Although I was once a devoutly religious Ahmadi Muslim, I did not leave Ahmadiyyat to embrace mainstream Islam. Nor have I embraced any other religion. This article explains my beliefs and my positions.

This treatise explores my positions on religion and philosophy. I will present a limited critique of Qur’anic scripture and Islamic philosophy. This is to help convey the basis for my rejection of Islam. For me, it distills down to scriptural verses which are illogical, and teachings that lack moral grace.

To be clear, I’m not referring to the revisionist understanding and expression of these ideas in western, progressive Muslim communities. I’m going to the source.

Introduction .

My primary goal for this piece is to communicate to you the reader, where I stand on various subjects related to theology, personal expression, and community. I am laying this out now, so that my friends and family need no longer tap-dance around these subjects.

Please know that if you are a Muslim, I am not attacking you. It is only the ideas bundled up as religion which I ask you to critically evaluate with me. Please understand that my immediate and extended family are all still practicing Muslims. Much of my extended circle of friends are still practicing Muslims too. I love them dearly. I stand with you against anti-Muslim bigotry.

My purpose with this platform is to challenge ideas and to examine the truth-claims of Islam. Why? Because none of us should be content to live life atop foundations which are not true. These foundational religious ideas might be ones that you hold dear. They are however, just that: ideas. Religious ideas do sometimes confer social and emotional benefits to those who hold them. They also have the power to perpetuate an us-versus-them narrative. They can burden the mind with cognitive dissonance. My quest however, has always been to align myself with that which is true, and not just with that which is useful (or merely convenient). We can rebuild that which is useful over a foundation of that which is true.

What do I mean by ‘truth’? Well, science helps us discover what is not true in order to build models to approximate reality. It is in this sense, that I refer to truth. It’s not about having absolute certainty; it’s about our best approximations at modeling reality. The foundations I speak of in this same sense, refer to our collective best efforts as a species. We have the ability to for example, codify best practices for living that far exceed commandments in the Old Testament.

While I discuss Islam generally, much of my specific focus is on how Ahmadiyyat interprets Islam. This is because I was originally from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

As we navigate the landscape of beliefs, facts, and reason, please remember that people have rights while ideas do not. It is true that some ideas are helpful, just as some ideas are harmful. Most religions include generous servings of both. As I’ve stated in my About page:

We can be critical of ideas and still love the people that hold them. That love for humanity shouldn’t stop us from challenging poor ideas. Rather, our love for humanity makes these critiques all the more pressing.

Perhaps you too, dear reader, have chosen to leave Islam and have sought a means by which to communicate this to loved ones. If so, this piece is dedicated to you.

Summary .

What follows is a snapshot of my positions. Most of these same ideas will be revisited in later sections of this essay.

My Positions Agnostic Deist. I identify as an agnostic deist, although I am on the spectrum between implicit atheism and agnostic deism. I often refer to this belief position as just agnostic deism since implicit atheism doesn’t carry the necessary connotations of deism—which I feel are worth calling out in my case. However, depending on the context and the argument at hand, either label may apply. My patchwork of deistic intuitions are however, functionally equivalent to atheism, since deism is an unfalsifiable proposition.

I identify as an agnostic deist, although I am on the spectrum between implicit atheism and agnostic deism. I often refer to this belief position as just agnostic deism since implicit atheism doesn’t carry the necessary connotations of deism—which I feel are worth calling out in my case. However, depending on the context and the argument at hand, either label may apply. My patchwork of deistic intuitions are however, functionally equivalent to atheism, since deism is an unfalsifiable proposition. Atheist arguments. The arguments for an atheist position appear much stronger to me than (and relative to) the propositions put forward for classical theism—which is the attempt to go beyond deism and over to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.

The arguments for an atheist position appear much stronger to me than (and relative to) the propositions put forward for classical theism—which is the attempt to go beyond deism and over to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. Ex-Muslim. I am an ex-Muslim. I do not believe that Islam has any connection to the Divine. I do not believe Muhammad was a prophet nor do I believe the Qur’an to be guidance from the Creator of the Universe.

I am an ex-Muslim. I do not believe that Islam has any connection to the Divine. I do not believe Muhammad was a prophet nor do I believe the Qur’an to be guidance from the Creator of the Universe. Ex-Ahmadi. As I am originally from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, I am at the same time, also ex-Ahmadi.

As I am originally from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, I am at the same time, also ex-Ahmadi. Ideas don’t have rights. I believe that ideas do not have rights, but that people most certainly do.

I believe that ideas do not have rights, but that people most certainly do. Loving Muslims. I detest anti-Muslim bigotry. Many loved ones in my life—family and friends—are still Muslims. I stand by their right to practice and preach their faith without being targets of bigotry.

I detest anti-Muslim bigotry. Many loved ones in my life—family and friends—are still Muslims. I stand by their right to practice and preach their faith without being targets of bigotry. Against bigotry. I believe that the term “Islamophobia” is pitiful. According to the Oxford dictionary definition, the term conflates criticism of an idea (Islam) with bigotry against a people (Muslims). It’s like terrorists using human shields to protect themselves from being targeted by law enforcement. Step aside and fight clean. If one truly cares about Muslims, they will use the term anti-Muslim bigotry instead of subjugating the legitimate grievances of Muslims to the marketing propaganda interests of Islam.

I believe that the term “Islamophobia” is pitiful. According to the Oxford dictionary definition, the term conflates criticism of an idea (Islam) with bigotry against a people (Muslims). It’s like terrorists using human shields to protect themselves from being targeted by law enforcement. Step aside and fight clean. If one truly cares about Muslims, they will use the term anti-Muslim bigotry instead of subjugating the legitimate grievances of Muslims to the marketing propaganda interests of Islam. Cultural Muslim. My lifestyle still reflects many everyday prescriptions learnt from Islam, leading many to see me as a cultural Muslim. I feel that this is a confusing label because ‘Muslim’ strongly implies a theological belief. I do however, recognize the value of this label because of its economy of expression.

My lifestyle still reflects many everyday prescriptions learnt from Islam, leading many to see me as a cultural Muslim. I feel that this is a confusing label because ‘Muslim’ strongly implies a theological belief. I do however, recognize the value of this label because of its economy of expression. Coexistence. I believe coexistence is important, including helping elderly family members and extended community adjust to a changing world. A world where many of us are choosing to leave the religions that we were born into. As such, I continue to use some Islamic idioms, such as for greetings.

I believe coexistence is important, including helping elderly family members and extended community adjust to a changing world. A world where many of us are choosing to leave the religions that we were born into. As such, I continue to use some Islamic idioms, such as for greetings. Not on a whim. I did not leave Islam on a whim. Nor did I leave “to sin”. I have lived a more austere life than many self-identified Muslims in the West.

I did not leave Islam on a whim. Nor did I leave “to sin”. I have lived a more austere life than many self-identified Muslims in the West. Pro-community. I wanted Islam/Ahmadiyyat to be true. I was biased in favor of it being so. I knew how to navigate community and build wonderful friendships there. I think community is something that organized religion often gets right.

I wanted Islam/Ahmadiyyat to be true. I was biased in favor of it being so. I knew how to navigate community and build wonderful friendships there. I think community is something that organized religion often gets right. History of dawah/tabligh. I was once devoutly religious. I was enthusiastic about tabligh (preaching Islam; also known as dawah). I left Islam because I had no choice but to follow my conscience. I believe that I have studied Islam and examined my inherited beliefs more than most born Muslims.

I was once devoutly religious. I was enthusiastic about tabligh (preaching Islam; also known as dawah). I left Islam because I had no choice but to follow my conscience. I believe that I have studied Islam and examined my inherited beliefs more than most born Muslims. Leaders without answers. Missionaries and senior officials in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community had conceded directly to me and to members of my family, that they did not have answers to my contentious queries. My challenges to Islam/Ahmadiyyat at that time were very limited compared to the counter apologetics that I now engage in.

Missionaries and senior officials in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community had conceded directly to me and to members of my family, that they did not have answers to my contentious queries. My challenges to Islam/Ahmadiyyat at that time were very limited compared to the counter apologetics that I now engage in. Winning with love and reason. I have retained my passion for sharing what I believe to be true. I believe that we can win hearts and minds with love, kindness and mostly profoundly, with reason.

Motivations .

Why do some of us feel it necessary to explain our beliefs and positions with such precision and depth? In short, it is to be understood by those who matter to us. It is a craving that most of us share. It is part of the human condition.

Beyond personal clarity with friends and family, I believe that I have something to contribute to the wider discussion on the topics of philosophy, religion, Islam, Ahmadiyyat, and building community.

With my growing activism on social media, it also became clear that an exposition of my own beliefs would be helpful for my audience—be they kindred spirits, antagonists or just curious observers.

Precisely articulating how I felt about the mysteries of life have always seemed an exercise best conducted through conversation. This is because the concepts are far more important than the labels.

My ideas, I have always felt, could only be conveyed using detailed explanations and precise language. Simple labels like agnostic, atheist, or deist cannot possibly convey the nuance in my intuitions, inferences and reasoning. Hence, this article.

I personally strive to keep an open mind. I have always believed that we should go wherever the evidence takes us. It was this attitude of self-honesty that transitioned me from one who vocally championed Islam to one who seriously questioned it.

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. David Hume

from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding We must be willing to challenge our inherited beliefs. We must be willing to embark on a journey of discovery vis-a-vis religious truth claims without having a desired conclusion already earmarked for us. That would be an insincere exercise; one of confirmation bias and self-deception. We must be willing to challenge our inherited beliefs. We must be willing to embark on a journey of discovery vis-a-vis religious truth claims without having a desired conclusion already earmarked for us. That would be an insincere exercise; one of confirmation bias and self-deception.

We must be willing to accept the conclusions of our search, even if they be unexpected or unpleasant. Our findings may run afoul of the expectations of those whom we love. We must accept them with solemnity nonetheless. Only then can we truly claim to be embarking on an honest journey.

For emotional and familial reasons, it was difficult to leave classical theism. I wanted Islam to be true. I have always had an emotional and practical incentive for theism to win.

My life would be simpler. In many ways, my life could have been even more fulfilling with so much inherited structure and community already in place. I wouldn’t have needed those awkward conversations with family.

Loved ones who didn’t understand concepts like the burden of proof or Ockham’s razor wouldn’t be scratching their heads at my decision to leave Islam. Loved ones wouldn’t be sad that I have left the belief system that we once shared in common.

If you’re a theist of some variety, perhaps you can imagine just how difficult your own life might become if you ever told your loved ones that you no longer believed.

I suspect that scores of people hold a position similar to mine. They just haven’t found the right labels to describe their beliefs. I suspect that many people embrace both skepticism and a reverence for the numinous, as I do.

My writing here at Reason on Faith is my way of vocalizing what I have for too long, suppressed. Much of my writing is so that my family and friends can understand my thought process. I want my family to know that I have good reasons and thought-out positions for the advocacy and activism that will follow.

Another one of my goals in challenging theology is the empowerment of Ahmadi Muslim youth. I wish for them to know that they need no longer wrestle with vacuous sermons, extreme gender segregation, gender discrimination in leadership, homophobia, and a host of other issues that fuel cognitive dissonance.

Rejecting Religious Truth Claims .

I reject religion and religious truth claims outright. I do this based on what I believe to be fallacious reasoning proffered by proponents of classical theism.

Please note that I am not equating fallacious with insincere. I do believe that most theists hold their beliefs with sincerity. We simply disagree. Sometimes it’s on the facts. Sometimes it’s in how we reason. Sometimes both facts and reason play a role.

I often find myself aligned with compassionate everyday atheists as well as vocal anti-theism activists. Be it in opposition to Islam, to Christianity or to any other faith.

I do not believe that any scripture put forward in recorded history has any real connection to literal conceptions of divinity. I’m not sure that true divinity even exists beyond it being a beautiful metaphor for the mysterious, the sublimely romantic, for our collective sense of wonder, and for the intricate unknown. For me, it is that which inspires awe and humility as we gaze out at the stars.

Please do not confuse this position with a claim to have explored every religion. That is an impossible game. I believe that any just God worth worshipping would have readily surfaced for humanity reasonable evidence—moral teachings, clear prophecy, scriptural concordance with science, and the like. In my humble opinion, the prominent options on offer do not impress. Furthermore, the entire concept of worship reeks of arrogance for the being who would demand it. Religious worship is tangled up in a degrading kind of love.

Growing up Muslim, we are never taught to explore the moral implications of a Being—Allah—who demands that other beings worship him. I encourage you to now actually ponder the concept.

The following 75 second video sets the stage for this essay and understanding my perspective. It’s called The Impossible Game and was produced by TheraminTrees.

the impossible game by theramin trees

With religion being critiqued at my hands, the religious often mistakenly direct cosmological and teleological arguments my way for the existence of a God. Ahmadi Muslims often join in, since Ahmadiyya Islam is a focus area for my critique.

In these discussions, I sometimes find myself needing to clarify my positions in tweets that are much too short for that purpose.

.@ReasonOnFaith Like the multiverse or atoms organising themselves & inexplicably springing to life purely by chance, becoming conscious? — Bureau Francophone (@islam_et_media) April 25, 2016

.@islam_et_media For the record, I’m an agnostic deist. So let’s skip the teleological arguments. I don’t see any religions *worthy* of God. — Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith) April 25, 2016

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This isn’t to say that I believe that the teleological, cosmological or any other arguments for the existence of a deity are convincing. I find them all deficient in various ways.

Fun Fact: The Multiverse . What’s interesting from the above exchange with Twitter user @islam_et_media (Jahangir Khan, who appears on MTA programs) is that he has shot down the idea of a multiverse without realizing that his spiritual superior, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad actually describes exactly that: a multiverse model. See The Multiverse and Ahmadiyyat—a piece I wrote to illustrate how many Ahmadi Muslims do not understand what Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s writings contain—even some missionaries who appear on MTA and PhD writers for the Jama’at’s publication, The Review of Religions. Jahangir Khan dismisses the multiverse theory and I point out that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad himself described a multiverse model in the book, The Criterion of Religions. Perhaps someone needs to go back to missionary school. An artist’s conception of the multiverse

In my opinion, both the cosmological and teleological arguments are too abstract to be convincing proof. They also contain flawed premises.

Our brains do crave simple answers to big questions. I however, do not rush to quell the mysteries of existence by adopting simplistic placeholders just to assuage my primate brain.

If a God exists who is intelligent enough to design the Cosmos, then scriptures from a “revealed” religion like Islam should have been truly impressive. Yet I find the Qur’an simply unworthy of such a Being. I expected much better from the Creator of the Universe. It’s time to raise our standards.

In the formal arguments put forth for the existence of a God, one or more points in the premise of each argument’s syllogism are always contested. In my limited exposure to philosophy, the atheist’s rejection of one or more of these premises have always been justified.

The debate around the teleological argument will rage on. Mysteries we’ve not solved include abiogenesis: how the first inorganic matter became organic, as well as the phenomenon of consciousness. To be sure, our choices are not between:

We do have a naturalistic explanation, so we don’t need to invoke God. We don’t have an explanation yet, so God did it.

This would be a false dichotomy. A third option commonly omitted by theists is, “We don’t know”. That is not to say that we will eventually have full knowledge of all things. We may never know. And that’s a completely valid possibility.

To jump to a specific explanation because we have no logical explanation currently, is to commit the logical fallacy known as the Argument from Ignorance. This third option may in fact, be our best approximation of reality. This is the position I start with. It is the null hypothesis in this debate.

I do accept that a fourth option is possible: intelligent force(s) beyond our understanding may be responsible for the creation of our universe. But even if we grant this hypothetical, it only supports deism. It does not address the question of where these intelligent forces came from. It just pushes the problem back one level without actually solving anything.

The so-called “revealed” religions fall flat when critically examined. It is my contention that while deism is an unfalsifiable position, classical theism does fail scrutiny. This fourth possibility does not much further the case of the Muslim or Christian advocating for a personal God.

I doubt that science will ever enable us to identify what lies beyond or before our universe, or whether such questions even make sense.

As I understand it, modern cosmology indicates that time itself does not have meaning outside of our universe. Such metaphysical riddles may forever lie in the realm of “we don’t know”. And that’s okay. The fact that we may never know does not justify a reflex belief in a God.

Theism’s Appeal .

No doubt, theism has an emotional appeal. Especially when you factor in the social benefits conferred upon individuals who are part of an organized community.

Theists get to minimize their exposure to decision fatigue. They don’t have to evaluate answers and decide on the merits of religiously given positions. The meaning of life is neatly prepackaged for theists.

Religious adherents can punt on the big questions of existence because “God” and—insert your religion of choice here—is the easy answer to every unknown. Theists can just get on with the business of living. Further, a belief that death is not the end can be comforting when confronted with the reality of our short life spans.

Envisioning that there is something or someone greater than us provides the comforting notion that our lives and even our actions might have meaning and purpose beyond that which we can discern or construct in this very life. This is especially comforting in the wake of dealing with the otherwise inexplicable loss of a child or similar such tragedy.

With the belief that, “God has a plan” and that “only God knows”, we get to defer grief. Instead of taking the full write down however, this deferment is placed as a charge on our spiritual credit card. God picks up the tab and the interest charges in the Hereafter. As a result, we can attenuate and defer much grief that we would otherwise experience in this life.

So what’s wrong with deferring grief this way (besides the whole premise being a lie)? Well, if we knew this life was the only one that we could be certain of, many theists would have made more of an effort to get closure with loved ones in this very life. It changes your perspective. You make this life count. It underscores the importance and timeliness of things that you need to say and do in this one precious life that we know that we have.

To say I’m sorry. To say I love you. To tell that girl you’ve been thinking about that you like her—without having religious guilt bear down upon you. No more should religion dictate whom we are allowed to love. No more in-group / out-group tribalism.

Like children who seek the approval of their parents, we instinctively value that which someone of authority over us might also approve of. As adults, getting a deity’s approval is the ultimate form of feeling like we need not question our decisions—at least not the religiously motivated ones.

Further, a sense of connection with the rest of humanity through a common focal point that is itself believed to be divine consciousness can feel more purposeful than a shared connection that is only metaphor and not metaphysics. I believe this is why man invented and evolved both God and religion.

Whether real or imagined, the subjective feelings and aspirations for a metaphysical connection; this sense of awe with our very existence, and our desire to care about more than our finite selves, is how I define spirituality.

Exploring these sublime states of connection and love are healthy. I however, believe that humanity needs new constructs to express and explore these concepts that go beyond the failings and fiction of even contemporary expressions of religion.

The Value of Imaginary Constructs . Imaginary constructs can be useful to direct action, even if they in and of themselves have no basis in reality. Take for example, the advice a physiotherapist or chiropractor may give you about developing a healthy posture. Often, such professionals will advise you to imagine that your spine is being suspended by a string from above your head. Just because the notion of a personal God with a plan can put you at ease doesn’t mean that such a personal deity exists. At most, conceptualizing one to exist can be a useful construct. To be sure, we’re now talking about utility, not truth. So why not embrace everything that has utility, including the concept of a personal God? Well, for many reasons. For starters, which religion? Which denomination within that religion? How do we deal with aspects of that religion being both immutable and outdated? Returning to our string example, imagine that we began to believe as true that there really was an invisible string above our heads, and that wearing hats or walking into rooms with low ceilings was bad for our long-term posture, because it compromised this invisible string. Clearly, constructs and analogies no matter how useful, should never cross into the realm of beliefs about reality. To do so is to invite unintended consequences into our lives. I believe that starting with the most accurate model of reality; of what we know to be true, is the best way to advance our knowledge, our species, and our civilization.

Real Constructs .

Some constructs exist in the real world as crutches. These constructs can be very useful if we learn to use them as such. The danger arises when we ascribe agency to, or construct mythology around, such supports.

Consider the humble cucumber plant. It has tendrils for support. Nothing intrinsic to the cucumber plant itself can provide the structural support the tendrils seek. But if you place a dead twig next to the cucumber plant, it will happily take hold of the twig. The cucumber plant will deploy its tendrils like grappling hooks onto the twig and rise. Recognizing this, gardeners and farmers often place trellises of vertical or netted string next to infant cucumber plants to provide support.

A cucumber plant whose tendrils have hooked on to netted string for support

Neither the twig nor the string are part of the cucumber plant. They are not intrinsic to cucumber plants. Yet if you place either of them next to a sprouting cucumber plant, the plant is likely to climb to higher heights.

A twig with a bend in it will also work. The cucumber plant will grapple on to the bent twig and improvise. The point is this: some tangible anchoring construct was needed to assist the climb. A structural construct of convenience upon which growth could take place. There is no inherent “truth” in the string or the twig. It’s just an anchor. And even if it was crooked, it would still provide some utility; some measure of support and stability.

Perhaps you can now see where I’m going with this. I believe that religion is like that twig. Indeed, I believe that Islam is actually akin to that bent twig. And I believe that we can do better. Much better.

Islamic civilization and the gift of Islamic thought .

Centuries of Islamic civilization have at times, given us sophisticated philosophy and legal jurisprudence. The Sufis, sages, mystics and scholars of Islam built schools of thought and ethics upon its foundations.

Andalusian polymath and Islamic philosopher Ibn Rushd, whose name was often latinized as Averroes

These early Islamic scholars made some reasonable pronouncements for their time. They also believed many things that we would now find disagreeable given our modern sensibilities. I do commend the generations of Muslim scholars who tried however, to move society forward. Their goal was to build a more robust ethical framework for living. They made use of the raw material of early Islam, which they believed was divine in origin.

These religious philosophers of Islam built upon the foundations that they inherited. This was the age of oral traditions with hundreds of thousands of alleged sayings and doings of Muhammad circulating. Most of these were not yet assembled into trusted sahih collections. Those came between 100-200 years after Muhammad’s death.

Muslim scholars added to this material with their rulings and case studies. They applied their own logic. They added their own wisdom. They employed subjective moral reasoning to interpret what they felt were objective moral prescriptions. They helped organize the raw material of Islam into Islamic fiqh for consumption by contemporary and future generations of Muslims.

Hassan Radwan aptly conveys that we would be foolish to completely ignore centuries of such human wisdom—even if the foundations lacked a connection to the divine:

Maybe it is easier and more comfortable to think that we have been given an external guide to what is right and wrong. But that seems to defeat the whole object of our existence as self-aware beings. To struggle with questions of good and evil, it seems to be precisely why we have such an ability; it’s what makes us human. The irony is that it is man’s struggle for truth and understanding that has led to religions in the first place. It is very difficult to resist the temptation to tell others of one’s experiences, teach them the wisdom one has learned or cast in stone the answers one has discovered. Of course there is nothing wrong with learning from the great minds of the past, and it would be foolish, not to say arrogant, to think that one can ignore centuries of human wisdom – whether they claimed divine inspiration or not.

Hassan Radwan

posted in: Facebook Group: Muslims for Secular Democracy

Islam, as a loose collection of ideas supported by a book believed to be divine, solved the apparent grounding problem in philosophy. Just like Christianity before it. Islam gave us a foundation—an anchoring truth claim—upon which to build sophisticated philosophy and mysticism.

The string and the twig provided a convenient support to the growing cucumber plant. So too have the foundational ideas of Islam given Muslim sages and mystics something to build upon. If it wasn’t Islam, human minds would have anchored developments in philosophy and culture to whatever foundations were on offer.

Perhaps alternative religions would have flourished and perhaps one of those might have gained a foothold. It’s also possible that our pagan ancestors may have just stagnated instead of contributing more to philosophy. Perhaps Christianity would have dominated unchallenged and unchecked.

The rapid growth of civilization required that we be collectively grounded to something—anything. Agreeing on a foundation enables higher levels of social cohesion, ethics and philosophy to develop; even when that foundation’s metaphysical, historical, and origin claims are but fables and fabrication. With centralized vision and control, religious ideas can flourish. Unity in the early stages of a religion’s development helps to consolidate doctrine. This typically occurs under the leadership of the religion’s founder. This consolidation of core doctrine must take place before the conflicts of succession and warring interpretations arrive on the scene, i.e. when a religious leader eventually dies.

Succession Failures . A tangent to ponder: Isn’t it interesting how religions consistently fail to articulate succession plans in a clear and foolproof manner? Despite the attempts of its founder, Ahmadiyya Islam split after the death of its first khalifa, with the minority faction being the one filled with the most learned intellectuals of the once unified community.

Going further back, to Muhammad’s own death, we see the Sunni-Shia split. Even Ali, the fourth khalifa of the Sunnis felt that he was robbed and should have been the first successor to Muhammad. He eventually pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr for the sake of unity, not because he truly believed that Abu Bakr was rightfully intended by Muhammad to be the first Khalifa.

For demonstrating what is possible, we cannot deny that religion has played a pivotal role in humanity’s education.

I urge you to ponder. Truly, stop to consider the episode in the Qur’an where Muhammad’s skeptics ask him questions to prove his truthfulness, only for them to receive vague and useless responses in return.

It is my belief that religious truth claims are nothing more than recycled myths. Even some contemporaries of Muhammad believed this to be true. They were unmoved by the aesthetic beauty of the Qur’an, and yet they knew classical Arabic better than anyone alive today. The Qur’an itself mentions that some contemporaries of Muhammad found the Qur’an to be nothing more than recycled myths. Muhammad’s detractors found the Qur’an to be linguistically unimpressive. That’s not to say that no passages were moving to Muhammad’s detractors; just that in totality, it did not impress.

Some contemporaries of Muhammad found the Qur’an to be evasive and vague in response to their queries. They believed the Qur’an’s stories to be the recycled fables of the ancients. Qur’an 8:31-33 chronicles these precise objections.

The rejection of the majesty of the Qur’an in its own time, is well recorded. The book itself tells us how the contemporaries of Muhammad viewed his revelations. (Image taken from the video The Qur’anic Chapter that Gave it All Away, featuring and produced by The Masked Arab) reveal video

The rejection of the majesty of the Qur’an in its own time, is well recorded. The book itself tells us how the contemporaries of Muhammad viewed his revelations. (Image taken from the video The Qur’anic Chapter that Gave it All Away, featuring and produced by The Masked Arab) return to image

It’s as if repeating the charges without providing an exculpatory response (such as an actual demonstration of divine knowledge or power) somehow makes the charges go away. It doesn’t.

Let there be no doubt; I believe that religion has served a necessary role in the cognitive era of our species. The lessons learned from religion were an indispensable crutch and organizing principle for society. Of course, with the good came the bad.

While we can still benefit from the support religion provides, I believe that religion’s power to affect positive change diminishes by the day. This is because the truth claims of religion—all religions—are effectively under fire. They are buckling under rational inquiry.

Islamic scripture and apologia are now being debunked and toppled with increasing frequency. Islamic apologists and enthusiasts are resorting to deleting tweets and deleting posts when they later realize that such inadvertently indict Islam. Blusterous apologists are backing out of debates which they themselves proposed. Muslim apologists now realize that their ex-Muslim opponents know Islam. Indeed, we know our Qur’an.

Yes, even Ahmadiyya Islam contains a hodgepodge of contradictory apologia and positions that contradict known science.

Exegesis: When it can mean anything, it means nothing .

When one reads Ahmadi Muslim commentary of the Qur’an, verses that otherwise read as nonsensical on the surface (to us modern day readers) are retroactively given elaborate metaphorical meanings in the commentary.

Such exegesis also employ post-hoc back-dated inventions to classical Arabic, so that the language may contain previously lost meanings and idioms that help salvage a Qur’anic verse from ridicule or an undesirable doctrinal conclusion.

The words of scripture provide the raw material. From such, exegetes get to riff on the Arabic roots of the words involved. The exegetes conjure up elaborate hypotheticals using the flimsiest of evidence. They scramble for gradients of meaning and metaphor that might rescue the text from itself. In the end, they create a road to their desired destination, even if no path can be found from the literal or the implied text to take them there.

When exegesis veers from the text, you can create a road to anywhere from anywhere. Scripture becomes meaningless.

Sometimes, modern religious exegesis goes to painstaking efforts to soften or reverse an obvious reading of the text. We see this phenomenon when we compare Ahmadi Muslim Qur’anic commentary with the earliest tafsirs of the Qur’an. The latter articulate what was understood during the first few centuries that followed Muhammad. This was the time when Islam’s various schools of thought were being forged.

Philosopher, author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has demonstrated how in the hands of the creative commentator, we can derive something that sounds deep and profound but which is simply contrived and arbitrary nonsense. We can spin tales from almost any source text. Tales that have little relation to the elaborate fiction being spun.

The clip from 1:06:15 to 1:10:12 is priceless. Religions can mislead; getting people to creatively read in to texts. https://t.co/UeQYjKK5fT — Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith) March 22, 2017

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In the following audio clip, Sam Harris illustrates how one can make something as mundane as a cooking recipe for fish sound like a metaphor for the meaning and paradoxes of life. The short clip is both amusing and instructive. I implore you to take a listen.

Culinary Exegesis . This ~4 minute clip is taken from time index 1:06:15 to 1:10:12 of Episode 67 of the Waking Up podcast with Sam Harris. The material is based on a passage from Sam Harris' book, The End of Faith. https://reasononfaith.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Sam-Harris-Recipe-Exegesis-from-Episode-67.mp3 show book excerpthide An Excerpt from “The End of Faith" A case in point: I have selected another book at random, this time from the cookbook aisle of a bookstore. The book is A Taste of Hawaii: New Cooking from the Crossroads of the Pacific. Therein I have discovered an as yet uncelebrated mystical treatise. While it appears to be a recipe for wok-seared fish and shrimp cakes with ogo-tomato relish, we need only study its list of ingredients to know that we are in the presence of an unrivaled spiritual intelligence: snapper filet, cubed

3 teaspoons chopped scallions

salt and freshly ground black pepper

a dash of cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger

1 teaspoon minced garlic

8 shrimp, peeled, deveined, and cubed

½ cup heavy cream; 2 eggs, lightly beaten

cup heavy cream; 2 eggs, lightly beaten 3 teaspoons rice wine; 2 cups bread crumbs

3 tablespoons vegetable oil; 2 ½ cups ogo tomato relish The snapper filet, of course, is the individual himself— you and I— awash in the sea of existence. But here we find it cubed, which is to say that our situation must be remedied in all three dimensions of body, mind, and spirit. Three teaspoons of chopped scallions further partakes of the cubic symmetry, suggesting that that which we need add to each level of our being by way of antidote comes likewise in equal proportions. The import of the passage is clear: the body, mind, and spirit need to be tended to with the same care. Salt and freshly ground black pepper: here we have the perennial invocation of opposites— the white and the black aspects of our nature. Both good and evil must be understood if we would fulfill the recipe for spiritual life. Nothing, after all, can be excluded from the human experience (this seems to be a Tantric text). What is more, salt and pepper come to us in the form of grains, which is to say that our good and bad qualities are born of the tiniest actions. Thus, we are not good or evil in general, but only by virtue of innumerable moments, which color the stream of our being by force of repetition. A dash of cayenne pepper: clearly, being of such robust color and flavor, this signifies the spiritual influence of an enlightened adept. What shall we make of the ambiguity of its measurement? How large is a dash? Here we must rely upon the wisdom of the universe at large. The teacher himself will know precisely what we need by way of instruction. And it is at just this point in the text that the ingredients that bespeak the heat of spiritual endeavor are added to the list— for after a dash of cayenne pepper, we find two teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger and one teaspoon of minced garlic. These form an isosceles trinity of sorts, signifying the two sides of our spiritual nature (male and female) united with the object meditation. Next comes eight shrimp— peeled, deveined, and cubed. The eight shrimp, of course, represent the eight worldly concerns that every spiritual aspirant must decry: fame and shame; loss and gain; pleasure and pain; praise and blame. Each needs to be deveined, peeled, and cubed— that is, purged of its power to entrance us and incorporated on the path of practice. Harris, Sam (2005-09-17). The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (pp. 296-298). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Consider that when Muslims wish to hold the Qur’an to read it, they wash their hands first. Some even perform the ritual ablution or wudu to prime their mind and body. This reinforces the psychology that what they are about to read is profound. Nay, it is divine!

Now what if instead of the ritual wudu, you were to prime yourself by reading the children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes? How might a priming to trust your inner skeptic color your reading of the Qur’an?

Indeed, some of the metaphor in Qur’anic exegesis, especially that written by Ahmadi Muslims, is full of deepities. But what is a deepity, you ask?

Deepity is a term employed by Daniel Dennett in his 2009 speech to the American Atheists Institution conference, coined by the teenage daughter of one of his friends. The term refers to a statement that is apparently profound but actually asserts a triviality on one level and something meaningless on another. Generally, a deepity has (at least) two meanings: one that is true but trivial, and another that sounds profound, but is essentially false or meaningless and would be "earth-shattering" if true. To the extent that it's true, it doesn't matter. To the extent that it matters, it isn't true. The example Dennett uses to illustrate a deepity is the phrase "love is just a word." On one level the statement is perfectly true (i.e., "love" is a word), but the deeper meaning of the phrase is false; love is many things — a feeling, an emotion, a condition — and not simply a word. Although he is a frequent source of deepities, the name does not come from Deepak Chopra.

rationalwiki.org entry for the word deepity

Let’s return to the Qur’an and the great lengths to which Ahmadiyya Islam will go to reconcile the nonsensical.

The Ant-Men of Qur’an 27:17-18 .

The Qur’an contains a passage in the chapter entitled Ants that has traditionally been read as a retelling of how the speech of real ants was both heard and understood by Prophet Solomon. To this day, a sizable majority of the mainstream Muslim world continues to believe in this phenomenon as a literal miracle. Since Ahmadi Muslims believe Allah is consistent, anything in past scripture that sounds like magical powers, must be re-interpreted so as to sound more pedestrian. Ahmadi Muslims have no other choice but to re-interpet these verses of the Qur’an so as to not have them sound like a scene from Pixar’s A Bug’s Life.

Not-metaphorical ants

Using the Ahmadiyya numbering and an Ahmadiyya translation, here are verses 18-19 of Chapter 27:

And there were gathered together unto Solomon his hosts of jinn and men and birds, and they were formed into separate divisions, until when they came to the Valley of Al-Naml, a Namlite said, ‘O ye Naml, enter your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you, while they know not.’ Qur’an 27:18-19 translation: Maulawi Sher Ali source: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Let’s look at the translation from mainstream Islamic sources, representative of how the Qur’an has been understood for centuries:

And gathered for Solomon were his soldiers of the jinn and men and birds, and they were [marching] in rows. Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, “O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not.” Qur’an 27:17-18 translation: Sahih International

It’s rather convenient for the Ahmadiyya translation to use the Arabic word naml in place of the English word ‘ant’. To the English reader perusing the English translation, the word Naml sounds much more exotic than ‘ant’. I encourage you to read the Ahmadiyya commentary for these verses, starting with footnote 2156. The tweets that follow contain my responses to this commentary.

Solomon + his army may 'crush them' while the army 'knows not'. Strange choice of words if one were *not* referring to literal ant colonies. — Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith) April 23, 2017

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Here’s that footnote in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s one-volume English Qur’an with commentary:

This exegesis states that, “and Masākinakum (your habitations) in the verse lends powerful support to the view that Naml was a tribe, since the former verb is used only for rational beings”. What this exegesis conveniently overlooks is that if you start with a fairytale premise—that ants and humans can communicate with one another—then it is completely reasonable to use a word for ant dwellings that is also used for rational beings like us humans.

If the ants understand who Solomon was and that his soldiers were coming, and Solomon could in turn understand their speech, then we have established that both species in question possess rational faculties. Of course, this conclusion points to an absurdity within the Qur’anic text itself. In its time, and for centuries that followed, orthodox Muslims have had no problems ascribing such rational faculties to ants because of this Qur’anic verse.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim commentary suggests that at most, Solomon’s army might have been passing by (“Solomon might have passed by the valley where the tribe called Naml lived.”).

Would an army led by a righteous prophet passing by a valley that is not even their military target, crush other human beings going about their day without even knowing that they had crushed them? Can you even fathom such a thing?

This defies the most basic of common sense. Please stop and re-read that last paragraph.

Ahmadiyya Islam’s tafsir here is the Emperor’s New Clothes, where the emperor is marching down the parade route. We who question with an appreciation for the facts represent the boy in the crowd blurting out, “But he hasn’t got anything on!”

Step back and ponder. Does this not strike you as pure mythology? It is my conclusion that Ahmadiyya Islam has toiled hard to rework Qur’anic verses which contain fairytales into lost idioms of language and manufactured metaphor.

Avoiding the Elephant in the Room (Valley) . There’s another angle to consider here. Be honest. Didn’t you find the Ahmadiyya commentary passage above regarding the valley of the ants a bit confusing at first read? Perhaps even at second read? To be charitable, we could characterize it as dense. I felt however, that the commentary's author was in desperate need of changing the subject from the obvious to the obscure; from ants getting crushed and humans understanding ant speech, to historical and geographical conjecture about this valley’s precise location. If we have no documented evidence of a tribe called “Ants” or Solomon’s interaction with them, then all of this geographical conjecture is really meaningless filler and diversion. But diversion from what, you may ask? Well, these efforts seem to be directed at avoiding the proverbial elephant in the room—or in this case, the elephant in the valley. This Qur’anic passage really does read like the possible crushing of literal ants and the miraculous comprehension of speech between ants and humans. I would posit that the strategy here was to purposely make this commentary passage confusing; to divert passive believers (via descent into irrelevant geography and non-English expressions) from the more obvious reading of the Qur'an. A plain reading of these verses has embarrassing implications. Solomon’s soldiers aren't the only ones who might have accidentally crushed civilians Believers will likely have a conversation with themselves (in their own minds) when reading this Ahmadiyya Muslim Qur’anic commentary. A conversation which I imagine would go something like this: “Hmmm…lots of bits of Arabic here that even when translated doesn't seem connected to any coherent argument. Now they’re talking about some obscure geography, but it’s well...conjecture. Hmmm...it's too confusing to follow. Alright, here we go...the conclusion seems to be from all of this that it's not literal ants referred to in the Qur'an. There’s no conflict with reality now, because the ants aren’t really ants. I don’t quite follow everything, but I’m glad someone else understands it. I may as well just skip along to the next verse.” And that dear readers, is how the sausage of religious metaphor is made.

Orthodox Muslims who interpret the verses of Surah al-Naml as it plainly reads, make excellent points. Such Muslims push back on revisionist metaphor from modern Muslims who attempt to save the Qur’an from looking like it is talking about, well, talking ants.

Mainstream Muslim exegesis rightly IMHO, reject Ahmadi Muslim tafsir on the 'ants' of Surat al-Naml being men. See: https://t.co/IQG52tBsIk pic.twitter.com/DzzxpuhPAt — Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith) April 18, 2017

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The exegesis included in the above tweet does propose a belief in supernatural fairytales (humans understanding the speech of ants), but it is a much more faithful reading of what’s plainly evident in the Qur’an.

The exegesis cited in the above tweet was written by Syed Abul Ala Maududi, he having completed this work in 1972. He was an ultra-orthodox hardliner who was rightly criticized by Ahmadi Muslim scholars for his despicable views regarding offensive jihad and death-for-apostasy. But can we really find fault with his analysis of Qur’an 27:18? For convenience, I am reproducing his footnote 24 commentary to this verse.

I can’t deny it. This commentary makes a lot of sense given the text of the Qur’an. How does an army of soldiers accidentally “crush” other human beings “without knowing” it? Given that the word naml in Arabic means “ant”, can you really deny the obvious meaning here and continue to insist that “ant” is the name of a people belonging to a tribe named after a valley of ants?

To be sure, I’m not advocating that a man named Solomon literally talked to ants, as the Qur’an describes in very clear language. I’m simply making the case that to deny that the Qur’an has portrayed a literal fairytale here, is to engage in mental gymnastics of the highest order. In my view, the Qur’an is a collection of myths, authored by man. This perspective is how we reconcile the competing claims of a plain reading versus manufactured metaphor. This passage is neither literally true as the fairy tale it describes, nor is it by any reasonable stretch, metaphorical.

Tafsir Ibn Kathir also comments on these verses of the Qur’an.

Ibn Kathir, the most famed tafsir author ever, who is also cited numerous times within Ahmadiyya Muslim tafsir, has clearly stated that Solomon was capable of understanding the speech of various animals. Did Ibn Kathir too, not know classical Arabic? Was Ibn Kathir also unaware of Arabic idioms? If Islam’s greatest minds for century after century got it all wrong, who’s fault is that? The recipients of the message or the allegedly divine author of the message?

Soldiers walking. Who are they more likely to “crush”—ants or humans?

Here’s another take on this verse which cites numerous early Islamic commentators on the matter:

How is it that all of these native Arabic speakers over a millennium, familiar with the idioms of the language, missed a common-sense interpretation that didn’t require a descent into mythology? How did they miss an interpretation that is in keeping with natural law? How is it that they opted instead for childish fairytales?

Taken the way Ahmadi Muslims would have you read these verses, they really tell us nothing of moral significance beyond the trivial (“don’t crush the innocent by accident!”). Yet they make perfect sense for a holy book in the 7th century which was trying to impress upon believers that Allah granted near-magical powers of communication to his chosen prophets. Again, deploy Ockham’s razor.

Far better for Allah to have used his limited authorship instead, to give us a verse which clarified that rape is forbidden—whether with one’s wife, or with any other woman; even if she be a domestic slave or a captured prisoner of war. What a wasted opportunity to provide useful guidance in God’s pristinely preserved final book for mankind.

Consider next, the Islamic tafsir, Tafsir al-Jalalayn. This is one of the most prominent tafsirs in Sunni Islam. Here’s what it has to say about this very same verse.

In Tafsir al-Jalalayn, a queen ant is being referred to. Can we still deny that this verse is referring to literal ants?

Tafsir al-Jalalayn . Why should Ahmadi Muslims care about this tafsir, completed in 1505 AD? Well, because it was written by Jalal ad-Din al-Maḥalli and his student, Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti. The latter is none other than the 9th century’s Mujaddid (one who brings renewal) to the Islamic faith. He is also accepted by Ahmadiyya Islam in this same capacity of Mujaddid. That means that this man was in fact, considered by some, the best Muslim mind on the planet, in his time. He was raised in Egypt and Arabic was his mother tongue. Tafsirs prior to Al-Suyuti’s covered this verse too. None interpreted Naml as the name of a tribe of humans. Neither did Al-Suyuti. What kind of renewal did Allah give the Muslim world if the best Muslim mind and most devout practitioner of Islam of his time couldn’t even decipher that the Qur’an didn’t literally refer to ants here? Ahmadiyyat holds the position that Islam is misunderstood today. That it never contained fairytales. So, what does it say when tafsir authors (who are celebrated Mujaddids in Ahmadiyyat no less) make no such clarifications? When they in fact, articulate and perpetuate a fairytale understanding of the Qur’an’s contents?

Consider that Ahmadiyyat also started in the Indian subcontinent. A century on, the overwhelming majority of its adherents are non-Arabs. Who would have a better grasp of the idioms and nuances of the Arabic language than mujaddideen raised in the Arabic speaking world?

Is it reasonable to insist that centuries of native Arabic speakers, including prominent tafsir writers and mujaddids of their age, didn’t understand the true meaning of who and what the subjects of this verse were? How smart and how in touch with continuous divine revelation were they, if their own personal understanding of Islam was that of literal fairytales?

What kind of a God would purposely reveal misleading fairytale wordings to human beings like this and pawn it off as “guidance”? Does this not seem more like the games and riddles of human minds? Does this sound to you like the solemn words of the Creator of the Universe sincerely attempting to guide His creation?

God seems to be trolling us if it’s metaphor. He’s talking about “crushing” in a chapter entitled “Ants” in a passage referring to “ants” adjacent to verses about Solomon understanding all manner of animal speech. To continue to use metaphor among a people who for centuries keep taking it literally is downright irresponsible. It’s trolling them. It’s setting people up for failure; not for guidance. Such a callous deity is not worthy of our worship.

Be honest with yourself. If this passage with Solomon and the ants wasn’t in the Qur’an, but it was present in the holy book of a competing religion, how would you react? Most Muslim apologists would have a field day trouncing over the anemic apologetics employed to explain away these fairy tales. Why then, do so many refuse to listen to that inner voice when these preposterous verses actually do exist in the Qur’an? Please don’t be among those who silence that inner voice of reason. You deserve better.

The Story of Solomon in the Qur'an . The story of Prophet Solomon understanding the speech of ants is just one of many incredulous stories in the Qur’an. Ahmadi Muslim tafsir has to work overtime to manufacture even more metaphor—just to contain the damage. At what point do we acknowledge that the book was authored to convey the literal mythology that stares us right in the face? In the following video, Hassan Radwan takes us through more of the story. After you watch it, ask yourself: If these events are all metaphor, what purpose was served in portraying them in this fashion? If the Muslims in Muhammad’s time, it is claimed, understood the metaphor, then why is that understanding completely missing from early Islamic source material? Does the Qur’an’s portrayal of events here not constitute gross misdirection if you also take the position that God does not violate His own laws of nature? showhide Hassan Radwan explores the larger mythology of Solomon as portrayed in the Qur'an

Miraculous Metaphor: Jesus and Qur’an 3:49 .

Ahmadiyyat stresses that Jesus didn’t literally give the blind sight or literally resurrect the dead.

Consider the Qur’anic verse recounting some of the alleged miracles of Jesus:

And [make him] a messenger to the Children of Israel, [who will say], 'Indeed I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I design for you from clay [that which is] like the form of a bird, then I breathe into it and it becomes a bird by permission of Allah. And I cure the blind and the leper, and I give life to the dead - by permission of Allah . And I inform you of what you eat and what you store in your houses. Indeed in that is a sign for you, if you are believers. Qur’an 3:49 translation: Sahih International

Don’t you find it rather thoughtless of a super-intelligent deity to describe the miracles of Jesus in the Qur’an using such literal and suggestive language on purpose?

Here is the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s translation of the same verse, which they number as Qur’an 3:50.

And will send him as a Messenger to the Children of Israel with the Message, ‘I come to you with a Sign from your Lord, which is, that I will fashion out for you a creation out of clay after the manner of a bird; then I will breathe into it a new spirit and it will become a soaring being by the command of Allah; and I will heal the night-blind and the leprous, and I will quicken the dead, by the command of Allah; Qur’an 3:50 translation: Maulawi Sher Ali source: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

According to Ahmadiyya Islam, these are just metaphors for Jesus having given the spiritually blind spiritual sight and the spiritually dead spiritual life. When we’re talking metaphors, is there really a meaningful distinction between the spiritually blind and the spiritually dead? Enough to call them out separately in a holy book meant for all peoples and for all time?

Moreover, why was it so important for Allah to call out both spiritual transformations as distinct from one another (healing the blind, raising the dead) if neither were to be taken literally?

Furthermore, why couldn’t Allah have just used the adjective spiritual himself, instead of letting Muslims grope in the dark for 1400 years until someone came to explain that adding the qualifying adjective “spiritual” explains what was actually meant by Allah? What does this say about Allah as an effective communicator?

How is it that no authentic hadith have ever been recorded clarifying that spiritual sight and spiritual life are what were actually meant? Consider that the Qur’an came in a time where people had a greater predisposition to believe in literal fairytales when it came to matters of religion. Does employing metaphor here represent a responsible use of language on the part of the author?

Since Christians of the time believed these same miracles of Jesus literally, why didn’t Allah in the Qur’an correct those misunderstandings? Why did he instead, perpetuate them?

To not make a correction here brings to mind the like of one who has heard misleading information and yet chooses to pass it on in a manner that will continue to mislead. Someone who repeats a confusing narrative instead of correcting it with clarity. Is this Godly? Is this being merciful to people who have now been misled to believe that supernatural miracles are real?

Recall that both the Old Testament and the New Testament of the 7th century, like today, contained miracles that were easily understood as being literal. It was a simpler time. According to Ahmadiyya Islam, Christians and Jews would have been mistaken if they took their books literally vis-a-vis references to supernatural miracles.

So what does Allah do with the Qur’an to reign in this misguided propensity to believe in supernatural miracles? Nothing. He does nothing to break that cycle of supernatural literalism. Instead, Allah gives us Qur’an 3:49 about Jesus.

If Allah wrote Qur’an 3:49 and yet intended it to be metaphorical, there is no other conclusion but to charge Allah with sowing the seeds of misdirection, obfuscation and purposely creating fitna. For this state of affairs, Allah has only himself to blame.

Questions We Should be Asking

Let’s enumerate some of the questions that arise from the Ahmadiyya Islamic position on this verse.

Is there any evidence from sahih hadith with undisputed isnads, that these were metaphors and not literally true? Do we have any evidence that Muhammad even got the memo regarding this verse being all metaphor? Can we read about the metaphorical meaning in any major works of exegesis of the Qur’an, such as the famed Ibn Kathir? Perhaps also, something prior to 300 A.H.? If these really were metaphors, why is it that no such metaphor exists in the Qur’an to recount Muhammad’s success stories with preaching? Were Muhammad’s religious transformations in his 23-year ministry less spectacular than the three-year ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem? Did Muhammad not give the spiritually dead spiritual life? If he did, where is this recorded in those terms? Have not religious personalities both prior to and after Jesus, also given the spiritually dead spiritual life? What makes it so special in the case of Jesus? Do Muslims who also perform impressive before and after dawah transformations, need the permission of Allah when they give spiritual life? How exactly does that work when giving spiritual life as opposed to just giving spiritual sight?

Notice how the clause by the permission of Allah comes into play in Qur’an 3:49 only when the real heavy lifting happens, such as bringing an animal or a human being to life. Why don’t we need the permission of Allah for curing the spiritually blind or healing the spiritually sick? It makes no sense unless you read the verse as originally intended in the seventh century: literally.

I implore you to read the Ahmadi Muslim commentary on this particular passage. You may find as I do, that Sam Harris’ spiritual insights from the Hawaiian fish recipe are more illuminating.

Allah takes great effort to correct the metaphorical usage of terms prevalent in the Bible at the time of the Qur’an’s alleged revelation, such as ‘Son of God’. Yet, Allah decided to continue to employ misleading supernatural metaphors elsewhere in the Qur’an.

Why must Allah employ these misleading metaphors for such important topics when they are bound to be misunderstood by most Muslims across most of Islam’s history? To commit the same and obvious oversight repeatedly is not the mark of an intelligent lawmaker, let alone the Creator of the Universe.

Conclusions Pointed to by the Evidence

Applying’s Ockham’s razor, there are now obvious conclusions that we can draw regarding the miracles of Jesus as relayed in the Qur’an.

There is no meaningful distinction between the spiritually blind and the spiritually dead. A reference to giving sight to the blind and to giving life to the dead can only be meaningful and worthy of mention as distinct miracles if we take both events literally. This of course, raises obvious supernatural problems. While accepted by the orthodox, embracing literal supernatural miracles is rejected by the Ahmadiyya. The Qur’an’s references to the miracles of Jesus were intended to be literal, reaffirming what Christians of the time believed and what Muslims most likely believed since the time of Muhammad. No Muslims of the time have been recorded as having had any objections to such a literal reading. Embracing these miracles literally made it easier to sell Islam to Christians too. Muhammad didn’t ever claim to do anything physically miraculous that anyone else could ever witness or verify. Hence, no mention attempted in the Qur’an of Muhammad being a messenger who also gave sight to the blind or life to the dead. If such a verse was present, we know that Muhammad would have been called out on it specifically. His opponents would have demanded a demonstration of such; just as they did regarding his claims generally (Qur’an 8:31-33).

Ahmadiyyat is anxiously trying to salvage the text to show that all of this literalism was actually meant figuratively. After sincere reflection and a reasoned analysis however, we can come to no other conclusion but that the Qur’an is the work of fallible human beings from the seventh-century. It is a book originally subscribed to by those who readily believed in stories recounting supernatural miracles. To suggest today that it means otherwise is nothing more than a desperate act of post-hoc revisionism.

Letting go of religion can be difficult. I know.

Permission to Beat One’s Wife and Qur’an 4:34 .

Consider the Qur’an, verse 4:34. Currently, it has a provision for beating one’s wife after exhausting a series of escalated measures given that a husband fears disobedience from his wife.

There are in fact, numerous contentious issues with this verse, such as male guardianship, the justifications for it, and the fact that the wife hasn’t even done anything wrong yet—the husband just “fears” that she might. Here, I am focusing on just one problematic component—that of actually beating one’s wife.

Here is a translation of the verse from a mainstream Sunni Muslim source.

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all). Qur’an 4:34 translation: Yusuf Ali

Let’s now look at a translation of the same verse from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Men are guardians over women because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they (men) spend of their wealth. So virtuous women are those who are obedient, and guard the secrets of their husbands with Allah’s protection. And as for those on whose part you fear disobedience, admonish them and leave them alone in their beds, and chastise them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Surely, Allah is High and Great. Qur’an 4:35 translation: Maulawi Sher Ali source: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Notice how the word ‘beat’ from the orthodox translation has been rendered here as ‘chastise’? It certainly sounds a bit old fashioned. And there’s a reason for that.

Ahmadiyya Islam's 5-vol commentary tries to soften Qur'an 4:34 on a husband's 'right' to beat his wives. Uses more obscure word 'chastise'. pic.twitter.com/XSRVNOgAkZ — Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith) April 27, 2017

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Let’s look at what the Oxford English dictionary has to say about the word chastise:

chastise Pronunciation: /tʃaˈstʌɪz/ verb Rebuke or reprimand severely. ‘he chastised his colleagues for their laziness’

dated Punish, especially by beating. ‘her mistress chastised her with a whip for blasphemy’

Origin Middle English: apparently formed irregularly from the obsolete verb chaste (see chasten). Pronunciation:Middle English: apparently formed irregularly from the obsolete verb chaste (see chasten).

Oxford Dictionary: British & World English

The main dictionary entry describes an action one might take against say, lazy colleagues. Of course, you wouldn’t physically beat them. The secondary meaning points to dated usage. In the past, chastise did refer to the actual act of beating another person.

Ahmadi Muslim translators have played a clever sleight of hand here. Let’s unpack what might have been their strategy:

Use a word that technically means physical beating in antiquated English, but which has a much more palatable connotation in modern times. Do this instead of using the obvious word “beat” right in the text of the translated verse. It is likely that unsuspecting readers will gloss over the phrase, thinking instead that it’s just about giving one’s wife a stern lecture.

There’s no escaping it. The Arabic word in this verse means to beat. We’re talking physical, corporal punishment administered to a woman by her own husband.

The words of the Qur’an do not temper the beating with any rules. Translations that insert the adjective “light” to qualify the beating do so based on inferences from hadith. Yes, that same body of literature that contains some ridiculous pronouncements. Muslim apologists cherry pick from the Hadith when and as convenient.

If you reject the hadith and the seerah literature as unreliable, and believe that the Qur’an alone can provide guidance, then you’ve just enabled unmitigated wife beating. There are no means from within the Qur’an itself to insert the adjective “light” or to reference seventh century toothbrushes to carry out said beatings.

Let’s take a closer look at the Ahmadiyya Muslim 5-volume commentary on this verse. Specifically, the part that deals with the beating:

After Abu-Bakr died, Umar was considered (by both Sunni and Ahmadi Muslims) to be the best among Muslims to lead. Note the insights gleaned from this commentary regarding Umar’s character.

Umar wanted permission to beat “refractory” wives. Umar did get his request granted for a wife beating provision, only to have it moderated when women followed up with Muhammad to complain. How could Umar have been fit to lead Muslims as one of the Khulifa Rashideen? Can Umar honestly be held up as a moral example for any of us? There are Muslim men alive today who have never hit their wives, nor were they ever tempted to do so (as “refractory” as such wives might be). Are these men better than Muhammad’s second in spiritual command?

The recalibration of this provision clearly moved with the wind; flip-flopping with whomever just happened to complain last. But do you know what is timeless? Allah’s words. Allah overruled Muhammad when the latter was hesitant to marry Zainab. Allah’s word trumps everything and everyone.

Yes, yes, I know—according to the hadith, a man who beats his wife is not the best among men. Yes, yes, I know—Muhammad is characterized as having never beaten any of his 11 wives. And for this, among other reasons, Muslims believe that Muhammad was the best among men.

I submit to you that we could do much better by simply removing the final escalation in this verse which allows a husband to beat his wife. Then every Muslim man could more easily aspire to being the best among men!

What many Muslims fail to realize when they are triggered to respond with a defense of this verse, is the very simple question:

Why is this provision to beat your wife even present in the Qur’an in the first place?

It must provide a net benefit instead of a net harm to society for it to be justified, right? So please, let’s hear about that net benefit. I know you’re tempted to run to the Qur’anic commentary to see what contrived gymnastics they’ve exercised to arrive at a justification for beating one’s wife; but I want you to think about it. Search your humanity. Use your innate moral compass. We all have one. What does yours say?

Go ahead. Pause and think. Seriously. Don’t just keep reading.

Please, take a moment to reflect on this if you currently identify as Muslim. I implore you. Give yourself a minute to think about the benefits of this provision to beat one’s wife, found within a timeless book, for all of humankind. Could you come up with some benefits? Could you come up with any?

Okay, now take half that time to think about the harms this provision enables, and of the countless women who have suffered because Allah granted their husbands air cover to beat them.

Now that you’ve thought about the pros and cons; both for the couple and in the context of human nature—considering many millennia of human civilization past and hopefully yet to come—how did you do? Did you envision net benefit or net harm?

It’s also worth pointing out that the Qur’anic injunction to beat one’s wife after a sequenced escalation isn’t worded as a recommendation or as an option. It’s an outright command. Once you’ve exhausted earlier measures in the sequence, you move to the next stage. If it gets to this next stage, you are to beat your wife. Anything else (e.g. hadith indicating that you make it a ‘light’ beating or that you avoid it altogether to be the best among men) are merely creative apologia from sources secondary to the Qur’an.

I applaud Muhammad for trying to soften the wife-beating verse after the fact (if such hadith are to be believed). A true holy book from God however, would never have even contained this provision in the first place.

Quran 66:1-5 and Context . If you insist that we cannot understand the Qur’an without the context of revelation, then you have to be willing to do the same for other verses, such as Qur’an 66:1-5, as explained in this 10-minute video. It provides context relayed in Ibn Kathir and Al-Tabari that you’ll find in the original Arabic but which English translators conveniently omit. You be the judge as to why. showhide Hassan Radwan explores tafsir--classical and modern--on Qur'an 66:1-5

Consider a hypothetical: what if Quran 4:34 did not allow a man to beat his wife. In such a scenario, would you then:

Criticize the Qur’an for being incomplete? Claim that the Qur’an was missing needed prescriptions for harmonious and healthy marital relations among some elements of society, where men feared disobedience from their wives? Claim that the Qur’an lacked the moral high ground since it did not have this provision to beat one’s disobedient wife?

Of course not. Therefore, you have just proven to yourself that we human beings can do better. If not to me, at least admit it to yourself.

We can make numerous small improvements like this to the Qur’an that a rational, loving and peaceful human being (such as yourself, I hope) would be hard pressed to deny are improvements. And when we make these improvements, it’s death by a thousand paper cuts for the Qur’an. It’s game over for the folklore that champions the narrative that the Qur’an is a perfect book.

Want a few more examples? Then peruse the Better Qur’an Project. Reflect on why it is that human beings have come up with these modified verses instead of the supposed Creator of the Universe having done so in the first place.

Resources on Qur’an 4:34 . Abdullah Sameer has provided an excellent and short response video to prominent Muslim apologist Nouman Ali Khan in the latter’s defense of Qur’an 4:34. Nouman Ali Khan attempts all manner of creative exegesis and hypotheticals to squint his eyes just right, so as to see rainbows. Abdullah Sameer handily addresses each point. showhide Abdullah Sameer (pictured above) responds to Nouman Ali Khan on Qur'an 4:34

Consider also this debate from the UK, which includes ex-Muslim Maryam Namazie and representatives of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The two parties debate the merits of Sharia Law. In the last 30 minutes or so, Qur’an 4:34 comes up. Although somewhat peripheral to the debate’s main topic, the ridiculousness of Qur’an 4:34 is made bare when Maryam Namazie asks with exasperation (I’m paraphrasing): What value is there to society in having a provision that allows a husband to beat his wife!?

Finally, consider Hassan Radwan’s article and short video on the attempts by apologists to twist the Arabic words of 4:34 to soften the language. The verse states that a husband may physically beat his wife, and there’s no getting around that fact.

Beyond Faulty Foundations .

Religion addressed the grounding problem by fluke. We owe religions like Islam some credit for this. But our species has now progressed further. Instead of bent twigs blown into place by happenstance, we can and should deliberately formulate loftier foundations upon which humanity’s greatest philosophical ideas and minds, including those not yet born—can build.

We should build new foundations without the baggage of unjustifiable truth claims. This baggage plagues so many religions, including modern revivals like Ahmadiyya Islam.

In the Light of Bad Apologetics . One may ask, “Why do educated Ahmadi Muslims who know this stuff, choose to stay?” To this question, there are several answers. Many of the answers I cite below will resonate as true regardless of which specific religion and denomination we choose to focus on. Often, the reasons why people double down have little to do with the arguments themselves. While it’s a subject for another essay, I will nonetheless, touch upon some ideas here. This list is by no means complete. Nurtured identity . Islam/Ahmadiyyat has been indoctrinated. It is part of one’s identity. Admitting that something is wrong with the Qur’an/Islam is to acknowledge that something is wrong with one’s self. Indoctrinated alignment . Through indoctrination, being raised religious means one grows up believing that being an Ahmadi Muslim is synonymous with being a good person. Relatively fewer critiques of Ahmadiyyat . To date, most counter-apologetic material has focused on mainstream Islam. That’s a far more simplistic ideology, and consequently, easier to pick apart. Ahmadiyyat tends to employ metaphor, superior cherry picking and more obscure Islamic sources to present the veneer of sophisticated apologetics. Dismissing critiques of mainstream Islam . Recognizing that most critiques of mainstream Islam have been answered by Ahmadiyya apologetics decades ago, most Ahmadi Muslims overlook modern critiques of Islam that are still relevant to Ahmadi Muslim claims. For example, the alleged scientific miracles of the Qur’an. Religion mirrors tribalism . A critique against your inherited faith feels like your own people are being attacked. Our natural human inclination when challenged is to defend our incumbent position, not to question it. No structured alternatives yet . The effective rebuttal to Islam/Ahmadiyyat is non-theism. Yet, when it comes to tight knit community, buttressed by multifaceted social events and a shared philosophical playbook for living, there are no comparable alternatives in the non-theist diaspora. At least not today. For a related exploration of why many Muslims (in general) haven’t yet left Islam, see my essay, Reasons Why Many Muslims Haven’t Left Islam—Yet.

I believe that the moral education of our society starts with our children. I also believe that moral education is not the exclusive realm of religion. In fact, I find some religious teachings and stories downright immoral. We need only consider the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice (read: kill) his son to see how dangerous the relationship between human beings can become in the presence of divine command theory.

In his debate with William Lane Craig, atheist philosopher Shelly Kagan expressed the importance of proper moral training. It strikes me that many theists assume that only other theists appreciate the value of a sound moral education. However, that’s just not so. Moral education is important to us non-theists, even though we won’t necessarily couch it in the same terms as a theist might.

Today, non-theists do not have organized structures of dedicated moral education in the way that major religious organizations do. This will change as some of us non-theists opt to construct organized communities to rival those of the religions that we left behind (minus the unsubstantiated truth claims and questionable baggage).

Once we construct these codified, popularized, and formalized moral frameworks, I believe that they will be superior to the moral prescriptions of Abrahamic religions. Yet even without such formally packaged moral curriculum, several European countries composed of a majority of atheists have already demonstrated that we can navigate the moral landscape using our human intuitions coupled with sound social conventions.

On a more personal note, after producing material on the counter-apologetics front, I aspire to participate in creating one of many conceptual foundations that we, the spiritual but not religious, might choose to build upon. Such an endeavor is something I have personally wanted to pursue for many years.

And who knows. Perhaps one day, you too will join me in this effort.

My Positions Explored .

Just as a person can be a sibling, a son or daughter, a parent, a coach, a friend, a manager, an accountant, an American, an Olympian and so on; there are several labels that can be applied to my identity. Some of these labels help articulate my position on religion.

While a Muslim will often state that the term Muslim is their most important identifying label, I do not use the ex-Muslim label in the same way. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to find any ex-Muslims who use this label to uniquely and exclusively identify themselves. Consequently, the retort, “Why do you choose to identify yourself with a negative!?” is a baseless accusation directed at ex-Muslims.

For myself, the ex-Muslim label is one of several labels that apply and I sincerely hope that one day it will be as superfluous as ex-Christian is today. The ex-Muslim label is not a label informing you about who I am as a person. It is a contemporary label that tells you that I can and I have left a religion that many around the globe do not have the freedom to leave.

Do you remember all of the ‘Je suis Charlie’ solidarity after the Charlie Hebdo attack in France? Yes, it’s simply like that. Solidarity and awareness.

The ex-Muslim label seeks to raise awareness: people can and do leave Islam. People can have a rational aversion to an ideology while still having respect for the rights of human beings who consider themselves adherents of that ideology.

As ex-Muslims, we can and do critique Islam while simultaneously defending the rights of Muslims to be free from bigotry. Ex-Muslims such as myself support Muslims who practice their faith, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of other members of society. For some Muslims in the West, Islam is a personal matter, and so no such conflicts of infringement arise. It can and has worked.

I am an agnostic deist. I am an ex-Ahmadi. I am an ex-Muslim. Some may even consider me culturally Muslim. I am a free-thinker. I am pro-love, pro-humanity, pro-community, pro-good-philosophy, pro-wisdom and pro-reason. I reject all religious claims asserting that they are “revealed” truth. I reject New Age assertions about the reality of the universe which attempt to go beyond poetry without commensurate evidence.

I do acknowledge that there are some useful ideas within many religions; ideas that have been woven into the fabric of various cultures around the globe.

Cultural Muslim .

Many people would consider me a cultural muslim. On several issues, I happen to be more conservative (and thus appear more observant) than many Muslims who bear the label but don’t much reflect on their inherited programming. I generally avoid the term “cultural muslim” however, because of the confusion it engenders about beliefs. The word ‘Muslim’ is inherently belief-based. There are hybrid colloquialisms that are however, emerging. One such movement and identity is Muslimish.

Without exception, I reject the label ‘Muslim’ on its own. By definition, that term implies theological beliefs about the Qur’an and Muhammad, which I dismiss.

Religion influences culture and culture will often imprint on our lives beyond the outright acceptance or rejection of any particular ideology. I have personally retained some aspects of culture commonly identified with Islam.

Islamic culture is the vehicle through which I had originally accessed these practices. I do not doubt however, that most if not all beneficial practices associated with Islam today, can be found in civilizations prior to Islam.

Practices closely correlated with Islam as they relate to my life include the following:

I do not consume alcohol.

I do not gamble.

I do not eat pork

I have no tattoos

I have no piercings and never grow my hair very long (both frowned upon for men in Islam)

I trim my nails short.

I trim hair in other areas like a good Muslim boy. Good hygiene has no religion.

I use a lota in the bathroom.

I offer and respond to Islamic greetings of peace in Arabic when interacting with Muslims.

With regards to Islamic greetings, this includes my interaction with Muslims who know that I am no longer a Muslim. The kindness with which that greeting is offered to me, and with which I offer it to others, has not changed.

Some of this is admittedly transitional or should I say generational—such as using Islamic terminology in greetings and conversational idioms. I don’t expect my grandchildren to adopt such greetings verbatim. I hope that we one day popularize something just as nice as the intent of Assalaamo Alaikum with the ubiquity of today’s simple hello. I also endeavor to pass along the wisdom of abstaining from alcohol and gambling. Such an effort will require a positive belief-system framework to ground it—a future endeavor which I seek to be involved with.

I continue to make use of idioms and phrases which today, still bear a religious connotation. I believe that the sentiments felt are not exclusive to religion. Take for instance, the word blessed. Absent a divine agent, you can still feel a sense of gratitude in response to a fortunate event or state of being. I am still blessed to be alive. We non-theists can feel those same feelings, without invoking the supernatural.

I choose to co-exist with family members who are still deeply religious. Small efforts on my part to use common cultural and even religious idioms helps to maintain a bridge of familiarity and connection with people who cannot process the concept of personal autonomy and advocacy in matters of religion (except where they fit the mold of identity politics).

Where it really matters however—with principles that I strongly believe in—I will not compromise.

However, I will no longer pretend to take the Islamic position on an issue or to defend the Qur’an where I deem either to be advocating an immoral position.

The Belief Spectrum .

Labels fall short in many respects. But if I had to choose, then agnostic deist would be the closest characterization of my position. If I were to be even more precise, I would say that I am on the continuum between implicit atheism and agnostic deism. But that’s a mouthful. So I simplify to just identifying as an agnostic deist.

Astute readers may claim that I’m creating confusion here; that implicit atheism already encompasses a sufficient degree of uncertainty to accommodate the non-belief position that I espouse. Although I identify with the arguments and aims of many atheists, the word atheist does not encompass connotations for the deistic intuitions that I also hold.

I grant you that deism is an unfalsifiable position. I am also aware that for many, deism has been a rest stop on the road to identifying as an atheist. I also grant you that deism is so vague as to be inconsequentially distinct from atheism in everyday life.

Given that both atheism and deism leave us effectively alone to forge our own path, I believe that we humans must fashion our own rules for how to live a successful life. We must live by values which enhance the lives of our fellow human beings. Values which also promote the responsible stewardship of our shared planet.

Perhaps the best way to convey my position is to say that I am an agnostic atheist with deistic intuitions and sympathies.

Mapping it Out: The Belief Spectrum . Belief positions vis-à-vis deities are often mapped onto Cartesian coordinates. For simplicity, I have instead framed the concept of belief to a one-dimensional scale between strong atheism on one end and gnostic theism on the other. Although the Dawkins Scale is also one-dimensional, I find it inadequate for placing my own beliefs because it does not encompass deism nor does it flatten the gnostic/agnostic dimension onto the scale. On my improvised scale, the further to the left that you go, the less religious you are. The ultimate expression of which would be non-belief in any supernatural deities. The further to the right that you go on this same scale, the more your beliefs line up with classical theism, as expressed in religions such as Islam and Christianity. In the middle of my illustration, we have deism. Deism lets you hold the position that there is (or was) a deity or deities, but that they do not interact with the natural world post-creation of the universe. It’s actually a great position to take when your intuitions tell you that you’re a spiritual being (whatever you might define that to be) and your intellect tells you that you’re not religious, because no religious scriptures or claimants measure up.

Beliefs and Labels If any of this is at all confusing; or if the terminology is unfamiliar, then an earlier article of mine will be helpful: Beliefs and Labels. There, I explore formal definitions for the labels and terminology relevant to belief, including the big concepts: theism, atheism, deism, and agnosticism. You’ll want to read that article first and then come back to this one to ensure that you have a grasp on the concepts I’ll use throughout this article.

I do support the challenge to religion of many vocal and contemplative luminaries in the atheist community across a spectrum of approaches. People like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, TheraminTrees, and The Masked Arab, to name a few.

My anti-theism is not in conflict with my solidarity to many objectives espoused by Ahmadi Muslims. We are both:

Against blasphemy laws in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world.

Against theocracies.

Against religious persecution.

Against death-for-apostasy laws and doctrines.

For promoting charity work in the service of humanity.

For separating religion and government.

For promoting the freedom of and from religion.

Thankfully, this list goes on. We can show solidarity with those whose truth claims we simultaneously reject.

Agnostic Deist .

Perhaps it is my limited exposure to centuries of philosophical debate and argumentation that leads me to accept as a working premise that there is quite possibly a directed intelligence behind our universe and the mysteries of life. In truth, I can see many sides of the directed consciousness argument.

I also understand the position that might be taken by an atheist who reasons that my deism takes us no further in understanding our own lives than that of an atheistic worldview.

“God” created the universe, including us, but hasn’t and doesn’t get involved beyond the Big Bang. Great. So now what?

Retort from a hypothetical Atheist

Our consciousness and abstract intuitions, along with our personal experiences of wonder suggest to me that deism is a reasonable position, albeit an inconsequential one.

Since my deistic intuitions are not an affirmed and absolute position in the way that say, a Muslim might unequivocally recite the shahada, I prefix it with the qualifier agnostic. Perhaps someone more versed in philosophy can suggest the proper nomenclature here should my colloquial mashup not be etymologically sound.

There seems to be much gray area and overlap between many terms. By way of example, consider the not-so-obvious differences between agnosticism, agnostic atheism, and weak/negative/soft/implicit atheism.

Regardless, while I find the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) flawed, any merit to various reboots of the Teleological Argument are also irrelevant, since I’m fine with accepting deism as a possibility. Further, deism does not facilitate the biggest jump religion requires us to make: the leap to classical theism.

Debates on the existence of abstract conceptions of God not tied to a particular religion are practically irrelevant. To debate a meaningful God is to argue for classical theism. To argue for classical theism effectively requires that you pick your flavor of religion and then defend your God and his existence through that religion’s teachings, through its founder and through its scripture.

The intelligence in my conceptions of deism have little resemblance to the gods of classical theism. That is, my conceptions of what such an intelligence might be, bear almost no resemblance to the petty Allah character portrayed in the Qur’an.

With continued reflection and continued exploration on my part, you may witness a change in my terminology and positions over time. I readily concede that. I hope that you also allow whichever beliefs you hold today to be subject to revision as new information comes in.

Technically, I do not believe in the proposition, “some god or gods exist”—and this is generally the litmus test for implicit atheism. Unfortunately, there’s no way (that I know of) to adorn the simple implicit atheist label with added “deistic intuitions”.

With more study, those intuitions which I have ascribed to deism may prove to simply be the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. I readily admit that. If such were to be the case, then implicit atheism would be the next logical evolution for my belief position.

On Cosmology and Teleology . When it comes to cosmology—the very big picture—I believe that the God hypothesis fails. Ockham’s razor allows us to bypass a timeless, all-powerful deity in favor of a timeless, infinite Cosmos. Here, I am using the word Cosmos as the context within which our universe began. While current evidence suggests that our universe (space-time) had a beginning, it doesn’t mean that the singularity that got it all going didn’t itself exist in a timeless context. This is the same context in which the multiverse, if it exists, might be “housed”. To avoid the problem of an infinite regress, we might think of the context “outside” the singularity that erupted into the Big Bang as nothingness. But is it really nothingness? Author and theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explores this topic in his book, A Universe from Nothing. The apparent fine-tuning of our universe has given rise to the argument from design, also known as the teleological argument. It is an argument for a deity which appeals to the sheer complexity of life and of the necessary conditions for life to even be possible. This is the argument to which the Qur’an also makes an appeal. Yet there still exist too many unknowns with this argument. If a few of the physical constants for the laws of physics were simultaneously changed instead of just one, we may have entirely new and viable universes within which different types of life could evolve, instead of the carbon based life with which we are familiar. The structure, nature and types of building blocks could look very different than the atoms and molecules that make up our current universe. If the constant that governs the expansion rate of the universe were slightly different, then our universe may have quickly collapsed back into the singularity that started it all. That could then trigger a new big bang with different physical constants for the universe. Apply this process of expansion and contraction to our universe and to trillions of other singularities that may have also timelessly existed and we may then rightly describe the process as a sort of natural selection for universes. Only those with a sufficient expansion rate would survive long enough such that life even had a chance. What other parameters might we simultaneously tweak for our universe and the universes generated by other singularities adorning the Cosmos? Where the teleological argument gets interesting, in my opinion, is on the question of how chemistry became life. I am not a molecular biologist nor am I a geneticist. To date, I have explored very little in this area. Perhaps that is why I currently find abiogenesis—the jump from inorganic matter to organic matter—pretty amazing. True, the science on abiogenesis is in its infancy. From my current vantage point, this is the best argument deists and theists have. Amino acids Yet here too, we are closing in. The Miller–Urey experiment from 1952 was a chemical experiment that simulated the conditions thought to be present on an early Earth. It tested for the chemical origin of life under those assumed conditions. Over 20 different amino acids were created in these experiments. Although we may one day replicate the self-replicating machinery of organic life from inorganic life, the probabilities that must be overcome as we currently understand them, do seem overwhelming to fathom. It’s amazing that given the laws of our universe, self-replicating life began from inorganic chemistry. This is primarily from where my deistic intuitions arise. I must emphasize however, that the Miller-Urey experiment has demonstrated that we can get organic matter from inorganic matter. This is no small discovery, and human knowledge in this sphere is in its infancy. Atheism can make strong objections to classical theism based on the fact that we do not know if this universe is the only universe there ever was or could be. What if the singularity that conceived our universe was one of trillions upon trillions of singularities that exploded into their own universes? What if the gravitational density of black holes reaches a tipping point, and creates daughter universes? What if our universe cycles through expansion and contraction every 30 billion years? Once collapsed and prior to a re-inflation, how do we account for time? Is that even a meaningful question between successive expansions? How many trials of expansion and contraction might have already transpired? The fluke of abiogenesis just needed to happen once, and on one planet, out of conceivably billions in our universe alone. This one flu