I've debated many Muslims on the net (in chats, via email, on usenet), and I've also debated with a few Muslims in person (at my local university, at the work place). One thing that the real time Muslims ask that the cyber-Muslims rarely do is why I'm an Atheist, which is often followed by "why not Islam?" They can understand how an educated Westerner would reject Christianity, but why reject Islam? Especially when you're already familiar with its tenets. Here I will give a quick run through the reasons I don't believe in the existence of Allah. Surely, if Allah does not exist, then all other claims of Islam fall with Him. I will explore some of His alleged attributes, the attempted arguments for His alleged existence, and what life without Allah means (if anything). These are the reasons why I chose Ilhad (Atheism) rather than Islam.

ALLAH AND OMNISCIENCE

One of the definitions that Muslims, I assume, would agree to for Allah, is that of a being who is, among other things, infinite in knowledge. Allah knows all things, even what your heart conceals. This makes sense for a being that is unlimited; such a being should know all things at all times. With this I would like to explore this idea, and begin with an attempt to apply the popular "free will" argument to this concept.

Suppose it is the time just prior to the creation of the earth. For the sake of a rough estimate to just throw out there, we'll say this is six billion years ago. At this point, does Allah know what sins Bob Smith of Chicago Illinois is going to commit in July of 2001? If the scope of what Allah can see, and what Allah knows is unlimited, then surely He knows what Bob is going to do, and knew such things six billion years before old Bob was even born! That being established, suppose that before the first human is even created, the following HYPOTHETICAL discussion takes place between God and one of his angels:

ANGEL: Oh Allah, the most benevolent, ever-merciful, will your servant Bob Smith ever commit a sin?

ALLAH: Yes he will.

ANGEL: Ya Allah, could you please name one sin he will commit?

ALLAH: Bob will consume eight ounces of khamr on July 4th, 2001.

This sort of concept begins to hi-light the illogical notion of Allah's omniscience with regards to His creation. Rather than focusing on one being, let us consider his entire creation. At what point is an action the will of Allah, and at what point is an action the result of an independent decision on the part of one of His creations? Do these two things overlap? At the very creation of the universe, Allah must have instantly known everything that was going to happen, from this moment, all the way to judgment day, and every day in paradise, with his servants and their seventy virgins relaxing by a river of khamr. That means that Allah already knew who was going to believe, and who was not, how many would go to hell, how many would go to heaven, which prophets would be killed, et cetera. The entire history of life, past, present, and future, was predetermined. All these events have already happened in the mind of Allah, thus every being is simply going through the motions. There is no way you can truly change your life, as everything you will ever do, was already "written." You have no real choices, as there is only one possibility for you considering that it was already known what you were going to do before you or your ancestors were even created. Thus, it would seem that free will and an eternally omniscient Allah are wholly incompatible and incoherent.

On a similar track, the very idea of prayer comes off as totally absurd in light of Allah's alleged omniscience. What are you praying for? If a farmer in Afghanistan prays for rain, he is wasting his time. Billions of years before that man was even born Allah already decided whether or not it would rain that day. Allah knew exactly when every single event would and would not happen, thus to pray for something seems a bit pointless. A prayer for change is worthless, as all things are predetermined if Allah is omniscient. Thus, one would have to conclude that prayers are not for asking for change, but rather meant only to praise Allah. It seems unbecoming of an infinite being, watching over an infinite universe, to order that men praise him five times a day (bargained down from fifty after Muhammad and Moses questioned Allah's original orders according to certain ahadith). Furthermore, due to Allah's omniscience, Allah already knew from the very start who would praise Him, when, and how many times. He knew the exact amount of prayers He would receive over the course of history, thus the idea of prayer being only a method of praising Allah is a bit unspectacular. The idea of prayer being a source of psychological benefit is also absurd, as it was already predetermined who would go crazy and who would benefit psychologically.

Another problem with Allah's alleged omniscience is that it cancels out His attribute of being omnipotent. It is totally illogical to claim that a being is both all-knowing and all-powerful. If Allah, six billion years ago, knew everything that would happen after that point, for the rest of eternity, then He would be limiting Himself. Does Allah know every decision and action He will make after that point? If so, he cannot do otherwise. As George Smith put it, "If God knows the future with infallible certainty, he cannot change it-in which case he cannot be omnipotent. If God can change the future, however, he cannot have infallible knowledge of it prior to its actual happening-in which case he cannot be omniscient." [Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God, (1989, Prometheus) p. 74]

To make it more clear, consider the following sequence of statements:

�(1) Allah is omniscient, i.e. He knows all things.

�(2) Allah is omnipotent, i.e. He can do all things.

�(3) Allah knows everything that He will ever do after this point [from (1)].

�(4) Allah can do anything He pleases, at anytime He pleases [from (2)].

�(5) Allah can change His mind about what he planned to do [from (2) & (4)].

�(6) If Allah can change His mind, and do something different from what he originally planned to do, then He did not originally know what He was going to do.

With the concept of omnipotence and omniscience, Allah is continually contradicting Himself, and continually locking Himself to an event. Either he knows what He is going to do, and cannot change it, or He is not so sure what will happen, and is free to make any decision. The only way to escape this contradiction is to admit that Allah is either not omnipotent, or not omniscient. If the Muslim wants to present a logical deity, then he must admit that this deity, Allah, is a limited being due to the fact that one of the aforementioned unlimited attributes must be discarded.

ALLAH AND OMNIPOTENCE

If Allah is omnipotent, then He can do anything, and He can create anything. As was just shown, the concept of omnipotence contradicts the concept of omniscience, thus for Allah to be truly omnipotent, He would have to be limited in knowledge (as odd as that may sound). If this is in fact the case, then that would in itself negate Allah's omnipotence, as there would already be one thing Allah could not do: make Himself omniscient!

The contradiction of omnipotence and omniscience aside, there are other seemingly irreconcilable problems with the concept of an all-powerful deity. What can Allah create? If He is omnipotent, then He can create everything and anything. This is where questions that theists hate comes in. Can Allah create a four-sided triangle? Some theists, including Muslims, have argued that this is an unfair question, as we are asking Allah to create something in a way that is totally opposite to its definition. Regardless, this shows how human beings can limit what Allah can do by way of our own definitions. It is my opinion that "Allah," or "God" is an ambiguous sound that was created by human language, and because of this He/She/It can be limited through human language.

Regardless, Christian and Muslim theologians/philosophers (from Saint Aquinas to Ibn Sina) have tried to escape such questions by arguing that God can only do what is possible, and not do what is impossible. This has been an attempt to salvage the concept of God/Allah's omnipotence, but it instead admits that He is limited in power. There are things that are even impossible for Allah, hence Allah's powers are limited, thus Allah is a limited being. Then, to take a page from theist arguments, one might ask "who put those limitations on Allah?" I think from here one could understand that limitations are simply given and defined by the eternal laws of the mathematics, the universe, nature, et cetera, and there is no reason to assume limitations and rules must have a source. Thus cosmological and design arguments become worthless, but that's an entirely different conversation.

In July of 2000, physicists, ended a conference on superstring theory at the University of Michigan with a session called "Millennium Madness," choosing 10 of the most perplexing problems in their field. On August 15th, the New York Times ran an article titled "10 Questions to Ponder for a Millennium or Two," which covered this conference, and one of the questions was as follows:

"Are all the (measurable) dimensionless parameters that characterize the physical universe calculable in principle or are some merely determined by historical or quantum mechanical accident and uncalculable?"

This relates to Allah's alleged omnipotence because one wonders if the laws of the universe are created, or simply given. Can the allegedly omnipotent Allah control and manipulate the laws of physics, mathematics, et cetera? My favorite example has always been that of the two stones. If a person has one stone, and then adds a second stone to his collection, he will have two stones. No more, no less. This is because in the physical world, 1+1=2. Could Allah escape this fact? Or is even He subject to the laws of mathematics? If Allah had one stone, and added another stone, is there any way He could end up with more or less than two stones? Could He do so without cheating (i.e. creating new stones, breaking the stones, making stones disappear, et cetera)?

In short, Allah, or any being that we assume exists, would have to be subject to the laws of the universe. Allah cannot create four-sided triangles; He cannot alter the rules of mathematics. These laws cannot be changed because they are not created. They are simply given facts. The laws of the universe do not require some sort of law giver, and the very nature of these laws help to totally discredit the concept of omnipotence.

ALLAH AND INFINITY

Is Allah an infinite being? What does this mean in light of the claims of other religions with regards to anthropomorphism? The great Pantheist/Buddhist thinker Brett Neichin was once asked by a Christian if he believed Jesus was God. Neichin, who was not, and to this day is not a Christian, replied that he indeed felt Jesus was God, but he also felt that the Christian asking the question was God, that he himself was God, that the chairs and table were God (not Gods), et cetera. Muslims might consider the opinion of some Mushrik Pantheist/Buddhist named Brett Neichin to be pointless, but it does relate. As Neichin himself once put it, "when you point to something that isn't God, you've just limited God."

If Allah and His creation are totally separate, one would wonder where Allah ends and His creation begins. A truly unlimited being would have to be all encompassing, and everywhere. If Isa ibn Maryam was not Allah, then Allah was/is limited. If the current Agha Khan is not Allah incarnate, then Allah is limited. We have found a spot where divinity is not present: it is in the flesh of the current Agha Khan (the great spiritual leader of the anthropomorphist Isma'ili sect of Islam). If Allah is at point X, and the body of the Agha Khan is at point Y, then Allah is limited. It is that simple.

The few Muslims who I have pushed this point to would then argue that, if this is true, it also means that Fard Muhammad was Allah (which means the NOI was right after all!), that drugs are part of Allah, that excrement is part of Allah, that pigs are part of Allah, that poisonous plants are part of Allah, et cetera. To them this seems wholly absurd and unthinkable. One Muslim might ask "so you really think Fard Muhammad was God?" The answer is no. I don't believe Allah exists. However, if we are going to claim the existence of an unlimited being, we must be consistent. If the being is at one point, and not another, he/she/it is limited. To be truly unlimited, the being must be in all things, and be all things.

The concept of Allah being unlimited is also weakened by certain aspects of the Islamic literature (particularly certain ahadith). In sura al-A'raf, we have Moses speaking with Allah up on a mountain (Sinai?). Why is it that Moses would have to go to a certain spot to meet Allah? Is Allah limited, and at a given spot? That is a moot point, but a stronger point is the idea that the believers will be able to see Allah after judgment day. If Allah can be seen, then that means he has a shape, volume, color, and is thus limited. There is also the concept of Allah's throne, which seems very physical according to what we find in the Qur'an and ahadith, thus if Allah is sitting at a given point, at a given time, He has very physical characteristics, and is limited. It would seem that at a later time Muslims have tried to reconcile and reinterpret these curious passages.

Now, some might feel there is a contradiction in this article, as it is claimed that if Allah is unlimited, then Jesus (assuming he existed) must've been Allah. Then in the next paragraph, above, it is argued that if a being has a shape, volume, color, he/she/it is limited. The argument is not that only Jesus and Fard Muhammad were divine, but ALL things. Every inch of our entire universe must be a part of Allah if He is truly infinite. However, the problem with that is things within our universe change, and it would seem that change, as was pointed out by Aristotle long ago, negates perfection. The point of all this is to show the absurd nature of the concept of an unlimited being.

PROOF OF ALLAH'S EXISTENCE

Whenever I'm in discussions with Muslims, I ask that they prove the existence of Allah rather than just claiming such. The reality is they cannot offer any proof, because, in my humble opinion, there is no proof. The most popular argument used by Muslims seems to be the design argument (which is odd considering that the kalam cosmological argument was perfected by Muslims, but I'll touch on that a bit later). The basic (and wholly circular) design argument from Muslims goes something to the effect of "if something as complex as life wasn't created by Allah, then how was it made? Did it just pop out of thin air?"

My favorite response to such questions is to proclaim that the world, and all things within it were created by three green elves from dimension X. If the three green elves didn't create the world, do you assume it just appeared out of no where? The problem is the same: you are simply asserting that the world is designed and that Allah (or the 3 elves in my case) is the designer. This is not a proof. Furthermore, as I've already shown, we must conclude that Allah is limited, or at least that the laws of the universe do not need a creator. Based on that, we know that not all things need a creator. Regardless, don't assert that Allah is the creator; prove it! The design argument does nothing of the sort.

Some of the more intellectual Muslims I've encountered have tried to run the cosmological argument. It is actually the same argument, only instead of saying that life's complexities point to Allah, it is argued that everything points to Allah. The argument is that every thing has a cause, and it is impossible to have an infinite regress of causes (this assertion has yet to be proven), and thus Allah is the first cause (another baseless assertion). Once again, it runs along the lines of "if Allah didn't create the universe, who did?" The problem with this is that it is never proven that Allah is this alleged first cause. We could just the same state that all things need a cause, and thus wonder "what caused Allah?" The supporters of this argument want us to just accept the premise that Allah is the first cause, and does not Himself need a cause, which is a case of special pleading, i.e. a fallacy.

Quickly, I'd like to explain why Allah's existence can never really be proven, short of Him actually revealing himself. To set an example, I'd first like to offer what I call "the argument from presents" for Santa's existence:

(1) If there are presents under my tree, Santa Claus exists.
(2) There are presents under my tree.
----------------------------------------------------------
(3) Santa Claus exists.

This argument is perfectly valid. Now suppose I used this argument, and pointed to actual presents under my tree. Would this be proof that Santa Claus exists? Despite the fact that it is a valid argument, this is not a proof for Santa Claus' existence. To understand why, one would need a basic knowledge of sentential logic. I'll try to quickly explain it here. Let P stand for "there are presents under my tree," and let S stand for "Santa Claus exists." I will now construct a logical truth table for all the possibilities:

�- P - S
---------
�- T - T
�- T - F
�- F - T
�- F - F

These are all the possible "truths" for these two statements. Now note the second line. It is possible for presents to be under my tree, and it is also possible for Santa to not exist. Thus, according to sentential logic, P does not imply S. That is the reason that the perfectly valid "argument from presents" does not prove Santa's existence. Anytime that you claim that a totally ambiguous and unobservable entity ("Santa Claus," "God," "the Pink Unicorn," "the 3 Green Elves from Dimension X," et cetera) exists, and try to prove it pointing to something common, it can be argued that the existence of the common thing does not automatically imply the existence of the baseless and/or undefined thing you are trying to prove. Complex life forms do not imply Allah's existence any more than they imply the existence of the aforementioned Three Green Elves from Dimension X. The existence of the universe does not imply Allah's existence. The following argument is the outline of all proofs for Allah's existence:

(1) If X, then Allah exists.
(2) X.
---------------------
(3) Allah exists.

While this argument is logically valid, it does not prove that Allah exists because X does not necessarily imply Allah's existence, thus the first premise is erroneous. This is why every argument for Allah's existence can be shot down so easily. It is not that the wicked Mulhid (atheist) is being unfair or irrational. Rather it is because the Muslim pushing these arguments does not understand why the logic behind them is not totally sound.

To this point I have, in my opinion, discredited the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, unlimited Allah, and I have also shown why all arguments for His existence are somewhat fallacious. At this point, emotion comes in, and some Muslims might say that they feel Allah deep in their heart. A sincere gut feeling is not proof of anything, as many people sincerely believe many things, and many of these sincere beliefs contradict one another. Many people living in Christian dominated countries (including yours truly) have had experiences such as Jesus coming to them in a dream, telling them that he died for their sins, and is God, the son of God, et cetera, thus if sincere gut feelings or amazing transcendent experiences are some sort of proof, these sorts of things discredit Islam, and prove Christianity. With that being said, some Muslims might say that they can't imagine a world without Allah. What is the point of life if Allah does not exist? I wonder what is the point of life either way.

ALLAH'S SIGNIFICANCE

The more I ponder the existence of a god, be it the deity of Islam or any other respective faith, the less sense any of it makes. Purandara Dasa said that the only thing that makes life worth living is God. Blaise Pascal's famous "wager" basically argued that we should believe in God, just in case. The question is why? What is the significance of Allah, and how does this make any difference in one's life? Buddha was once, according Hinayana and Mahayana tradition, asked by his disciples if God existed, to which the Buddha replied something along the lines of "who cares?"

It seems that Islam, much like Christianity, keeps its believers in line via threats of eternal torment. With all due respect, the descriptions of Jahannam seem crude, and are only slightly more logical than the concept of hell in Christianity. Is this the point of your life? To avoid punishment at the hands of a being more powerful than you? Is that not coercion? To threaten someone, and say "do as I say, or I will punish you severely" is cruel, and very unbecoming of an allegedly merciful being. Furthermore, within the scope of eternity, no punishment seems all that bad. Even the Islamic hell, where skins are roasted off and then replaced, is nothing to be feared. Eternity means forever, and one would think that after a few billion years they could get used to such treatment. Imagine if I punched you in the chest, leaving a bruise. Then I waited for the bruise to heal, and punched you again, and continued the cycle for the rest of our lives. After this cycle had repeated a few times, I imagine you would be used to the punches. Just the same, after about thirty trillion years, a man might actually be looking forward to his new skin suit. In short, eternal punishment is not any sort of punishment at all.

Is life meant only for appeasing the whims of a cosmic bully? I would assume no Muslim would see it that way. Instead, I think many believers of any particular strain of Christo-Islamic faith would argue that it is not so much an attempt to escape punishment as it is to make it to heaven/paradise. How many times have we seen images on television of a young Muslims getting ready to fight some Western imperialist force (be it the Israelis or the Soviets) saying that he is not afraid to die, as then he will be a shaheed (martyr) and go to paradise. Is life solely meant for gaining some sort of physical reward? Virgins? Gardens? Rivers of khamr? It would seem that Islam still pushes for some sort of materialistic desire to be acheived in a very earthly paradise. Don't lead a materialistic life here, because you'll have plenty of time to do so in the next. Do not have sexual relations with numerous women in this life, because you'll have time to do that in the next. Do not drink khamr in this life, but in the next it will flow in rivers (Sura Muhammad 47:15). This is not only mildly hypocritical, but it is also seemingly pointless to live one's life solely for the sake of some sort of personal gain.

The third and final reason to serve Allah, assuming He exists, is simply for the sake of doing it. Christians "serve" God as part of a "relationship" they have with God; out of love for God. Just the same, it would seem some Muslims, though not claiming to have a relationship with Allah, express deep love for their respective deity. That is perfectly all right, but what does that have to do with anyone else? I think this hi-lights a simple fact that human beings form relationships with or interact with other beings for only three reasons: (1) To gain something. (2) To avoid pain, suffering, or punishment. (3) Out of simple respect for that being. This is the case with all beings, from our pets, to other humans, to our respective deity (assuming we have one). Therefore, Allah is no more different from any other being in the grand scheme of things. You love Allah, and I love my cat and my girlfriend; and if Bill Clinton threatened to have me killed for disputing the legitimacy of his claim to the presidency, I would not think of him as an honorable or merciful being.

CONCLUSION

Allah's alleged attributes are both illogical and incoherent. The reasons for believing that He exists have been shown to be either fallacious or pointless. No proof for His alleged existence has ever been provided. The very idea of His existence is of a fantastic nature, and thus questionable. It is for all these reasons that I submit to you that Allah does not exist. This is why I am an Atheist, and not a Muslim.