Why is Islam false?

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A lot Muslims talk about the scientific and linguistic miracles of the Quran in order to convince non Muslims of its authenticity, but in order to see them or to know if they are there to begin with, one must first know classical Arabic, or you could just have faith that it is the word of God without first learning Arabic, like the majority of Muslims in the world. My question is for Catholics and non Catholics alike, Catholics why do you believe the Bible is the word, or inspired of God and the Quran isn’t? How can one know if the Quran is, or is not the word of God?
 
0thetrooth0 said:
A lot Muslims talk about the scientific and linguistic miracles of the Quran in order to convince non Muslims of its authenticity, but in order to see them or to know if they are there to begin with, one must first know classical Arabic, or you could just have faith that it is the word of God without first learning Arabic, like the majority of Muslims in the world. My question is for Catholics and non Catholics alike, Catholics why do you believe the Bible is the word, or inspired of God and the Quran isn’t? How can one know if the Quran is, or is not the word of God?
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Merely look at how violent it is. How bitter its Prophet is. Surely, in comparison to moral character, Muhammad is lacking. Then the Koran makes God out to be an imperfect creature, that God cannot be good, only great. And good and great are seldom the same thing. The Koran also continues to make allegations that have no historical backing at all. Like Abraham going to Saudi Arabia to nearly sacrifice his son Ishmael, instead of Israel. You can merely look at the fruits of their faith to see where their dark doctrine goes.

-MontChevalier
 
MontChevalier said:
Merely look at how violent it is. How bitter its Prophet is. Surely, in comparison to moral character, Muhammad is lacking. Then the Koran makes God out to be an imperfect creature, that God cannot be good, only great. And good and great are seldom the same thing. The Koran also continues to make allegations that have no historical backing at all. Like Abraham going to Saudi Arabia to nearly sacrifice his son Ishmael, instead of Israel. You can merely look at the fruits of their faith to see where their dark doctrine goes.

-MontChevalier
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One can say the same for Christians and their morality. Look at all the evils the Church has been guilty of over hundreds of years! How it gave us a diseased mind, etc.

The point is, all the great religions of the world have had morality issues. So what? What’s so great about morality?
 
Because it was founded upon bits and pieces of heretical Christianity present in the East in the early centuries, probably including Arianism.

500 years before the so called prophet Muhammad, Our Blessed Lord hung on that Cross and said “It is finished”.
 
And likewise, look at all the good the Church has done for humanity these past hundreds of years.

There is a kind of morality, a truthfulness to our identity of who we are in objective balance.
 
0thetrooth0 said:
A lot Muslims talk about the scientific and linguistic miracles of the Quran in order to convince non Muslims of its authenticity, but in order to see them or to know if they are there to begin with, one must first know classical Arabic, or you could just have faith that it is the word of God without first learning Arabic, like the majority of Muslims in the world. My question is for Catholics and non Catholics alike, Catholics why do you believe the Bible is the word, or inspired of God and the Quran isn’t? How can one know if the Quran is, or is not the word of God?
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The answer depends on your frame of reference. For Muslims, Islam is obviously NOT false. For Hindus, I believe, all religions of moral teaching have inherent value; there is no judgmental attitude toward Islam, to my knowledge. According to Catholic teaching, monotheistic religions, particularly Islam and Judaism, have some truth in them, but not the full truth of Catholicism. Judaism regards Islam as a true monotheistic faith. Orthodox Jews were never forbidden to enter a mosque according to Jewish teaching, while entry into a church, especially a Catholic Church, was problematic due to the images contained therein and Christianity’s belief in a Triune G-d. I believe this sentiment has changed for most Orthodox Jews, who now accept that Christians believe in one G-d. The answer to your question therefore all depends on which member of which religion you ask.
 
The Qur’an teaches that only Jesus and Mary were not touched by the devil at their birth. Jesus, not touched by the devil, said that false prophets would follow Him. Muhammad was touched by the devil and his birth. He followed Jesus and taught in contradiction to Jesus as to the nature of the Father. Muhammad wrote: “And it is not appropriate for the Most Merciful that He should take a son.” (Maryam 19:92)
 
I have always been confused by the argument that the Qur’án is a linguistic miracle. It is a remarkable text, and in some places the Arabic is amazingly beautiful, especially the Meccan surahs. (I do read classical Arabic). The Surah of Yusuf (Joseph) is something every sincere Christian should read, if only to understand the depth and beauty that can be found in parts of the Qur’án. If you read it, and then read the account of Joseph in Genesis, you will see how amazingly close they are.

But to the question why Islam is false, it is simply that it denies the Holy Trinity, and Sonship of Jesus Christ. The Qur’án does not address the Eucharist at all. Consider the state of Christianity at the time of Muhammad. There was only the one Monophysite schism, and Christianity was the Church without much of the sophistication we know today. The Eucharist was, if anything, more important in this time than it is now. And yet the Qur’án makes not the slightest reference to it, even to refute its value.

Let me be clear here, there are many examples of very fine people who live saintly lives inspired by the Qur’án. There is no reason to say that Muslims are less good than followers of the Gospel. Both religions have had their fanatical nut cases. But as a Christian, I have no alternative to recognizing the falsity of Islam.
0thetrooth0 said:
A lot Muslims talk about the scientific and linguistic miracles of the Quran in order to convince non Muslims of its authenticity, but in order to see them or to know if they are there to begin with, one must first know classical Arabic, or you could just have faith that it is the word of God without first learning Arabic, like the majority of Muslims in the world. My question is for Catholics and non Catholics alike, Catholics why do you believe the Bible is the word, or inspired of God and the Quran isn’t? How can one know if the Quran is, or is not the word of God?
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It isn’t “false” per say except it gets several facts wrong… unfortunately. Abraham going to Mecca, near sacrifice of Ishmael instead of Isaac.

My personal feeling is that Islam wouldn’t have so many (1.3 billion) followers if they didn’t have Jesus as a prophet. 😃

MJ
 
0thetrooth0 said:
A lot Muslims talk about the scientific and linguistic miracles of the Quran in order to convince non Muslims of its authenticity, but in order to see them or to know if they are there to begin with, one must first know classical Arabic, or you could just have faith that it is the word of God without first learning Arabic, like the majority of Muslims in the world. My question is for Catholics and non Catholics alike, Catholics why do you believe the Bible is the word, or inspired of God and the Quran isn’t? How can one know if the Quran is, or is not the word of God?
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Islam is false, because Catholicism is true. The two are mutually exclusive, and only one can be true.
 
Jesus is God.

We believe this because there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, and other reasons.

Jesus founded a Church.

The Church wrote what we now know as the New Testament in the first Christian century and formed the Bible at the end of the fourth century.

The Church says the Bible is the God-breathed (inspired) Word of God. The Bible depicts a loving God who teaches his children to love others.

I believe the Bible on the authority of the Catholic Church.

The Koran is a document of hate. In Islam, God hates half of his creation – women – and instructs adherents to kill others. Islam has always increased its membership by the sword, and still does to this day. The Koran was allegedly dictated to Mohammed by an angel. One has to take Mohammed’s word for it. I don’t.
 
I’m no expert on Islam, so please correct anything in this post that is untrue.

First off, correct me if I’m wrong, but a central tenet of Muslim belief is that the Bible (Old and New Testament) has become corrupted, and that God sent Mohammad as the final prophet to preach the true divine message–Islam. The earlier prophets (Moses, Jesus, etc) were true prophets, but their words have become corrupted, leading to the doctrines that are unique to Christianity, that Muslims don’t believe in (Divinity of Christ, Trinity, death and resurrection of Christ, etc.) There are also contradictions between the Old Testament and the Koran (Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac in the Bible, Ishmael in the Koran), and as I understand it, Muslims would also say that these are areas where the Scriptures have become corrupted.

Again, if I have misstated anything, please correct me.

Now, assuming that that is what Muslims believe (and please correct me if I’m wrong), I see a logical problem. Namely, if Divine Revelation (in this case, the Old and New Testament) can become corrupted, what guarantee do we have that the Koran hasn’t become corrupted? How do we know that the Koran is true?

Now, Muslims, to my knowledge, answer this by saying that Mohammad was the last prophet, and there will be no others after him, and therefore, the Koran cannot be corrupted, because there will be no other prophet to correct it, and so God would not have allowed it to become corrupted.

But, how do we know that Mohammad was to be the last prophet? What if the parts of the Koran that say, “Mohammad will be the last prophet.” were the parts that got corrupted? If the Bible (Old and New Testament) could get corrupted and require another prophet to come and “fix” things with further divine revelation, how do we know that the same hasn’t happened to the Koran already, and that there isn’t another prophet who will come along and “fix” any errors that have cropped up in the Koran?

By this argument, you could never be certain that you have truly inerrant divine revelation. There could always be errors that another prophet has to come along and fix.

Now, I’m not necessarily trying to argue that the Korans we have today are different from the original. I don’t know much in this area, but I would expect that the Korans we have today are faithful to the original (people tend to take their holy books seriously). But, Christians can and do make the same argument about the Bible–the ancient manuscripts match the faithfully translated Bibles we have today.

And, that same Bible says that, if anyone preaches another Gospel (ie: apart from the Christian Gospel), even if he receives it from an angel, let him be accursed (see Galatians 1:6-9).

The Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God, and we can find the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Bible, as well as the account of Christ’s death on the cross and subsequent resurrection. If I remember correctly, the Koran flatly rejects the Doctrine of the Trinity and Christ’s divinity. If so, then there is a contradiction between the Bible and the Koran.

So, if there are in fact contradictions between today’s Bible and Koran, that leaves us with a few possibilities:
  1. The Bible is inerrant/inspired, and the Koran is therefore not inerrant and inspired (two contradictory things cannot both be true, and God cannot lie, so if they contradict each other, they can’t both be inerrant or inspired). This is the Christian view.
  2. The Bible has become corrupted, and the Koran is inerrant/inspired. The contradictions are due to the Bible’s corruption. This is the Muslim view.
Now, Option 2 suffers from the logical problems that I outlined above. Namely, if the Bible has become corrupted, and there needed to be a new prophet and a new revelation to correct/complete it, what guarantee do we have that the same thing hasn’t happened to the Koran? How do we know that, tomorrow, another prophet won’t come out of the woodwork in some corner of the world, proclaiming the NEW divine revelation, sent by God to correct the errors that have crept into the Koran?

Again, if divine revelation can be corrupted, it’s possible that the verses in the Koran about Mohammad being the last prophet have themselves become corrupted. Remember, the Bible says that the Christian Gospel, the Christian system of belief, will be the final thing preached, and that there are to be no new/corrected Gospels.

So, essentially, both the Bible and the Koran state that their corresponding religions are the final, complete religion. One of them has to be wrong. If the Bible is wrong, and the Koran is right, then that means that the Bible has to have become corrupted. But, if that is the case, then we have no guarantee that the Koran hasn’t also become corrupted, and that there is or will be another holy book to correct/supplement the Koran.

That, in a nutshell, is why I see logical problems with Islam. Please correct any errors regarding Muslim belief that I have made, and I hope that this post has been respectful of Islam–I think that there are a lot of things about you guys that are very admirable–for example, your devotion to prayer–I often find myself saving my daily prayers till the end of the day, and become very lazy with prayer, whereas, if I remember correctly, Muslims very faithfully and devoutly pray throughout the day. I also admire the great respect you have for the Koran as your holy book-- I need to start treating my Bible the way you guys treat your Korans!
 
Kismetji said:
One can say the same for Christians and their morality. Look at all the evils the Church has been guilty of over hundreds of years! How it gave us a diseased mind, etc.

The point is, all the great religions of the world have had morality issues. So what? What’s so great about morality?
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You are incorrect. The Church never gave any evils. Perrhaps some members have gone off board and done bad, but that is their business as individuals. And I was referring to their Prophet in comparison to Jesus Christ.

Obviously, you’re living in a place without morality, if you think like that.

-MontChevalier
 
meltzerboy said:
Yes, there is objective truth, but everyone has a different subjective perception of it.
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I forgot to mention point of view. Yes, Meltzerboy raises a valid point. It’s hard to explain to the individual, an entire nation, it would seem, that what they believe is wrong and what we believe is right. The whole concept of that relies solely on the philosophical approaches to our day-to-day lives.

Like say how Catholic A has one way of interpreting what St. Thomas Aquinas, while Catholic B gains another set of understanding.

-MontChevalier
 
0thetrooth0 said:
A lot Muslims talk about the scientific and linguistic miracles of the Quran in order to convince non Muslims of its authenticity, but in order to see them or to know if they are there to begin with, one must first know classical Arabic, or you could just have faith that it is the word of God without first learning Arabic, like the majority of Muslims in the world. My question is for Catholics and non Catholics alike, Catholics why do you believe the Bible is the word, or inspired of God and the Quran isn’t? How can one know if the Quran is, or is not the word of God?
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The Word of God is not a book, it is a Person - Jesus Christ is the Word of God.
Does the koran speak in favour of Jesus Christ being the Son of God? No it does not. I can not see how a person would understand why the koran is not the word of God without understanding Who Christ is.

The Bible is a compilation of books from different writers from different periods of history (and taken into account it’s beginning in oral tradition to it’s codification over a millennium to form), the koran has only one person who claims a vision of an angel in a cave speaking on behalf of allah (for about 23 years). I imagine if I wasn’t a Christian and I had to pick which one would be more credible I think I would go with the old adage “There’s safety in numbers” and choose the Bible.
 
MontChevalier said:
I forgot to mention point of view. Yes, Meltzerboy raises a valid point. It’s hard to explain to the individual, an entire nation, it would seem, that what they believe is wrong and what we believe is right. The whole concept of that relies solely on the philosophical approaches to our day-to-day lives.
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Or more plainly, through the lens of natural reasoning/theology we can discern the revealed truth. They are not mutually exclusive but two sides of the same coin. The former leads to the latter and the latter completes the former. Or as St. Aquinas said of the old philosophers “The ancient philosophers gradually, and as it were step by step, advanced to the knowledge of truth.”
Like say how Catholic A has one way of interpreting what St. Thomas Aquinas, while Catholic B gains another set of understanding.
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I agree with this, to a degree. When one understands St. Aquinas how he thought, his metaphysical framework, and his intended conclusions… there really can’t be multiple interpretations of his works. What causes multiple interpretations is the lack of knowledge of his Aristotelian basis. Before even investigating his works, one must study Aristotle as Aquinas intended and expected his works to be read by people that already had the knowledge of Aristotle’s metaphysics. Example; a common fallacy among people who read the first way to prove the existence of God in the Summa is the misunderstanding of the word “motion” and instantly think it’s disproven by reciting Newton’s first law of motion. Contrary to their understanding when motion was used in the Summa, he was referring to “change” in an essential series and not physical motion of objects. He didn’t spell that out, but one would already know that by studying Aristotle’s works.
 
John_Paul_Jones said:
The Word of God is not a book, it is a Person - Jesus Christ is the Word of God.
Does the koran speak in favour of Jesus Christ being the Son of God? No it does not. I can not see how a person would understand why the koran is not the word of God without understanding Who Christ is.

The Bible is a compilation of books from different writers from different periods of history (and taken into account it’s beginning in oral tradition to it’s codification over a millennium to form), the koran has only one person who claims a vision of an angel in a cave speaking on behalf of allah (for about 23 years). I imagine if I wasn’t a Christian and I had to pick which one would be more credible I think I would go with the old adage “There’s safety in numbers” and choose the Bible.
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Further to this, Islam’s foremost prophet said that Christians were “people of the the Book”. He wasn’t accurate enough. Christians were people of the Word. The Word made flesh.

MJ
 
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