Our podcast

Peace to all,

I am in the process of creating a podcast channel and I am exploring all my options. Anyone interested in helping can contact me, and of course, I will still start answering more questions very soon.

More on what Islam promises and a criticism of a commonly held Christian belief

Peace,

I would like to quickly discuss 2 things today. The first is regarding the comments of Dr. Banister on the goals of Islam and the Quran being more focused on getting to heaven in contrast to God himself being the ultimate goal. The second is regarding what some consider to be Islam's fake morality.

Without question, Islam has made God and a relationship with him to be the ultimate desire. You can read the whole Quran, which God himself has dictated directly. You do not find this claim in any other religious book, nor does any other book claim to be so. There is a feature of the Quran which is called by 99 attributes or names that God has given himself. God states that his mercy perfuses into ALL things and that his anger is only directed towards a group. For example this verse reveals that without question:

Al-Araf Verse 156 reads:
وَاكْتُبْ لَنَا فِي هَـذِهِ الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ إِنَّا هُدْنَـا إِلَيْكَ قَالَ عَذَابِي أُصِيبُ بِهِ مَنْ أَشَاء وَرَحْمَتِي وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ فَسَأَكْتُبُهَا لِلَّذِينَ يَتَّقُونَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَـاةَ وَالَّذِينَ هُم بِآيَاتِنَا يُؤْمِنُونَ {156

"Grant us well-being in this life and in the life hereafter for we have turned ourselves to You." The Lord replied, "My torment only afflicts those whom I want to punish, but My mercy encompasses all things. I shall grant mercy to those who maintain piety, pay their religious tax, and those who have faith in Our revelations."(translated by Sarwar)

Another claim that Christians use in their evangelism is to criticize Islam for its penal code stating that it does not represent Islam changing a person's heart, from which then the person will do good. However, it is not hard to find among the gospels something much more radical than worldly punishment. For example,
 in Matthew 18:9 it states:

"And if your eye causes your downfall, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, rather than to have two eyes and be thrown into hellfire!"

So much for the change of heart being the driving force for Christians to be good, in contrast to Muslims who are commanded to purify their intentions for the sake of God alone.

It is really that simple. One of the themes I want to keep revisiting is that one of the reasons that shows the truth of Islam is how weak and desperate the arguments againsst it are by even the most talented apologists. More later...

Some details on my upcoming podcast and blog topics

As of today, I will try to make almost daily posts, many of them dealing with the claims of many Christian apologists. A sample of names include, but is not limited to Dr.'s  James White, William Craig,  Jonathan McLatchie, John Lennox, Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Michael Brown, David Wood,  Nabeel Qureshi , Jay Smith, Andy Bannister and many more. Stay tuned.

Refuting Dr. Bannister's assertians on Islam and Christianity about who Jesus and God are.

8/13/17

I was listening to the podcast called "Unbelievable" hosted by  Justin Brierley. In the preliminary portion of the show, Dr. Andy Bannister, who stated that he has a PHD in Islamic studies, stated a couple of things about Islam that really bothered me. I will make some quick comments.

First he said that Christianity is the religion that accepts the premise that Jesus was who he said he was. This is incorrect. A better definition would be that Christianity is a religion in which one believes in certain sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus by the New Testament. So more accurately, Andy Banister is not accepting the testimony of what Jesus said, but what others claim that Jesus said. This would include the Greek gospels of Mattew, Mark, Luke, and John, the letters of St. Paul, and basically the New Testament. These writings were all written in Greek and none of them were written during the life-time of Jesus. It would therefore be an extreme oversimplification for someone to say that as a Christian, one is accepting that Jesus was speaking the truth about who he claimed to be(in contrast to other claims).

Another thing that Dr. Banister said was that his studies in Islam reveal that Islam does not claim to lead people to God, but to a paradise of inferior things such rivers of wine, and the other descriptions of delights that those who make it to paradise experience. First, even if this was true, it would have no bearing on whether or not Islam was true or not, as it is up to God to reward his servents as He sees fit. But more importantly there are so many verses in the Quran which show this assertian to be false. See for example Quran 5:15.

More on these issues later, and I hope my brief responses show how wrong Dr. Banister and other apologists are on these issues.