- Islam obviously owes a lot to the Bible, it recognises
the Jewish prophets and Jesus Christ as a prophet (but
not as the son of God, Islam regards this as blasphemy,
God can't be subdivided). It's main criticism of Judaism
is that the Jews killed some of the prophets (Jesus
Christ and John the Baptist). Muhammed obviously
couldn't embrace Judaism or Christianity, adoption of
another group's religion implies an acceptance of
inferiority, the inability to find or develop one's own.
Generally speaking, each race, tribe or group has to have
it's own religion or it's own variation of another
group's religion so that it can regard itself as
superior, or at least equal in creativity and perception.
Hence Muhammed improved on the Bible by removing most of
the myth, history and verbiage from it and concentrating
on straightforward moral and practical guidance, hammered
home by a super-heavyweight carrot and stick. The carrot
being bright eyed houris in Paradise, the stick the
flames of Hell.
- Allah seems to delight in sending to eternal torment in a
furnace people who don't believe in him and don't respect
him as he thinks he deserves, he appears to be more like
a devil than a god.
- Those who behave as Muhammed says Allah requires us to
behave are rewarded, by Allah, according to Muhammed,
with an eternal life of luxury in Paradise and a
plentiful supply of gorgeous young virgins. This doesn't
seem to be a very exalted reward but, even today, the
average, not very bright male promised the alternatives
of a furnace if he doesn't behave as he is told to or
virgins if he does, by a charismatic, authoritative
leader, as Muhammed almost certainly was, would decide to
take the second alternative in case the promise was well
founded.
- It is common practise for tribal leaders to use the
postulated authority of gods, spirits or other jujus to
extend their own, how can we tell whether Muhammed was
any different? There have been numerous charlatans who
have started religions from a very flimsy basis, the
latest is probably Rael, leader of the Raelian cult (who claims that the
human race is descended from a cloned alien visitor from another planet). All we
have to distinguish confidence tricksters from the
genuine article is evidence and our reasoning powers.
Expecting us to have faith that something that seems
highly improbable is true is ludicrous. We have been
caught out many times and anyway, why would a God give us
reasoning powers if he wanted us to rely on blind faith?
- Islam seems to be an extreme case of a religion that is
designed to ensure it's own survival, it is designed to
trap anybody who adopts it, it attempts to plug every
possible escape route with the threat and fear of death and hell
fire. Muhammed was probably consciously trying to design
a religion that would be more powerful and effective than
Judaism or Christianity so that his followers would be
more fanatical, more convinced that they could win any
conflict with people of those faiths and hence be more
likely to. He probably saw himself as an intellectual
warrior as well as the conventional sort, a philosopher
and potent juju conceiver, many leaders do.
- How do we know Muhammed wasn't using drugs to get his
inspiration? An expert opinion is needed on whether the
style of the language of the Koran is consistent with
drug use. Bubble pipes are popular in the Arab world
aren't they, for how long has this been the case? What is
smoked in them? For how long has Afghanistan been the
centre of opium production in the Middle East? What is
the history of drug use in the Middle East, has it been
pervasive?
- There are a number of places in the Koran where,
according to Muhammed, Allah anticipates that his
audience might consider Muhammed to be mad, Allah
apparently assures us he isn't but he is speaking through
the person who might be mad so how can this assurance be
relied on? Surely it is better for people to face up to
reality rather than living in cloud cuckoo land; to
accept that our fate depends largely on our own actions
and there is little or no irrefutable evidence that a God ever
intervenes on our behalf.