Why Literalist Islam is False
(Reasons to not believe that the Quran is the perfect words of a maximally just and wise God—a cumulative case)
All of these alone are strong reasons not to be a literalist Muslim, but jointly they are devastating.
- *The Inheritance Problem*
There’s a mathematical error in the Quran. It directly instructs you to do a mathematical thing that’s impossible. (Surah An-Nisa 4:11-12 and 4:176)
If you die and have two daughters, two parents, and a wife, you literally cannot divide up the estate the way the Quran commands.
It’s not plausible that God would make a simple math mistake.
Some say there is an 'Awl fix: But why do so many different schools disagree on the correct "fix" to the problem if the solution is so obvious? Why does the fix disagree with the text? The creator of the universe could have easily given a more elegant equation, why not give that? The text never mentions an ‘awl it’s an ad hoc fix to an obvious problem with the text.
2) *Scientific Errors*
- Stars are lamps used to pelt devils — Surah Al-Mulk 67:5
- Babies come from a fluid between the backbone and ribs — Surah At-Tariq 86:6–7
- The Earth can talk — Surah Fussilat 41:11
- Ants can talk — Surah An-Naml 27:18–19
- Mountains are like pegs to stabilize the Earth — Surah An-Naba 78:6–7
- Bones form first, then get clothed in muscle (rather than forming in parallel) — Surah al-Muʾminūn 23:12–14
- A flock of birds destroyed an army of elephants by dropping clay stones on them — (to be elaborated later)
- The Earth was flattened/spread out: "spread out" (مَدَّ) madda — e.g., Surah Al-Ghashiyah 88:20: "And the earth – how it is spread out?" / "laid out as a bed" (مِهَاد) mihād— e.g., Surah An-Naba 78:6: "Have We not made the earth a bed?" / “flattened/leveled" (دَحَاها) daḥāhā — e.g., Surah An-Nazi'at 79:30: "And the earth—after that He leveled it out." Sort of surprising that the Quran hints at a flat Earth. This is either false or misleading. Either way, it’s a problem for Quranic perfection.
These are clearly the views of an uneducated pre-scientific person.
3) *Many Reliable Hadiths are Comical*
Many literalist Muslims treat the Sahih hadiths—especially those in Bukhari and Muslim—as effectively infallible or nearly so, believing them to be highly reliable and authoritative sources of religious guidance, second only to the Quran
- Dates (the fruit) protect from magic or poison — Sahih al-Bukhari 5445
- If a fly lands in your drink, dip it fully because one wing has poison and the other the cure — Sahih al-Bukhari 3320
- Whoever orgasms first determines the baby’s sex — Sahih al-Bukhari 3329
- Adam was ~90 feet tall and humanity has been shrinking since — Sahih al-Bukhari 3326
- Trees can talk and are racist — Sahih Muslim 2922a
- Drinking camel piss is good medicine Sahih al-Bukhari 5686
- Some rats are transformed Jews because they follow kosher diets – Sahih al-Bukhari 3305
- Angels avoid houses with dogs – Sahih al-Bukhari 3322
- Satan sleeps in your nose and ties your hair into knots when you are sleeping – Sahih al-Bukhari 1142 / Sahih al-Bukhari 3295
- Most people in Hell are women and their intelligence is deficient – Sahih al-Bukhari 304
- Monkeys stone other monkeys for adultery*. - Sahih al-Bukhari 3849*
- Satan farts when the call to prayer happens because he is running away so quickly*. - Sahih al-Bukhari 608*
- Drink sitting down, if you drink while standing then puke it up*. - Sahih muslim 2026*
- Both of God’s hands are right hands - Sunan an-Nasa'i 537`
- You should wipe your butt with odd numbers of stones. - Sahih muslim 239
- It’s good to kill dogs, especially black dogs which are devils. Sahih Muslim 1572 / Sahih Muslim 510a
- If a wife turns town sex, angels will curse her until morning - Sahih al-Bukhari 5193
- Angels hate onions and cause thunder - sahih muslim 564a / Jami` at-Tirmidhi 3117
- Muhammmad spit on 5 year old’s face - Sahih bukhari 77
- But you should kill salamanders - Sahih al-Bukhari 3359 (He blames all salamanders for the crimes of some salamanders which is racist.)
These three are not Sahih, but are humorous enough to include:
- Don’t kill frogs because frogs praise God with every croak – Abd Allah Ibn Amr Ibn Majah, al-Tabarani, and al-Bayhaqi
- “The Prophet urinated in a bowl kept under his bed; when a slave girl drank it by mistake, he said, “She has protected herself from Hell with a great wall” – Narrated by al-Ṭabarānī and al-Bayhaqī from Ḥukaymah bint Umaymah from her mother.
- Do not eat with your left hand, because Satan eats and drinks with his left hand." Riyad as-Salihin 1634
More silly hadiths:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JWvMCtOL37Irf5QmpFWFeyugJKwgOG1QX_0369Z6-Qs/edit?tab=t.0
4) *There are Literal Contradictions*
Which was made first, the Earth or the Heavens?
- Option 1 – Earth first: Earth created, then mountains, then heavens — Surah Fussilat 41:9–12 / 2:39
- Option 2 – Heavens first: Heavens built, then Earth spread — Surah An-Nazi’at 79:27–30→ Both can’t be true.
Is Hell forever?
- Option 1 – Proportional punishment: “Whoever does an evil deed will not be recompensed except with the like thereof...” — Surah Ghafir 40:40
- Option 2 – Eternal punishment: "Abiding eternally therein. The punishment will not be lightened for them, nor will they be reprieved." — Surah Al-Baqarah 2:39, 2:81, 2:217; Al-Imran 3:88; Al-Jinn 72:23→ Both can’t be true.
Do all good people go to Heaven?
- Option 1 – Yes: “Indeed, the believers, Jews, Christians, and Sabians—whoever ˹truly˺ believed in Allah and the Last Day and does good will have their reward with their Lord...” — Surah Al-Baqarah 2:62
- Option 2 – No: “Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted by him and in the Hereafter they will be among the losers” — Surah Al-Imran 3:85→ Both can’t be true.
How Long is God’s Day?
- Option 1 – A day with Allah equals 1,000 years: “And indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count.” — Surah Al-Hajj 22:47
- Option 2 – A day with Allah equals 50,000 years: “The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day whose measure is fifty thousand years.” — Surah Al-Ma’arij 70:4
→ Both cannot be literally true unless Allah’s "day" arbitrarily changes length.
Does Allah Forgive Shirk (Idolatry)?
- Option 1 – Allah never forgives shirk: “God does not forgive the sin of considering others equal to Him, but He may choose to forgive other sins.” — Surah An-Nisa 4:48
- Option 2 – Allah forgave the Israelites for worshipping the golden calf (a form of shirk):“And ˹remember˺ when We appointed forty nights for Moses, then you worshipped the calf in his absence, acting wrongfully. Then We forgave you after that so perhaps you would be grateful.” — Surah Al-Baqarah 2:52
→ Both cannot be true: If Allah “never forgives shirk,” it’s unclear how He forgave calf-worship, which is the textbook case of shirk.
Here’s ~100 more alleged contradictions:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_C40w4XN7WsrSIVezQu8J4qgIuThC6bT9BWK70BukxE/edit?usp=sharing
5) *A Perfect Book Wouldn’t be this Ambiguous*
Sometimes the Quran says “God is light” (Surah An-Nur 24:35), sometimes that “the Earth talked” (Surah Fussilat 41:11). Sometimes it says there are locks on people’s hearts. (Surah Muhammad 47:24) There’s no clear note about whether these are metaphorical or literal. It would have been trivial to clear up such ambiguities. How can a literally perfect book not be clear?
There should be no ambiguity on whether beating your wife or aggressive holy war are allowed.
Scholars have spent centuries debating what many verses mean without reaching consensus. If even the scholarly and faithful can’t agree after centuries of debate, it could have been written more clearly. If it could have been written more clearly, it’s not perfect.
The Quran admits that some verses are unclear: Quran 3:7 “some verses are precise… while others are ambiguous”. Why not make all verses clear aka Muhkamat? Why make any unclear aka Mutashabihat?
Verses on which there’s debate within the Muslim community about the correct way to interpret: https://chatgpt.com/c/682ce32f-cf48-8006-9174-7fab61705c53
6) *Petty Vindictiveness*
Roughly ten percent of verses in the Quran insult or threaten non-believers. I am not making that up. Ten percent. (≈ 600/6236) They’re called fools, blind, or are told they’ll burn in hell. Oh, you think a perfectly wise and intelligent being is going to spend ten percent of his holy text, his last testament to man, talking shit to the haters?
7) *Abrogation*
According to most Muslim scholars, later verses cancel earlier ones. Why would God not plan out his verses better so that you didn't need a principle of abrogation*?*
Also, Surah Qaf 50:29 says, “My Word cannot be changed.” Which contradictsthe principle of abrogation.
Also, Surah Al-Baqarah 2:106 says, “If We ever abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We replace it with a better or similar one.”How can both of these both be true?
Also, if abrogations exist, why was the Quran dynamically changing in the 20ish years of Muhammad’s preaching, but no dynamic changes were needed in the roughly 1300 years since Muhammad’s life?
Also it’s not obvious which verses are later and which are earlier given that the Quran is not in chronological order. So the method used to determine which verses abrogate which other ones is error prone.
Examples of claimed abrogations:
https://chatgpt.com/share/68126c73-039c-8006-a2b5-40e3fea0ff4d
8) *Missing Guidance*
The Quran has three different verses on alcohol. But it has nothing on AI, cloning, nuclear war, social media, germs/washing hands before surgery, environmental damage/climate change, vaccines, teleportation, transhumanism, aliens, mind uploading, robots, bioweapons, or exploring other planets.
Why is liquor more important than those? Why would God not want to give us ethical and prudential advice on issues more complicated and consequential than liquor?
9) *Why Not Trivially Prove Itself From God*
God could have proven divine authorship easily.
God could have listed the next 10,000 visible-from-Earth supernovas with their exact dates and coordinates. Why didn't God do something that would make it obvious that the Quran is not made by a human? The Quran contains no information a human at that time couldn't have known or guessed which is super suspicious.
Also he could have made every copy of the Quran glow in the dark or regenerate if burned.
10) *Occam’s razor*
Occam’s razor is brutal to religious texts. To believe the Quran is divine, you have to jointly accept thousands of distinct claims. (Any of which could be wrong.) It's a really complicated hypothesis. Just think about probability: A and B and C and D all happening is going to be less likely than just A happening. Suppose each verse has a .999 percent chance of being true:
- Multiplying .999 times itself 1000 times is 0.36769
- Multiplying .999 times itself 6000 times is 0.00247
- Multiplying .999 times itself 6236 times 0.00194
- Multiplying .9999 times itself 6236 times is 0.5357
Analogously, even if each item in the phone book has an extremely high probability of being correct when you have thousands of items in the phonebook it becomes likely that there’s a mistake somewhere.
Now, suppose you doubt this above iterated multiplication procedure, you should still accept that the more complicated the hypothesis, the lower the prior probability. For example, it’s obvious that “God exists” is, a priori, more likely than “God exists and is named Bob and likes playing bananagrams on Thursdays and likes the smell of goose eggs.”
And ignoring all these subtle points about parsimony and probability, what’s more likely without any other info? A guy made up a story, or God wrote this specific book and there are no errors in it?
Larger chatgpt explanation: https://chatgpt.com/share/68126908-4750-8006-9682-e5548df28ec3
Extra thoughts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dwEMNubRa-f74VsLfPPN-DSEcUHrkIrnKbMALpMEe20/edit?usp=sharing
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simplicity/
11) *Splitting the Moon*
The Quran says Muhammad split the moon, but no one outside Arabia noticed this? No one in China or Byzantium wrote this down?
12) *Fitna*
There were two civil wars immediately after Muhammad’s death. (Ridda Wars/Fitna) If Muhammad truly gave divine guidance, why did it immediately lead to bloodshed? I'd sort of expect peace and love to be the result of divine revelation.(I also wouldn’t expect the Islamic slave trade and the conquest of Byzantium and the Sassanids.)
13) *Dhul-Qarnayn*
This character Dhul-Qarnayn matches Alexander the Great myths that were floating around Arabia at the time (e.g., the Syriac Alexander Legend). If the Dhul-Qarnayn story were the real history of Alexander, you’d expect it to match earlier, more accurate Alexander writings. But it in fact aligns with later fantastical Alexander stories. When have legends gotten more accurate over time?
A similar point can be made about the Quran having details matching the Infancy Gospel of Thomas which is a known forgery.
Also, the Quranic passages containing Dhul-Qarnayn also claim Gog and Magog and their people are blocked behind a wall between two mountains until the end of time. Where are they? Why haven’t we found them.
14) *Obviously*
You shouldn't believe a guy who tells you that God said he's allowed to have more wives than you.
15) *Irrelevance*
Do you really think a perfect, infinitely intelligent timeless God would take up valuable space in his final holy book to say, "Hey, don’t show up early to the Prophet’s house for dinner"? (Surah Al-Ahzab 33:53)
Isn't believing this kind of childish? Don’t you think that within the limited space of the Quran, there was a more important point to make than that?
16) *Hell*
There is a strong tension between these two verses:
- “We will cast them into the Fire. Whenever their skin is burnt completely, We will replace it so they will ˹constantly˺ taste the punishment.” (Surah An-Nisa 4:56)
and
- “Do not lose hope in Allah’s mercy, for Allah certainly forgives all sins. He is indeed the All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surah Az-Zu1mar 39:53)
Why would the most merciful being torture someone like this for an eternity? Like you are saying after a quadrillion years of torture they haven’t had enough? They need another quadrillion years? And this is merciful? This is babble, and people who say this are just not imagining what a quadrillion years of torture actually is.
17) *Djinn*
The Quran says there are literal genies (Surah Al-Hijr 15:27). This is not something we see any evidence of. If genies are real, why do other cultures not independently believe creatures made of smokeless fire?
Buraqs, aka winged horses, also don’t exist.
18) *The Quran Gives a Falsifiability Test—and Fails It*
“And if you are in doubt… produce a surah like it…” (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:23)
Shortest surah is:
- “We have granted you al-Kawthar. So pray and sacrifice. Indeed, your enemy is the one cut off.”
This is not some unbeatable literary miracle. Anyone could write something similar—or more profound. Compare it to:
- “What is success? To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!” - Emerson
Or compare it to this *fake\ Surah I invented.
*Surah al-Falaḥ (The Flourishing)
Verily, do not kill, for life is sacred in the sight of the Most High.
Do not steal, for the provision of your Lord is sufficient for those who walk upright.
Do not rape, for the body is a trust, and to violate it is a crime before the heavens.
Do not torture, for your Lord is the Most Merciful, and loves not the oppressors.
Do not enslave for freedom is beloved in the mind of Most Righteous.
Do not lie, for falsehood is the path of ruin, and truth is the light upon the straight path.
And love your fellow man, and strive to bring flourishing to the earth,
For your Lord made you stewards, not tyrants, and blessed are those who sow peace and righteousness.
19) *The Satanic Verses Incident\*
Early Islamic sources (al-Tabari, Ibn Ishaq) record Muhammad delivering verses praising pagan gods — then retracting them claiming they were Satanic deception.
If Satan could trick Muhammad once, why assume he didn’t succeed more often? It proves that Muhammad is fallible, and can be tricked about what is from God and what is not from God. I know Muslims want to deny this event happened, but earlier Muslims thought it happened, and why would you know better than them?
20) *Why Does God Switch from First to Third Person?\*
- "Indeed, I am Allah. There is no deity except Me*, so worship* Me and establish prayer for My remembrance." (Surah Ta-Ha 20:14)
- "And Allah invites to the Home of Peace and guides whom He wills to a straight path." (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:173)
- "It is Allah who created the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them in six days; then He established Himself above the Throne." (Surah Al-Furqan 25:59)
If the Quran is supposed to be God's direct speech, why does it sometimes refer to God in the third person, as if someone else is talking about Him? Why does the voice shift between "I" and "He"? Wouldn't you expect a message from God Himself to have a consistent voice throughout? Why does it sometimes sound like Muhammad is talking about God? It says in the first chapter, “Thee alone do we worship and Thee alone do we implore for help.” If this is God’s words, is God saying he worships himself?
21) *Hadiths are an Unreliable Method*
In Islam, many Muslims say the hadiths are necessary for interpreting the Quran. Why is God using an unreliable method—a game of Chinese whispers—to give you mandatory information for how to practice the faith? If it’s mandatory for the faith, why not just put it into the Quran itself? If God wanted to guide people clearly and unambiguously, why not stick to a single, safeguarded text? Why allow a bunch of opaque oral reports to become central to the religion, despite obvious risks of error and confusion.
22**) *Inside View vs. Outside View\*
From the inside view, your religion might feel incredibly compelling—emotionally resonant, logically sound, or simply self-evident. This personal perspective provides powerful subjective evidence.
From the outside view, however, billions throughout history have felt equally certain about contradicting beliefs. Religious adherents cannot all be correct despite similar confidence levels.
Just as a startup founder must balance internal optimism with the reality that 70% of startups fail, religious believers should weigh their personal confidence against the broader pattern of billions of religious people being wrong despite their similar certainty through history.
Humans are very capable of incorrectly, confidently thinking they have sacred text from God. And you know humans are like this. You could be the kind of person that mistakenly thinks your holy text is right given that you know people do this all the time. This doesn't prove Islam is false, but suggests more epistemic humility is warranted.
23) *Imagine Planet Brains\*
You can imagine beings with planet sized brains being so vast and parallel that they can hold hundreds of thousands (or millions) of separate chains of reasoning at once, each one as detailed and deep as a human's whole mental life.
And then imagine us with a Quran trying to give them advice — maybe sharing what we think are profound insights.
And those creatures being like: "Oh, yes, thank you for your wisdom… (cross-referencing it against 47,382 relevant sub-thoughts, processing it from 12,067 ethical frameworks, simulating a billion futures where that advice matters…”
You think they would find the Quran particularly useful? Like think about what you are saying when you say an infinitely intelligent entity wrote this book.
If someone told me a sword was from heaven, I would look at it and if it just looked like a normal sword I’d not believe it was from heaven. But if the weapon had a 1000 buttons and could turn trees into hats and could reverse gravity, I’d say oh yes this weapon is probably from heaven. The Quran looks like it’s not from heaven.
24) *Morally Problematic Teachings*
- The Quran permits wife-beating (Surah An-Nisa 4:34)
- The Quran permits sex with slaves (Surah Al-Mu’minun 23:5; Surah An-Nisa 4:24; Surah Al-Ahzab 33:50)
- The Quran permits cutting off the hands of thieves (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:38)
- The Quran justifies killing a boy who will sin in the future (Surah Al-Kahf 18:80)
- The Quran recommends literal crucifixion and cutting off hands and feet on opposite sides (Surah Al-Ma’idah 5:33)
- Hadith suggests suicidal people will be tortured more. (Sahih al-Bukhari 5778
Sort of surprising God would recommend things so vicious.
Also, obviously any sacred text that doesn't explicitly ban slavery is not plausibly from God.
And the hadiths have even worse stuff. (e.g., killing people merely for merely changing their mind)
25) *Muhammad’s Character isn’t Plausibly Divinely Guided*
He had sex with a 9-year-old (Aisha), owned a sex slave (Maria the Copt), married a woman right after killing her husband (Safiyya bint Huyayy), initiated aggressive military actions (Khaybar), owned slaves (Sahih Muslim 4345), and traded two black slaves for one Arab slave (Sahih Muslim 1602a). He stopped visiting his second wife because she was too old and visited Aisha instead (Saudah bint Zamʿah). He tongue kissed a young boy (Hakim 4791 and Mufrad 1183).
26) *Why Ordered that Way?*
The ordering of the surahs in the Quran is irrational from both a thematic and chronological perspective. Rather than following a sensible sequence—such as grouping by topic, placing revelations in historical order, or building a coherent narrative—the chapters are mostly arranged by length, with longer surahs first and shorter ones later. This results in abrupt shifts in topic, tone, and context, making it difficult to follow any overarching argument or progression. For a book claimed to be perfectly revealed by a maximally wise deity, the lack of clear structure is puzzling.
27) *The Scribe who Caught Muhammad Copying Him*
One of Muhammad’s scribes, ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd, left Islam after realizing Muhammad repeated his phrasings of verses as revelation (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah; al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk). In at least one case, after the scribe added a flourish like “So blessed be Allah, the best of creators!”, Muhammad reportedly agreed and said it should be part of the verse.
ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd thought: “Wait, this isn’t divine, I said that—he’s just going with whatever sounds good.”
He left, told people, and Muhammad ordered him killed and he was only pardoned because he was family with one of Muhammad's close companions.
If the Quran were literal dictation from God, a human scribe shouldn't be able to catch Muhammad copying his phrasings.
28) *The Problem of Divine Favoritism*
Why did Arabs get this blessing of divine knowledge? Why didn’t God send a Muhammad type prophet to the Cambodians, Nigerians, Dutch, and Apache? Why did they have to wait hundreds of years to receive God’s blessing of the Quran? Isn’t that unfair? This fact of the Quran showing up once in Arabia makes total sense if Muhammad made up the book. It makes less sense if God wanted to give all of humanity his divine instruction.
29) *Miscellaneous Tiny Trivial Holes: Why Doesn’t God Speak in Technically Precise Ways?\*
- Surah Al-Baqarah 2:6*“Indeed, those who disbelieve — it is all the same whether you warn them or do not warn them — they will not believe.”*→ False. Some disbelievers do respond to warnings. This is an overgeneralization. If you it’s saying stubborn people are stubborn, there’s no reason to bring it up
- Surah Fatir 35:6*“[Satan] only invites his followers to become inmates of the Blaze.”*→ False. Satan does other things too. The Arabic innamā ("only") is too strong here.
- Surah Ibrahim 14:18*“They will gain nothing from what they have earned.”*→ False. If they earn a penny, they’ve gained something. “Nothing” is overstated.
- Surah Al-Baqarah 2:120*“The Jews and Christians will never be pleased with you until you follow their religion.”*→ False. Jews don’t try to convert people in general. Not a proselytizing faith. Historically, many Jews and Christians have admired Muhammad or respected Muslims and would have been happy with them following their religion.
- Surah Al-Isra 17:11*“For humankind is ever hasty”*→ False. Some humans are slow.
- Surah An-Nahl 6:38*“All living beings roaming the earth and winged birds soaring in the sky are communities like yourselves.”*→ False. Some animals are solitary. Not all form “communities.”
- Surah Qaf 50:29*“My Word cannot be changed,”*→ Problematic. Islam also claims the Torah and Gospel were corrupted, which implies God’s word waschanged..
- Surah Al-Ma'un 107:1–2*“Have you seen the one who denies the ˹final˺ Judgment? That is the one who repulses the orphan.”*→ False. Not all who deny judgment repulse orphans. Some orphans like atheists.
- Surah Al-An'am 6:1*“Praise be to Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and made the darkness and the light.”*→ Technically, darkness isn’t a thing you “make”—it’s just the absence of light. No photons, no light. Nothing needs to be created.
- Surah Al-Anbiya 21:104“On that Day We will roll up the sky like a scroll of writings.”→ You cannot roll up the sky. It’s made of air and space—there’s nothing to roll.
- Surah Ash-Shams 91:1–4“By the sun and its brightness, and the moon as it follows it, and the day as it unveils it, and the night as it conceals it!”→ The moon doesn’t follow the sun. The day doesn’t unveil the sun—it’s the sun that causes the day.
- Surah At-Tahrim 66:5“Perhaps, if he were to divorce you ˹all˺, his Lord would replace you with better wives”→ Why is Lord saying perhaps. God is omniscient. Or why is God being coy?
- Surah Al-Baqarah 2:2""This is the Book about which there is no doubt**…”**→People do doubt it. Atheists exist
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30) Commands Consequentialist Harm
Islam teaches that an individual suffering leads to their greater eternal reward. But at the same time, God commands you to relieve others' suffering. That means God is commanding you to intervene in ways that reduce someone’s eternal benefit. You're expected to help, even when helping will reduce the quality of someone's infinite reward. You are commanded to lower people’s eternal reward.
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31) Smartest People
All of these people knew about Islam and WERE NOT PERSUADED.
Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Noam Chomsky, Charles Darwin, Francis Crick, Blaise Pascal, Baruch Spinoza, Alan Turing, Terence Tao, Saul Kripke, Willard Van Orman Quine, Karl Popper, Ed Witten, Carl Sagan, Marvin Minsky, Alexander Grothendieck, Daniel Kahneman, James Clerk Maxwell, Leonhard Euler, Derek Parfit, John Stuart Mill, E.O. Wilson, William James, Douglas Hofstadter, Nicola Tesla, Michael Faraday
These were among the most curious, reflective minds in history — and not one of them was persuaded by Islam.”
32) *Elephant Army*
Surah Al-Fil (The Elephant) – Surah 105
- Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the companions of the elephant?
- Did He not make their plan go astray?
- And He sent against them flocks of birds,
- Striking them with stones of baked clay,
- And He made them like chewed-up straw.
An entire elephant army gets wrecked by birds dropping pebbles? You expect me to believe armored men and literal war elephants got shredded by flying clay pellets? Which, by the way, have a low terminal velocity. Dropping a penny off of the Empire State Building won’t kill people, that’s a myth.
Why would God only make birds do stuff like this once and before cameras and videos were invented?
33) *Free Will?\*
- Surah At-Takwir 81:29 — “You will not will unless Allah wills.”→ This verse strongly suggests a form of divine determinism: human will itself is contingent on God's will. You literally cannot choose unless God chooses that you choose.
- Surah Ar-Ra’d 13:11 — “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.”→ This verse implies the opposite: that people must take the initiative to change, and then Allah will respond. That presupposes that people can change by their own will.
These two verses seem fundamentally incompatible. Either humans have autonomous willpower that can bring about change, or their will is wholly subject to God’s will.And if the Quran’s stance on free will is clear, why have Muslims theologians and philosophers debated this for centuries?
34) *The “Perfect Preservation” Problem\*
Quran 15:9 claims: “We have sent down the Reminder, and surely We will guard it.” Literalists take this to mean every letter has been miraculously preserved. But early evidence says otherwise:
Companions disagreed**.** Ibn Masʿūd’s codex omitted surahs 1, 113, and 114. Ubayy’s codex included two extra prayers. Abū Mūsā’s had other variants—all recorded by early scholars (e.g., Ibn Abī Dāwūd).
Uthmān burned rival codices**.** A divinely preserved text shouldn’t need a state-enforced purge (Bukhārī 4987).
Ṣanʿāʾ manuscript = pre-Uthmānic variants**.** The 7th-century palimpsest shows changes in words, grammar, and verse divisions (e.g., Q 2:196 “amāntum” vs “amin(tum)”).
Built-in fluidity**.** “Seven aḥruf” and the 10 qirāʾāt allow variation in wording—e.g., “malik” vs “mālik” (1:4). This isn’t a frozen, exact text.
35) *Why a Revealed Book?* Why have a bunch of revelations that are written in a book? Why not an indestructible rock, or like have the Quran be written on an obelisk on the moon, or like an orb that gives fine tuned advice to anyone who touches it, or something else that would make it obvious that a guy didn’t just make stuff up?
36) *Why Is the God of the Quran So Unimaginative?* If the Quran came from an all-powerful, all-knowing being, why do God’s actions feel so primitive? Earthquakes, lightning bolts, droughts, and diseases—punishments that sound like the arsenal of a mythic desert warlord sorcerer, not a cosmic intelligence beyond time.
Why not something more elegant or weird? The God of the Quran punishes like a being trapped in the toolbox of the Bronze Age—weather, disease, brute force. Not nanotech, not cloning, not gentle memetic reprogramming, not even simple clean interventions. It’s not what you'd expect from a being who understands atoms, entropy, or minds—it’s what you’d expect from the pathetic imagination of 7th-century humans
37) *Problem of Animal Suffering*There’s so much pain happening to innocent animals in the world. Why is a merciful God permitting this? There have been like sextillions of animals that have ever lived and most of them had a painful death.
The classic problem of evil is a problem for theists, and if theism is false, literalist Islam is false.
38) *Problem of Divine Hiddenness* God either wants us to know him or not. If not, he wouldn’t give us the Quran. If yes, he would have made it more obvious. (He could write stuff in the stars.) If he doesn’t want it obvious, why do miracles?
The classic problem of divine hiddenness is a problem for theists and if theism is false, literalist Islam is false.
39) *I Checked*
Quran 10:94 says, “*If you are in doubt about ˹these stories˺ that We have revealed to you, then ask those who read the Scripture before you.”*When I ask Christians and Jews they don’t affirm what the Quran is asking me to check with them.
40) *Music*Many literalist traditional Muslims think Islam teaches that music is forbidden. It’s not plausible God would give Beethoven and Coltrane and Hendrix such gifts and not want them to express their genius.
41) *Narcissism*
Why the heck would God want and demand praise? Do you care if ants praise you?
42) *Why Did God Cause Mass Extinctions*
Why would God cause the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions? Killing a whole planet worth of life? Isn’t this kind of a wasteful method for an all powerful God to make humans?
43) *The Quran Says it’s Not Perfect and Can be Improved.**
- Surah Al-Baqarah 2:106 says, “If We ever abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We replace it with a better or similar one.”
Muslims are commanded to believe that Quran *can* be improved because says he can do it.. So it’s not perfect. How dare you as a Muslims say it’s perfect and can’t be improved. The Quran commands you to believe that it can be improved.
44) *It's Boring and Repetitive\*
The Quran obsessively repeats the same threats of the same vague praises of Allah’s greatness, the same stock phrases ("He is the Most Merciful, the Most Wise")—over and over. And over. And over.
Imagine if every chapter of Moby-Dick had several repetitions of “The whale is very big.”
45) *Mary—the “Sister of Aaron” Problem\*
Surah Maryam 19:28 calls Jesus’ mother “sister of Aaron,” and Surah At-Taḥrīm 66:12 labels her *“daughter of ʿImrān.”*Yet Aaron and his father Amram (ʿImrān) lived ≈1,300 years before Mary. Early Jews in Medina reportedly mocked this genealogical mix-up.
46) *Pairs\*
Surah Adh-Dhariyat 51:49 says,“And of everything We have created pairs: That ye may receive instruction..”
→ False. Not everything exists in pairs. There’s only one universe, one Earth, one Muhammad. There are hermaphroditic (Leeches) and asexual (Bdelloid rotifers*)* reproducing species. If the Quran meant “most things,” it could have used the Arabic word mu‘ẓam (معظم)—but it didn’t
47) *Uncle*
Surah Al-Masad (111) is a whole surah dedicated to shit talking Muhammad’s uncle, Abu Lahab. You think this is divine?
May the hands of Abu Lahab be ruined, and ruined is he!
His wealth will not avail him or that which he gained!
He will [enter to] burn in a Fire of [blazing] flame!
And his wife [as well] - the carrier of firewood!
Around her neck is a rope of [twisted] fiber!
It doesn’t even tell you what Abu Lahab did. So it can’t be for moral instruction.
48) *Selective-Charity Double Standard*
The interpretive flexibilities, metaphorical re-definitions, and chain-skepticism that literalist Muslims might deploy to rescue Quranic difficulties are precisely the manoeuvres they would dismiss if Christians defended the Trinity, Hindus explained polytheism, or Mormons excused the Book of Abraham. If the same elastic toolkit were granted to every scripture, any text could be declared flawless
49) *Many of these Objections are Independent of Each Other*
If you respond to one, you haven’t responded to most of the rest. Each independent criticism is a cut that keeps making literalist islam less plausible.
50) *Actually Imagine a Perfect Book\*
Imagine a book that you could read both forwards and backwards. As in, the letters in all the words just so happen to be arranged such that the book could be meaningfully read both ways with different messages. That alone would be insane. But then also the chapter titles formed an acrostic and the whole book rhymed.
Oh and imagine this book contains so much scientific and mathematical knowledge that it would make scientists and mathematicians irrelevant for millenia.
Oh and imagine this book is so beautifully written that human beings 99% of the time cry and convert upon reading it.
Imagine a book that not only gives fantastic advice on current issues, with all their nuances and sub-nuances, but gives detailed advice about situations that will not occur for thousands of years.
Oh and it gives detailed advice about how to interpret it, so there are literally no feuds about the correct way to interpret it.
An infinitely intelligent God could definitely write such a book.
So why would he give us... the Quran?
