Nas

>From: “Nas

>Subject: Re: Islam as a false religion

>Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001

Salum Dr. Sina,

As you can tell by my name, I’m Iranian as well. I had the chance to take a look through our site and I wanted to commend you for the courage you had to post your thoughts. I do completely agree with you in all that you wrote....for those reasons (including the revolution in Iran in 79) my family and I became Christians, which to us, as you said, embodies love and respect.

I hope that you continue your work and that God may protect you. I understand your emphasis on rational thought and the “single power” that Einstein talked about, but keep in mind that those were men, and man is very prone to err. That concept is as realistic to me as the theory of evolution. True, I cant prove my belief in Christianity, nor am I writing this to do so, but I just want to remind you that reason can only take a person so far, faith leads the rest.

God Bless,

Nas

>From: “Ali Sina”

>Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001

>

Dear Nas,

Where faith overtakes reason fanaticism and bigotry ensue. Why do you condemn Muslim’s crimes? They do those crimes because they have faith that this is what God has asked them to do. The Christians also perpetrated many crimes in the past in the name of Faith.

Reason is the only salvation for humanity. Faith is for people who are unable to reason and thus they believe what they cannot understand nor explain. This is the sickness of the mind. A sharp alive mind is the one that doubts, questions, analyses, ponders and thinks not the one that believes.

Children whose brain is not developed believe anything even if that thing make little sense. They believe in Santa Clause, elves and fairies. But adults doubt all these and reject what makes no sense.

If beliefs make you content, go ahead and believe. I am not against faiths. I am against hate. But remember that in principle there is not much difference between you and the brainwashed followers of thousands of other cults and religions that make no sense. All of you at one point stopped thinking and have decided to believe what makes no sense to reason.

Kind regards

Ali Sina

From: “Nas

Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001

Dear Ali,

On the contrary my friend, faith does not signify the end in reasoning. It merely represents one acceptance that reason in itself, can take one so far.

How can you, by what you believe, explain the miracle of human life? Reason, would I assume suggest the theory of evolution. But that in itself is flawed because scientific evidence (based on the doctrine of reason) does not support it. So how do you, then, account for your own existance? Isn’t it perhaps more important to answer that question then a smaller one, such as which religion is really false and which is true? I appears to me that there is a contradiction in your beliefs. If I’m wrong, please point them out to me.

My belief in Christianity is not based on my rejection of using my brain. It is merely my acknowledgement that reason and one’s mind can only take a man so far. To reject that one’s mind has limitations, is in my mind, foolish. I cannot prove the existance of a God, but it is, in my opinion postulated on logistic reasoning (look up Pascal), more beneficial to believe in the existance of God, and live one’s life obeying him, then take the option of denouncing Him, and to risk the possibilty of eternal damnation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not obeying Him out of fear. I’m merely expressing it in this light to show you that this belief itself, is by way of reason.

Cheers,

Nas

This is a debate with an ex-Muslim converted to Christianity (his emails are bellow) 

Dear Nas,

Do you believe in UFOs, flying saucers and aliens visiting our planet? Some people do, but the evidence is sketchy and that belief is based on hearsay. Now what if an alien airship lands in your town and all the media report it and the aliens come out and shake hand with the officials of the city? Do you still say that you believe in UFOs. Of course not. You KNOW that they exist because you have hard evidence.

This is the difference between belief and knowledge. Belief is acceptance of something without evidence while knowledge is based on evidence. Faith is intensely believing in something for which there is absolutely no evidence. 

I am not saying that reason is infallible. Human reason is of course flawed. But that is no excuse to abandon it and rely on faith. It is like saying since airplane has limitations and cannot take us to the moon let us jump out of it and continue our flight without it . Reason is based on logics and science. Both these have their limitations. There are many realities that they cannot explain, such as premonition, psychic power and telepathy. Some people deny these human faculties because they believe if science cannot explain them, they does not exist. This in my opinion is scientific blindness. Others abandon reason altogether and try to weave some nonsense explanation. This is the blindness of faith. The right attitude is to remain skeptic.

Acknowledge that there are realities that are beyond the realm of science yet do not jump into conclusions and “believe” in things for which you have no evidence.

You asked about the miracle of human life. It can be explained by science. There is no need to accept the hocus pocus of religions. In fact this is no miracle at all once you learn the science behind it. It would be more beneficial for you to find the explanation of this “miracle of life” by making a search on “The Origin of Life” through the Internet than giving up rational thinking and believing the nonsense that is written is the Quran or the Bible. Do you know that both these books say that the Earth is flat? So how can you rely is such books to tell you about the miracle of life? I have an article that briefly explains this subject. Here it is if you are interested.

http://www.golshan.com/rationalthinking/chance_or_intelligence.htm

You wrote: “My belief in Christianity is not based on my rejection of using my brain. It is merely my acknowledgement that reason and one’s mind can only take a man so far.”  Isn’t that the same thing? You have decided to believe in things for which there is no evidence when you fail to understand them. You call that rational? You have left Islam and now laugh at the stupid belief of the Shiites who say Iman Zaman is hidden in a well for 1100 years. But you have no difficulty accepting another equally absurd belief that Jesus raised from the death and ascended to heaven. Why you ridicule Muslim’s belief and think your is okay? The Bible is full of inconsistencies and errancies. Go through the following website and find them for yourself. Then ask yourself, can a book that contains so many errors guide you to salvation? If you really cared abut truth you would go and take a look but if falsehood pleases you more, forget about it. keep your eyes shut and keep believing.  http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/index.html

You wrote: “I cannot prove the existence of a God, but it is, in my opinion postulated on logistic reasoning (look up Pascal), more beneficial to believe in the existence of God, and live one’s life obeying him, then take the option of denouncing Him, and to risk the possibility of eternal damnation.”

This is an absurd reasoning and you are not the first one who tells me so. I hear that constantly from the Muslims who tell me, “What if Islam is true and there is a hell if we reject Muhammad?”. Since neither you nor the Muslims can prove the validity of your beliefs then it is 50/50. You are actually taking a risk by rejecting Islam. What if Islam is true? Do you know what Allah will do to the apostates? he Burns them in fire. You will be given boiling water to drink and your intestines will be swelled. Iron hooks will be driven into your body and you’ll burn for eternity. Imagine eternity! Wow, that is a looooooong time. I assure you that the hell described by Muhammad is much more dreadful than the one described in the Bible so if I were you. i.e. I had your brain in my scull and had your reasoning, I would become a Muslim. 

If you are not afraid of Muhammad’s threats, may I ask why you rejected Islam? Is it because you found it unreasonable? So you must have used your brain at one point to make that decision. Now why did you accept Christianity? This religion is as irrational as Islam. Here you abandoned reason and made the leap of faith. You decided to believe in things for which there is no reason at all. You let your emotion overtake your rational thinking. Believe me I meet a lot of ex-Christians who convert to Islam.  Their reasoning is the same as yours. Why should they be wrong and you right? They do exactly the same thing that you do. They believe in things for which they have no evidence.

My hope is that one-day we human beings start using our brain and stop believing in the crazy beliefs of our ancestors. Technologically we live in space age and emotionally we are still in Stone Age. How can any rational person believe in the mumbo jumbo of these archaic religions? Why we desire to fool ourselves so desperately? Why we believe in things for which we have no evidence? Why we disdain others who also believe in similarly absurd things as we believe and think that our irrational and unreasonable beliefs are superior to theirs? Isn’t this the very reason Muslims think of themselves better than the rest of humankind? Isn’t the same self-righteous attitude that makes them hate people of other religions? Why their irrational belief should be wrong and your irrational belief should be the right one? Why you believe in God and not in Santa Clause? What is the difference between these two creatures of human imagination?  

Imagine how many belief systems exist in the world. Thousands! All of them have errors and are inconsistent with reason. Yet their followers say exactly the same thing that you say. They say that reason is not perfect therefore we believe in these absurd beliefs by faith. 

If we stopped acting like primitive men and started using our rational thinking, all the differences that exist among us would vanish and humanity will be united. These religions that demand you to believe because, as they say, some truths cannot be explained by reason are the cause of disunity and strives. The unity of humankind will never be achieved as long as people believe, as long as they are certain of thing that they cannot prove and have faith about things that they do not know.  

Today our lives are put in danger by the threat of terrorists. But terrorists are not the real enemy. The real enemy of humankind are these beliefs that rear terrorists promote blindness of mind and question the supremacy of reason.  Terrorists are mere products of irrational beliefs and faiths without reason. The difference between the most peace loving religion, say for example Bahaism, and the most warmongering one, which is Islam is in degrees indeed. But in essence all religions are the same. They all demand you to believe without giving you enough proof. They all praise faith above reason. They all foster bigotry and irrationality.  

Kind regards

Ali Sina