Monday, October 11, 2010

The movie, The Prophecy, and Islam.

For those who never saw it (like myself) the movie the Prophecy is a religiously filled adventure sort of movie where the Angel Gabriel launched a second rebellion of heaven and started a supernatural war. Much like an extension of the Book of Enoch (which isn't in the Bible but is where the rebellion of Heaven comes from) in that the angel Gabriel becomes a free agent, in a rebellion against God.

Interestingly, if one holds this as plausible theology (a huge stretch from the ground floor, but not for religion in general) it offers a rather novel criticism of Islam. If Gabriel rebelled against God, then the cornerstone of Islam could be entirely true and the result of absolutely no bad faith by any Muslim, and yet an evil religious anti-god mockery. The central story of Islam is that the Koran is the direct, unaltered work of God, as dictated by God through the angel Gabriel. Well, if the angel Gabriel was a free agent and didn't really speak for God, then he could have just invented the Muslim faith for shits and giggles, and claimed to speak for God. Likewise couldn't the Christians just claim that all Muhammad really knew was that he was talking to an angel who claimed to be Gabriel who claimed to speak for God. There's certainly a rather ready theological foundational attack against Islam by actually claiming it was invented by the Devil and mean it quite honestly. After all, how does one verify that the angel you are talking to is really who he claims he is and is speaking for who he claims to be speaking for? Since all of Islam is predicated on this claim, can't you undermine it by noting that the angel could have been lying. Then you'd establish that all of Islam and by extension all Muslims and Muhammad himself could all be perfectly good people and simply lead astray by the Prince of Lies. Since the story at the core of the Koran demands that the Koran isn't a first hand account of God but rather a third hand account, you could claim that Islam is false but all believers are simply mislead.

Yeah, I understand that the above is blasphemy and by the Hadith the clear punishment is my death. But, is it a justifiable thing because the entire belief is predicated on whether or not a particular angel was telling the truth, and there's plenty of pre-Islamic angelology which say that some angels are less than truthful. One could perhaps say that if the Koran was dictated by God that such concerns would be moot and God doesn't lie yadda yadda, but the interjection of an Angel messenger adds a rather amusing variable to be attacked epistemologically, how do you know that the angel was really Gabriel, and that he was really talking for God?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

How do you know it was Gabriel you ask.
The same applies to you. How do you know you are you and not a brainwashed person believing he is someone else ?
Philosophy; Sheez what a waste of time when 90% is pondering the imponderable with circular arguments and only the remaining 10% gets things done.