Amjad Khan has written a good response at the Spittoon
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‘Islam or Atheism – Which is More Rational?’ was the title of a recent debate that took place at University College of London. It may as well have been titled ’7th century Arabian goat herder myths or a rational scientific approach – which makes more sense? In any case, the debate pitted well-known US atheist Prof. Lawrence Krauss against a little known UK-based Muslim called Hamza Tzortszis and was organised by a group calling itself IERA.
Upon digging a little deeper, I found that IERA, far from being moderate or even traditional Muslims, are actually a group of Islamist extremists with strong Wahabi influences that routinely intimidate and attack moderate Muslims whilst towing the Saudi-Wahabi line. Their speakers promote sexism, anti-semitism, wife-beating, apostate-killing and a whole range of other unsavoury things. It therefore, came as no surprise that the event was segregated, the so-called moderator was a member of IERA and the hand picked audience was 90% Muslim. The security guards were also IERA affiliated and did their level best to intimidate atheist guests.
However, much has already been made of the extremist and deceptive nature of IERA and their brutish methods. The purpose of this piece is to examine the content of the debate, and, having listened to an audio recording, I will summarise my thoughts.
If this debate is to be judged on showmanship and crowd reaction then the Muslim side won by a country mile. If it is to be judged on intellectual merit than the Muslim side, despite the huge home advantage, came out looking rather silly. In fact, Hamza reminds me of the old saying ‘never debate with stupid people, they will take you down to their level and beat you with experience’. Hamza simply does not know how to conduct a civilised debate, he lacks a rudimentary understanding of the concepts he tries to deal with and is quick to resort to bickering and ad homs.
His case for proving that Islam is more rational rested on two tried and tested arguments. Firstly, the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) as popularised by William Craig Lane, and secondly, the literary miracle of the Qur’an argument. These are arguments that I, as an ex-Muslim, have considered in the past and found unconvincing for the following reasons.
In reference to the literary miracle of the Quran, the great Persian polymath al-Razi had the following to say:
“You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: “Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one.” Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: “Produce something like it”?!
The language miracle claim is one I have never understood. It simply doesn’t make sense because there is no such thing as a language miracle. Languages are human constructs that are evolving and ever-changing. The rules that govern languages are made and adapted by humans too. So the idea of God giving humankind a language miracle seems, at first glance, absurd. However, it gets worse.
The argument can be summed up as follows:
Premise 1 – Inimitability proves divinity
Premise 2 – The Qur’an is inimitable
Conclusion – Therefore, the Qur’an is divine
The entire argument rests upon these very shaky foundations and if any one of the two premises can be undermined then the conclusion does not hold. With regards to premise 1, inimitability can point to other than divinity, since Jinns, Angels, Satan and even aliens could potentially have authored the Quran, humans and Gods are not the only two possibilities. Premise 2 is also problematic because the Quran is not inimitable in the first place due to the high number of factual and scientific errors it contains.
For example, the Quran (9:30) claims that Uzair (or Ezra) was considered the son of God by Jews. There is absolutely no record in Jewish history of this belief ever being held by anyone. Even if a
small group of Jews in a remote part of the world did hold that belief, it is very inaccurate for the Quran to refer to ‘Jews’ in general. Furthermore, the Quran claims the sun goes around the earth (36:140), sperm comes from between the back bone and the ribs (86:7), it refers to Alexander the Great as a Prophet of God, etc. The conclusion that the Quran is divine, is therefore not supported since it rests on questionable premises.
There are also further problems with the challenge. Who judges what is or isn’t superior to the Quran? There is no objective way to judge this challenge. Furthermore, the Qur’an already negates the challenge by claiming no-one is able to meet it, therefore Muslims are compelled to reject any attempts. Since Islam demands death for apostates and blasphemers, only a crazy person would openly attempt the challenge.
In spite of the above, many have taken up the challenge whilst concealing their identities. A Christian project called al-Furqan produced an entire book in Arabic which the authors claimed challenged the Quran. There is a website called surahlikeit.com that has many verses that challenge this argument.
At this stage we encounter yet another absurdity with this challenge, most people, including Hamza, don’t speak Arabic so they are not in a position to verify if the challenge has been met. Furthermore, most of those that do speak Arabic are not versed in classical Quranic Arabic and even fewer are versed in 7th century poetic standards. Therefore, there are not many people in the world able to understand the challenge at all.
Think about this for a moment. The salvation of your eternal soul rests on your ability to master an ancient and unspoken dialect of a language from another part of the world and then research whether or not people are able to produce a verse like a book written in that language 1400 years ago.
Islam descends into utter fare when it states that those who reject it’s message will be roasted in hell for all eternity. Humans are, bizarrely, expected to accept the notion that drawing certain, not altogether irrational, conclusions is enough to condemn them to hell fire. Assuming Islam is true and let’s say, for argument’s sake, a person is not very bright and not able to fully appreciate the miraculous nature of the Quran. Does that person deserve to spend an eternity in hell for not coming to the same conclusions as other people when examining the evidence, especially when the evidence is in another language in this case?
The Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) can be summed up thus:
Premise 1 – Everything that begins to exist has a cause
Premise 2 – The universe began to exist
Conclusion – Therefore, the universe must have a cause
Whilst this argument, at first glance, seems logical and has some philosophical merit, when placed in the context of theism, it becomes meaningless since it cannot be used to arrive at a theistic God. The first cause could be anything, it could be a static, unconscious quantum fluctuation arising in a second dimension of time. It could be a uncaring and apathetic being, it could be multiple beings, it could be something we simply can’t fathom. A first cause does not help establish the existence of Allah.
However, there are other problems with this argument too. With regards to premise 1, it is not obvious that ‘everything that begins to exist has a cause’. Quantum particles come into existence without a cause all the time. If God exists, then does that mean that God has a cause? At this stage believers would argue that God is eternal and thus doesn’t need a cause, only things that are finite need a cause. This leads us on to premise 2.
It is not certain that the universe is finite and began to exist at some stage. What do we even mean by universe in this context? If it is taken to mean all that exists then we are dealing with a
period before time, since time only exists in our universe, and what reasons do we have to assume that causation existed during this period. Furthermore, just because the universe is expanding does not mean it came into existence, rather it’s expansion came into existence but it could have existed in a different form before then, i.e. it could have been contracting or was one part of a much great system.
Furthermore, the KCA commits the fallacy of composition, the fallacy of using the parts of the constituents to infer to properties of the whole. For example, the oft-quoted syllogism:
i. all atoms are colourless
ii. cats are composed of atoms
iii. therefore cats are colourless
has valid premises but an invalid conclusion as it commits the fallacy of composition. If we compare the KCA syllogism in this case:
i. every effect that began to exist in the Universe had a cause
ii. the Universe is composed of all effects
iii. therefore the Universe had a cause
we find that it is similarly fallacious.
To be fair, this does not imply that the Universe did not have a cause, only that the KCA cannot be used to deduce this, were it true.
The KCA takes everyday human thinking and applies it to the existence of our universe. However, it assumes that the human mind is capable of comprehending our universe and how things came about. What if, as Hume postulated, we are simply incapable of grasping the origins of our universe and destined to remain uncertain for the entirety of our existence has a species?
Science seeks to answer the ‘how’ questions whilst religion posits simplistic answers for the ‘why’ questions. But if there are no answers to the ‘why’ questions? What if life and the universe is simply too vastly complex for us to comprehend and ultimately without meaning and purpose? Some can live with that, other clearly can’t. Science can’t explain everything but religion can’t explain anything.
http://www.spittoon.org/archives/11745
Topic: Islam or Atheism March 9th Hamza "Schmuck" Tzortis vs Lawrence "The Man" Krauss