-existing sources is just more evidence of the Quran being of purely human origin. I mean, think about it. Would God need to copy stories from other books? Then if he did, would he steal stories out of books considered to be false to begin with?
Even the Companions of Muhammad had many arguments on which surahs were part of the Quran and which ones were not.
When even those who were given the Quran right from the lips of Muhammad are arguing whether certain surahs are part of the Quran or not, doesn't that scream to you that it must have already been altered to the point of not being the same book reveal by Gabriel to begin with? I mean if you even believe it was ever revealed by Gabriel to begin with. Just by what little I have mentioned so far, any intelligent man would in the very least be questioning its authenticity, but that isn't even the worst of it.
Jesus in Islam
Islam believes Jesus never actually died on the cross. They believe that it was an illusion and God took him up while he was still alive. They believe that God put Judas Iscariot in Jesus' place as a punishment for betraying Him. ...... First off, even most atheist historians admit that Jesus died on the cross. That the crucifixion did in fact happen. Jesus when he returned showed his disciples the holes in his wrists and feet and the hole in his side where he was pierced. If Jesus suffered through the scourging and being nailed to the cross, what would be the sense to switch him just before he died? If God was going to spare him, he would have spared him all the suffering. But most of the disciples died horrible deaths because they truly believed Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. Men will die for their beliefs if they are strong enough beliefs, but no man is going to die to support what he knows is a lie. An entire group of men are not all going to die for a lie without at least one of them breaking down to save his life. The fact the disciples died for their beliefs says they either saw Jesus on the cross and die, or they saw the wounds when he returned to life, or both. So either all of the disciples who were killed were willing to die for a lie, or they had very good reason to believe Jesus had actually died on the cross and had risen again on the third day. And no man, much less an entire group of men, is going to be willing to be beheaded, stoned to death or crucified over what they know to be a lie. Atheist historians will say Jesus died on the cross. Simple logic says He died on the cross and rose again. Islam can say what it wants but there is enough evidence to show the Quran is wrong about that.
Here is where it gets really juicy. Islam does agree that Jesus was a true prophet of God. Islam even ranks Jesus as second only to Muhammad. But it says Jesus was just a prophet and not the Son of God and He was not God. OK, but the Bible says Jesus even stated he is the Son of God. He made many references to himself as being God. Like calling himself the First and the Last, or another time calling himself the Alpha and Omega. He referred to himself as "I Am". All exact references to what God called himself throughout the Bible. So this leaves us with only two possibilities. 1) Jesus was speaking the truth and he was God and the Son of God. Which means the Quran and Islam is wrong. OR 2) Jesus is not the Son of God and He is not God. Which would mean he was either a crazy man to make such statements or he was a Liar. Either way he would then be a false Prophet. Which would make Islam wrong for saying he is a true prophet of God. IF Jesus is the Son of God, Islam is wrong. If Jesus is not the Son of God, then Islam is still wrong. When Muhammad created the Quran, he truly painted himself into a corner with this and proved the Quran is not the inspired word of God.
The only explanation I have heard on this is that Islam believes the Bible has been corrupted and Jesus never actually made those statements. But we already know this is a false statement and we know it for a fact. One article that explains how the Quran itself says the Bible is right can be found at https://www.str.org/blog/if-the-quran-is-true-then-it%E2%80%99s-false#.WwyJloopCM8 This article was written to explain how they tend to deal with converting Muslims to Christianity, so if you are Muslim and do not want to get upset reading that, skip the first few paragraphs and get right into the thick of why the Quran proves the bible is correct.
Of course there are plenty of other smaller problems with the Quran. To name a few quick ones....
In Surah 20:85-88 During the story of Moses, a Samaritan is blamed for leading the people astray. Which is impossible because Moses was around over 500 years before the first Samaritan existed.
Surah 18:86 Tells us the Sun sets into a muddy spring. Since the sun rises and sets due to the planet rotating and the diameter of the sun is 109 times larger than the diameter of the Earth, its pretty clear this is completely off base.
The Quran teaches us that shooting stars are from angels throwing stars at demons trying to sneak up close to Heaven. The only problem with this is that shooting stars aren't even actually stars. They aren't even out in space. They are bits of debris or meteorites coming into our atmosphere and burning up.
The Quran gets important people in the Bible mixed up.
Multiple times it gets Mary, the mother of Jesus, confused with the sister of Moses and Aaron. It says Mary;s mother is the wife of Imran (which is Moses mother.) So once again the Quran doesn't know who one of its main characters is. If it was truly inspired by God, I would think God would know who Mary is and if Jesus is His son or a false prophet.
These are not cases like people bring up about the Bible, saying because they don't agree on how many angels were in the tomb, it is reason to believe you cant trust the accuracy of the Bible. These are reasons to question the truth of the Quran because they are dramatic differences or problems with the belief structure. Minor contradictions are signs that man wrote it. Nothing more. And man did write the Quran and the Bible. Minor differences however, are not proof that a book is not inspired by God. Minor problems do not prove that an entire religion is wrong. Major problems can however. And we have some major problems in the Quran.
Just for the fun of it.
I want to end this with a comparison of the leaders of Islam and Christianity.
Muhammad was a good man to begin with but was treated bad. He is in a cave and is visited by Gabriel, the angel, who reveals the Quran to him. He was born a regular man and died a regular man.
Jesus was born of a virgin birth, he never sinned, he willingly went to a horrible death for no other reason than to save us from our sins.
Muhammad performed several miracles, many of which were meant to either bring harm to others or make himself look good.
Jesus performed many miracles, almost all of them healing people or to teach a valuable message to his disciples. Never once did Jesus perform a miracle to harm anyone.
Jesus performed many miracles, almost all of them healing people or to teach a valuable message to his disciples. Never once did Jesus perform a miracle to harm anyone.
Muhammad led his army into battles where many men died as a consequence. He had men killed outside of battle.
Jesus never once did any harmful thing to anyone. In fact the only time any of his disciples acted out violently, Jesus rebuked him and healed the man who was hurt.
Jesus never once did any harmful thing to anyone. In fact the only time any of his disciples acted out violently, Jesus rebuked him and healed the man who was hurt.
Muhammad attacked those who were looking to kill him and killed them instead.
Jesus always had people looking to kill him and simply just kept them from being able to lay a hand on him until his time was right. After being scourged, beaten, humiliated, and nailed to a cross, Jesus still had the love in him to ask God to forgive them for that they did.
Jesus always had people looking to kill him and simply just kept them from being able to lay a hand on him until his time was right. After being scourged, beaten, humiliated, and nailed to a cross, Jesus still had the love in him to ask God to forgive them for that they did.
Now ask yourself. Which one has the right to claim his is the religion of Peace? Which one of them represents a loving God better?
Return to Religions and their Fatal Flaws
Return to One God Logic Articles
Return to Religions and their Fatal Flaws
Return to One God Logic Articles
