My charge that Luther was flagrantly psychotic when he wrote [The Bondage of the Will] is a clinical one. Luther makes a number of seriosuly[sic] disturbed remarks in this book. Among them, he actually says that the human mind is like a horse with an empty saddle and that either God or the Devil rides in it. This is clearly not the perception of a normal human mind. When I studied psychiatry in med school the professor told us "There are only 2 kinds of people who deny free will: psychotics and Calvinists." In my experience, there is only ONE kind of person. [source]

I feel badly today for those Islamic apologists I know who truly believe that Islam is true. I am not talking about the men like Nadir Ahmed, but the serious minded men I have met who really believe Islam is the religion of Allah. I would name some right now, but I do not want to get them in trouble. I feel badly for them today because I can see so clearly that the Super Star of Islamic apologists, the "Doctor of Dawah," Zakir Naik, is not one of them. Instead, Naik, whose simplistic arguments, borrowed almost verbatim from the late Ahmed Deedat, are fired off at high speed, has been shown to be fundamentally ignorant of many of the subjects upon which he opines with regularity. Please note the refutation of his recent appearance on The Deen Show here. The man is nowhere near the best Islam has to offer if you measure such things in reference to the truth and consistency. However, he is one of the most popular speakers in Islam, mainly because the average Muslim simply wants to hear reasons not to believe in Christianity, whether those reasons are truthful or not. This is a sad commentary.

We have contacted Dr. Naik's representatives, seeking to arrange a scholarly debate with him. He has debated a number of Christians with far less experience in debating Islam than I. They responded by asking for evidence that I could gather 10,000 people. I replied by providing evidence of my publications, debates, and again pointed to the issue that should be front and center to any truth-loving individual: the fact that I have demonstrated fundamental errors on Naik's part. I received my reply today, and for all those Muslims that would love to see Zakir Naik defend himself against the documentation of errors we have provided, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. I provide the entirety of the e-mail:

Started off with some of the very interesting comments made on the Catholic Answers Forums, and then moved to the specifics on the Staples debate, including reading the full context of both of the "Protestant" citations Staples offered. Looked at the broader issues of purgatory, and then moved on to some comments made by Dr. Brown on the issue of Calvinism. Went about nine minutes long, but got to everything I wanted to get to. Here's the program.

Don't forget, there will not be a DL on Thursday, as I will be flying to Georgia at that time.

Where have the Protestant Pundits gone? It seems that the Protestnat [sic] Pundits just kind of drop in to give a few insults and then run away newver [sic] staying to engage in any frank discussion. Very typical. I hae [sic] made a number of charges about Protestantism that the pundits refuse to refute.

I got an e-mail from a Protestnat punpit [sic] who shal [sic] remain namelss [sic] but whose initials are Jimmy Swan. He was all cut up about being banned from this board. Golly! I wrote back to him that this is only done to the REALLY nasty people. I wonder if he got the hint? For those who do not know this fellow, he thinks that Catholics should ignore the general historical consensus that Luther was mentally disturbed and instead accept the position of Fr. Josef Lortz, a german priest in the 1930s who was a CARD CARRYING NAZI and who (among other things) wrote an extended defense of Hitler's book Mein Kampf in contradiction to the position taken by the German hierarchy. Luther was a great hero to the Nazis for a variety of reasons including his rejection of 'decandent'[sic] Rome for 'modern' German values and his snti-Semitism [sic].

Art, we've been through this so many times now, I don't know how else to say it. Please drop the invective and ad hominem and just make your case, critique the other guy's, and move forward with the conversation. All the egregious stuff is just plain unedifying and it has no power to persuade, only provoke.