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May 22 - August 22, 2025
it is safe to say that guilt is less of a determining factor in the East than is shame.
second-generation Muslim Westerners,
When engaged in something less than socia...
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will be tempted to hide it and will begin to struggle with internal guilt. The natural Eastern tendency to hide shameful truths exacerbat...
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Some believe that cultural differences between East and West do not exist, that people all see the world the same way. Others consider the Eastern and Western paradigms as a curiosity to consider. But for me, and for others like me, the schism between East and West shapes the very course of our lives. Because of it, I had no friends in my early childhood, and because of it, I was launched into adulthood alone once more.
I started college a few months later, in August of 2001, looking forward to the prospect of reinventing myself and finding new friends. But just three weeks into college, a new crisis hit, and this one affected our entire nation. The world would never be the same again.
ten thirty
According to my research the 1st tower collapsed at 10:07
Another reference says the 1st tower collapsed at 9:58
“The second tower just came down.”
1 reference says the second tower came down at 10:28, And the 1st tower came down at 9:58
it became clear that the hijackers were indeed Muslim and that this attack on our nation had been carried out in the name of Islam. But what Islam was this? It was clearly not the Islam I knew.
True, I used to hear of Muslims in distant lands committing atrocities in the name of Allah, but those accounts were too remote to create any cognitive dissonance. This hit much closer to home. This hit us in our hearts.
It finally became too much. I had to learn the truth about my faith once and for all. I had to figure out how to reconcile my Islam, a religion of peace, with the Islam on television, a religion of terror.
Islam can be a religion of peace or a religion of terror, depending on how it is taught.
In the West, Muslims are generally taught a very pacific version of Islam.
When asked about their religion, Western Muslims honestly report what they believe: Islam is a religion of peace.
In the East, though, Muslims often have a less docile view of Islam.
When asked about their religion, these Muslims will honestly report what they believe: Islam will dominate the world.
The earliest historical records show that Muhammad launched offensive military campaigns31 and used violence at times to accomplish his purposes.32
the more violent variations of Islam are deeply rooted in orthodoxy and history.34
Rarely is there much critical investigation into historical events,
In my heart of hearts, I wanted to know the truth about Islam, but it would be nearly impossible to challenge my childhood beliefs just by investigating them.
I needed a friend, an intelligent, uncompromising, non-Muslim friend who would be willing to challenge me.
Little did I know, God had already introduced us, and I was already on a path that would change my life forever.
street preachers:
didn’t seem to care about me.
Unfortunately, I have found that many Christians think of evangelism the same way, foisting Christian beliefs on strangers in chance encounters. The problem with this approach is that the gospel requires a radical life change, and not many people are about to listen to strangers telling them to change the way they live. What do they know about others’ lives?
On the other hand, if a true friend shares the exact same message with heartfelt sincerity, speaking to specific circumstances and struggles, then the message is heard loud and clear.
Effective evangelism requires relationships. There are ve...
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The first forensics tournament of the year was upon us.
I’m David Wood.”
I'm wondering if This is the same David Wood who was on the video with Melissa Dougherty.
See note at the end of the chapter
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakEcY7Z5GU.
David also decided against joining them, which intrigued me. I wondered what made him different from the rest of the team and more like me. I did not have to wait long to find out. While I was unpacking, David sat down in an armchair in the corner of the room and kicked up his feet. He pulled out his Bible and started reading.
It’s difficult to express just how flabbergasted I was by this. Never in my life had I seen anyone read a Bible in his free time. In fact, I had not even heard of this happening. True, I knew Christians revered the Bible, but I figured they all knew in their hearts that it had been changed over time and that there was no point in reading it.
in the same moment I found out David was a Christian, I also concluded that he mu...
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‘textual criticism.’
kept thinking about our conversation. I was still fully convinced that the Bible was corrupt, but I had to deal with more advanced arguments than I had previously heard. I was excited to return home and dive more deeply into these matters.
Because of our friendly competition, David and I always had the highest grades in the class.
there were notes of evolutionary theory in the arguments I used against the Bible.
I would come to argue an evolutionary model for the gospels, that the earliest gospel, Mark, had a much more human view of Jesus than the later gospels, and that Jesus’ divinity in the gospels gradually evolved.
David and I were focused on the first point, the textual integrity of the Bible, specifically the New Testament.
The New Testament is what really offends Muslim beliefs, so this is what we discussed.
we still have two full New Testaments from the early fourth century.36
“The words do matter, but they matter because they constitute a message. The message is paramount. That’s why the Bible can be translated. If the inspiration were tied to words themselves as opposed to their message, then we could never translate the Bible, and if we could never translate it, how could it be a book for all people?”
“What if there are other parts like those three that we just haven’t found yet?” “That’s conjecture again, Nabeel. ‘What if’ does not constitute much of an argument. What’s the claim? Where’s the evidence? If there are no specifics, there’s no argument.”
“When the books of the New Testament were written, they proliferated quickly.
No one had control over Christendom until hundreds of years after Christ. We have dozens of manuscripts from before that time, and they are the same as today’s Bibles.
David hadn’t changed my mind because I knew in my very core that the Bible had been altered. Yet, for some reason, I couldn’t figure out how. I began researching the matter in earnest.
I decided to try a different approach: denying that the Bible was ever trustworthy in the first place.
Doesn’t the Quran say the Injil is the word of Allah?”
“I’m not convinced the Quran was talking about the gospels in the New Testament. Maybe it was referring to another book given to Jesus, one that we don’t have anymore.” I was proposing a view that I had heard espoused by Muslim debaters.
‘What if’ is not much of an argument if there is no evidence. Second, you know the Quran tells Christians to ‘judge by the Injil.’39 That means they still had it in Muhammad’s day. The Injil is not a lost scripture.”
