Answering an Australian (or Spanish I'm not sure) Atheist

It's a bit of a long one, but it's not that heavy. Almost all aspects of Christian apologetics is touched on.

Atheist Clichés That Need To Stop Being Said

If any of these are things you have ever said or thought, please leave your brains at your nearest upgrade facility. They are overdue for an update...

1. Atheism is the lack of belief in mythical deities.

2. I don't have any beliefs.

3. I don't have any faith.

4. There is no evidence for the existence of God.

Bob Dylan - Gotta Serve Somebody

Are there Contradictions in the Gospels?

I go up to a group of guys and tell them I have a new car. I tell them it has four wheels, five doors, and five seats. I don't show it to them, I just tell them these three things.

They each go off and write about my car.

First guy says the car has four wheels, five seats, an engine, and two cupholders.

Second guy says the car has four wheels, five doors, it's green, and has windscreen wipers.

Third guy says it has four wheels, five seats, one cupholder, and it's red.

What does this tell us?
All three guys say it has four wheels. Let's believe that.
Two guys say it has five seats. The second guy doesn't mention seats at all. No contradiction there, so let's trust it.
The second guy is the only one to repeat that it has five doors. Five doors is very consistent with five seats. Might as well trust that. No reason to not believe it.
First guy says it has an engine. He's the only one that mentioned it. But it's a car. It goes without saying that it has an engine. Let's believe that.
Same with the second guy and his windscreen wipers. Most cars have them, so yeah why not?
Now it gets tricky. First guy says two cupholders, third guy says one. If the first guy is right, the second guy is sort of right. There is one cupholder, but there's also another one. So it's a little bit up in the air. We can believe that there was some amount of cupholders but can't agree exactly how many. Either way, if there aren't any cupholders, there could still be a car. A car doesn't need cupholders to be a car. It's an added unnecessary extra.
Finally, the second guy says green, the third guy says red. Well that's a contradiction. Our only information about the colour are these two sources. They don't agree. Can you get a greenish red? Maybe it's that. Or again, like with the cupholders, the colour doesn't affect it being a car. A car can be any colour. I didn't mention any colour to them anyway.

We know that there are wheels, doors, seats, and an engine and that's all we need to know there is a car. The other stuff might be a bit messy, but we get the main message.

Why I Think Islam Is A False Religion

Usually I'm pretty generous when it comes to other faiths. I quite like the analogy of different faiths being compared to blind people feeling an elephant. Each blind man has a different part of the elephant in their hands. One has the trunk and says the elephant is like a snake, another has a leg and says the elephant is like a tree, a third has the ear and says the elephant is like a skin pancake. Each one has a bit of the truth, but no one has the whole picture. You have to put them all together to get the complete elephant.

It's not the best analogy but it serves a purpose. When it comes to a lot of faiths, I think it's kind of like that. They know bits and have some information missing.

I prefer to think of it like a jigsaw puzzle. It might be that different faiths have a different number of pieces to work with. Obviously I think Christianity has the most pieces (not all of them by any means), which would mean Jews and Muslims are missing a couple that Christians have, while Hindus and Sikhs have maybe even less.

As long as we're all building the same picture, then there's no problem. We're all looking for the same truth and each have some amount of it.

Trouble is, I think Islam might be building a different picture. And I'll sum up a few reasons here.
Before I get going, I want to make it clear that I don't think this means all Muslims are stupid, evil, or bad in any way. And I'm not touching the subject of whether or not Islam is a religion of peace or war. I'm just putting out there some issues with the faith.
Maybe Muslims have good explanations to put me straight, but so far I haven't heard them.

Contradicting The Bible

Yeah. This first problem comes from being a Christian so it's meaningless to anyone who isn't one.
Basically, the centre point of Christianity is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus: the man who was God. Islam teaches that neither of these things happened and that Jesus was a prophet, not a part of a Godhead.