This article is to collect different debates between Christians and atheists and to catalog the limitations of both in different debates.
Idea is to create Islam as a clear third choice for my readers in the West, Islam as presented by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
Often the limitations of atheism that the Christians highlight are true, likewise many of the limitations of Christianity mentioned by the insightful atheists are true, but, interestingly enough, these limitations do not exist in Islam. In a trilateral discussion as presented in this article, I aspire to show you the strengths of Ahmadiyyat, the True Islam.
In the very beginning let me present to you a debate that wonderfully exposes the Christian dilemma, to the insightful, of a Triune God and Jesus being a perfect hybrid, perfect man and fully divine! D’Souza / Loftus Debate: Does the Christian God Exist. Even though the debate was supposed to be about the Christian God, D’Souza focused mostly on the Transcendent God, more befitting Islamic and Jewish theology and offered very little for the Christian God, who incarnated Himself in the human history and also Resurrected Himself after offering Himself on the cross. In other words bait with the Jewish or the Islamic God and switch to the Christian God of physical divine presence on earth and miracles that break the laws of nature:
William Lane Craig makes false claims about swoon hypothesis
The purpose of life was well summarized by William Lane Craig in a line, which resonates with the Quranic description, “The purpose of life is to be found in personal relationship with a Holy and Loving God! to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Allah says in the Holy Quran, “I have not created the Jinn and the men but that they may worship Me.” (Al Quran 51:57)
Now let me link a collection of excerpts from the writings of the Messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community about the purpose of human life.
If Muslim speakers from Ahmadiyya Muslim Community had been included then the atheists would have at least gotten rid of theology with resurrection of dead and miracles that are in violation of the natural order and harmony and would have been left with a much more sublime theology!
February 2011 Alislam-eGazette: Metaphysics, Religion and Science
Did Jesus rise in a physical body or a spiritual one?
William Lane Craig makes false claims about swoon hypothesis!
If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.
In the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of the night and the day there are indeed Signs for men of understanding; those who remember Allah while standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and ponder over the creation of the heavens and the earth: ‘Our Lord, Thou hast not created this in vain; nay, Holy art Thou; save us, then, from the punishment of the Fire.’ (Al Quran 3:191-192)
Can we have objective or absolute moral values without God?
Recently I saw this debate between William Lane Craig and Sam Harris on this issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1QjXe3IYQ
Now, see I am being very candid here, I am a Muslim, belonging to Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, but I have no problem applauding a lead Christian apologist, when I think he is right. William Craig nicely presented that there cannot be any objective moral values without God!I thought Sam Harris was creamed, he was wasting his time in the 12 minute rebuttal off the topic, on why there is suffering. I think the issue of suffering had been resolved by Charles Darwin. However, when the atheists feel cornered in their defense of atheism, they invariably try to seek refuge in this issue and then muddle the waters enough, so that naive are then unable to understand what is going on. Let me quote here the concluding pargagraph, in the later editions of the legendary book of Sir Charles Darwin, on the Origin of Species that can make one quickly conceptualize the role of suffering in the grand scheme of things:”From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed, by the Creator, into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
To give credit to Sam Harris’ presentation and refutation, all the information that he offered off the topic may be worthwhile for considering that Christianity is a bad form of theology and there may be good reasons for an honest comparison of Chrstian theology to the Muslim theology.To change gears now, let me refute accusations that Sam Harris made in his closing statement against Islam, without any Muslim speaker defending it was not moral at all and here is the refutation for it. Islam does not believe in eternal hell and does not condemn all non-believers, but Sam Harris found it convenient to assign the vulnerabilities of Christianity to Islam also:Surely, the Believers, and the Jews, and the Christians and the Sabians — whichever party from among these truly believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good deeds — shall have their reward with their Lord, and no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve. (Al Quran 2:63)Surely, those who have believed, and the Jews, and the Sabians, and the Christians — whoso believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good deeds, on them shall come no fear, nor shall they grieve. (Al Quran 5:70)As to those who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabians, and the Christians, and the Magians and the idolaters, verily, Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection; surely Allah is Witness over all things. (Al Quran 22:18)
The following post has a video describing Islamic understanding of heaven and hell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dGAyDmxqpE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwYR2j9PgJQ&NR=1
To learn more about the Bible and the Quran, to compare and contrast, see my collections on the Bible and the Quran: