Hamid (former Muslim)
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Letter to Ali Sina
Dear Mr. Sina,
For the past month or so I have been having many doubts and have been reading countless debates and so forth regarding Islam, Christianity, Atheism, etc. I just could not create a clear explanation for myself, thus I kept searching. I think that everyone should do that until they for themselves figure out the truth. I stumbled upon your site today after returning from college and I have spent the last 5 hours reading material from your site and other referenced places as well. I was born a Muslim and at a point I was more devout than anyone in my family. I just want to thank you for basically clearing things up for me. I was a victim of Islam all my life and for once I feel that I have moved away from something totally false. I am 19 and I believe that I have discovered this truth at an early age. As I look back at people who have passed away, I don't know what to say. Now I don't questions people who have views like you about religion. It all makes perfect sense now. I just think people are truly blinded as you have mentioned so many times. I think I am strong enough to move forward without Islam, but the only aspect about it that concerns me is my family. I don't think I will tell them, but as you know being a Muslim it is not easy explaining to your family that Islam is false. You know what I mean. I just know I'll have a hard time living my life without the Islamic umbrella over my head. Ramadan is coming up and I am glad I am away from home, which gives me a bit more freedom. I just want to thank you again and hope you have the chance to reply to my email. I look forward to speaking with you again. I don't know how old you are, but I don't think your that brilliant, I just think everyone else that believes in religion is stupid. I don't think intelligence is measured by knowledge, or all of these stupid Imams would win Noble prizes. Intelligence is basically understanding of what is around you. I think if people are able to do that, like you and I, they are also intelligent. Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you.
Hamid USA
Response by Ali Sina
Dear Hamid,
It is wonderful to read your email. I am very happy that this site helped you find your way. Yes you are very right. One does not have to be brilliant to see the truth and certainly I never made such claim. Anyone who opens his eyes and uses his brain can see it. It is really very easy.
Now, I disagree with you that everyone who believes in religion is stupid. Of course I have said it many times myself. What actually I mean is that these people go to extreme lengths to believe in stupidities. Everyone can be fooled and has been fooled at some point in his life. This does not mean everyone is stupid. In certain cases even the most intelligent person can be fooled. The belief in Islamic gobbledygook is extremely foolish. Very smart people have let themselves to be fooled and are Muslims. We had geniuses like Rumi who became fooled by Islam. This does not mean they are foolish all the time. They are just foolish in their belief in Islam. The problem is that they accept premises that are baseless and as the result come to conclusions that are false. Here is one example. Yesterday I received an email from a Muslim friend, shaheed, who wrote:
The email is long and I don't have time to respond to this friend. However, I share this part of his email because it epitomizes the Islamic mindset.
The first false premise is that he accepts whatever Muhammad said as the word of God and quotes the Quran as if it is a book of authority. This is a false premise. The first question we must ask is whether the Quran is the word of God. Do we have any proof for such claim? Not at all! On the contrary we have plenty of proof to show it is not. Quran contains many scientific, linguistic mathematical, logical and historic errors. We may not be able to see what is going to happen after we die and whether those outlandish claims of paradise and hell are true or false, but we can easily see that the Moon is not above the stars as the Quran says, the mountains are not pegs to hold the Earth from shaking, the sky is not a dome sustained by invisible pillars, the stars are not lamps to adorn this dome, the sun does not set in murky waters, the tale of the foetus as explained in the Quran is nonsense, the fractions given by Muhammad to divide the inheritance do not add up, Mary the mother of Jesus was not the sister of Aaron and Moses, and countless other statements of the Quran are false.
How can God make so many mistakes? Muslims tend to close their eyes to all these inconsistencies and despite them accept this book as a miracle, just because Muhammad said it is. Far from being a miracle, the Quran is one of the stupidest and confused books ever written. Then we have the examples set by Muhammad. We see a man who raided caravans and villages, massacred unnamed people, looted them, enslaved their wives and children, raped them and committed all sorts of atrocities worthy of the worst gangsters. None of that affects the faith of these believers. Nothing can shake them and wake them up.
Shaheed wants me to believe that this world is just a deception and what is real is what Muhammad promised. Shouldn't he check first the credentials of Muhammad? What if Muhammad lied? We have evidences that Muhammad lied! Not only the Quran is clearly a false book and cannot be the revelations from the maker of this universe, we also have Muhammad's own words encouraging his followers to lie if telling the truth does not make them achieve their goals. Of course he did not like anyone lie to him. He severely punished and warned those who kept some of the stolen booty after the raids. But he did not see anything wrong in lying to others for his own gain or as he put it, in the cause of Allah. In fact he said "war is a game of deception". How such person can be trusted? With what we know about him, isn't it foolish to believe in his tale of the afterlife? If he is shown to be mistaken in almost everything that can be verified, how can we trust his description of things we cannot verify?
Even though we have not seen the other world, logically we can dismiss whatever Muhammad said about it. He talked about a physical garden filled with carnal delights, plenty of food, wine and sex. To him this was obviously the utmost bliss. But the fact is that our bodies remain here on earth and start rutting after we die. How can we enjoy all these carnal delights when we have no body? If it is our soul that survives and goes to paradise, our soul has no need for these carnal pleasures. Sex and gluttony are functions of our bodies. Our souls are affected by emotional sensations such as joy and sadness. So even if there is a next word and the soul survives the death, it must be a different dimension very distinct from the material world. It is clear that the stories of Muhammad's paradise and hell are ludicrous. It takes really a very stupid person to believe in those fairytales. Yet we see many smart and intelligent people buy into that nonsense and never question it.
As a matter of fact Muhammad thought that the body will be resurrected, all the bones and flesh will come together and form the body again and it is this very body that goes to hell or paradise to be chastised or rewarded. This is just plain stupid. The atoms that comprise your body have been certainly part of the body of other animals and possibly other humans of past generations. It is very likely that atoms of our body will become part of the bodies of other humans eons from now. All it takes for you to take the atoms of a dead body into yours is to eat the fruits of a tree that grows over his grave. Or those atoms could go through hundreds of digestive systems of other organisms until they reach you. If all of us have to resurrect, to whom these atoms belong? Furthermore the atoms of our bodies are constantly changing. Suppose you committed a sin ten years ago. Today not a single atom of that body with which you committed the sin remains in you. Which body would be brought back for punishment? The body that committed the sin or the body at the moment of death?
If this paradise and hell are physical as Muhammad believed, where are they? We have a much better understanding of the universe than those ignorant followers of Muhammad 1400 years ago. Even then he was derided by the intelligent Meccans. Why when with our gigantic telescopes we can see the borders of this universe, we are unable to see this paradise of which Muhammad spoke?
Muhammad talks about the Day of Judgment. In other words, all those who have died so far are nowhere until that day come. They are neither in paradise nor in hell. They are dust scattered on this Earth and some of that dust may be in you, waiting to be resurrected in the Day of Judgment, come back to life and receive their judgment. But again Muhammad forgot about this and in the Quran he said those who died in the way of Allah have already gone to paradise and are sending messages that they are content there. How this could be? What about the Day of Judgment? Do you see the inconsistency and the stupidity of this whole matter?
Frankly I find Muhammad's paradise disgusting. A luxury brothel, like the Playboy Mansion is not my idea of bliss. I don't care for orgies and debauchery. My idea of bliss is to be with one woman whom I love and who loves me; whose company and conversation make my heart sing; to be around my loved ones, friends and family; to have good books to read and an Internet connection to fight evil while my cat takes nap next to me. That is my paradise, not fornicating with 72 black-eyed whores and bathing in rivers of wine. As for food, all I want is freshly baked Tuscany bread with extra-virgin olive oil and fresh tomato, a variety of good Italian cheeses and a glass of good Italian wine. I find pleasure in simplicity, not in extravagance, in love, not in orgies. I have no need for Muhammad's paradise and pity his miserable soul for not knowing the meaning of bliss.
Shaheed says if the almighty had made us to see and understand everything before we believe in it, then believing wouldn't be such a challenge. He never pauses for a moment to wonder why recognizing God should be a challenge? If the consequence of disbelief is eternal burning, which in infinitely sadistic, why should God make this so difficult? Is God insane? Is He a psychopath? What Shaheed is saying is that God will prize stupid people. Those who accept the gobbledygook of Muhammad without questioning him, will be rewarded and those who use their brain will be punished severely and for eternity.
Just think about it! This Allah sends a man with no proof at all. Despite his claim that he has come with "clear proof", there is not a single proof about his claim. I have been asking Muslims to show me one of those proofs. I promised them that if they come with just one proof, I would remove this site and give them $50,000 dollars in rewards. Not a single person has been able to do that. So there is no proof. Muhammad lied when he said he has come with clear proof. He asked people to believe in him simply because he said so and if they didn't, he ordered them to be killed. The only proof given was the sword. In other words, "I am right because I can kill you".
Now that is not all. This Allah makes things even harder. Not only his words in the Quran are sheer stupidities that anyone with a little bit of commonsense can see, his prophet lives a life of a mafia godfather, engages in assassinations, murder, genocide, rape, pedophilia, theft, deception and all sorts of ungodly deeds. Are these things good? Our inner being says no! Our intelligence says these are evil deeds. Our conscience is repulsed by these satanic actions. But that is not all. This so called prophet, ALSO says these things are bad. If these things are bad and he also knew it, then why he did such things? Why he perpetrated so many crimes? A group of Bedouins stole Muhammad's camels and killed one of his men. He sent people to fetch them; ordered their extremities be chopped and left them in the desert sun to die a slow and a painful death. If stealing was so bad that the thieves deserved such a sadistic punishment, how come he got all his wealth through raiding, killing and stealing? Those eight Bedouins killed one man and stole a few camels (which he had stolen from others). Muhammad killed thousands of people and stole all their wealth and even raped and sold their wives and children. What punishment does he deserve according to his own standard? Shouldn't he be the one burning in hell for ever?
I have had Muslims telling me in my face that we should not look at what Muhammad did because after all he was just a man, but rather we must read the Quran alone and from there get our guidance. In other words, we should listen to his words but not follow his examples. Do you see to what length some people are willing to go just to fool themselves? If he was a liar, why couldn't he have concocted the Quran? If he was a prophet, shouldn't he be the one to set the example? Confucius said the greatness of a man is in how much his words and his deeds match. A person who does not walk his own talk is not worthy of trust. Muslims know Muhammad had sex with a 9-year-old child, had sex with his own daughter in law, raped the young women that he captured in his raids, tortured people so they tell him where they had hidden their treasures, assassinated his critics, etc. etc. Yet they want to be fooled. They have decided that foolishness is good. It is comfortable to believe in those stupidities. It is not that they can't think rationally; they simply don't want to do it.
Muhammad did all sorts of evil things and said follow my examples. Would really God choose a despicable man like Muhammad to be the guidance to Mankind? Does it make sense at all? Can the maker of this universe be so stupid, so cruel, so sadistic, to send an evil man like Muhammad who commits all sorts of crimes, fill his book of revelation will hodgepodge and ridiculous tales and demand us to forgo our intelligence and accept this evil man nonetheless or else we would face eternal burning. ETERNAL burning??? Isn't this nuts? How can the allegedly merciful God be so sadistic?
Do you see my friend? People are not genetically or clinically stupid. But they allow themselves to be fooled. Muslims say these are all tests of faith. What is it that God wants to tests us for? How can we win this test? By being stupid? Is the person who is most gullible and accepts every nonsense without questioning the winner, the one who passes this "test"? In that case Paradise must be full of stupid people. Why should anyone with any degree of intelligence want to go and live among fools? Living among stupid people is like living in hell.
Have you received these emails known as "Nigerian Scam"? I receive at least two every day. Obviously the scam must work otherwise they would have stopped sending them. Someone writes to you and says "she" is the widow of such and such African dictator and has 40 million dollars in securities that she wants to transfer to your account for safekeeping until she comes to your country. As recognition for your cooperation she will gives you 25% of that loot. Or that he is dying and wants to give all his inheritance, in the tune of 20 million dollars to a "God fearing Christian" like you to expend in charities on his behalf after his death. The scam is that this con artist will ask you to send to him a small amount of money for "building trust" or some other silly excuse. Just a few thousands of dollars, nothing more. Hey what is a few thousands of dollars when you are going to be a millionaire overnight? This person is going to trust you with millions of dollars after all. You send that money, he asks you for more, you have to send because you can not back off now that you have "invested" some thousands of your hard earned money. Then he asks for more.... You become frustrated but feel pressured to comply. I read that even smart people have fallen for this scam and have lost up to hundreds of thousands of dollars and even their lives. Sometimes these suckers are CEOs. They are smart people and yet allow themselves to be fooled. Why? It is because millions of dollars sound so attractive that they WANT to believe, even though it has "scam" written all over it. The temptation is so big that they intentionally silence their own better judgment and let themselves to be fooled.
I read an article about John de Ruiter. This charlatan claims to be God or Messiah. He has gathered a few hundred followers and they are middle class intelligent people. He was a shoemaker and totally uneducated, but some of his followers are university professors. They have allowed themselves to be fooled. His technique is silence. When you pay and go to his seminars he sits there, stares forwards and says nothing. Absolutely nothing! Then after 20 minuets, his devotees, overwhelmed by his presence, burst in tears and create a pathetic atmosphere inside the conference room. Some sob and others remain silent as if they are in the presence of their maker. Someone stands up and undresses his or her soul, confessing how de Ruiter has changed his/her life and every one sobs. Someone says you are the master of my life and I don't have any more wills left in me except your will. He stares calmly and utters a few words of clich like 'truth speaks to you. Surrender and listen to the truth or something stupid like that.
His followers have left their homes, their careers and their families to move to Alberta and bask in his vicinity. He has orgies with two sisters who are his followers and were introduced to him by their parents. These stupid parents are delighted that God makes love to their daughters and feel privileged. Probably this is how the great fool Abu Bakr felt. His wife wizened up and left him after she discovered his disloyalty. His foolhardy followers are not bothered at all. They have rationalized everything and redefined the meaning of sex to convince themselves what this degenerate charlatan is doing is divine and not lust.
How can you explain that? Isn't that insane? Yet you can't say these people are clinically stupid. They have allowed themselves to be fooled. Because they WANT to believe, they miss, and deliberately overlook all the telltale clues that tell them this guy is a nutcase and a narcissist. They want to be fooled because it feels good. It feels good to surrender your intelligence to someone else that gives you great promises of salvation, enlightenment, paradise, or in the case of the savage Arabs of 7th Century, abundant food and unlimited sex. Also they can not go back because they have given up everything they possessed and have broken all the bridges behind them. So because awakening is too painful, they will do everything not to awaken.
Muslims want to be fooled. They have the choice. They can find the truth with the same ease that you and I found it. Of course we are not more intelligent than all other Muslims. But you and I decided to see the truth, Muslims don't WANT to do that. The believers WANT to be fooled because it feels good. They cheerfully abandon reason because in this abandonment they find serenity and peace. When you stop thinking and forego your greatest human faculty, you enter in a state of blissful stupidity. This is a state of "wakeful somnolence", in this state you are physically awake, but oblivious of the reality that is going around you. You enter in the paradise of ignorance. You live in a make-believe world of fantasies. You walk on this earth but your head is in the cloud seven. It is like being drugged. This is the state of blissful ignorance in which you rejoice in your stupidity and take pride in your foolishness.
Martin Luther said:
"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but--more frequently than not --struggles against the Divine Word...."
And:
"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."
Ali Sina
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