ME: Yeah - that's not new. They've been that way since the beginning, starting with Muhammad. He was all about conquest. Jesus - quite the opposite. I talked about the historicity of Muhammad's claims ... 600+ years after Jesus died, one source, tons of contradictions - although later texts are supposed to abrogate or trump earlier texts - and so on. Also, their growth is not really from consensual conversions.
ATHEIST: What is that suppose to mean?
ME: I mean their growth comes predominantly (almost completely) from force and/or from raising large families. New Christians come from those who choose, on their own, to become Christian. Of course, Christians have kids, too, but they are rarely if ever forced to stay in the church once they are adults, and CERTAINLY would never feel as though their life was threatened if they chose not to be a Christian. We're seeing that now in some countries: pay a tax (for not being Muslim) that you can't pay, or convert to Islam, or be executed. Bottom line, the two religions are like night and day - some would say "literally". The "religion of peace" claim - wrong. The earlier peaceful verses are abrogated by later more violent verses. This is on of the rules of the Qu'ran. They're also instructed to lie whenever necessary if it helps to spread Islam, such as telling everyone it's a religion of peace, when the Qu'ran really says to take over the world by all means necessary - by being peaceful at first, until they are a large enough portion of a population to show force. You should check out a video I watched recently called, "Three Things you May Not Know about Islam". It's legit and quite revealing. In essence, the probability that Islam is true is extremely low, but those who are Muslim literally don't know any better.
ATHEIST: That doesn't mean it's not true, though. There are Christians who don't know any better, too.
ME: Very true. Some Christians are going on mostly or completely blind faith. They're just lucky that they're inadvertently right [smirk]. I'm just saying Islam being true is not even close to likely. It's almost ALL faith, no evidence. But anything - I suppose - is possible. You see, it's like I was saying with regard to Atheism ... there is no absolute proof of that either. I mean, there is no proof that God doesn't exist, etc. ALL world views take faith to some degree. In fact, one of my favorite books is called, "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist" by Norman Geisler. It really comes down to how much proof is there for one worldview over another? Atheism - virtually no evidence. Islam - very little to no evidence (one man's testimony). Christianity - mountains of unbiased (and some biased, of course) historical evidence. In a court case, if you had fingerprints on the murder weapon, 500+ witnesses, DNA, receipts, and a video confession, you would say that the guy did it. There is THAT much evidence for Christianity. People simply don't look into it, so they don't know this. The issue is, they won't look into it, generally because they don't want it to be true for some reason, or they think they already know what it is, even though they are way off.
ATHEIST: Well, you've got me intellectually intrigued. I'll need to double-check all of what you're saying, but if it's true, it merits further research on my part.
ME: Are you a reader?
ATHEIST: Yeah - love to read.
ME: Here's a good list of books to start with:
- I mentioned Lee Stroebel's "The Case for Faith" and "The Case for Christ" already.
- I'd also get my hands on "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, for a more cerebral analysis.
- I mentioned "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist" by Norman Geisler. That will address a number of your questions in significantly more detail.
- With regard to Islam vs Christianity, there is an awesome book by Nabeel Qureshi called, "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity".
- Virtually any book by Ravi Zacharias is gold. "The End of Reason" would be a great one for you to pick up, or just watch a few of his talks on YouTube at major secular colleges.
ATHEIST: Okay - that's enough for now! Geesh.
ME: Sorry. I've just learned so much from so many books - getting ahead of myself. Anyway, why don't we do this ... you read one of these, then we'll talk. If you have a book you'd like me to read - say "The God Delusion" or "Undeniable" by Bill Nye, I'm up for that, too. It can be our own little book club. That sound fair?
ATHEIST: It does.
ME: Okay. Let's choose one to start with.
ATHEIST: How about "The Case for Faith" to start with. Before I can swallow the whole Jesus thing, I need to understand why any faith in a God of any kind is worth further consideration. Then I think I might want to go with "Undeniable" if you're up for that.
ME: Coolio. Get back together in a few weeks?
ATHEIST: Let's make it three.
Reader: Will you continue? (Next Part coming soon ...)
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