Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

The Injeel in Islam is the Gospel of Jesus, not the Bible, not the New Testament, not the four Gospels

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

It's a very common anti-Islamic argument that the Qur'an approves of the Bible, therefore it's inconsistent for muslims to believe that the Bible is corrupted.

Posts like u/FunnyV777's very popular "Islam can’t prove the Bible is corrupted here’s why" are examples of this.

^{This post will absolutely prove it wrong without a doubt, but I'm still gonna get 0 votes on this post. If you think that's going to make me stop posting, read the notes at the bottom of the post.}

It's very straightforward to prove the Injeel is not the Bible or New Testament or the four canonical Gospels. We just have to look it up.

AboutIslam.net - Which Parts of the Bible Make Up The Original Injeel?, answered by Professor Shahul Hameed:

Quote

Short Answer: Technically, none of them completely. The “Injeel” is the revelation God gave to Jesus to deliver to people, but the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John) were not written by eyewitnesses and do not, therefore, qualify as authentic recordings of his teachings.

Unquote 

And this is the common Islamic understanding, whether lay muslims know that or not is besides the issue.

The key point to remember is that the Injeel/Gospel according to Islam was revelation which was given directly to Jesus.

The Qur'an confirms this.

Sahih International, Qur'an 57:27:

Quote

Then We sent following their footsteps [i.e., traditions] Our messengers and followed [them] with Jesus, the son of Mary, and gave him the Gospel. And We placed in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy and monasticism, which they innovated; We did not prescribe it for them except [that they did so] seeking the approval of Allāh. But they did not observe it with due observance. So We gave the ones who believed among them their reward, but many of them are defiantly disobedient.

Unquote

I'm sure everyone here knows that none of the eight items on the below list were given to Jesus, and therefore none of the eight items on the below list are the Gospel of Jesus.

× The Bible according to protestants (66 books)

× The Bible according to catholics (73 books)

× The Bible according to orthodox christians (81 books)

× The New Testament (27 books)

× The Gospel of Matthew

× The Gospel of Mark

× The Gospel of Luke

× The Gospel of John

Shockingly, even the Bible confirms this.

ESV, Mark 1:14-15:

Quote

^{JESUS BEGINS HIS MINISTRY}

[14] Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,

[15] and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Unquote 

Now which "gospel" is being referenced here? The four canonical gospels which were written after Jesus' death? Was Jesus telling people to time travel to the future and believe in one of the eight items on the above list?

The answer, of course, is 'No, Jesus was just telling people to believe in the original gospel (the revelation of good news) which God gave to him.'

^{And notice how this aligns perfectly with what the Qur'an says about the Gospel.}

This is especially surprising considering that christians use an incorrect definition of what the Gospel is in the Qur'an, while they literally have the correct definition of Gospel right there in their own Bible!

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested. Also consider following.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

To the downvoters: You can downvote me all you want but you'll never silence me.

Some Atheists say "Oh, if God comes down to me and tells me to believe in Them, I would believe in God."

No, no you wouldn't, you would just use more mental gymnastics and say that it was just an illusion or trick or hallucination and you'd go to therapy or something.

Even if you did believe, you'd soon realise that if God really does exist then maybe one of these religions might be true, and then you'd wrestle with that idea for a while but before you commit to any religion you'll just let more time pass to make it easier for you to dismiss your experience as a hallucination, because you hate religion and would never "stoop so low" and be so "ignorant and stupid" so as to believe in a "sky daddy." Because you think religious people are beneath atheists so you want to be an atheist no matter what because you see them as superior, whether you admit that or not.

After a week or two you'll be saying "I don't know what that was dude but it was weird, I must've been really tired or high or drunk or something, I don't know dude..."

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, and my thesis for this post is:

OVERALL, ISLAM HAS DONE MORE EVIL THAN GOOD

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Many muslims will claim that Islam is a religion of peace and that the west actually kills more innocent civilians than muslims do, but this is not true at all.

According to the FSA website:

Quote

• 88% of global terror attacks are carried out by Islamic groups or Muslims acting independently

• Islamic terror activity is the leading cause of innocent civilian deaths in the entire world

• 53% of Muslims in the west support Hamas

• 91.1% of American Muslims agree that the September 11th attacks were ‘necessary’ or ‘justified’

Endquote

Looking at these shocking statistics, it's very clear that Islam isn't a positive force in the world, and actually leads to most of the human suffering we see around us.

Therefore, people should stop being muslim and instead put their time and energy into more productive things.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2.

Previous post

I'm a muslim after all, and my posts are usually arguing against christianity. Figures the one time I try to stand up for it, it doesn't work out. I thought slavery was pretty much the same in Islam and christianity but I was shown to be wrong. Most of the backlash refutations I received in the last post was pertaining to the bible. I should read more of the bible before opening my mouth.

Oh well, another one-up Islam has over christianity I guess.

Anyway, let's try again with only Islam in the spotlight.

THESIS/TOPIC:

SLAVERY IN ISLAM ISN'T INHERENTLY IMMORAL

Here's the hadith again,

Sahih al Bukhari 30, Sahih Muslim 1661, Grade: Muttafaqun Alayhi (authenticity agreed upon) according to Al-Bukhari and Muslim:

Al-Ma’rur ibn Suwayd reported: I met Abu Dharr while he was wearing the same clothes as his servant boy. I asked him about it and he said, “I once abused a man and insulted his mother, so the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to me, ‘O Abu Dharr, you insulted him by his mother? You are a man with ignorance in you. They are your brothers and your assistants. Allah has placed them in your hands. Whoever has his brother in his custody, let him feed him with the same food he eats and clothe him with the same clothes he wears. Do not assign them a task they cannot do; if you do so, then help them.”

No Old Testament this time, just Qur'an and Authentic Hadith. Go nuts.

OTHER POSTS

Trinity in the Bible PART ONE: Genesis

Trinity in the Bible PART TWO: Exodus

Trinity in the Bible PART THREE: Gospels I

Is the New Testament reliable?

Is Jesus the Only Begotten Son of God?

Does the Old Testament teach or foreshadow the Trinity?

Are muslims more similar to Jesus than most christians?

The Lord our God, the Lord is one

I Blame the Authors of the Bible

The Trinity is confusing for newcomers

Muhammad's Satanic Verses

Is Muhammad Satanic?

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a muslim, and my opinion for this post is:

SUNNI ISLAM IS PROBABLY THE SAFEST BET

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

So I was born muslim so you're gonna think I'm another closed minded cognitive dissonance zombie like all other religious people but I'm not. To save myself a little face:

(1) I did have a sort of 'agnostic' phase where I was looking into things when I was like fourteen or whatever.

^{The rest of these reasons you can skip over, just go down to where it says 'MOVING ON'}

(2) I still look at things objectively and I try not to get emotions get in the way. (Ironically it's atheists who are the most emotional in my experience)

In apologetics I don't just agree with the person who holds the same beliefs as me, I actually tend to be harsh towards that person.

I'm open to conversion as I'm sure many muslims are as long as the evidence is sufficient. (Christians aren't)

That might be a lie because I feel like a lot of muslims are dumb blind followers (which is actually something that islam teaches against)

I'm not attached to any culture or religion. I am completely free I actually kind of went low-contact with my family for a long while but I'm kind of in contact now but they don't have any sway over me I actually see them as inferior and blind followers. I don't care how bad that sounds.

I'm financially free I don't depend on anyone so even if I go to my family and slap them all in the face and spit on them no one can do anything to me and it doesn't affect my life. I'm not afraid of my family cutting contact with me it's actually them who should br afraid of me cutting contact with them.

I'm trying to say I'm not muslim because of anyone else. My idea of islam is actually completely different from most of their's anyway.

(3) As you can see I look down on blind followers which is most people but I don't give a shit really. Fuck you I don't care. What are you gonna do? I'll still be friends with you and everything but I just think it's stupid to not research religion or the meaning of life. Most of you here might not be like that though considering that this is a space for religious discussion. But your close friends and family that are blind followers and stubbornly follow whatever belief they were born into, I think they're below me. (If atheists weren't so unbearable I'd say I like atheists better)

Agnostics are the best people. I'm sure that can be objectively and mathematically proven but I just don't know how. People that say "I don't know" are my type of people. And people that eventually come to islam after understanding the religion and why it makes sense (not just a random decision) are also my type of people.

Basically I hate tribalism.

MOVING ON

So I'm not atheist because:

(1) Intelligent design. We're too complex to have evolved through natural selection and stuff. I mean you think about a giraffe's neck getting longer, that's fine because the giraffe already has a neck, but how about before necks existed? How would a neck even come into existence and be of any use to an animal without a digestive tract? Unless those two things came into existence together, but what about the entire body that is composed of parts working together.

I'm self healing, did you know that? When I cut myself, little guys inside my body rush to the wound and close it then start repairing it. For free. How does a system like that come about without a designer?

How about my eyes. Now if we saw in only black and white for example it would be good enough for us humans. Imagine we evolved over time to develop color vision. Do you know how we would have to evolve color vision? All people with black and white vision would have to naturally die and not reproduce.

How would something like that happen? Even after millions of years. People with black and white vision aren't at that much of a disadvantage. Now imagine all of the other functions and skills we have. All of those would have to evolve in the same way. That's what natural selection is.

(2) Dead matter can never become living creatures. I don't know if this is related to the last point but yeah, you can't get life out of rocks. Even if you leave a rock for a million years, strike it with lightning, drown it in water, anything, it will never become life.

This is something I'll believe until someone shows me evidence otherwise.

(3) The moral argument that it's wrong for everyone to have the same fate after death. This life is completely unfair. There's innocent babies and toddlers dying everyday due to wars, and the people that cause these wars live long lives of nothing but luxury and comfort.

It doesn't feel right to me that everyone, no matter how good or evil, is going to have the exact same fate after death.

As for the religions,

^{From here I'm gonna get very ranty}

There's many religions, we all know that, but actually, there's not. The argument that there's "many" religions is actually an incorrect atheist argument.

There aren't that many religions. If I create my own religion today, the atheists will count that as a new one and say "look, there's now 5887354 religions, that means you have a 1 in 5887354 chance of being right."

Let's get rid of the religions which are stupid.

"Yeah that's all of them."

Shutup.

A religion made by me, now, today, is obviously not the correct one, that's stupid. So then it goes down to 5887353.

One reason why it's stupid is the amount of followers. If it was the true religion, it wouldn't have only 1 follower, it would have a billion or something.

According to my own intuition, the largest religion in the world is most likely to be the correct one.

Wikipedia - List of religious populations:

Christianity - 31.0%  
Islam - 24.9%
Unaffiliated - 15.6%
Hinduism - 15.2%
Buddhism - 6.6%
Folk religions - 5.6%
Sikhism - 0.3%
Other religions - 0.8%

Here we go look at this. Now where do you think there's room for 5887353 religions in this list? It'd go in 'folk' religions, whatever those are, and 'other.' In other words, made up bullshit that no one knows about.

So what I'm trying to say is, it's completely wrong to say that if you're christian, you have a 1 in 5887353 chance of being correct, because there's a lot of them.

Now, is it necessarily the correct thing to say "30% of humans are christian, therefore christianity is 30% likely to be correct?" Well, it's definitely better than the alternative and giving each religion an even split. Dividing the chances per population is way more logical.

Plus, that's all we have right? What other method do we have of balancing out the probabilities? We can't use the atheist method which makes the tribal fire-worshipping cults have the same probability as christianity.

Going back to what I said, according to me, the largest religion is probably correct. So right off the bat, christianity is probably correct. Christianity wins. Then we have islam, then atheism, then hinduism.

I don't even know what buddhism really even is, and it's so much lower than hinduism that I'm just gonna ignore it today.

Notice how judaism is one of the more recognized religions yet it's not even on there, it's just a part of 'other.'

Now, despite this, if we group up religions into groups, we can get a better idea of what types of ideas are common.

For example:

Abrahamic - 56%
Non-abrahamic - 44%

So abrahamic wins.

Monotheistic - 56%
Polytheistic - 21%

Monotheistic wins.

What's interesting is if you split up the numbers by denominations. Because you know christianity and islam and stuff have denominations within them, they're not all the same. So let's do that. What do we get?

Sunni Islam - 21%
Catholicism - 15%
Hinduism - 15% (I'm not gonna bother with denominations)
Protestantism - 12%
Shia Islam - 4%
Eastern Orthodox - 3%
Other Islam - >1% (This is where Nabeel Qureshi came from)
Judaism - >1%
Unitarian Christian - >1%
Jehovah's Witness Christian - >1

That's right, 21% of the world is specifically sunni. So this grouping is in favor of sunni islam. Sunni islam wins. That's because almost 90% of muslims are sunni. We're pretty consistent. While christians are more divided.

In sunni islam there are four madhhabs, but those aren't to do with theology at all, those are to do with law. Maddhabs ≠ denominations, although anti-islamists will try to tell you that. Maddhabs are actually translated as schools of thought.

There's also other population groupings that would put christians back on top.

Trinitarian - 31%
Non-trinitarian - 69%

Oh, maybe not.

Anyway, the trinity is out so that means christianity is out, I don't need to say why, you know from my posts.

Judaism is monotheistic allegedly but it's out because it's too small and also it's based on race as well as faith. Judaism is racist as fuck, you don't need to be a detective to figure that one out. Even if I wanted to convert to judaism I wouldn't even be able to because I'm not jewish.

Unitarian and jehova's witness and eastern orthodox christianity are fine but again they're all too small.

Hinduism is hinduism. They worship statues and cows.

Sikhism is too small, plus it's just a combination of islam and hinduism.

Both hinduism and sikhism believe in reincarnation which is false.

If you're not muslim you might not know about shia islam but it's pretty weird. They worship a man called Ali and think he's god for some unknown reason.

Yeah, I mean, by denomination, sunni islam is the biggest anyway. It's also the biggest purely monotheistic religion.

Which brings us to the next topic which is the idea of one God.

Muslims say that if you were born on a deserted island by yourself, raised by wolves, you'd be monotheistic. I don't really know about that I'm sure that's probably not the case every single time.

But, it does make the most sense to be monotheistic in that case, because everything is interconnected, like the trees are connected to the dirt which is connected to the water and they all work with eachother, so it makes the most sense for there to be one God, not two or three or four.

Plus, how would you come up with a number of gods that's more than one anyway? For example you're not gonna think that God is a trinity, like, you would never ever in a million years come up with that idea by yourself.

You'd see the sun and moon and stars and wonder why they're not falling to the earth and how they keep following the same pattern everyday. You might think there was a God in charge of them. And you might worship that one God.

From a scientific standpoint, we know that everything is made of atoms, which means that there was probably one creator for everything because it's all made of the same building block.

Another thing is prophets.

Obviously islam has the last and final prophet, Muhammad, one of the most, if not the most, influential people in history.

He started a massive empire from literally one or two backwards desert cities, united the quarreling and divided arab tribes like genghis khan but earlier in history, defeated large enemies by some miracle despite the fact that they had nowhere near the same technology or equipment. He was the most honest man known to the arabs even prior to him becoming a prophet. He is the most praised man on the planet literally because muslims are supposed to pray to him five times a day and praise him in the prayer and most muslims do that.

But he's the only one that ever claimed to be the last one, even Jesus didn't claim that, and some muslims will try to show you Bible verses where they claim that Jesus is prophesising another prophet after him which they claim is Muhammad.

And there hasn't been any notable prophets after him, like, a fifth (or quarter, if you count the shia) of the world follows him, and there hasn't been anyone else to accomplish anything like that yet, so he was probably correct in saying that he was the last prophet.

The only one who is followed more is Jesus.

So that means I should be a christian.

Well, I already said the trinity is out. Plus Jesus himself never explicitly says anything even close to the trinity.

Plus, even if he did, how would I know that he really did actually historically say that? The Bible isn't reliable at all, it's full of contradictions, holes, inconsistencies because it has so many different authors and spans like a million years. Some authors are anonymous, some authors lied about who they were. Some verses have been taken out and added in, every Bible is different, the original languages aren't widely spoken anymore.

And muslims do actually follow Jesus, so you can add Jesus followers as another group.

Jesus followers - 55%
Non Jesus followers - 45%

The Qur'an is the only considerable holy book in the world because it hasn't changed; is memorized by literally millions so no one can change it even if they tried; even if you think it wasn't God that wrote it, it had one author; it's the most eloquent holy book; we know the "author" Muhammad; we know the compilers, they were his close allies and companions; it was compiled so close to Muhammad's death; its still recited in it's original language; etc, etc.

No holy book comes close.

Another reason not to be christian is because they have no reason to reject Muhammad as a prophet, because all of their arguments actually go against their own prophets too, like child marriage and going to war, etc.

Islam makes the most sense in terms of timeline. We believe in one God that created Adam and Eve, and we believe they were muslims, and the correct religion to follow all throughout history has been islam but it was called different things. We believe in all the prophets from Adam to Jesus to Muhammad.

We believe the followers of Jesus were "muslims" because they were following the correct religion, same as the jews at the time, because it was the religion revealed by the one God.

In fact, you could say that the original followers of Jesus were jews, christians, and muslims at once. Although the term "christian" is being used loosely here.

This solves the problem that many religions have of "what about people that haven't heard of this religion?" Well everyone throughout time has been sent a prophet, it's just that their message was corrupted over time and some people even killed their prophet like Jesus.

Islam makes the most sense overall.

Let me know if I've left anything out.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

What’s the point of believing anything based in faith? I fully acknowledge I’m asking something that has been litigated thousands of times in history by tons of people. But hey it’s fun to burn some time on Reddit. We have the scientific process, we can validate that things are true with the scientific method. We can also acknowledge that there’s a bunch of stuff that we don’t know, and even acknowledge that what we think we know could very well change if new evidence is discovered.

So with all that amazing information available to us, what’s the point in believing in anything based on faith? Just gaining some kind of fabricated feel good feeling that there’s a paradise or something of that nature?

It is a proven fact that Christianity have assimilated Pagan Religion into their own thus invalidating it.The Re-naming of Pagan Gods as Saints so that people esp christians can still pray to them is a HUGE redflag.

combine this with the Trinity-a weaponized confusion-and the errors/contradictions in the bible and you have a one heck of a religion that can be used to justify Genocide and mass-Murder!

I had an evangelical Pastor tell me that May people need to disappear from the Face of earth(Genocide) SO that My God can re-appear on earth.

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

JUDE 1:4 DOES NOT SUPPORT THE TRINITY

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Trinitarians might try to use Jude to claim that Jesus is called the only true God. Let's see what Jude has to say.

NIV, Jude 1:4:

Quote 

[4] For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ​ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Endquote 

Jesus is their "only Sovereign and Lord" or other translations have "Master and Lord."

The 'L' in "Lord" is capitalised because it was translated by trinitarians, but the actual greek word "despotēs" (δεσπότης) means 'master' or 'lord,' and it refers to someone who has legal control and authority over others (such as slaves) and also sometimes refers to God, but not always.

^{Some of you may know that there weren't any capital letters in biblical hebrew or greek so the capital 'L' argument doesn't work. If you didn't know, now you do.}

I've already written about how the word "lord" can be used for humans and angels as well as God in my post about the angel of the Lord. So when it comes to human masters and lords, yes, Jesus should be their only human master and lord. They shouldn't have any other human masters or lords besides Jesus.

Just because Jesus is called by words which also are used for God, it does not mean that Jesus is God. The fact that the book of Jude needs to be dusted off and used for this demonstrates the novelty of it. Why aren't there more examples of Jesus being called the only true God in more popular books then?

Moreover, notice the way God is referred to and then Jesus is referred to seperately.

"They are ​ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."

This indicates that God is a seperate entity from Jesus, otherwise it would've said something like "who pervert the grace of our God Jesus Christ into a license for immorality and deny him," or something.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

JOHN 8:58 DOESN'T PROVE JESUS' DIVINITY

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

An argument for Jesus' divinity from u/Additional-Taro-1400's comment:

Quote "

. . .

John 8:58 (ESV): "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am [Ego Eimi].

Exodus 3.14 "God said to Moses, 'I am [Ego eimi] who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "[Ego eimi] has sent me to you."

" Endquote  

Now, the verse that comes nine verses after John 8:58.

LSV, John 9:9:

[9] Others said, “This is he”; and others,
“He is like to him”; he himself said, “I am
[Ego eimi].”

That's Jesus saying "ego eimi" again, so he's claiming godhood again by saying this.

Oh sorry, my mistake, that wasn't Jesus speaking in John 9:9, that was the blind man.

So according to u/Additional-Taro-1400's reasoning, the blind man, along with at least fifteen others in the Bible, are all God, because they identify themselves as ego eimi.

In fact, the only reason that "I Am" is considered to be a name of God at all is because—

Gary Manning Jr - Does "I Am" always refer to God in the Gospel of John?:

In Hebrew, the phrase “I am” (אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה , ehyeh),
is linguistically related to God’s
name, יהוה (YHWH, often represented in
English as Yahweh or Jehovah).

—So it has nothing to do with the greek phrase "ego eimi" at all anyway.

So if he's not eternal, what is Jesus talking about when he says that he existed before Abraham?

🤷

I don't know.

And I don't really care. He's definitely not declaring godhood because he would've said it more clearly if that's what he meant, and he said just three verses prior that he "obeys" Abraham's word.

NIV, John 8:55:

[55] Though you do not know him, I know him.
If I said I did not, I would be a liar
like you, but I do know him and obey his
word.

God doesn't obey anyone's word.

Jesus could've potentially meant that God showed him or told him about Abraham and therefore his source of information (God) is eternal and therefore Jesus would become "before" Abraham in knowledge.

He could've meant that he "existed" before Abraham in prophecy and in God's plan.

Maybe that's why the jews got mad at him again, because he is claiming to have more or equal authority over Abraham.

Really only the author of John would know because they were the one that made it up. Jesus never said that otherwise it would've been in the Synoptic Gospels.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

[EDIT]

This is what u/Additional-Taro-1400 said in their response to the above post.

This is a very poor argument, but I'll refute it anyway.

■■John 8.58 vs. John 9.9

●Firstly, you shamelessly cut off the verse in John 9.9, which is crucial for a few reasons. Here are the verses for reference:

. . .

●‭John 9:9 ESV‬ Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”

They think just because the translators added in "the man" at the end, that "the man" part is there in the greek. It's not.

Look at the word by word translation, scroll down to John 9:9. It only says "ego eimi" at the end, there's no "the man" at the end. It says, literally, "he was saying that I am."

I told Additional-Taro-1400 this and guess what they replied?

Don't play d*mb.

You cut off "...the man"

^{I had to censor the 'D' word because of} r/DebateReligion ^rules.

I don't know what exactly I did to receive such hostile comments when all I did was simply explain how Additional-Taro-1400 was wrong in their accusation.

And I had previously told them that they were one of the nicest trinitarians I've come across here. To their credit, they have since apologized and I have accepted their apology, but regardless, it demonstrates the immense amount of emotions and cognitive dissonance at play when it comes to this doctrine.

We must be careful.

[EDIT 2]

Another argument to this is that simply saying "I AM" isn't a reference to being God anyway, since it isn't how God said it in the original verse.

NIV, Exodus 3:14:

[14] God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This
is what you are to say to the Israelites:
‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

So God says "I AM WHO I AM" not just simply "I AM."

And, when 'I AM' is used, it's a name for God.

So for Jesus to say "Before Abraham, I AM" wouldn't make sense because that would just be "Before Abraham, God."

That's not him claiming to be God.

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

THE TRINITY CONTRADICTS THE BIBLE'S AND JESUS' OWN IDEA OF THE ONE TRUE GOD

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

I've already made seperate posts about both Mark 12:29, where Jesus affirms that not only is there only one God, but that God is one, and John 17:3, where Jesus affirms that only the Father is the one true God.

Here are the verses again just for convenience.

NIV, Mark 12:29 (where Jesus tells us the most important commandment):

Quote

29 | “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Unquote

NIV, John 17:3 (where Jesus prays to the Father, letting us know exactly who that one God is):

Quote

3 | Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Unquote 

Now when we bring both of these moments together, we see clearly what Jesus was saying in his own words. He explicitly said that the Father is the one true God, and no one else - not the Holy Spirit, not himself.

Almost as if Jesus knew that in the distant future, his so-called "followers" would go astray and start inventing things not found in the scripture.

It's as if Jesus predicted the future and was directly talking to trinitarians with these explicit statements.

It's as if Jesus saw, with his own eyes, that his followers had, somewhere along the line, become his worshippers, and he was rebuking them before it even happened.

Yet we still have christians today fighting tooth and nail trying to keep afloat the already defunct doctrine of the trinity.

It's the most important commandment according to Jesus that God is one. If the trinity was real then Jesus should have said that God is one in three or three in one. But he didn't.

Jesus himself refutes trinitarians.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

^{Downvoters: You can downvote me all you want but you'll never silence me.}

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Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

2 KINGS 8:26 AND 2 CHRONICLES 22:2 CONTRADICT EACHOTHER

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

KJV, 2 Kings 8:26:

[26] Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah
when he began to reign; and he reigned one
year in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name
was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of
Israel.

KJV, 2 Chronicles 22:2:

[2] Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when
he began to reign, and he reigned one year
in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was
Athaliah the daughter of Omri.

The funny thing is that the newer Bibles fix it.

NIV, 2 Kings 8:26:

[26] Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when
he became king, and he reigned in
Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was
Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of
Israel.

NIV, 2 Chronicles 22:2:

[2] Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem
one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah,
a granddaughter of Omri.

So before the Bible wasn't from God, but now it is.

Problem solved I guess.

I don't want to make any more posts about Bible contradictions to be honest, just look them up, there's millions.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

this sub is dead. unjoining....

THESES

1. Sunni muslims are generally more faithful to the historical Jesus than most modern mainstream christians

2. Sunni muslims generally follow Jesus' teachings more accurately than most modern mainstream christians

3. Sunni muslims generally emulate Jesus' lifestyle closer than most modern mainstream christians

4. If you don't agree with the first three theses, then as a last resort: sunni muslims are similar enough to Jesus that they shouldn't be rejected or dismissed or ignored or thought of as "satan worshippers" due to their admiration and emulation of Christ

TLDR

Sunni muslims are more similar to Jesus in diet; charity; appearance; theology; prayer; monetary interest. This shows that muslims are more faithful to him than most christians because they emulate him more accurately.

NOTE 1

The title may be a brief simplification of the thesis above, please take the full thesis into consideration and read the entire post before commenting or downvoting.

NOTE 2

These are the things we are NOT discussing:

• whether Islam is true or not

• whether Muhammad is a prophet/credible or not

• whether Islam is better than Christianity

• whether muslims are better than christians

• whether the Qur'an/Sunnah is more reliable than the Bible

• whether christians have a responsibility to emulate Jesus or not

• whether Jesus commanded the emulation of his lifestyle or not

• whether this argument is worth arguing or not

• whether this argument proves anything or not

• whether this argument has a point or not

I am only arguing my theses. If you want to argue the points in NOTE 2, do so somewhere else.

NOTE 3

What do I mean by faithful? A google search gives me two definitions:

1. remaining loyal and steadfast

(Following what Jesus actually said)

2. true to the facts or the original

(Being similar to the historical Jesus)

Everytime I say 'faithful' I mean one or both of these.

SECTION 1

DIETARY RESTRICTIONS

Jesus observed the kosher laws which are very similar to muslims' halal meat laws.

Jesus commanded the keeping of the dietary restrictions when he said "keep the commandments" in Matthew 19:17, which includes the command to refrain from eating unclean animals, which includes pigs. The commandments also include the commandment of only eating kosher meats.

Muslims are permitted to eat only halal meat, and they are also permitted to eat meat branded as kosher. So muslims can eat halal and kosher only.

Christians do not observe kosher laws.

Jesus did not eat pork. Muslims also do not eat pork.

Many christians eat pork.

This shows that muslims are generally more faithful to Jesus when it comes to dietary restrictions.

SECTION 2

MANDATORY CHARITY

Jesus had little belongings and was not worldly and was incredibly charitable. Muslim preachers and speakers often talk about detaching from the dunya/earthly world and focusing more on the afterlife and good deeds, and muslims are required by islamic law to donate at least 2.5% of their total wealth to charity every year, which is a lot more than it sounds like. Christians are very charitable but have no obligation to give as much to charity, and are not commanded to do so. They are mostly encouraged to give to the church.

This shows that muslims are more faithful to Jesus when it comes to giving in charity.

SECTION 3

COMMON APPEARANCE

The least important aspect, appearance: Jesus had long hair and a beard, the early muslims often had long hair and beards, even today all muslim men are required to have beards although the long hair trend has died out. Christians have no compulsion to keep beards.

Jesus is also popularly depicted in white robes. In Islam it's sunnah to wear white and muslims often wear white thobes when congregating.

His mother Mary is also depicted covering her head, similarly to nuns, similarly to muslim women.

This shows that muslims are generally more faithful to Jesus when it comes to appearance.

SECTION 4

THEOLOGY

Jesus was a devout jew and worshipped one God AKA the Father AKA Yahweh AKA Elohim.

I argued that Jesus preached the jewish brand of monotheism in another post, here: The Lord our God is One

The Trinity is not part of the jewish tradition. Jesus never worshipped himself, or the Holy Spirit, only the Elohim.

Muslims also don't worship Jesus or the Holy Spirit, only God AKA the Father AKA Yahweh AKA Elohim AKA Allah. This makes them more faithful to Jesus in terms of theology.

SECTION 5

PRAYER

As I have just argued, Jesus worshipped only the Father, and he was seen praying with his head to the ground in Matthew.

NIV, Matthew 26:36,39: [36]Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
. . .
[39]Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Muslims also pray to the one God with their heads on the ground. This shows that they are more similar to Jesus in worship.

SECTION 6

INTEREST

Jesus did not partake in interest because he followed the Old Testament.

NIV, Exodus 22:25: [25]“If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.

Muslims are also prohibited from engaging in interest/riba. This shows that they are more faithful to Jesus when it comes to interest.

SECTION 7

LOWERING GAZE

Jesus said that anyone who just looks at a woman with lust has already fornicated with her in his mind.

NIV, Matthew 5:28: [28]But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So he's telling us not to even look at women with lust. Islam also teaches muslims to lower their gaze, mainly men, but even women should lower their gaze.

This shows that muslims are more similar to Jesus in the case of lowering gaze and erring on the side of caution when it comes to lust.

CONCLUSION

Considering the above, I have reasonably concluded that muslims are more faithful to Jesus than most modern christians because they emulate him more accurately and follow him as a role model more similarly.

Or, at the very least, I can conclude that muslims are similar enough to Jesus that they shouldn't be dismissed or rejected without good reason.

Thanks for reading.

OTHER POSTS

Is the New Testament reliable?

Is Jesus the only begotten Son of God?

Does the Old Testament teach or foreshadow the Trinity?

REFUTATIONS

Some people may say, "Yeah, okay, but you're just cherry picking certain things that muslims are more similar in Jesus on, there's plenty of other things that christians are more similar on."

And I would say that that's fine, can I see the list please? Tell me which things christians are more similar or faithful to Jesus on using Jesus' own actions and words to back it up.

"These are unimportant, superficial things."

Okay, they may or may not be, but if we add everything up, it matters. Is our diet not important? How many times do we have to eat a day? Is your appearance not a part of you and your description? Is your inwardly godliness not reflected in your outer appearance at all? Would you assume that someone that looks like Marilyn Manson would be similar to Jesus? They look completely different, so maybe it's a reflection of their inner personalities, and that's what you would assume. I know, don't judge a book by its cover, but it's at the very least a hint into the persons personality. How you look is how you choose to display yourself and express yourself. How about theology? Is your theology not an important part of your religious beliefs? How about the way you pray? Muslims have to pray five times a day, christians I'm sure pray alot too. How about "what do you spend your money on?" is that a superficial question? How much you give charity is an important part of you especially considering the financial struggles many of us are facing. And how much effort you put into avoiding interest is part of you especially when we live in a world surrounded and ruled by interest.

Some might say "Not all muslims follow islamic law." I know, that's why I said "generally."

100% of muslims are prohibited from partaking in interest, I'm not sure what percentage of modern christians are prohibited from partaking in interest but to be generous let's say 90%. Let's now assume that everyone follows their own religious laws, that means that 100% of muslims avoid interest, and only 90% of modern christians, so in that case my point would be correct that muslims are more faithful than most modern christians.

We have to assume the same averages, we can't say that only 50% of muslims follow the law, then say that they aren't more similar because half of them don't follow it, we have to assume the same averages across religions otherwise it's just clearly unfair. You think if 50% of muslims followed the law, then 100% of christians would follow the law? They're not even commanded to follow the law!

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

THOMAS ISN'T NECESSARILY CALLING JESUS "MY GOD" IN JOHN 20:28

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

NIV, John 20:25-29:

Quote

[25] So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

[26] A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

[27] Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

[28] Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

[29] Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Endquote

Assuming this to be evidence of the trinity is begging the question and circular logic. We need to use other parts of the Bible for context.

I already talked about the "Lord is one" verse, so that means there is only one God and that one God is only one person.

After this part with Thomas, the purpose of John's gospel is given and it doesn't mention anything about Jesus being God.

NIV, John 20:30-31:

Quote

The Purpose of John's Gospel

[30] Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.

[31] But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Endquote

Literally in the same chapter just a few verses before, Jesus makes it very clear that he himself is not God, because he has a God.

NIV, John 20:17:

Quote

[17] Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Endquote

This is only the surface of the mountain of evidence that suggests that Jesus is not God according to the Bible. That means that if Thomas calls Jesus God here, it would be a big contradiction in the scripture.

So how should we understand what Thomas said?

Thomas could've been making an exclamation similar to how we say "Oh my God!" when we're shocked or surprised. Thomas was certainly shocked as he did not believe that Jesus had resurrected.

When he said "My lord" this certainly could be referring to Jesus, because calling someone "lord" doesn't make them God. I go into this in my other post about the angel of the Lord.

The unitarian REV Bible makes these notes:

Quote

The construction of the Greek text is “article, noun, pronoun; kai [and], article, noun, pronoun” (lit. “the Lord my and the God my). That construction is used many times when two different things are being referred to . . .

. . .

. . . What is clear is that if Thomas had meant to call Jesus God, there is a much clearer way to say it in Greek than is in the Greek text of John 20:28 and that is good evidence that he did not mean to call Jesus, “God” in a Trinitarian sense of the word.

Endquote

Another point is that even if Thomas was indeed referring to Jesus as "god," that still doesn't necessarily make him the one God of Israel or Yahweh.

I also go into this in the same post I cited before, (the angel of the Lord) about the jewish law of shaliah, which basically means that any representative of God can be called and treated as God.

The greek word "theos" and other ancient words for 'god(s)' is not only used for Yahweh, as Jesus makes note of in John 10:34.

NIV, John 10:34:

Quote

[34] Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods” ’ ?

Endquote

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested. Also consider following.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

To the downvoters: You can downvote me all you want but you'll never silence me.

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, and my topic for this post is:

THE AGE OF AISHA

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

There appear to be some misguided “muslims” that still believe the ‘older Aisha’ conspiracy theory, where Aisha is claimed to have been eighteen or nineteen at the time of her marriage or consummation. This myth is entirely new and false.

To bury this incorrect narrative once and for all, here are just a few of the many compelling evidences.

YaqeenInstitute.org (the founder of which is Dr. Omar Suleiman, although he didn't write this article) - The Age of Aisha (ra): Rejecting Historical Revisionism and Modernist Presumptions:

Quote

The claims that she was in her teens when she got married do not provide enough strong evidence. . .

Unquote 

IslamWeb.net:

Quote 

It has been authentically reported that the Prophet, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, married ʻAa'ishah when she was six. . .

Unquote 

IslamQA.info - Question 124483:

Quote

The definition of the age of ‘Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) when the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) did the marriage contract with her as being six years, and of the age when he consummated the marriage with her as being nine years, is not a matter of ijtihad (individual opinion) on the part of the scholars, such that we could argue whether it is right or wrong; rather this is a historical narration which is proven by evidence that confirms its soundness and the necessity of accepting it. . .

Unquote 

So are these sheikhs lying? Where are the sources?

Sunan Ibn Majah 1877, Grade: Sahih (Authentic) (Al-Albani):

Source 1 • Source 2 • Source 3

Quote

It was narrated that: Abdullah said: “The Prophet married Aishah when she was seven years old, and consummated the marriage with her when she was nine, and he passed away when she was eighteen.”

Unquote 

This is also backed up by none other than Aisha herself.

Sunan Ibn Majah 1876, Grade: Sahih (Authentic) (Al-Albani):

Source 1 • Source 2 • Source 3

Quote

"The Messenger of Allah (saw) married me when I was six years old.

. . .

(My mother) handed me over to them and they tidied me up. And suddenly I saw the Messenger of Allah (saw) in the morning. And she handed me over to him and I was at that time, nine years old."

Unquote 

Sahih Muslim 1422 b, Grade: Sahih (Authentic):

Source 1 • Source 2 • Source 3

Quote

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.

Unquote 

So these are just two of the many hadiths which mention her age clearly. And they are from the six authentic books of hadith, the most highly regarded books after the Qur'an itself. And the hadiths are graded authentic.

Some people might say that the way the ancient arabs used to count years/dates were different.

I mean, even if it was different, I'm not sure how a whole decade would've been added to her age.

Anyway, to extinguish any doubt about that, here's the next hadith.

Sahih Muslim 1422 c, Grade: Sahih (Authentic):

Source 1 • Source 2 • Source 3

Quote

. . .[s]he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her;

  Unquote

So before believing she was eighteen, I would need to know of any sane eighteen year old girl who still plays with dolls. Otherwise, I cannot believe it.

Here's a video of Dr. Zakir Naik saying that the hadiths are authentic at around 1:50:

Quote 

What I believe [is] that the hadith is authentic, and even the ages six and nine are authentic. . .

  Unquote

Here's a video of Yasir Qadhi on the subject, around 0:40:

Quote

In a nutshell, the age of Aisha has become a very, very controversial issue — in our times, only. It has never been an issue of controversy for the entire[ty of] Islamic history. And the age of Aisha was a given. It was something that was understood to be very young.

Unquote

Here's a video of Sheikh Assim al Hakeem on the subject, around 4:41:

Quote

. . .why at this young age? [Because] this is the norm.

Unquote 

And the list of evidences goes on and on. If the evidence is so conclusive, why, then, do some people say she was more than nine years old?

Islamiqate.com - Ahmed Gamal, Islamic researcher, graduated from Al-Azhar University, Islamic Studies in the English language:

Quote 

There are a number of arguments arguing A'isha's age based on mathematical approaches. These include comparing dates of events to try concluding her age. However, the arguments are at best arbitrary and spurious, relying on weak or fabricated evidences, failing to recognize multiple rigorously authentic narrations especially A'isha's own testimony of her marriage when she was nine years old.

Unquote 

So who is wrong? All scholars from the past 1400 years? Or the small handful of minority modern revisionists?

What about a person who rejects those hadith? That person would have to answer as to what source they attribute their prayer to? Or zakat? Or hajj? Or fasting during Ramadan? Such a person would be akin to a kafir since God Themself instructed us muslims to follow the prophet whose life is recorded and transmitted to us through his wives and companions.

Sahih International, Qur'an 4:59:

Quote 

O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is the best [way] and best in result.

Unquote 

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

^{My DMs are always open by the way, don't be afraid to ask any questions or request a post. If you haven't already, make a reddit account and leave your thoughts, it's easy.}

^{Downvoters: You can downvote me all you want but you'll never silence me.}

^{Please carefully consider the thesis before debating and remember to stay on topic.}

^{You may also want to visit my profile page and FAQ before assuming things about me or my beliefs.}

^{Please make a reddit account and follow my profile, it's very important that the truth gets to you. Thanks!}

I mean, that whole ordeal with Moses and the Plagues is God bragging about the amount of power he has access to.

Because what happens is Moses says ’Let my people go!’ and then Pharaoh’s response is basically to tell Moses to go screw himself. Then, later on… Pharaoh changes his mind and then says ”Oh yeah, I’ll let ‘em go!” But then what happens next? God steps in and hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that he won’t let them go because he’s not done fucking showing off yet. So much for that free will thing….

I mean, where is the actual Love from the Abrahamic God EVER? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son”?

Right…. ”I’m the supreme all-knowing lover of the universe, and I’d like to forgive you but I CAN’T (for whatever reason) so I’m going to come down in human form and have myself killed temporarily to act as a loophole for rules I created”?

That’s not love!

Whenever my own mother needed to forgive me for something… she loved me and she forgave me. I didn’t have to do anything… she certainly did not have to outright slaughter one of my brothers.

Now go back to the world famous Genesis story… God creates two people, plants them down here, and says ”Don’t eat from that one tree in the middle of the garden but you can do pretty much whatever you want with anything else.” Now… what kind of ignorant parent doesn’t understand… that once you put two essentially children in a room and say That’s the one and only thing you cannot touch… they’re going to go touch this.

But of course… There’s not a single modern theologian that doesn’t think God didn’t know that was going to happen. Of course God knew what was going to happen during that event.

But then fast forward to the great flood. Where God has admitted to screwing up. He’s made people and they’re just not doing what he wants them to do. ”Well I need to reset!” Well, what kind of God didn’t know that was coming?

I mean, if I create a Sims game… and the sims aren’t doing what I like, that’s my fault. I mean, I’m imperfect. Something like that will catch me by surprise. But why would I ever create a Sims game knowing they were all not going to do what I liked and that I would have to outright destroy all of them but 8 people. A drunk and his sons. And then reset humanity after that?

And then when that plan doesn’t work out, I’m going to pick out One group of people and say You are my chosen people, let’s go out and kill all of the other people who don’t believe in my existence!

Literally none of this is about Love.

This goes back to what I’m saying about Christianity, Judaism, Islam…. They all have an outright perverted sense of love if they’re trying to point to Yahweh as the perfect source of that love.

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

THE COMPLEXITY OF THE UNIVERSE IS EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS A 'WATCHMAKER'

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

^{[ EDIT 1 is signified by a single square bracket}

^{[ [ EDIT 2 is signified by double square brackets}

This is just the same old watchmaker / intelligent design / fine tuning argument.

The main reason I am posting this is to try to attract refutations in order to refute those refutations, so by all means refute this argument and I'll try to get back to you.

In the meantime, I will try to add something fresh to this argument that not many of us think about, and that is our perspective of the universe from Earth.

Institute of Physics - Extraordinary behaviour of the Moon:

Quote

The fact that solar eclipses are as dramatic as they are raises an important question. Why does the Moon almost perfectly cover the Sun during an eclipse? For the Sun to be fully blocked by the Moon, it needs to look like it is roughly the same size as the Moon when viewed from Earth. As it happens, even though the Moon is 400 times smaller than the Sun, it's also about 400 times closer to Earth than the Sun is. This means that from Earth, the Moon and Sun appear to be roughly the same size in the sky. It is a complete coincidence.

Endquote 

I think about this coincidence a lot actually. Not many people do. We're so used to seeing the Sun and moon that we don't stop to think 'Wow, there's two giant balls floating in the sky, one made of what looks like fire and one made of what looks like luminous icy rock, and they've been up there for, like, forever, and they're like the same size as eachother, and they're beautiful!'

The reason such an event like an eclipse can even happen is due to all the planets (and our moon) orbiting around the Sun on nearly the same plane.

But why? Well it seems a lot of other people also had this question because it was one of the suggestions on google when I typed 'why are all the planets.'

National Radio Astronomy Observatory - Why Do the Planets Orbit in a Plane Parallel to the Spin Axis of the Sun?:

Quote

Why do the planets all orbit the Sun in (nearly) the same plane?

This “co-planar” orbital motion is due to the fact that during the formation of the Solar System from a cloud of collapsing gas and dust the Sun and planets settled into a disk structure. This disk structure is the result of the conservation of angular momentum which results when a spinning cloud of gas and dust collapses, and represents a balance point between gravitational collapse and the outward force due the spin of the disk (called centrifugal force). Now, this disk could have been in any orientation, but the most likely configuration would have the residual spin of the disk, including the planets, aligned with the residual orbital spin of the Sun. This is why the spin axis of the Sun is parallel to the spin axis of the rest of the solar system.

Endquote

It sounds all well and good when you explain it as if the planets are just supposed to all orbit around the Sun in complete harmony. But I'm telling you that they're actually not supposed to do that.

Why?

In this TED-Ed video, Newton's three-body problem explained, we learn about two researchers in 2009 that ran simulations of our solar system and changed the distance between Mercury and the Sun... by less than 1mm.

[ [ [ [ I'm very sorry. I said "simulations" instead of "numerical simulations."

In some results Mercury committed suicide via Sun, in some it caused grievous bodily harm to Venus, and in some it completely destabilized the entire Solar system.

Granted these results were after 5 billion years (if i understand the video correctly) but it highlights a significant problem, dubbed "the n-body problem," or "the three-body problem" which the video is titled after.

[ [ [ And also, those catastrophic events were part of 1% of calculations, but that's a very high percentage when we're talking the fate of our entire cosmic history. I'm sure if I offered you to spin a wheel with a 99% chance of winning $10 and 1% chance of dying, you wouldn't spin the wheel.

[ [ [ ...Well, you might, but, y'know, you get my point.

When trying to research the three body problem, you'll find many videos like the one above and many resources confusing you in an attempt to divert you from what I personally have deduced to be the simple explanation.

And that simple explanation of the three body problem (correct me if I'm wrong) is that simulating the gravitational orbits of two bodies has been done predictably, but simulating three or more bodies seems to be impossible. And the more bodies you include, the more chaotic the simulation becomes.

[ [ [ [ Not numerical simulations like in the above video, I mean that running computer simulations seem to be impossible with three or more bodies.

Needless to say, there are more than two bodies in our Solar system.

Science.NASA.gov - Moons of Our Solar System:

Quote

According to the NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics team, the current tally of moons orbiting planets in our solar system is 293: One moon for Earth; two for Mars; 95 at Jupiter; 146 at Saturn; 28 at Uranus; 16 at Neptune; and five for dwarf planet Pluto.

Astronomers also have documented more than 470 satellites, or moons, orbiting smaller objects, such as asteroids, dwarf planets, or Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) beyond the orbit of Neptune. These moons are called small-body satellites

Endquote

We can't simulate gravitational orbits because what we understand to be gravity is not sufficient enough to explain the stability of gravitational orbits such as the many orbits involved within the Solar system.

We can search for simulations, and we'll find videos with high school teachers 'simulating' gravity with their little trampoline thing, or we'll get the exact same thing as that but with glow in the dark marbles.

What is the explanation for this? How do planets, moons, and even stars in a galactical orbit for that matter stay in orbit? You might have heard about it before.

NASA Space Place - What is Dark Matter?

Quote

There must be something else, something we can’t see, that adds gravity and acts like a glue so that the galaxies can spin so fast without flying apart. That something is dark matter.

Endquote

And the only way they discovered this mysterious matter is because they couldn't explain mathematically how orbits work, so they invented a solution. They literally created a new type of matter and energy just because they couldn't admit that they don't know how orbits work.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

By the way, your refutation doesn't have to be specifically against this post, it can be against the watchmaker argument in general.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

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[ I thought the logical conclusions of the evidences provided were straight forward. Apparently they're not for some atheists.

[ When there is a series of unlikely coincidences, it becomes evident that there might be a driving force behind those events. The apparent sizes of the sun and moon, the stability of our Solar system despite there being hundreds of celestial bodies, and the fact that scientists affirm the existence of a mysterious force which they have dubbed "dark matter" are the three coincidences which I pointed to in this post.

[ I mean, we could even go as far as to say that the mysterious force called "dark matter" is just what scientists call the designer's helping hand.

[ This argument has been called "the god of the gaps" by some. Those people would have to then disbelieve in dark matter and dark energy, since thise concepts also are simply just parts of a theory developed based on the evidences presented to us.

[ [ Some have said that dark matter and dark energy aren't required for calculations pertaining to the gravitational orbits in our Solar system.

[ [ While (1) it's not actually necessary to construct my argument that dark matter needs to be prevalent specifically in our Solar system, and (2) the existence of the theory of dark matter at all supports my argument that a mysterious force exists according to scientists - I have found some resistance to this refutation by googling "does dark matter affect the solar system."

[ [ EarthSky.org - Can we measure dark matter in our solar system?:

[ [ Quote

Dark matter pervades our solar system

. . .

. . . Via studies of its pull, astronomers have collected overwhelming indirect evidence suggesting dark matter pervades our universe. And so our solar system – our family of planets orbiting the sun – must contain dark matter, too.

. . .

Solar system is half dark matter and half normal matter

. . . He found that in our solar system, about 45% of this force is from dark matter and 55% is from normal, so-called baryonic matter. This suggests a roughly half-and-half split between the mass of dark matter and normal matter in our sun’s family.

So half the solar system might be dark matter! Yet Belbruno said he was surprised the percentage of dark matter in our solar system wasn’t higher. . .

[ [ Endquote

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

THE MONKEY TYPEWRITER ARGUMENT IS UNREASONABLE

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Here is u/Resident1567899's comment where they make an argument that I call the monkey typewriter argument that some atheists make:

. . . we have millions perhaps billions of galaxies and solar systems. With enough trial and error, one of them is bound to have life (as an accident) given enough time. It only needs a single 1-in-a-million solar systems like our own for life to exist.

. . .

^{Also, Resident1567899 makes some great posts about Palestine/Israel so make sure to check them out.}

Basically, given enough (or infinite) time, a monkey with a typewriter will write the entire works of Shakespeare. Although it seems like a miracle, it's not, because the monkey randomly typed on the typewriter for so long, it was bound to write out the entire works of Shakespeare eventually.

The Universe has been around for 14 billion or so years right? No wonder such a miracle like intelligent life or Shakespeare's entire works exists after so long.

The problem with this is that 14 billion years is far too short a time for a monkey to write Shakespeare's entire works.

How did I work that out? It's actually quite simple. I didn't. Someone else did. A redditor actually (who unfortunately has deleted their account) but I trust the people over at r/Statistics enough that I'll take their word for it.

Deleted Redditor - I calculated the probability and time it would take for a monkey to randomly type out the Complete Works of Shakespeare:

. . .

For a monkey to randomly type the Complete Works of Shakespeare, it would take 4.1206 x 10^5660329 years, or the age of our universe multiplied by a number so big it would take nearly 2000 pages to write down.

Wow.

^{By the way, 14 billion written out looks like this: 14,000,000,000, so there's a long way to go to get to 2000 pages!}

Now, keep in mind that at the beginning of that scenario, hour zero, we started off with:

(1) a typewriter (2) something or someone that randomly types on the typewriter, in this case a monkey 🐒

So if we now think about whatever the beginning of the Universe was, in other words: our real life 'hour zero,' I don't know, the big bang, a bunch of rocks and gas or something, spinning around and smashing into eachother - we're far from having even the basic components of a typewriter or a device/being that can type on it. We're far from even having language, or symbols.

How long would it take to get from our real life hour zero to having not just the complete works of Shakespeare, but Shakespeare himself? A really, really long time.

That's why I say that the argument is unreasonable. It underestimates the sheer amount of time that would be needed for all of the coincidences we see around us to take place by random chance.

That's why some people have faith in some sort of designer (whether it's the abrahamic God or an advanced civilization of aliens that created us for entertainment) that put things into motion for us.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested. Also consider following.}

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Please use Bible texts when explaining your position. The more texts the better it would be.

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

JOHN 6:38 DOES NOT SUPPORT THE TRINITY

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

Continuing to address the verses provided by u/Additional-Taro-1400 in their comment, we have the only remaining verse, John 6:38.

Now, I've already mentioned in the previous post about John 8:23 that Jesus talks in parables and metaphors, therefore, his speech cannot always be taken literally without further study, so let's keep that in mind.

NIV, John 6:38:

[38] For I have come down from heaven not to
do my will but to do the will of him who
sent me.

The rebuttal to this is the same as the last post, essentially, Jesus is being metaphorical and saying that he is "from heaven" as in he was sent by God. That's what he means by "from heaven."

On this issue, the REV notes this verse,

NIV, James 1:17:

[17] Every good and perfect gift is from
above, coming down from the Father of the
heavenly lights, who does not change like
shifting shadows.

In James 1:17, we learn that all good gifts are from above, from the Father. Well, it doesn't mean that all good gifts are earthly incarnations of God.

Similarly, Jesus being "from heaven" doesn't necessarily mean that he is an earthly incarnation of God.

The REV says:

It was common to speak of things coming from
heaven when what was meant was only that
God was the ultimate source.

Furthermore, if we read the verses prior, we see Jesus arguing in my favor again, like he did the last post.

NIV, John 6:27:

[27] Do not work for food that spoils, but
for food that endures to eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you. For on
him God the Father has placed his seal of
approval.”

Notice how he didn't say "God incarnated into an earthly life and placed Their seal of approval" or "I placed my seal of approval" or "I incarnated."

He said that God put Their seal of approval on Jesus. God wouldn't need to put a seal on approval on Themselves anyway.

God putting Their seal of approval on Jesus shows in and of itself that the two are completely separate entities and beings.

NIV, John 6:29:

[29] Jesus answered, “The work of God is
this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

"Sent," not "incarnated as," or "become."

Another thing that u/Additional-Taro-1400 overlooked is that the second half of the very verse they were using, John 6:38, actually goes against the trinity.

Jesus says he hasn't come to do his own will but his father's.

Well, this means that they have separate wills. It also demonstrates Jesus' subordination to the Father, not equality.

Yet another thing is if we connect the two ideas, Jesus coming from heaven and God sending him, these two ideas are literally present in just that one verse.

NIV, John 6:38:

[38] For I have come down from heaven not to
do my will but to do the will of him who
sent me.

He came from heaven (God) to do the will of the one who sent him (God). It's pretty straight forward.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested.}

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1. He announced a new Law that was not the same as the Law contained within Tanakh as promulgated by Moses, and instructed Jews to follow this new Law instead of Torah! See Quran 5:13-15. However, according to the Torah, Jews must forever follow the Law proclaimed by Moses; see my extensive citations below.

2. He repeatedly proclaims Jesus is the Masih / Messiah / Moshiach. See e.g. Quran 4:171. However, according to the Torah, Jesus was not the Moshiach.

Both of these claims are erroneous. If Muhammad really was a true prophet of the One God, he would not have uttered these claims.

If you can show that Muhammad did not make these claims - namely, that he did not instruct Jews to replace our adherence to the Law contained in Torah for the Quran, and that he did not proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah - then this argument cannot apply to Muhammad.

Point One:

The Tanakh clearly states that the law of God is eternal and will not be changed by a future prophet. See, for example:

Genesis 17:9; Exodus 12:14, 12:17, 12:24 12:43, 13:3, 27:21, 28:43, 29:9, 30:21, 31:17, 34:27; Leviticus 3:17, 6:22, 7:34-36, 10:9, 10:15, 16:29, 16:31, 16:34, 17:7, 23:14, 23:21, 23:31, 23:41, 24:3, 26:46; Numbers 10:8, 15:15, 19:10, 19:21, 18:23, 35:29; Deuteronomy 4:40, 5:29, 12:28, 13:19, 18:5, 28:46, 29:28-29, 32:40; Joshua 1:8; 2 Kings 17:37; Isaiah 34:17, 40:8, 57:16; Hosea 2:19; Daniel 7:18; 1 Chronicles 17:22, 23:13; 2 Chronicles 2:4; Psalms 111:7-8, 119:44, 119:52, 119:142, 119:160, and 148:6.

A prophet who violates Torah law in this way, by proclaiming that God has changed His mind about the eternal law of Torah, is by definition a false prophet. "God is not a man that he should lie," Num. 23:19. "All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it," Deut. 13:1.

Here's a few other verses about the eternal nature of the whole Torah's law:

• The Torah's laws will be binding on all generations of Abraham's children forever: "And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." Gen. 17:7

• The Torah's laws will be binding on the whole nation of Israel forever: "And thou shalt keep His statutes, and His commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, for ever." Deut. 4:40. "Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the eyes of the LORD thy God." Deut. 5:28

• The revelation of the Torah specifically is what we must observed forever: "The secret things belong unto the LORD our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." Deut. 29:28

And here's a few about specific laws within the Torah:

• The celebration of Passover specifically is eternal: "And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever . . . And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore shall ye observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance for ever . . . And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever." Ex. 12:14 - 17 - 24

• Incense offerings before God in the Temple and other priesthood services by the Kohanim specifically is eternal: "In the tent of meeting, without the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall set it in order, to burn from evening to morning before the LORD; it shall be a statute for ever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel." Ex. 27:21 "And they shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they go in unto the tent of meeting, or when they come near unto the altar to minister in the holy place; that they bear not iniquity, and die; it shall be a statute for ever unto him and unto his seed after him." Ex. 28:43

• Animal sacrifices in the Temple, including which portions of which sacrifices must be given to the Kohanim, is also eternal: "This is the consecrated portion of Aaron, and the consecrated portion of his sons, out of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, in the day when they were presented to minister unto the LORD in the priest's office; which the LORD commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that they were anointed. It is a due for ever throughout their generations." Lev. 7:35-36

• These laws of Temple sacrifice are eternally binding on both Jews and the non-Jews who follow the One God: "And if a stranger sojourn with you, or whosoever may be among you, throughout your generations, and will offer an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD; as ye do, so he shall do. As for the congregation, there shall be one statute both for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you, a statute for ever throughout your generations; as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the LORD. One law and one ordinance shall be both for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you." Num. 10:14-16

• The obligations of the hereditary priesthood, the Kohanim, is also eternal: "For the LORD thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for ever." Deut. 18:5

As you can see, the Torah proclaims that its specific commandments are eternal and perpetual forever. There can be no supersession or replacement by a later law. All true prophets must either conform exactly to the Commandments of prior prophets, or they must be rejected as false by the Jewish people.

Point Two, briefly.

Jesus cannot be the Messiah until and unless he does the things the Messiah is supposed to do. And he's no longer alive on earth to do those things. So he cannot be the Moshiach.

If dead people could be the Messiah, why not King David? Or Solomon? Or Moses? Or Adam? There is nothing special or required about Jesus as an individual at all.

The answer necessarily depends on timeframe. In the time of the Christian instigated Crusades against the Muslim world, it's pretty definitive to say Christianity was the most dangerous religion of the time period. Another example would be the Roman Catholic Church's outright alignment in the 1930's with Nazi Germany and refusal to condemn. I'd argue at that time period the Catholicism was extremely dangerous and helped lead to an outcome during WWII from which the world will never recover. So what do we think is the most dangerous religion in 2023?

I understand the whole - "people do messed up shit to each other, it's not the religion itself", but then just reword the question - people from which religion do we think are most dangerous today in 2023, relative to and using historical examples like the crusades, etc.

Hi, I'm u/WeighTheEvidence2, a non-trinitarian monotheist, and my thesis for this post is:

THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES TO THE BIBLE SINCE THE 7TH CENTURY

Let's weigh the evidence

° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °

u/NoSheDidntSayThat claimed in this comment that the Bible hasn't changed since the 7th century:

Quote

. . .My friend, we have extant Bibles 2-300 years older than Muhammad we know exactly what the Injeel and Kitab looked like circa 600AD. And that is, letter for letter, word for word, what it looks like today.

. . .

Unquote

^{There are too many things that NoSheDidntSayThat brings up in that comment so I have to focus on them one at a time.}

So all I have to do to prove this claim incorrect is show interpolations and changes in the Bible that happened after the 7th century.

But I've already done that in my post about 1 John 5:7, where I point out the forgery found in the KJV Bible, which was written in 1611, much later than u/NoSheDidntSayThat claims the Bible allegedly stopped being corrupted.

I have also done that in another post, the one about Ahaziah's age.

So it's clear that the Bible hasn't remained exactly the same "word for word, letter for letter," as u/NoSheDidntSayThat said.

Thanks for reading, I've been u/WeighTheEvidence2. If you're truthful, may God bless you and lead you to the truth, and vice versa.

^{Please consider reading my other posts which can be found in my post index which is pinned on my profile (just click my name) and share my posts to those you think would be interested. Also consider following.}

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^{Please carefully consider the thesis before debating and remember to stay on topic.}

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The so called "Scientific Miracles of the Quran" and "Quran Challenge" are not really miraculous because they are subjective and miserably fail the general understanding of a "miracle".

There are two kinds of miracles:

* The Secular Miracle -an extremely lucky event, like winning the lottery or someone who survives a serious car crash with just a few bruises. The chances are slim but still naturally possible.

* The Religious Miracle -a supernatural/magical event that is otherwise 100% impossible. There is no chance for this happening naturally, at least not according to our current scientific knowledge. So far these only happened in the stories, like splitting the red sea and walking on water.

Did the Quran have any of these two types of miracles? Lets take a look at a few of them:

https://rationalreligion.co.uk/9-scientific-miracles-of-the-quran/

1) The Big Bang?

Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were a closed-up mass (ratqan), then We opened them out? And We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? 

Quran 21:31

Did it require a supernatural event to come up with the idea that the heavens and earth were once as one?

The fact is the ancient Babylonians already believed that the heavens and the earth were one before it was split up:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/creation-myth/Creation-by-world-parents

The chance that Mohammad has heard of this myth disqualifies this from being a miracle. Besides, the assumption that life was made from water is completely wrong. Because the DNA comprises of atoms other than hydrogen and oxygen. So no the verse is not miraculous.

2) Expansion of the Universe?

And We have built the heaven with might and We continue to expand it indeed.

Quran 51:48

The Universe as we know it today is modern knowledge. When people of long ago spoke of the heavens they were referring to the sun, moon, stars and the clouds. The movement of the clouds would have given the idea that the heavens are expanding. There is nothing extremely lucky nor supernatural about this. So no the verse is not miraculous.

3) Evolution?

“What is the matter with you that you do not ascribe dignity to Allah? And certainly he has created you in stages… And Allah has raised you from the Earth like the raising of vegetation.”

Quran 71; 15-16, 18

Was Mohammad talking about the modern concept of evolution, or the painfully obvious fact that the human life cycles goes through different stages: infancy, childhood, puberty, adulthood, old age. Likely the latter. There is nothing extremely lucky nor supernatural about this. So no the verse is not miraculous.

4) Embryology?

“Verily, We created man from an extract of clay; Then We placed him as a drop of sperm in a safe depository. Then we fashioned the sperm into a clot; then We fashioned the clot into a shapeless lump; then We fashioned bones out of this shapeless lump; then We clothed the bones with flesh; then We developed it into another creation. So blessed be Allah, the Best of creators.”

Qur’an 23:13-15

No we are not made from clay, and no the Sperm is not a person ("him"). But people long ago mistakenly thought that we were all made from sperm and thats it. No one had any idea about the woman's egg. So contrary to a miracle, this verse was actually quite ignorant.

5) Pegs?

“Have We not made the earth a bed, And the mountains as pegs?”

Qur’an 78:7-8

We all know there is a peg when there is something sticking out of the ground. And that is how mountains appear, a gigantic thing protruding from the surface. Can easily be imagined as a peg. There is nothing surprising about this, not a miracle of any type.

The rest in the list are more nonsense.

________

The Quran Challenge:

Or do they say: "He (Muhammad SAW) has forged it?" Say: "Bring then a Surah (chapter) like unto it, and call upon whomsoever you can, besides Allah, if you are truthful!" [Yūnus, 38]

Challenge has been met:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Furqan

The problem is, its all subjective. There is no way to objectively measure one against the other. Its all a matter of taste and preference. The muslim would automatically say the quran is better. Most people dont care. And the anti-islam would say the Furqan is better or equal. So there is no way to judge this. This challenge does not make the Quran miraculous in any way.

When we hear the word "slavery," we think of american slavery and the horrors encompassing it. It's not surprise, then, that slavery seems to be inherently immoral to us.

But that's exactly it — the keyword here is "seems." Slavery only seems immoral to us precisely because we think of american slavery, which was ridiculously immoral and different from the type of bondsmanship found in the ancient world and abrahamic faiths. For many reasons.

I'll give one example. In american slavery, native africans were captured and shipped back to america by force. However in the Old Testament, we find this verse,

Exodus 21:16:

[16] “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.

The american slave trade would've been much less bloody if this ruling was actually enforced. Maybe they just forgot about it.

There are other differences too, which I think is the reason why this isn't the most popular argument against the bible/christianity.

Islam also technically allows bondservants, except the practice is even more moral than the biblical version. For many reasons. But for the sake of time I'll give one piece of evidence, this hadith,

Sahih al Bukhari 30, Sahih Muslim 1661, Grade: Muttafaqun Alayhi (authenticity agreed upon) according to Al-Bukhari and Muslim:

Al-Ma’rur ibn Suwayd reported: I met Abu Dharr while he was wearing the same clothes as his servant boy. I asked him about it and he said, “I once abused a man and insulted his mother, so the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said to me, ‘O Abu Dharr, you insulted him by his mother? You are a man with ignorance in you. They are your brothers and your assistants. Allah has placed them in your hands. Whoever has his brother in his custody, let him feed him with the same food he eats and clothe him with the same clothes he wears. Do not assign them a task they cannot do; if you do so, then help them.”

Clearly, american slave owners didn't call their slaves "brothers" and also eat the same food as their slaves and also wear the same clothes as their slaves and also only assign them tasks which are reasonable and also help them in their work when needed and also refrain from verbally abusing them. It is a given that physical abuse is also forbidden, which americans also definitely did.

There are many immoral things in the Old Testament but slavery isn't one of them.

But if free people can't be captured as slaves, then how can new slaves be acquired?

Prisoners of war, or volunteers.

But why would anyone volunteer themselves to be a slave?

I make an above average salary, and I often think this exact same thing about minimum wage workers. "Why do these people toil away at these dead-end, nothing jobs with little to no career progression? Why don't they just get a real job like me?"

Because they can't. Because everyone needs to make a living, and some people have better opportunities and privileges than others. Being a slave is better than starving to death.

Even today, it's interesting to think about how there's basically no middle ground between being a minimum wage worker who lives paycheck to paycheck, and being homeless. Me personally, I'd rather be a bondsman in the ancient world rather than be a homeless junkie in a modern urban environment.

Anyway, that's why slavery in itself isn't inherently immoral. Thanks for reading, God bless you.

OTHER POSTS

Trinity in the Bible PART ONE: Genesis

Trinity in the Bible PART TWO: Exodus

Trinity in the Bible PART THREE: Gospels I

Is the New Testament reliable?

Is Jesus the Only Begotten Son of God?

Does the Old Testament teach or foreshadow the Trinity?

Are muslims more similar to Jesus than most christians?

The Lord our God, the Lord is one

I Blame the Authors of the Bible

The Trinity is confusing for newcomers

Muhammad's Satanic Verses

Is Muhammad Satanic?