Miracle claims about the Quran

An interesting argument by Muslims goes like this: "I believe that the Quran is the word of God because no human could have made it." Maybe this isn’t exactly how they would word it, but basically this is what they mean — they think the Quran is full of miracles. So I want to shed some light on this issue by addressing some of the most commonly claimed miracles, and the reasoning that Muslims use for why they believe these things are miracles.

“Scientific” facts claimed as miracles

One miraculous claim is that the concept of mountains acting as stakes is mentioned in the Quran. Now, in order to understand why they think this is a miracle, we need to try to understand the reasoning, or logic, of their claim. As far as I can tell, their logic goes like this: Since the Quran contains this fact about physical reality, the Quran must be the word of God. Now, for this to make sense, the concept of mountains acting as stakes must have been something new — something that was revealed to mankind by the Quran. Now, one way to refute this miracle claim is to find evidence that rules out the possibility that the concept was new at the time that the Quran was revealed to mankind. Note that I’m not saying that this is the only way to refute the miracle. I’m just giving one way that could do it. And in fact, we do have evidence of this mountain stake concept being mentioned in Arabic text many decades before the Quran:

 وقَولا له هل أنتَ سويت هذه ….. بلا وتد حتى اطمأ نت كما هيا 

''Did you straighten this [earth] without a stake until it was reassured how it is,'' [1]

Now let’s compare that to the verse in the Quran that talks about the mountain stake concept:

وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا

"And the mountains as stakes?” [2]

So the word stakes (plural: al awtaad, singular: al watad), in the context of a mountain, was used in Arabic literature before Mohamed revealed the Quran — which is evidence that refutes this miracle claim.

Now before I go into some of the other commonly claimed miracles of the Quran, I want to examine the reasoning of these so-called miraculous claims so that we can identify what’s wrong them. This is important because by having a general explanation about what’s wrong with the reasoning, we can refute all claims that use this same false reasoning. In this way, all claimed miracles, since they use the same reasoning as above, are already refuted without having to go find any evidence.

So the reasoning of the miraculous claim of the mountain peg concept goes like this: If the Quran contains a verse that expresses a fact about physical reality, then the Quran must be the word of God. This reasoning is flawed because the conclusion does not follow from the premises. In other words, the conclusion (that the Quran must be the word of God) does not follow from the premise (that the Quran contains a verse that expresses a fact about physical reality). One way to show that the conclusion does not follow from the premises is to come up with another possible conclusion that is consistent with the premises. One other possibility is that a human wrote the Quran and that he learned the fact from existing human knowledge. So here we have two possible conclusions following from the premises. I’ll summarize them below:

If the premise (the Quran contains a verse that expresses a fact about physical reality), 

Then the following conclusions are possible,

(1) The Quran is the word of God, OR

(2) A human wrote the Quran and he borrowed the fact from previous human knowledge.

Note that the premise alone cannot select one of the possible conclusions from the set of possible conclusions. In other words, the premise alone does not rule out any of the possible conclusions. This is what is meant by the idea that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. So what we have here is a situation where there’s another possible conclusion that Muslims are ignoring without ruling it out — which is irrational. So this means that at this point, all the possible conclusions are refuted. In order to choose a conclusion rationally, we would need more information in order to rule out one of these possible conclusions leaving the other one unrefuted.

So, what we can conclude is that any claim that uses this same logic is already debunked because we already have a refutation of it’s logic. In other words, since we already know that the claim’s logic is refuted, that means the claim itself is refuted — and this is true for all claims that use this same false logic.

Now to reiterate what I said about evidence, even if we didn’t have any evidence, that does’t mean we can’t come to a conclusion about whether or not the miraculous claim is true. The miraculous claim is concluding that humans couldn’t have done it, and that god must have done it, which is a false conclusion. The fact that there exists the possibility that humans did it, and since this possibility hasn’t been ruled out, is a refutation of the other possibility that god did it. In other words, both possibilities refute each other, since neither of them has enough information to refute it’s rival. So the miraculous claim is refuted since it chooses one possibility over it’s rival without giving any information (in the form of reasoning or argument) for why one possibility is being chosen over the other.

Beautiful literary usage claimed as miracles

Another commonly claimed miracle is that the Quran’s literary usage is so beautiful that it’s beyond what a human can create. Muslims often claim that for the past 1,400 years no human has been able to create a verse that is as beautiful as the Quranic verses. But for this to make sense, we should first rule out the possibility that all of the verses in the Quran originated in the Quran. So what we have here is the following reasoning: 

If the premise (the Quranic verses are so beautiful and no one has created verses like it since then),  

Then the following conclusions are possible, 

(1) The Quran is the word of God, OR 

(2) The verses in the Quran were written by humans before the Quran, and there exists even more beautiful Arab text before the Quran.

At this point we can consider some implications of these theories (possibilities). If theory (1) is true, that means that there couldn’t have been beautiful literary usage in Arabic text before the Quran — because if that were the case, then it wouldn’t make sense to say that the Quran’s literary usage is a miracle. And if theory (2) is true instead, that means that maybe there was previous Arabic text that was as beautiful, or more beautiful than compared to the verses of the Quran. So let’s summarize the theories again, together with these implications.

If the premise (the Quranic verses are so beautiful and no one has created verses like it since then), 

Then the following conclusions are possible, 

(1) The Quran is the word of God and no previous Arabic text was as beautiful as the Quran, OR  

(2) The Quran was written by humans and there exists even more beautiful Arabic text before the Quran.

Now using the explanation from above, notice how there isn’t enough information here to select one possibility from the set of possibilities. So what we have is a situation where all the possibilities are refuted since none of them has enough information to refute it’s rivals.

At this point, let's take this a step further by finding some evidence that rules out one of these theories. What if we found some grammar mistakes in the Quran? Well that would rule out the theory that the Quran was created by an omniscient being. And sure enough, the Quran does have grammar mistakes. Now some Muslims answer this by saying that the Quran set the Arabic grammar rules, and they use this as reason to believe that the Quran doesn’t have grammar mistakes — i.e. that the Quran is perfect in grammar. But, as my mother pointed out to me, this is circular logic. She said:

"If Muslims are going to claim that there cannot be any grammatical errors since the Qur'an is the standard by which Arabic Grammar is held up to, then they have no basis for claiming it is grammatically perfect since there is no objective standard to test this claim. To say the Qur'an is grammatically perfect because the Qur'an sets the standard of Arabic grammar is a circular argument."

• bad grammar [3] [4]
• better Arabic text previously [5]

Mathematical correlations as miracles

Another type of miracle claim is about mathematical correlations within the Quran. This type of claim is that there are a lot of things in the Quran that count up to something meaningful, and that no human could have done it because it’s too hard for a human to make meaningful verses while also making sure that all of these things count up right. One example is that the number of occurrences of the words belief and it’s opposite, disbelief, are equal. So the reasoning is something like this: Since there exist mathematical correlations in the Quran, that means the Quran is the word of God. But again, just as before, there isn’t enough information here to rule out the possibility that a human did it. So these miraculous claims are debunked too.

Now just to satisfy the people that really want to see some evidence, I’ll show 

Mohamed’s illiteracy as a miracle

Another miracle, and this is the only claim of it’s type, is that Mohamed was illiterate, and so the fact that he recited the Quran means that the Quran is the word of God. What’s interesting here is that if you question a Muslim about why he believes that Mohamed was illiterate, he’ll say that the Quran says so. And if you question him about why he believes that the Quran is the word of God, he’ll talk about the miracles that “prove” it (this Mohamed being illiterate miracle being one of them). But this is circular logic. They are saying that X is the argument for the conclusion Y, and Y is the argument for conclusion X.

X (Mohamed is illiterate) is the argument for the conclusion Y (Quran is the word of God). 

Y (Quran is the word of God) is the argument for the conclusion X (Mohamed is illiterate).

So there are two possibilities here. Either (1) X and Y are true, or (2) X and Y are false. And there isn’t enough information in this miraculous claim to be able to rule out either of these possibilities. So the miraculous claim is debunked since it chooses one of them arbitrarily (without argument).

One way to describe how this reasoning is wrong is to make a comparison: Quoting a book to prove the existence of god is like quoting the author of the Harry Potter book's to prove the existence of Harry Potter. 

The bar is so low

An interesting thing about these miracle claims is that Muslims today are still coming up with new ones. A recent one I’ve heard of is the existence of honey — the implication being that honey's nutritious value is so great that there is no way an omniscient being wasn’t involved. But this miracle claim just ignores the possibility that biological evolution is the cause of the creation of honey. The miracle claim doesn’t contain any information in it that refutes evolution, so why does it choose an omniscient being as the cause without having ruled out evolution as the cause? Because it’s irrational. It irrationally chooses one theory from a set of possible rival theories.

Another issue with these miracle claims is that they don’t contain any information arguing against the theory that an omniscient being is the cause. So it’s just ignoring that it might be wrong. What’s needed is to argue on both sides of the debate so that one can find the flaws in one’s own position. Consider Elliot Temple’s analysis of God vs Evolution [6]: 

In the famous watchmaker analogy, William Paley said that if you find a watch on a heath (area of uncultivated land), you can tell the watch had a designer because of its complex inner workings. He further argued that the complex inner workings of human beings imply that they had a designer too (God). 

This is an important problem and a good question. There are several other formulations: Where does "apparent design" come from? Where does complexity come from? Where do adaptations come from? Where do useful or purposeful things come from? 

All of these questions are fundamentally asking roughly the same thing: Where does knowledge come from? 

One place Paley said knowledge does not come from is randomness. We need a genuine explanation. I agree with him. 

Everyone agrees that people can create knowledge. We can be designers, and invent watches as well as nuclear power plants. But where did people come from originally? And where did animals come from? People didn't invent penguins. 

Paley answered that people were designed by God. This is a bad answer. God, like a person, is a complex, intelligent being. God contains knowledge. So where did God come from? Paley hasn't solved the problem, he's just added a layer of indirection. 

Besides the God answer, which doesn't work, there were no obvious answers to Paley's problem. It's a hard question.

Today, we have found one and only one answer to the question. It's conceivable there are others which we haven't discovered yet, but no one is even close to finding another answer. There are no breakthroughs on the visible horizon.

We found a mechanism by which knowledge can be created which does not assume any knowledge as a premise. It's called evolution.

Consider reading Elliot’s whole essay to find out how evolution works, and how it’s responsible for knowledge creation.

On a final note, I should mention that all miracle claims use the same false logic. They are all based on the premise that the thing in question couldn’t have been done by a human, or couldn’t have happened by chance, or by some other mechanism  — and so it concludes that God must have done it — but without including any information explaining why a human couldn’t have done it, or why it couldn’t have happened by chance, or why it couldn’t have happened by some other mechanism. So all miracles, since they use the same false logic, are debunked. 

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[1] peotry peg

[2] Quran 78:7, translated by Sahih International. [link: http://quran.com/78/7]

[3] The Qur’an Grammatical Errors, by Rafiqul-Haqq and Newton. [link: http://answering-islam.org/Authors/Newton/grammar.html]

[4] title, authors http://www.coptichistory.org/new_page_218.htm

[5] Previous arab poetry beautiful

[6] Evolution and Knowledge, by Elliot Tempe. [link: http://fallibleideas.com/evolution-and-knowledge]

Popperian epistemology lets theists off the hook?

Some people say:

The Popperian idea of refuting instead of justification strikes me as too much like theists who claim a god exists and then expect other people to disprove it.

This is a confused criticism.

First, this person hasn't demonstrated that he understood Popper's epistemology (judging from the quote), so why does he think that he has understood it? How can he say that something is too much like something else if he hasn't understood one of them? Instead, he should have done the following: (1) quoted something from Popper, then (2) explained what he thinks the quote means (exposing it to external criticism), then (3) explained the epistemology of the theists, then (4) explained the flaw in the theists epistemology, and then (5) explained how Popper's epistemology has that same flaw.

Now I'll explain Popper's epistemology, and how it applies to the God theory.

Popper's epistemology approaches theories by considering the problems they are purported to solve. It says to look for rival possible solutions to that problem, and then it says to use criticism to refute all but one rival -- the one left unrefuted is the conclusion. And this conclusion is considered tentative because we know that more rival theories and more criticisms might be proposed in the future.

In the case of the God theory, a rival possible solution is the theory of Evolution. Between these two rivals, all we need to do is find one criticism that refutes one of these theories while leaving the other theory in tact. And Elliot Temple did exactly that [1]: 

In the famous watchmaker analogy, William Paley said that if you find a watch on a heath (area of uncultivated land), you can tell the watch had a designer because of its complex inner workings. He further argued that the complex inner workings of human beings imply that they had a designer too (God).

This is an important problem and a good question. There are several other formulations: Where does "apparent design" come from? Where does complexity come from? Where do adaptations come from? Where do useful or purposeful things come from?

All of these questions are fundamentally asking roughly the same thing: Where does knowledge come from?

One place Paley said knowledge does not come from is randomness. We need a genuine explanation. I agree with him.

Everyone agrees that people can create knowledge. We can be designers, and invent watches as well as nuclear power plants. But where did people come from originally? And where did animals come from? People didn't invent penguins.

Paley answered that people were designed by God. This is a bad answer. God, like a person, is a complex, intelligent being. God contains knowledge. So where did God come from? Paley hasn't solved the problem, he's just added a layer of indirection.

Besides the God answer, which doesn't work, there were no obvious answers to Paley's problem. It's a hard question.

Today, we have found one and only one answer to the question. It's conceivable there are others which we haven't discovered yet, but no one is even close to finding another answer. There are no breakthroughs on the visible horizon.

We found a mechanism by which knowledge can be created which does not assume any knowledge as a premise. It's called evolution.

So the criticism that refutes the God theory while leaving the evolution theory intact is that the God theory assumes knowledge as a premise (while the evolution theory does not). In other words, the God theory fails to solve the problem it's purported to solve, and we do have a theory that successfully solves this problem. So the God theory is refuted, and the evolution theory is unrefuted.


Now that we've seen Popperian epistemology at work, let's compare it to the epistemology of theists "who claim a god exists and then expect other people to disprove it." 

The first thing I notice is how this theist is not interested in finding errors in his own theories. Instead, he's expecting other people to do his work for him.  This is anti-Popperian. In contrast, the Popperian method tries to look for flaws in one's own theories, so he wouldn't be waiting for other people to look for criticisms for him.

The second thing I notice with the theist's approach is that he's not thinking in terms of problems, solutions, or criticisms. He's not thinking of theories as solutions to problems, and consequently he's not doing the things necessary to determine whether or not his theory actually solves the problem it's intended to solve. The things necessary to do that are (1) brainstorming rival theories, and (2) using criticisms to refute rival theories. So the theist epistemology is anti-Popperian.

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[1] _Evolution and Knowledge_, by Elliot Temple.

A Prophet Claims he has the Word of God

Jake: Hey Chris, did you hear about the newcomer who claims to be a prophet? He says that he has the word of God. This is his book. He’s passing it out to everyone in town.

Chris: Ya I heard about that. What do you think of it?

Jake: Well it seems right.

Chris: Why do you think so?

Jake: uh, it’s hard to explain.

Chris: What do you mean?

Jake: ...

Chris: Well have you searched for evidence?

Jake: uh.. well look at this verse that says ‘All swans are white.’

Chris: What about it?

Jake: If I can find evidence to support this verse, then viola.

Chris: There are two problems I see in what you’re saying. (1) Evidence doesn’t work by support. And (2) you didn’t explain you reasoning for why you think that if that verse is true, then that means that the book is the word of God.

Jake: What do you mean "evidence doesn’t work by support"? 

Chris: Well, let’s consider how it could work by support, if it were actually possible.

Jake: We could look at all the swans and see if they are white.

Chris: Ok let’s say we find out that they are white. Then what?

Jake: Well then the verse is true.

Chris: But it’s possible that there are swans that you didn’t check. Maybe one of those is not white, and if this is the case, then that means the verse (or theory) is false. So that evidence you found did not "support" the theory that "All swans are white."

Jake: uh.. well we can’t check all the swans everywhere. No matter how much we look around the world, we might have missed some swans. So we’ll just check as many as we can and if all of them are white, then that means that this theory is very likely to be true.

Chris: But theories are either true or false. Whether or not a theory is true is not a matter of likelihood or probability.

Jake: Why not? Sometimes we say that there is a 30% probability that it’ll rain. That works right?

Chris: But that’s not the same thing. Whether or not a theory is true is different than whether or not an event will occur in the future. Try to think of it like this: There is a theory that, at this moment, according to a specific weather model, the calculation it produces is that tomorrow there is a 30% chance of rain. Whether or not this theory is true is not a matter of probability. IF somebody actually used this model to make this calculation that tomorrow there is a 30% chance of rain, THEN this theory is true.

Jake: Oh. So does that mean we can’t prove the verse that "All swans are white”?

Chris: Right. We can’t prove theories true. We can only refute theories. In other words, evidence does not work by "supporting" theories, and instead evidence works by refuting theories. So evidence is never of the form of a positive argument, and instead it's always of the form of a negative argument.

Jake: Ok so if we don’t find any colored swans, then that means the theory that “All swans are white” is not false. 

Chris: Well, it just means that it's not false as far as we know.

Jake: So doesn't that mean that it's true as far as we know?

Chris: Right.

Jake: So nothing can be known to be actually true and nothing can be known to be actually false?

Chris: Right, we can never be absolutely/omnisciently/infallibly sure whether an idea is actually true, or actually false.

Jake: But that means that we don’t know anything at all!

Chris: No it doesn’t. We have computers, which apply technological knowledge which was created from scientific knowledge that we discovered in our pursuit of knowledge about the physical world. If we didn’t know these things then we wouldn’t have computers, or any other technology.

Jake: So we do know stuff.

Chris: Right. We have fallible knowledge about the truth.

Jake: This is confusing.

Chris: Well, that's why it's better to use the terms refuted and unrefuted, instead of the terms true and false. True and false refers to actually true and actually false. Refuted refers to false as far as we know. Unrefuted refers to true as far as we know. [1]

Jake: Wait a minute. I'm lost again. So then how can you say that we can’t know if a theory is actually false?

Chris: Well, it’s possible we were wrong about a refutation of that theory.

Jake: Can you give an example?

Chris: Well, consider that you found a black swan. Now you’ve refuted the theory that “All swans are white.” Do you agree?

Jake: Yes.

Chris: But now let’s say that I found out that the swan you think you found was actually a newly-found species of duck.

Jake: Ah, so the theory that “All swans are white” is no longer refuted because the refutation we had of it is now refuted.

Chris: Right.

Jake: But then we know that this refutation of the theory is actually false. Right?

Chris: No.

Jake: Why not?

Chris: Because maybe somebody else comes along and refutes my refutation by showing that I was wrong that it was a newly-found species of duck and that it was actually a swan.

Jake: lol, so now, as far as we know, the theory that “All swans are white” is refuted again.

Chris: Right.

Jake: And we don’t know that for sure? (that the theory that “All swans are white” is actually false?)

Chris: Well, maybe somebody comes along and shows us that actually this swan isn’t black, and it was white and it was painted black by somebody who was trying to fool us.

Jake: lol, so you’re a skeptic. You don’t believe anything at all. You don’t trust anyone or anything!

Chris: Well, I do have beliefs, but I treat them all as tentative, because I know I'm fallible. I leave them all on the table, ready to be refuted, and possibly replaced with better beliefs. And you’re right that I don’t do trust.

Jake: You mean you don’t trust me? But I don’t lie. I wouldn’t cheat you. I wouldn’t hurt you.

Chris: Well, that’s not the only way you could be wrong. It would be a mistake for me to take your word for things. The point is that, like me, you are fallible, which means that any of our ideas could be wrong, and that we are wrong often. So what we need is a way of thinking that accounts for the possibility of error.

Jake: So how do you explain how science works then? Don’t they consider their theories true?

Chris: No. They treat their theories as tentative. They are always looking for error, double-checking and triple-checking experimental results, criticizing each other’s interpretations of the data, etc. And then when a new theory is found that better explains the data than compared to an old theory, then the old theory is shelved in favor of the new theory. In this way, our theories are replaced by even better theories. So, we go from flawed theory, to less flawed theory, to even less flawed theory, and so on, as we get ever closer to the truth.

Jake: hmm, so what I should be doing is trying to find mistakes in the holy book.

Chris: Well that’s one thing you can do, but that’s not enough. You also want to look for mistakes in your reasoning.

Jake: Oh ya you said that in the beginning. What did you mean by that?

Chris: Well your reasoning seemed to be that IF the verse “All swans are white” is true, THEN this book is the word of God.

Jake: Ya that doesn’t make sense. Even if that verse is true, it’s possible that other verses are false.

Chris: Right, but that’s not all. Even if all the verses are unrefuted, that doesn’t mean that it’s the word of God. A human could have written it.

Jake: But humans are fallible, we make mistakes. So how could a person write a book with no mistakes?

Chris: No mistakes? Or no mistakes that we know of so far?

Jake: Ah. Even if we don’t see any mistakes in the book now, that doesn’t mean that we won’t find mistakes in it in the future.

Chris: Right.

Jake: Ok but at least we can say that, if the theory (that this book is the word of God) is unrefuted, then we can act on that theory as long as it’s unrefuted.

Chris: That’s reasonable.

Jake: So what sort of mistakes should we be looking for?

Chris: Well, I just told you about a mistake. So the theory that this book is the word of God, is already refuted.

Jake: huh? what mistake?

Chris: Your argument for your theory was that IF X (this verse is unrefuted), THEN Y (this book is the word of God). And this is false logic. All we need to do is give a counter-example. For example, it’s possible that a human wrote all the verses, and it’s possible that nobody has found any mistakes in the verses. So even IF X (this verse is unrefuted), that doesn’t rule out the possibility that Z (a human wrote the book).

Jake: I think I understand you. I'll rephrase what you said, and you check my understanding. So I argued that IF X, THEN Y, but that's wrong because Z was possible too, and Z hasn't been ruled out.

Chris: Right.

Jake: Ok. So at this point the theory (that this book is the word of God) is already refuted.

Chris: Right.

Jake: But we didn't use any evidence!

Chris: That's right. Most theories are refuted for containing bad explanations, not because they contradict the evidence.

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[1] Refuted and unrefuted is the standard terminology established by Elliot Temple. I'll clarify how refutation works: First we start by identifying a problem. Then we brainstorm proposals for solutions -- these are theories. And these theories are rivals of each other. Then we brainstorm criticisms of these theories, and we brainstorm criticisms of the criticisms. A criticism is an explanation of a flaw in a theory -- note that evidence can be used as part of a criticism. If a theory has an outstanding criticism, then it's refuted. The goal is to have a theory that refutes all of it's rivals -- this theory is the unrefuted theory, because it doesn't have any outstanding criticism. All the other theories are refuted because each one of them has at least one outstanding criticism.

Ex-Muslim Guide: How to break it to your Muslim parents

Son: Father. I want to tell you something.

Father: What is it?

Son: I no longer believe in Islam.

Father: What? You don't even know Islam so don't talk, listen to us.

Son: But you don’t have answers to my questions, so you also don’t know Islam. So why should I think that you’re right about Islam?

Father: We have answers from the Qur'an, that's how we know Islam. You keep misinterpreting verses and you don't even know Arabic, translation corrupts meaning.

Son: The Quran is a book. How do you know its claims are true? What’s your evidence ruling out the possibility that the Quran and Allah are man-made? 

Father: Oh, but what about the scientific and mathematical miracles of the Qur'an? 

Son: All of the scientific claims in the Quran were things we already knew. For what you’re saying to make sense, the Quran would have to have said new things. If you care to check, see this essay on that. As for the claims about mathematical miracles, why do you think they are miracles? Why do you think that a bunch of mathematical correlations means anything?

Father: How could Muhammad have known all of this? You have to remember that he was an illiterate merchant!

Son: I see two flaws with your argument. First, how do you know Mohamed was illiterate? And second, even if he was illiterate, why do you think he couldn’t have learned those things through discussion? You know that kids learn by discussion long before they learn to read.

Father: Because the Quran says Mohamed was an unlettered prophet.

Son: But that doesn’t make sense. It's circular logic. We were questioning whether or not the Quran is man-made. And then you said that it couldn’t have been man-made because Mohamed was illiterate. And then I asked you how you know he’s illiterate, and you say that it’s because the Quran says so — but that is the thing we’re questioning! My point is that it’s possible that Mohamed is literate AND wrote the Quran himself. So you didn't successfully answer my original question about this, which was: What's your evidence ruling out the possibility that the Quran and Allah are man-made?

Father: He was illiterate, he had his companions write down the Quran for him on papyrus, animal bones, etc. The Qur'an is man-made huh? The Quran asks jinn [demons] and mankind to produce a sura [verse] similiar to the suras of the Quran. It's been 1400 years and no one has met this challenge. This is proof that the Quran is from God!

Son: But a bunch of stuff in the Quran was borrowed from older Arab poetry. So your so-called "proof" doesn’t rule out the possibility that the Quran is man-made because it doesn’t address the fact that the text was plagiarized from previous Arabic text. If you care to check, see this essay about that. 

Father: Son, the people you are listening to are Arabs who know Islam is the truth, but they're hiding it. They chase after their worldly desires.

Son: So you’re saying that people like the author of that essay believe that Allah is real and she is hiding it? So how do you explain the fact that she wrote a book arguing that Allah is not real? What do you think is her intention of lying about that? 

Father: [blank out]

Son: And what worldly desires do you think she is chasing? She's an artist. Artists don't make much money. She can’t afford expensive things. I bet her most expensive stuff are her laptop which she needs for her hobbies of reading and writing. Is this what you mean by ‘worldly desires’? Reading and writing? Learning? Is this what you are insinuating is shameful!?

Father: She's working for the Jews!

Son: You’re not making sense! You’re saying that she would trade money for eternal flesh-burning!? That’s ridiculous!

Father: [blank out]

Son: If you don’t have answers to my questions, then will you retract your claim that this author knows that Islam is the truth but she is hiding it? 

Father: [blank out]

Son: Do you agree that when you make accusations that you should have evidence? What’s your evidence that this author is getting paid by jews to corrupt what she believes to be the truth? Or do you not care about evidence? Do you not care about the tradition of innocent until proven guilty? Do you not care about the tradition of benefit of the doubt?

Father: [blank out]

Son: Well? Why no answer? 

Father: [blank out]

Son: Why do you keep bringing this stuff up without answering my questions? What's the point? Do you think I'm going to be persuaded of something while I have unanswered questions about it?

Father: [blank out]

[son walks away]

---

Father: Son. I think you haven't considered everything. Look at the amount of devotion in Islam, surely you can't find another religion like it.

Son: I don’t understand your argument. Are you saying that IF Islam has the most devotion (whatever that means) compared to all other religions, THEN that implies that the Quran is not man-made? And a follow-up question: What do you mean by devotion, and what is your argument that devotion is something I should want, something beneficial for me?

Father: Devotion is acts for the sake of Allah, e.g. five daily prayers, fasting, hours of memorizing and reciting the qur'an, no music, no alcohol, no pork, etc. If you don't submit to Allah, you're going to end up in hell, would you want that? That's how devotion will benefit you.

Son: You know me. You know my actions. You know I’m good. You know I try hard to not hurt anyone. Do you think Allah would judge me badly, and put me in hell? If he would, well that raises another question: Why should a good person, one who tries hard not to hurt anyone, be punished in hell?

Father: 3:85 of the Quran, the verse that mentions anyone who doesn't accept Islam will become one of the losers in the Hereafter. And besides, even if you're a good person, Allah created you, comforted you, gave you eyes and ears. But you chose to reject his religion. While you didn't hurt anyone, you still denied Allah.

Son: So Allah is evil -- he would punish a good person with eternal flesh-burning. That doesn’t make any sense at all. I don’t believe stuff that doesn’t make any sense. That's one reason that I believe that the Quran is man-made. So I don’t believe that I’m going to hell, nor do I believe that hell exists.

Father: Whether you like it or not, Islam is the truth, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his slave and messenger. 

Son: It’s not about what I like or don’t like. I don’t judge ideas by how they feel to me. I judge ideas objectively, using reason. That means that when I'm considering something, I don't assume that I already have the truth, and instead, what I do is seek the truth. But for you, you're doing the opposite. You're claiming that you already have the truth, so you're not even looking for it. So instead of seeking the truth, what you do is try to "prove/justify/support/confirm" what you already claim to be the truth. 

Son: With my method, my knowledge evolves, step by step, one corrected flaw at a time, as I get ever closer to the truth. With your method, your knowledge stays static, where flaws in it don't get corrected.

Son: That means that my beliefs are the ideas that have survived all known criticism. And that means leaving all my ideas on the table, ready to be criticized — ready to be replaced by even better ideas. But for you, you are unwilling to change your beliefs because you are unwilling to accept that your beliefs might be flawed. So you treat your beliefs as infallible. You treat things as though you are omniscient, like god.

Son: Now the main criticism I have of Islam is that it says that Allah would put me in hell even though I don't do anything to hurt anyone. And you haven't explained how I'm wrong.

Father: Look, we already explained it. True, there are good people out there who spend their lives not hurting anyone, but they are also committing a crime by not submitting to Allah. 

Son: But I don’t believe that it’s a crime to not believe something. Why? Because I have criticisms of that idea, and I don’t believe ideas I have criticisms of.

Father: [blank out]

[son walks away]

---

Father: Son, Allah gave you eyes, ears, a heart, and many other valuable things, yet you disobey your creator who gave you all of this! Why should you deserve Paradise when you have been given plenty of time in this world to seek out Allah? 

Son: You seem to be not listening. I don't believe paradise exists. Why? Because I have criticisms of that idea, and I don’t believe ideas that I have criticisms of. And you haven't explained to me why I'm wrong.

Father: Look, we can't understand Allah's way of thinking.

Son: I don’t agree with your idea that some things can’t be understood. As David Deutsch explained in _The Beginning of Infinity_, humans are universal knowledge creators. That means we can create any knowledge. That means that nothing is outside the realm of human understanding. Nothing! We can solve any problem!

Father: [blank out]

[son walks away]

---

Father: Son, I wanted to clarify something from last time we talked about eternal flesh-burning. The punishment of Hell is forever but it really means a long time, it's not eternal. 

Son: What does that have to do with what I said? Nothing. You can replace ‘eternal’ with ‘long time’ and my idea still stands — you have not criticized my idea. You have not explained why I'm wrong.

Father: [blank out]

Son: [starts to walk away]

Father: So you think that 1.5 billion people are wrong?

Son: lol, if you're going to treat truth-seeking as a popularity contest, then 5 billion non-Muslims way outnumber your 1.5 billion Muslims.

Father: [blank out]

Son: [starts to walk away]

Father: But son, just think of how beautiful the Quran is, and how many people converted to Islam. That has to mean something.

Son: Wait a minute. Are you thinking that when Islam started that it spread by voluntary conversion?

Father: ... yes.

Son: lol, you're just making stuff up with no connection to reality. Islam spread by the sword, by involuntary conversion. Mohamed initiated like 65 military campaigns, and in all of them he was the aggressor, rather than being the one acting in self-defense. Before you make claims about history, you should read some history.

Father: [blank out]

[son starts to walk away]

Father: But wait, other religions started wars too.

Son: So let me understand your argument. You're saying that since other religions did evil stuff like Islam did, that means Islam is not evil?

Father: No that's not what I'm saying, you're twisting my words!

Son: So then what are you saying? You brought up the idea that Islam spread by voluntary conversion, which is false. Then you said that other religions did that too. So why did you say this? Weren't you defending Islam by saying that other religions are also evil?

Father: [blank out]

[son starts to walks away]

Father: Son how will you live a moral life without Islam?

Son: What do you mean?

Father: Mohamed, peace be upon him, is the perfect moral example, if...

Son: What?! Mohamed had sex with 9 y.o. girls. He was a pedophile! That's a crime! 

Father: But everybody at that time did that.

Son: There's that moral relativism again. You're defending Mohamed's evil by saying that other Arabs of his time were also evil!

Father: Kings of Europe did it too!

Son: lol, so you're defending Mohamed's evil by saying that other King's were also evil. Is that it?

Father: [blank out]

Son: So let me see if I understand your argument. You want me to marry a 9 y.o.?

Father: No!

Son: So then you don't want me to follow Mohamed's moral example. Right?

Father: [blank out]

[son walks away]

---

Father: Son, watch this video about proofs of Islam.

Son: Wait a minute. Are you saying that something in this video addresses one or more of the questions I asked you? If not, then I’m not interested. But if so, which of my questions does it answer?

Father: [blank out]

Son: Then I'm not interested.

Father: Son, you are being disrespectful of me.

Son: huh? How so?

Father: You've been dismissing me when I talk to you about Islam.

Son: What!? No! You are the one dismissing my ideas! I ask you questions and you ignore them -- you don't answer them. So you are the one disrespecting me!

Son: And what's worse is that you keep coming to me with these ideas about Islam even though you know that I'm not interested to hear them. So you are disrespecting me by ignoring my preference for not hearing about this Islam stuff. I don't come to talk to you about stuff you don't want to hear about, which means that I'm respecting you. So why don't you respect my preference for being left alone about the things I don't want to hear about? Don't you agree that respect should go both ways?

Father: [blank out]

[starts to walk away]

Father: But you also didn't answer my questions.

Son: What questions didn't I answer?

Father: The miracles! How can you not believe in Allah who gave you all these miracles?

Son: What miracles?

Father: Everything around you! Everything!

Son: What are you talking about? How do you know any of those things were created by Allah?

Father: Allah is the creator of everything!

Son: How do you know that?

Father: It couldn't have happened by chance!

Son: Why not? What's your explanation ruling out the possibility that it all happened by chance?

Father: [blank out]

Son: So between the logical possibilities of (1) everything happened by chance, and by what man-kind did, and (2) everything was created by Allah -- which one of these possibilities should we rule out, and why?

Father: It's too much of a coincidence. It's not possible. Humans did not come from monkeys.

Son: lol, you're right that humans did not come from monkeys. We both evolved from a common ancestor.

Father: It doesn't make sense.

Son: What do you mean? Are you saying you have an explanation that refutes biological evolution?

Father: [blank out]

Son: Well, if you want to persuade me that I'm wrong, you'll have to give me an explanation that refutes biological evolution, so you'll have to explain what's wrong with this essay on Evolution and Knowledge.

Father: [blank out]

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