David Wood: The Messiah Strikes Back

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Since I started paying closer attention to David Wood's work and his faith-based blog at http://www.answeringmuslims.com, I have discovered a perennial source of inspirations for writing. Don't be surprised to see quite a few posts dedicated to commentary on David's videos, posts and analysis in the future.

In this message, I am going back to his "Islam's Secret Santa" video (http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/11/islams-secret-santa.html) and put my remarks down on some of the comments I found worth mentioning.

First, I did find bashing of a person named "Leo" by righteous Christians to be quite amusing. Leo provided an argument that closely aligns with my own view that in many respects the Christian and Islamic ideologies are not much different. They may phrase things differently, they may put different-coloured icing on the cake, but the substance and the message of both faiths is nonetheless indistinguishable.

David rides in to smite the heads of atheists by frivolously generalizing them as "Leo or his friends", "Leo and Co." and dismissing them as intellectually "sloppy". He brings up a flaming argument and puts it in the heart of that unholy atheistic beast by providing a vacuous analogy. Let's dive right into it.

"I'm not sure Leo or his friends will be able to understand something as simple as an analogy, but we'll find out.

Before my children were even born, I knew they would eventually sin. Does this mean that I wanted them to sin? No, I didn't. I wanted them to do the right thing. Would I have destroyed them for always doing the right thing? Not at all. Instead, I would have been overjoyed. But I still knew that they would do wrong, and when they do wrong, I'll always be there to help them turn things around."

Congratulations to David on winning the "'false analogy' fallacy of the day" contest.

First, David compares God' advance knowledge of humankind sins to David's personal expectations of the eventuality of his children committing sins.

In David's case, he cannot create his children in a way he want them to be. He has no control over the human nature. As much as he doesn't want them to sin, David cannot change their predispositions because he exercises no influence over their design - they are born with certain natural behavioural traits and instincts regardless of David's personal beliefs and "wants".

Judeo-Christian-Muslim God created humans from ground up, or so the faithful say. God can control every aspect of how humans would act. He can control what they will do and how they will go about doing it. He can control their temptations, their urges, their natural reactions and so on. He designs them and he gives them everything they are. So, no, God's expectations of his creation does equate to David's expectations of his children. This analogy is false.

Then, Davie builds on this false premise to expand his idea to saying that "Christian God then takes steps to make us holy again". That makes sense: God  wants us to be holy, so he creates us un-holy, so that he can take steps to make us holy again. Dig the hole just so you can fill it.

Second, the argument goes back to my point that was banned from David's 'discussion' blog.

Muhammad states: If you were not to commit sins, Allah would have swept you out of existence and would have replaced you by another people who have committed sin, and then asked forgiveness from Allah, and He would have granted them pardon.

Forget the daftness of "would have swept you out of existence". Let's concentrate on the basic reason for  God, according to Muhammad, to take such an absurd move: he wants you to commit sins so that you will have to ask for forgiveness, which would give Allah an opportunity to show his grace by pardoning your sins. 

This is precisely what the key message of Christianity is. God created you sinful so that you spend your entire life committing sins (you attempt not to, but by your design and by the way the rules are defined before you, sinning is unavoidable). And, at the end, God will show you his grace by forgiving you, as long as you keep asking for forgiveness and cringe before him. This is exactly the message of the Hadith 6621, minus the "would have swept you out of existence" part.

Over the years, countless Christians understood the absurdity of this idea. Hence the notion born out of their cognitive dissonance - the notion of "free will". However, "free will" is a feeble excuse that doesn't hold any legitimacy - God intrudes on "free will" constantly and besides, he could have effortlessly design humans in a way that they would not sin without limiting their "free will". Any thinking mortal human can come up with a design solution for every flaw of the human character without putting people in a straight-jacket devoted of "free will". I am sure that an all-wise and omnipotent deity could have done it too.

And then David drops a bomb: in a burning desire of promoting himself as an open-minded thinker, David says:

Leo, I don't think you could upset me if you tried. This is a debate site. People (whether atheists, Muslims, or Christians) generally have thick skin. So everyone has thick skin and feels free to respond without holding back

Following the glorious Jedeo-Christian-Muslim tradition set by Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Muhammad and countless others, David says something opposite of being true.

From the initial David's reaction, he is quite irritated by Leo's statement. He comes across un-Christinaly rude.

Then, David says "This is a debate site". Really, David? A debate site would allow all comments on the subject to stay. Instead, David and Co. selectively chooses statements that help bolster David's claims while silencing criticism, as if there is no valid argument to counter David's claims. David allows bashing of anything and everything non-Christian, but it is that the counter arguments that are not welcome, especially if they make sense. However, if they don't make sense, David is glad to post them for his congregation to bash and taunt and feel good about themselves.

There is a world for describing the state of pretending to have virtues, moral beliefs and principles, while practising the opposite. Perhaps, David hasn't heard it before in this context, but this word is hypocrisy. It would be great if David could enrich his vocabulary by learning its meaning.