I’m an evangelical protestant and I’d like to give my answer to the ‘what would it take to convince me to become a Muslim’ question. This is going to be a narrative example and thus show only one of many possible routes. I’ve chosen a rout that does not depend on private knowledge, fresh miracle in the present day, or even or even changed facts in things it would be inconceivable for me to be wrong about, because I see this rout as the hardest and therefore most revealing.
Muslim scholars propose a competitor to the Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD) for the Pentateuch and/or Two-source Hypothesis a.k.a. Four-Source Theory for the synoptic gospels that showed instead how these Bible books developed as corruptions of a proto-Koran. This shouldn’t be too hard as the existing popular theories are mostly narrative fallacy + an affective death spiral. It would attract enough attention as politically fashionable that I would hear about it and look it up on biblical Studies blogs. If it actually had plausibility that would increase my expectation that an investigation of the Koran would be fruitful and I would start checking into it more.
One of the things I would be looking for is outside evidence such as signs of the supernatural in its origin, specifically miracles done by Mohamed. Not the infancy gospel of Thomas type miracles where it seems likely these are legendary accretions after the fact, but more like what we see in the canonical gospels and epistles where we seem to have a record of contemporary eyewitnesses thinking they saw the laws of nature repeatedly violated.
I would also be looking for more internal confirmations like was a consistent but nuanced picture of human nature and how God intends to deal with it presented. Or how is theodicy regarded? As I was evaluating questions like this I would be looking at: One, was the world view presented consistent with the world as it actually is? Two, does the world view presented provide a foundation you can build an approach to life on?
To help me evaluate all this I would be looking into both Cristian and Muslim apologist’s answers to these questions. To be convinced to the Muslim position I’d need to run into Muslim apologists who are considerably more rationally coherent than any I have so far heard of. But given what mushy headed nonsense third parties sometimes report as “Christian teaching” there is a selection bias in favor of mushy headedness in what is prominently available to the public. (It’s interesting reading Less Wrong to see that many of the arguments against Christianity are exactly the same arguments that conservative Christians use against Liberal Christians.)
Overall I would need to be convinced that Islam was both internally and externally consistent and that in areas where it conflicts with Christianity, Christianity is considerably less credible than I currently find it. This would probably mean finding a large numbers of specific inconsistencies that I have found only a couple of in the past. But the fact that I have found a few means it is conceivable I could find more in the future.
One last objection I need to address is “If the one admits evidence for Islam might be out there, why hasn’t the one check it out yet?”
Well it would take months and mouths of work and there are so many other things it might also be profitable to investigate. (Like LessWrong where not only do I get to investigate an alternative world view, that investigation is just a bonus to getting all these neat rational thinking tools that will be of ongoing use to me.) Moreover a negative result would not really be definitive; there would always be the possibility that I had just not found the right Moslem apologists or was not digging into the right version of Islamic theology. So there is no reason I would pick Islam as the thing to invest my time investigating without an additional reason. But if, for example, there was an Islamic theologian who offered to debate the issues with me then I would be inclined to do it and follow where the belief updates lead.
“if, for example, there was an Islamic theologian who offered to debate the issues with me then I would be inclined to do it and follow where the belief updates lead.”
Is that an open offer to theologians of all stripes?
Yes, theologians of all strips, and philosophers and logicians of all perspectives. As long a they are willing to respond to my questions as well as having me respond to their’s. (Though if someone is rude, engages in rhetorical hyperbola, etc. I reserve the right to do those things back to them.)
I’ll try to check back here to see if anyone wants to do that or e-mail me at alia1dx@gmail.com and I’ll give you my private e-mail to carry on a dialog.
I’m an evangelical protestant and I’d like to give my answer to the ‘what would it take to convince me to become a Muslim’ question. This is going to be a narrative example and thus show only one of many possible routes. I’ve chosen a rout that does not depend on private knowledge, fresh miracle in the present day, or even or even changed facts in things it would be inconceivable for me to be wrong about, because I see this rout as the hardest and therefore most revealing.
Muslim scholars propose a competitor to the Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD) for the Pentateuch and/or Two-source Hypothesis a.k.a. Four-Source Theory for the synoptic gospels that showed instead how these Bible books developed as corruptions of a proto-Koran. This shouldn’t be too hard as the existing popular theories are mostly narrative fallacy + an affective death spiral. It would attract enough attention as politically fashionable that I would hear about it and look it up on biblical Studies blogs. If it actually had plausibility that would increase my expectation that an investigation of the Koran would be fruitful and I would start checking into it more. One of the things I would be looking for is outside evidence such as signs of the supernatural in its origin, specifically miracles done by Mohamed. Not the infancy gospel of Thomas type miracles where it seems likely these are legendary accretions after the fact, but more like what we see in the canonical gospels and epistles where we seem to have a record of contemporary eyewitnesses thinking they saw the laws of nature repeatedly violated. I would also be looking for more internal confirmations like was a consistent but nuanced picture of human nature and how God intends to deal with it presented. Or how is theodicy regarded? As I was evaluating questions like this I would be looking at: One, was the world view presented consistent with the world as it actually is? Two, does the world view presented provide a foundation you can build an approach to life on? To help me evaluate all this I would be looking into both Cristian and Muslim apologist’s answers to these questions. To be convinced to the Muslim position I’d need to run into Muslim apologists who are considerably more rationally coherent than any I have so far heard of. But given what mushy headed nonsense third parties sometimes report as “Christian teaching” there is a selection bias in favor of mushy headedness in what is prominently available to the public. (It’s interesting reading Less Wrong to see that many of the arguments against Christianity are exactly the same arguments that conservative Christians use against Liberal Christians.) Overall I would need to be convinced that Islam was both internally and externally consistent and that in areas where it conflicts with Christianity, Christianity is considerably less credible than I currently find it. This would probably mean finding a large numbers of specific inconsistencies that I have found only a couple of in the past. But the fact that I have found a few means it is conceivable I could find more in the future.
One last objection I need to address is “If the one admits evidence for Islam might be out there, why hasn’t the one check it out yet?” Well it would take months and mouths of work and there are so many other things it might also be profitable to investigate. (Like LessWrong where not only do I get to investigate an alternative world view, that investigation is just a bonus to getting all these neat rational thinking tools that will be of ongoing use to me.) Moreover a negative result would not really be definitive; there would always be the possibility that I had just not found the right Moslem apologists or was not digging into the right version of Islamic theology. So there is no reason I would pick Islam as the thing to invest my time investigating without an additional reason. But if, for example, there was an Islamic theologian who offered to debate the issues with me then I would be inclined to do it and follow where the belief updates lead.
“if, for example, there was an Islamic theologian who offered to debate the issues with me then I would be inclined to do it and follow where the belief updates lead.”
Is that an open offer to theologians of all stripes?
Yes, theologians of all strips, and philosophers and logicians of all perspectives. As long a they are willing to respond to my questions as well as having me respond to their’s. (Though if someone is rude, engages in rhetorical hyperbola, etc. I reserve the right to do those things back to them.)
I’ll try to check back here to see if anyone wants to do that or e-mail me at alia1dx@gmail.com and I’ll give you my private e-mail to carry on a dialog.
Email sent about a week ago. Did it get spam-filtered?