Islam is the second largest religion in the world, and growing rapidly. As such, it’s important for Christians to have a basic understanding of this formidable religion, and in particular, it’s sacred text, the Qur’an. Christian apologist, James White, has written an excellent book – What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an – that provides Christians with a basic understanding of the Qur’an, focusing on the topics that divide Muslims and Christians.
White begins the book by making a case for why Christians should concern themselves with the teachings of the Qur’an. From there, he provides a broad overview of both Muhammad and the Qur’an:
A brief sketch of Muhammad’s life and the origin of Islam
According to Muslims, the Qur’an was written by God from eternity past and merely dictated to Muhammad by an angel over a period of 22 years. As such, it is inerrant.
The central tenet of faith for Muslims is the absolute numerical oneness of God (tawhid), and a confession that Muhammad is His greatest and last prophet.
The worst of all sins is to associate anything with God (shirk), so the Christian claim that Jesus is God is shirk.
While White’s book is not written as a refutation of the Qur’an’s claims to be divine revelation, there are a number of points raised in the book that expose the Qur’an’s claims as false:
Christian apologist, Tyler Vela, has observed that atheists like to define “atheism” and “belief” in very nontraditional ways, and these definitions lead to an absurdity. Consider the following: “Atheist” is redefined as someone who merely lacks the belief that God exists (rather than someone who believes God does not exist), and “belief” is redefined as holding something to be true without evidence (rather than a mental disposition concerning the truth of some proposition). Given these definitions, if God did something by which all people had direct and incontrovertible evidence that He existed, then no one could believe in God (since His existence is no longer an opinion without evidence). If no one believes in God because they know God exists, then they are atheists (because atheists lack a belief in God’s existence). Ironically, then, everyone would be an atheist precisely because they know God exists.
In light of my recent post regarding religious freedom, Lowder with Chowder has a great video talking about this issue. He illustrates it by showing what happens when a supposedly homosexual man asks a number of Muslim bakeries to bake him a same-sex wedding cake. The end is great too. He addresses the idea that people should not go into business unless they have no conscience or are willing to violate their conscience are willing to provide their services for any purpose.
Cohabitation – the politically correct term for what used to be called “shacking up” – has become very common in our day. Nearly 8 million opposite-sex couples live together today, compared to less than 1 million 30 years ago. Nearly 10% of all opposite-sex couples are cohabiting, and over half of all first marriages are preceded by a period of cohabitation.
How did we get here?
How did cohabitation go from being illegal in all states prior to 1970 and held in moral contempt by society at large to being so ubiquitous and accepted today? There are several reasons:
The sexual revolution removed the moral stigma of premarital sex.
Our culture has moved from a culture of traditions and social conformity to a culture of individualism and personal gratification.
We shifted from a deontological view of morality to a pragmatic and relativistic view of morality in which any activity that does not cause harm to others is morally permissible.
The recognition of the fragility of marriage, and a corresponding fear of divorce.
The rise of feminism which rejected the traditional roles played by married women. Cohabitation promised personal autonomy and more relationship equity.
The increasing economic independence of women made marriage less necessary for them. And men, who are generally more fearful of commitment, supported the arrangement since it still provided for their needs of sexual gratification and domestic support.[1]
Virtually all moral theories end up with a subjective version of morality (including evolutionary explanations of morality), in which moral values have their genesis in the human will in one way or another. In our moral experience, however, we have a basic moral intuition that moral values are objective.
To say a moral value is objective is to say its truth value does not depend on any human knower. So, for example, to say that killing Jews simply because of their ethnicity is immoral in an objective sense is to say that killing Jews is wrong whether anyone believes it to be wrong or not. If Hitler had won the war and eliminated everyone that thought the Holocaust was immoral, such that everyone believed it was moral, it would still, in fact, be immoral.
Read about the story here. Just remember, homosexual advocacy and same-sex marriage will not affect anyone.
Update: Wes Modder has been cleared of all wrong-doing and will be allowed to retire from the Navy. It’s not clear whether this is a forced retirement or not.
Islam is the second largest religion in the world, and growing rapidly. As such, it’s important for Christians to have a basic understanding of this formidable religion, and in particular, it’s sacred text, the Qur’an. Christian apologist, James White, has written an excellent book – What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an – that provides Christians with a basic understanding of the Qur’an, focusing on the topics that divide Muslims and Christians.
Thinking to Believe 