Come back to the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
Follow the path of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), the rightly guided khaleefahs who came after him, and the imams of the Muslims who led the people in following the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him.
Assalamu Alaykum Rehman, (Peace be upon you- and I will continue to send blessings upon you!)
I did not only mention Sunni and Ahl-e-Hadith, I also mentioned Shi'ites, Christians and Jews as well- I mentioned all of them; somehow someone read only those two and took them to construe that I am starting a sectarian discussion. However, as is clear from all my emails, I do not wish that, but I can only speak, I cannot make anyone believe.
These questions are not out of the blue, whenever you present Islam to a non-Muslim (which is of course our duty) these kind of questions will arise, and we are asked.
And then why should I present my religion to someone else if I do not know myself how it is correct. Just because I am born a Muslim does not qualify myself or Islam to be correct.
Like someone else said on this forum, should I ask a non-Muslim to wait for Allah to show him the right path? Then why, after all, did Allah ask me to present Islam to others?
The Jews at the time of Prophet (sws) also said that Muhammad (sws) was an imposter, and they also used their Books to prove that. However, as we all believe, Muhammad (sws) was the true prophet, but many Jewish scholars were unable to accept it because they had completely closed their eyes.
The Qur'an tells us that Allah asked the Holy Prophet (sws) to ask the non-Muslims to bring forward their evidences and if they managed to do so, the Prophet (sws) should accept them. However, if they were not willing to bring forth evidences to support their claims and were not prepared to accept the truth simply because they loved their own ideology for no rational reason, then they ought to be condemned for their attitude.
Qur'an says in this regard,
"Ask them: 'Bring a Book from Allah which is a better guide than these two (i.e. Taurat and Qur'an), I will follow it, if what you say be true!' So if they do not meet this demand, you should know that they only follow their own desires. And who is more misguided than the one who follows his own desires rather than the guidance from Allah?" (28:49-50)
The world is not as black and white as it seems and somehow Muslims are closed to ideas.
My humble request is that if you think this really is a waste of time and not worth your effort, you are more than welcome to not participate. It will be a loss for us for we will not have any feedback from you, but that should not be at the expense of your time.
And lastly, please do let me know how do I rationally (and philosophically) argue religion with a non-Muslim? Islam nowhere says that philosophy is not its domain, and Qur'an is called a Book of 'Hikmat' - wisdom. How can Muslims then lack it! I know Qur'an has it, and I know it provides philosophical as well as non-philosophical arguments for its addressees- it presented arguments to Jews, Christians as well as Idolators at the time of Muhammad (sws).
I hope this helps and explains my view.
Best wishes to you.