I refer to Thinesh Raj's Apostasy not an issue for civilised society who attempted to reply to my original letter on the issue of apostasy from Islam.
The writer claims that '... in the age of reason, and after a century as chaotic and shattering as the 20th century, can we still believe anything we read or learn to be perfect?' His mistake is that he assumes that the Qur'an is a document written by human hands.
On the contrary, the Qur'an is a Direct Revelation from Almighty God and has been preserved in its original form since it was revealed 1,400 years ago. With the exception of individuals influenced by Western values and form part of the Islam Liberal movement, no Muslim would ever dispute this.
The writer is invited to examine the Holy Qur'an for himself and see as to whether he can find any contradiction within it.
I would like to also answer the writer as to why humans need this Revelation as a guide to life rather than to solely rely on reasoning. Human beings are intelligent but the history of human thought and scientific theory is littered with abandoned theories and mistaken ideas.
Some people rely on their subjective experience (such as in 'transcendental meditation', for example). Such experiences cannot, however, be objectively verified and have no authority.
It is hence only with the aid of revelation ascertained that we have reliable knowledge of the unknown ('ghayb'), the truth about the Creator/Ultimate Cause, of ultimate questions (about the purpose of creation, about the Hereafter and so on) and of eternal or absolute moral values and standards of right and wrong, of reality and absolute truths.
Revelation, moreover, provides humanity with a common source of values and thereby enhances their unity, mutual cooperation and peaceful co-existence.
The writer claims that religion '... is never seen as more than a strong, but unreliable way of knowing the truth, unlike more reliable ways such as empiricism or logic. God gave us faculties that we may use them to know the truth'.
This assertion is logically problematic as one may ask whether that assertion is itself an absolute truth? If there were no absolute truths, how could we accept any conclusion from an accountant, physicist, geographer, mathematician, computer programmer, etc?
What type of social or legal order would we have if all truths were relative, and nothing is really wrong or right? When is the fact that 'justice is right', a relative truth? When is it a 'relative truth' to say that raping a young child (or anyone for that matter) is a wrong thing to do? Or that such issues should be debatable?
'Secular values' are an oxymoron. That is why only the uninitiated would make errors such as to assert that '... the right to change one's faith is a basic human right not to be hijacked by any system of belief yearning to keep its power over the masses'.
Muslims obey the Almighty God, and that is our Guide. He instructed His will through the Messenger of God, Muhammad (PBUH) and we hear and obey him too. This is a quality of a Muslim.
We certainly do not follow the whims and fancies of a few who call themselves 'Muslims' but have a garbled immorality of 'secularist values' in total contradiction to the Islamic worldview.
Only God knows best.
