Is meritocracy a myth?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is meritocracy a myth?". Your opponent's style: Ricky Gervais

Muhammads prophethood

I need you to be clearer here. Are you arguing that Muhammad's prophethood is real, or that it's a myth? Either way, I'm going to come at you from the opposite side. If you're saying he WAS a prophet, I'd say he was a brilliant political operator who built a military empire and stamped it with divine authority. Convenient, that. Every major religion founder claims divine revelation—Islam, Christianity, Buddhism. They can't all be right. Muhammad wrote no scripture himself, had scribes do it decades later. That's not exactly how you'd expect God to communicate, is it? So what's your actual position?

My argument:**Muhammad is considered the seal of the prophet, the final one indeed** 1. *Islam believes that their God is the same God of the previous prophets; David, Moses, Abraham, etc and believes in one core prophetic lines and transmissions with the final one being Muhammad.* 2. Granted that, we can see Muhammad is the final seal of the previous prophets from the same God, assuming his prophethood and the alignment of the messages from the previous prophets. These are called the “continuity” [verifiable alignment of true prophethood across revelations] and its aspect of a prophethood of a prophet in which is EXTREMELY crucial for one to be a true/consistent prophet especially being the final one and its measured in these 3 main categories: A) Identity: Through the prophets it must be quite evident that it's the SAME GOD revealing revelations and messages through the prophets, consistently. If this is not really demonstrated by the prophets, it is hard to verify if they are really the continuity of the previous ones, in alignment of the message from the same God. B) Message: Consistently, progressively reveals the same consistent core message of God [in what God does, will, and had done]. C) Prophetic traditions: The later prophets are to be foretold or at least clearly recognizeable. The prophet is confirmed in the previous scriptures or revelations. 3. Even for prophetic messages and revelations, Muhammad doesn’t fit into criterion validly. As the previous revelations and messages and prophecies stated in the Old Testament [Isaiah, Psalms, etc] that are revelations [revealed messages] from God, centers around the salvific message/plan of the ultimate Messiah coming to die for mankind and resurrect— redeeming the mankind from sin, iniquity, and transgressions. It is also hinted on how he would be killed [be **pierced to death** source: Isaiah 53:5]. This was the core prophetic revelation that the prophets throughout the OT had communicated and expressed to the nations. It was finally fulfilled by Christ Jesus, who died by crucifixion and resurrected 3 days after. However, the Quran clearly denies this event as the Quran says Christ was neither killed nor crucified, nor that even Christ ever died on Earth. These types of claims are contradictory to the previous ones, and don't correlate with the salvific plan God revealed from the OT. This raises a serious question regarding if Quran is really from the same God of the previous scriptures and also that Muhammad obviously believed in the Quran and preached such messages grounded in Quran, it is evidential that these are contradictory to the previous revelations. 4. However for Muhammad, it is told that in the Quran, he is prophesied and mentioned in the previous scriptures of Torah/Gospel/Other previous revelations from God [Isaiah, Psalms, etc] according to **Surah 61:6—“And [mention] when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, ‘O Children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad.’”** And **Surah 7:154–“And We wrote for him [Moses] on the tablets [the Torah] guidance for all things and explanation for all things, saying: Take them with determination and enjoin your people to take the best of them. I will show you the home of the defiantly disobedient.”** 5. However the problem is that when we actually take a look at the Torah/Gospel the scriptures of what the People of Book had and even today, there is no mention of a prophet named Ahmed that will come after Jesus, nor that there is that same mention of Ahmed in the Torah. 6. Muslims usually resort to saying, “it's a different book/ or that its partially corrupt!” But even granted that logic, how are we supposed to verify the continuity and the validity of Muhammad's prophethood with a distorted scriptures? Muslims can also say “no only original revelations are true, not the ones today or during Muhammads time” But even granted THIS, it's even more crucial during Muhammads time to verify his continuity and the validity of his prophethood, but if the scriptures were distorted already, how are we to verify it? That means Muhammad is a unverified false prophet who is not in alignment with the previous ones. 7. Then if it's granted that the previous scriptures aren't corrupted, then Muhammad is also a false unverified prophet because the previous scriptures say nothing about Ahmed that will come after the previous prophets. Instead, Jesus says in Matthew 24:23-25: 23 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time. This here directly disqualifies Muhammad being the prophet, let alone being the final prophet at all. The syllogism for this argument: P1. Muhammad is a final prophet for mankind. P2. He is confirmed in the previous scriptures according to the Quran. P3. Continuity is a main aspect for validating one's true prophethood. P4. The confirmation of Muhammad's continuity isn't found in the previous scriptures. P5. If the previous scriptures are corrupted, one also can't distinguish, let alone verify Muhammad's true prophethood from the scriptures. C: Muhammad is not a verified true prophet like as he's stated in the Quran. His continuity is either not verifiable (P5) or the previous scriptures and prophets don't confirm his prophethood at all (P4). Countering Muslim counters: “But Muhammad is prophesied in Deut 18:18!” No, it is talking about an Israeli servant and Muhammad was clearly not a Jew. And the Quran says it is “clearly” written in the previous scriptures, and from the way it's accounted in Deuteronomy, it seems ambiguous. “No, Jesus said many things that are not accounted for in the scriptures!” This is simply begging the question, 100% purely faith based. As an epistemological dilemma, this is not a sufficient counter to claim, just because John said “not everything is written down”, doesn’t equate that Christ said Ahmed will come after him. Prophetic foretelling is crucial and significant and it's really impossible that Christ said it and it wasn’t recorded seems really weak. “No continuity just means moral laws+monotheism strictly!” Then anyone can just claim prophethood as we had countless individuals who claimed such titles in the course of history. If that's the ultimate criterion of prophethood, anyone who says they believe in one God and give convincing and valid moral laws and teachings can be a prophet.

You're building your whole case on a false premise: that Islamic prophethood needs Christian validation. It doesn't. You're essentially saying "Muhammad can't be a prophet unless Jesus vouched for him in a book Muslims don't accept as authoritative." That's circular reasoning. Here's the thing: Islam explicitly rejects the crucifixion because it rejects the theological framework you're using. Muslims don't need continuity with Christian doctrine—they're claiming a different revelation entirely. You're measuring Islam by Christian standards, then acting shocked it doesn't match. That's not logic, that's just bias. Why should Muhammad be confirmed in *your* scriptures to be valid in *his*?