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.

1) *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.

2) *Scientific errors*

The Quran says stars are lamps for pelting devils (Surah Al-Mulk 67:5), that babies
come from a fluid between the backbone and ribs (Surah At-Tariq 86:6–7), that the
Earth can talk (Surah Fussilat 41:11), that ants can talk (Surah An-Naml 27:18-1), and
that mountains are like pegs to stabilize the Earth (Surah An-Naba 78:6–7).

As an aside, reliable Hadiths say things like dates (the fruit) protect you from magic or
poison (Sahih al-Bukhari 5445), and that if a fly lands in your drink, you should double
dip it because there is poison is on one wing and antidote is on the other. (Sahih
al-Bukhari 3320).

These are clearly the views of an uneducated pre-scientific person.

3) *There's literal contradictions*

Which was made first, the Earth or the Heavens?

- Earth first: (Surah Fussilat 41:9–12) — Earth created, then mountains, then heavens.

- Heavens first: (Surah An-Nazi’at 79:27–30) — Heavens built, then Earth spread.

Both can't be true simultaneously.

Is Hell Forever?

Surah Ghafir (40:40) – Evil gets paid back with equivalent evil:

“Whoever does an evil deed will not be recompensed except with the like
thereof...”

But elsewhere: eternal Hellfire.

“They will dwell therein forever.”​

— 2:39, 2:81, 2:217, 3:88, 72:23, etc.​
→ Eternal punishment for finite actions. No release. No proportionality.
4) *Morally problematic teachings*

The Quran permits wife-beating (Surah An-Nisa 4:34), sex with slaves (Surah
Al-Mu’minun 23:5; Surah An-Nisa 4:24), and cutting off the hands of thieves (Surah
Al-Ma’idah 5:38). And it justifies killing a boy who will sin in the future. (Surah Al-Kahf
18:80)

And the hadiths have even worse stuff.

5) *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).

6) *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 it’s
metaphorical or literal. It would have been trivial to clear up such ambiguities. How
can a literally perfect book not be clear?

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.

7) *Pettiness*

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?

8 ) *Abrogation*

Later verses cancel earlier ones. Why would God not plan out his verses better so that
you didn't need a principle of abrogation?

(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?)

​
Examples of claimed abrogations:

https://chatgpt.com/share/68126c73-039c-8006-a2b5-40e3fea0ff4d

9) *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?

10) *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.
11) *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.

●​ 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

Larger chatgpt explanation:

https://chatgpt.com/share/68126908-4750-8006-9682-e5548df28ec3​

12) *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?

13) *Fitna*

There was a civil war immediately after Muhammad’s death. 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.

14) *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.)

15) *Don't be gullible*

You shouldn't believe a guy who tells you that God said he's allowed to have more
wives than you.

16) *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)1

Isn't this kind of childish?​

​
17) *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-Zumar 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 quintillion years? And this is merciful?

18) *Djinn*

1
The Quran also says in that same verse, don’t marry Muhammad’s wives
after he dies. Also, this kind of self serving.
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?

19) *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. Your enemy is 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

20) *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?

21) *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," "We," 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?

22) *Many verses in the Quran strongly suggest a flat or spread-out Earth*

●​ "spread out" (‫ — ) َم َّد‬e.g., Surah Al-Ghashiyah 88:20: "And the earth – how it is
spread out?"
●​ "laid out as a bed" (‫ — ) ِم َهاد‬e.g., Surah An-Naba 78:6: "Have We not made the
earth a bed?"
●​ "leveled" and "flattened" (‫ — )دَ َحاها‬e.g., Surah An-Nazi'at 79:30: "And the
earth—after that He spread 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.

23) *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. This doesn't prove Islam is false, but
suggests more epistemic humility is warranted.

24) *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?

25) *The scribe who caught Muhammad copying him*

One of Muhammad’s scribes, ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd, left Islam after realizing Muhammad
repeated his phrasing as revelation (Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah; al-Tabari, Tarikh
al-Rusul wa al-Muluk).

He 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 phrasing.