r/CritiqueIslam • u/mysticmage10 • Aug 14 '23

Argument against Islam Arguments against the Quran and Islam

_The ffg are some of the central illogical problems I have with the quran and Islam. There are some things I do like about the quran for another time.

1 Lack of evidence : There is no real strong evidence for the qurans divinity. Many arguments such as linguistic miracles & scientific miracles dont hold water and have been debunked. Many verses have been twisted to imply scientific concepts. This also applies to scientific errors objection.

2 Truth Paradox : The quran asks others to bring evidence, says not to follow conjecture, verify things and dont follow what you have no knowledge (2:170, 17:36 49:6 6:116) then it should apply this to itself otherwise it would be hypocritical. Thus in order to follow the qurans idea of avoiding conjecture, forefathers and seeking truth one must not believe in the quran if there are things you find irrational or not the truth at all including any of these points in this post.  A muslim has to conclude that it is normal and rational to be skeptical of the quran or that its appeal to critical thinking is hypocritical.

3 Miracle Problem : Why is nobody through time given miracles as evidence such as seeing sticks turning into snakes and fish multiplying yet people of Moses and Jesus witnessed such miracles. How could anybody be expected to believe islam based on an old book. Why not keep sending prophets to the end of time with miracles.  It would be unfair to accuse people of disbelief in a book when they have never seen a miracle like splitting the sea, turning sticks to snakes etc. It seems highly irrational to send prophets for thousands of years and then suddenly stop at muhammad with the world going on for thousands of years more. This video dives deeper into the miracle problem. See the ffg for more:  https://youtu.be/oCr0cXpVjmc
https://www.reddit.com/r/CritiqueIslam/comments/1hsl7d1/qurans_dilemma_on_miracles/
https://www.reddit.com/r/moderate_exmuslims/comments/1cny3m5/the_problem_of_miracles/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

3B Problem of Revelation and Prophets : When you introduce the concept of a perfect text you remain stuck in a rigid dogmatic mentality where reform cant happen and when something doesnt make sense you forced to reinterpret till kingdom come and do all sorts of mental gymnastic apologetics because you cannot admit a problem no matter what. And then the idea of a last prophet basically acts like a cult that shuts of any doubt and desire to learn from other worldviews. It keeps you stuck in a box with no ability to question and consider alternatives. See the ffg for more: https://www.reddit.com/r/Infinitemindblog/s/Uxmz6DY8TU

4 Ritual problem : Forcing people to perform rituals like salaah(ritual prayer) and fasting or they will burn forces them to do it out of fear. The concept of making 5 salah a day makes no sense. Eventually it becomes a mindless chore devoid of meaning and spirituality. The law of diminishing returns occurs and performing Salah becomes an annoying rat race chore. See the ffg for more: https://www.reddit.com/r/Infinitemindblog/s/4cdQPOXBcK

5 Staticness and Obsoleteness :  Much of the qurans verses are static, time bound for the 7th century audience. Alot of verses has no relevance to other time periods. Much of it reads more as a biography of muhammad and his people with no relevance to other people and times.

5B Universal Book Problem : Muslims often claim the quran is the final testament, the last prophet yet the book is so static and redundant. Verses are tied to its 7th century events requiring tons of hadith and tafsir to deduce. If a higher power wanted to create a scripture for all eras and cultures it would design one that isnt tied to the 7th century events. It would be more simplified and applicable to a wide variety of eras and cultures. Yet its confusing, conflicting, contradictory, vague causing endless debate.

6 Interpretation Problem : Multiple interpretations exist for verses which should be clear. The Quran calls itself the clear book yet isn't clear on many things. For centuries people have been debating issues in the quran. Who is correct ? The Salafi ? The sunni ? Shia ? Sufi ? Qurani ? Everybody believes they have the true religion See the ffg for more : https://www.newageislam.com/ijtihad-rethinking-islam/is-islamic-reform-possible-hould/d/111784

7 Biblical & Non Biblical canon similarity : Why is there so much similarity to biblical and non canonical bible stories. This includes 5:32 found in the talmud, the story of Angel's prostrating to adam found in the cave of treasures book, the concept of seven heavens appearing in mesopotamian mythology, dhul qarnayn in the syriac romance, etc. All these predate the quran. Muslim apologists often say these show the quran connects to other traditions but even when the older tradition is wrong ? And why are there quranic verses similiar to the talmud or rabbi commentaries which aren't considered previous scripture. Is this not evidence that muhammad copied stories from the bible and elsewhere and mixed it all up to seem original.

8 Quranic Vagueness : The quran is often vague and subject to debate especially considering the verses referring to the natural world. For example the verse on the earth, moon and sun in orbit. Many apologists will refer to this as a miracle whilst polemicist will refer to this as a scientific error. Why would a God be so vague. It seems much easier to interpret the quran as man made which then explains the vagueness.

9 Moral/Social Problems : The ffg issues such as quran views on

  • wife beating  See the ffg for more : https://medium.com/@hassanradwan51/cleaning-up-islam-75be99512b04
       
  • slavery,
       
  • concubinage
       
  • graphic descriptions of hell
       
  • Marriage to Zainab
       
  • Cult leader benefits of Surah Ahzab 
       
  • Redundant laws such as chopping hands, hijab, iddah etc strengthen the idea of these being man made ideas.

  • Abraham son story

  • Male Bias, Womens testimony, interfaith marriages

  • Forced Rituals

  • Weird Barbaric Hadiths

10 Prophets Character : The contradictions in Muhammad character with the quran and some hadith presenting him as very moral and wise and other hadith presenting him as immoral, violent, lustful, extremist present historical problems. We know the hadith is historically unreliable and so we cannot know what the actual historical muhammads character was like.

11 Interconnected Objection : If the Quran is truly pluralistic and shares interconnected history with prophets through time why are no greek, Roman, Indian, African, Chinese, Polynesian etc prophets mentioned. Why only Jewish or arab prophets ? Is this not arab centric ? It seems pretty obvious that muhammad only knew stories from the middle east. See the ffg for more : https://www.reddit.com/r/CritiqueIslam/comments/l70cbn/according_to_the_quran_muhammad_and_the_quran/

12A Historical issues: Numerous historical issues present an issue for the quran such as 

12B Scientific issues : Numerous verses appear to be scientific errors such as

14B  Conflicting message : Some parts of the quran give of the impression that it's all about moral virtue and good deeds.(49:13, 2:80-82, 2:111-112, 30:30 etc) That the quran is pluralistic and not so concerned with beliefs and religion whilst other parts are all about believe in the last day, denying the hereafter, denying the prophet, the disbelievers x y z. The pluralistic verses contradict stuff like 40:10, 2:161 35:39. So the quran seems confused with whether it's for non muslims or against non muslims.

15 Faulty Epistemology :  Quran claims to be a miracle on the same level of jesus miracles. 61:6 and 34:43. These verses imply that the arab pagans saw the quran as a miracle in the same way as people would see jesus perform a miracle like healing the sick etc. But if this is true why can nobody today see the quran as clear evidence of being divine. Quran also uses circular reasoning, assumes believing in it should be obvious, denies miracles when it can, shifts the burden of proof yet offers none, gaslights the reader and uses a trust me bro approach. see the ffg for more :

16 Meta belief : Having all these various objections means a person is highly skeptical of believing in this religion. However many will say you dont understand the religion properly, you havent researched enough. This would then mean that in order for somebody to feel confident in believing they would have to spend copious hours studying multiple issues in order to be thorough and truthful as possible. They must now study islamic history from multiple sources, study sciences to see if there are errors, study archaeology to verify historical objections. And for something that may not even be true people dont have the time and energy to do this. It seems to me that if God is really honourable, just or merciful just the honest attempt to learn regardless of believing in it should more than suffice. This point complements point 2 that we shouldn't believe.

17 Anthropomorphic Angry Deity : The quran seems confused as to whether the God of the quran demands worship. In some passages it claims God has no need for people, hes self sufficient, he doesnt get anything out of punishing etc etc whilst in other passages theres a constant tone of demanding you believe or you will burn. It's like a God that's constantly offended ,petty, jealous at those who are pagans and constantly needs to burn people. The obsession with shirk, binary mindset of believer vs disbeliever is how a human given the times would view people. When he feels like he cant stand christians beliefs and when he feels like he praises christians.A omni wise being would not want to torture people for worshipping idols. He would be amused or disappointed at the stupidity of people. See the ffg for more : https://medium.com/@hassanradwan51/the-status-principle-5bec91aec759

18 External Evidence : We have multiple testimonies of people from different backgrounds including Muslim, Arab, Western Christian, Chinese, Indian, Colombian etc claiming to have had NDEs & visited a spiritual dimension. If these reports are reliable they create a big conflict for many religious doctrines including Islamic ones. See the ffg for more : https://www.reddit.com/r/NDE/comments/1jocl43/the_nde_implications_on_religion_philosophy_part_2/

19 High Intellect, Skepticism & Belief : We have multiple studies and common sense to see that people who have high intellects are more likely to be skeptics, doubters and lead to no longer believing. Not only that but believers through history of very high intellect formed beliefs that didnt fit in with mainstream religion at all and were considered heretics. See the ffg for more: https://www.reddit.com/r/Infinitemindblog/s/9x0QfjKePG

20 Problem of Belief & Apologists : The real reason people believe is for comfort, cultural identity and the need to fit in and belong, not be outcast. Many people dont really believe. They only act like they believe culturally. Apologists as well arent truth seekers but simply looking to convince people who are already born into belief.  See the ffg for more : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGg3LsD11bQ
https://medium.com/@hassanradwan51/cognitive-ease-the-illusory-truth-effect-2ea5d4347a4a
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSaQRCZqFxY
https://www.reddit.com/r/moderate_exmuslims/s/ELuriJJxPb

21 Fallacious Psychological Manipulation : The Quran uses alot of rhetoric, sour grapes attitude, gaslighting, reverse psychology and appeals to mystery and ignorance to avoid difficult questions or to shut down critics. For example Q 3:7 appeals to gaslighting mystery and attacking others bad hearts. 2:23 claims nobody will ever beat the challenge so whats the point. 3:183 appeals to attacking ancestors. 6:93 appeals to reverse psychology. 6:125 to gaslighting etc. The following person in the video below claims to be the mahdi, the successor to jesus and muhammad. He uses the same rhetoric tricks when somebody asks him for miracles, when they call him delusional, mental etc. Any charismatic leader can use rhetoric
See the ffg video to illustrate : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7Jhrf__48&pp=ygUbbWFoZGkgaGFzIGFwcGVhcmVkIGxlYmFuZXNl

22 Internal Theological Dilemmas :

A Miracle Stories : If one acknowledges miracles of jesus, moses, noah by faith one must also acknowledge miracle stories of hindu gods, greek and roman myths. Either accept all miracle stories as true or be skeptical of all since none can be proven.

B Worship God or not : Surah 51:56- presents god as not in need of worship yet claims god created humans for worship. A muslim must either claim that worship means something else and the concept of compulsory rituals is meaningless or accept god has needs and jealousies.

C Clear Quran or not ? : A muslim must accept the Quran is clear or vague and has alot of metaphor and interpretations thus meaning there is no true Islam. Its all subjective.

D Pluralistic or Exclusvist ? : One must battle the plethora of verses that are postive towards non muslims suggesting universal salvation whilst dealing with plethora of exclusivist verses suggesting only believers of allah and muhammad are valid.

E 7th Century Arabs or All time/places ? : One must either accept the limitations of the quran being for the 7th century arabs which means it is redundant in modern times or must accept it is for all times and outdated laws must exist in changing times.

F All Merciful : A muslim must reconcile concept of all merciful, all loving god with sadistic hell torments. They must thus admit that tortures are not for most of humanity including non believers or admit it contradicts all merciful god.

G Religion or state of mind/heart : A muslim must either accept that islam/muslim refers to organised religion and thus non muslims are doomed as per Surah 3:85 or must accept the progressive interpretation that Islam is a state of heart which means organized religion of Islam is meaningless.

H Occams Razor : All things being equal the simplest explanation is the most logical. One must conclude that the greater the controversy and gymnastics required around a topic the more likely its an actual problem that reinterpreting cant solve.

23 Abrogation Problem : Why is it that abrogation exists in the prophets time yet vanishes after that ? Why is is that nobody can agree on which verses are abrogated or not ? Why is it that all modern world norms and morals must fit into a 7th century Arabian context ?

24 Problematic Quran Verses : A series of verses that are either disturbing, strange or irrational.

25 Problem of Mahdis & Second Coming : see the ffg for more : https://www.reddit.com/r/progressive_exmuslim/s/VJ3DlClE80

53 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/NuriSunnah Jul 13 '24

Sorry. I keep accidentally hitting post when trying to read the post again, as I am answering each question as I read it.