Perhaps I can help a teeny weeny bit in explaining Islam, most hopefully in a way which my Christian colleagues don't find objectionable.
Its not a question of if one is better than three, then zero must be better than one. From a non-religious point of view, monotheism appears to be the culmination of religious thought over centuries. As we know our first attempts at religion were to assign powers to physical phenomenon around us. Thus there were multiple entities who were conferred the power to hurt or help, to whom one could turn for help by the methods of worship or prayer or sacrifice.
Those interested in the great variety of religious thought among our ancestors from all over the world, should take a look at the abridged version of The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer. If one were to make a list of the 100 most influential and scholarly works of the last century, this book would be up there near the top. So if we want to have discussions based on facts and not on conjecture or emotions, we must equip ourselves with knowledge of what is well known about the progression of religious thought.
Continuing along the non-religious way, we see cohesiveness of all physical phenomenon or "nature" around us. The more we learn about this world, the more we realize it is an unbroken whole. There are no exceptions, there are no conflicts in laws of nature - they apply everywhere. This points to the Oneness of the natural world around us. Thus if there is a Creator, then he is either one, or its a well organized committee (such as three or four or thousands). However, this does not point to any "necessity" of having a Creator, so atheists need not despair.
Well, thanks AG.
BTW, there aren't too many Christians here, extremely few, so your reply needn't be tailor made to fit Christians. Yes, you're right, in a lot of places, polytheistic thoughts have indeed culminated in monotheism, but the journey hasn't been that way everywhere. Buddhism came out of a polytheistic society, it has an agnostic doctrine, it seemed to skip the monotheistic stage. There are still flourishing polytheisms, often in successful societies like Shintoism in Japan, so polytheisms do exist into the modern world.
While it certainly doesn't mean that if one is better than many, zero must be better than one-much of monotheism's claims of superiority & contempt of polytheism rests on the fact that it assumes that by making God one, it has evolved the idea of a superior God. However, we see that absurdities & superstitions certainly aren't abandoned in monotheism, they only get concentrated in the One God & His Prophet(s), for isntance Islam has stories of djinns, angels, Muhammad on a winged creature, a God dictating a book about inheritance to someone in a Cave & a God violently peeved over idolatry. Thus, since superstitions aren't eliminated, monotheism is in its turn doomed to become atheism by subtracting the last remaining vestige of superstition. If people once found that One God, albeit with certain superstitions, absurdities & oddities makes sense, then No God seems to be making supreme sense!
I think a main problem why Muslims take issue with Trinity is that in their belief Christ did not teach Trinity, nor did he set himself up as a God worthy of worship. As you know, Muslims too have a claim on Christ. He is part of their faith. Qur'an devotes the most time on Christ, among the many luminaries that it discusses. Christ and Mary are described in perhaps the most glowing terms one can find in literature. Mary is the only woman mentioned in the book. In fact there is a whole chapter named after her.
I'll again repeat that this is the "Council of ex Muslims," not a "Council of ex Muslim Christians," so none of the ex Muslims here have converted to Christianity, they've simply left faith in its entirety, there're extremely few Christians here.
As far as "Muslims having a claim on Christ," is concerned, IMO thats' simply not true. For that matter, their claims on Moses aren't valid either. Its just like me saying that I too have a claim on Harry Potter just because I wrote a sequel to Harry Potter's books by J.K Rowling, so I have a right to object to what Rowling writes.
It simply doesn't work that way, "Harry Potter" is J.K. Rowling's story, I am a plagiarizer, I can't write any sequel to it without her explicit permission. Similalrly the OT was a Jewish story, Jesus was Christianity's story, where Christians had liberally plagiarized from the OT too, & Muhammad took both these tales from them.
At least the Jews gave their verdict to Prophet Muhammad's claims, they refused to accept him as their Messiah, broke pacts with him, for which Muhammad annihilated an entire tribe of Jews', but still kept their stories.
From a non religious point of view, the problem with Islam isn't at all that its an absurd faith, all faiths are absurd, but that it has intolerant teachings.
For instance Sura IX.5, which says, "Then when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolators wherever you find them, & seige them, & besiege them & lie in ambush for them everywhere but
if they repent, take to prayer & render the alms levy(ie if they convert to Islam), allow them to go their way," This is one of the later verses, thus according to the doctrine of abrogation has precedence over the earlier ones.
Thats' exactly what Prophet Muhammad did, he marched into Mecca, smashed the idolators idols', threatened to kill anyone who came out of their homes to protect their idols, only allowed them to come out after he was done with the smashing & then converted them to Islam.
While Jews too are strictly monotheistic, they don't impose their views on others, which is how they live in absolute harmony with even idolatrous populations, be it the Indians where they've lived for 2000+ years, or pre Islamic pagans.
Before Muhammad arrived, Pre Islamic Mecca was a place of great religious tolerance- thats' how Khadija's Uncle Waraqa ibn Nawfal & Muhammad's cousin Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh could freely convert to Christianity, & interfaith marriages were possible too, which is how Jewish Kaab ibn al Ashraf was the son of a Jewish mom, pagan father & was raised as a Jew according to the halacha.
Jesus Christ(Trinity nothwithstanding
) never forcibly converted anyone, he never marched into a religious place, smashing others' idols & forcibly converting them, nor did he demand Jews pay jizya taxes to him or accept him, slaughtering an entire tribe of Jews' if they refused.
While Jesus followers were often intolerant, Jesus personally coerced anyone to accept him. The Buddha never forced anyone to accept him either.
Thus Islam is not anymore absurd than Trinity. In
Quran 033. 053, Allah tells Muhammad's followers not to barge into his house, to leave immediately after eating & not linger for small talk afterwards, because such things "annoy" Muhammad, but while Muhammad is shy about complaining, Allah isn't.
All this sounds the heights of absurdity, but the problem with Islam isn't absurdity, its the numerous commands in the Quran to fight "unbelievers', the forced conversion of idolators as proclaimed in the Quran & done by its "insaan i kamil" Prophet Muhammad's example, & the subservient status & txes on other Peoples of the Book.
Topic: If Monotheism's an improvement over polytheism, then Atheism's the best!