Monday, November 27, 2006

Jesus v Allah

One of the few objective ways we have of measuring the truthfulness of the world's religions is the performance of batsmen before and after a religious conversion. The only two examples I know of in world cricket still playing today are Mohammad Yousuf and Justin Langer. Yousuf's conversion from Christianty to Islam (after which he changed his name from Yousuf Youhana) last year received much press coverage. Langer's conversion from some sort of non-religion (I'm not sure what, precisely) to Christianity was much less noticed. I only learnt of it in Peter FitzSimons' Sydney Morning Herald column in early 2005. In an edition of Inside Cricket (which I haven't read) from around that time, Langer talked of how he got hooked on reading the Bible after coming back from Sri Lanka in 2002.

Justin Langer, as a heathen, played 54 Tests for Australia, scoring 3654 runs at 43.50, including 12 centuries (highest 223) and 16 half-centuries. As a Christian, he has played 47 Tests, scored 3921 runs at 49.01, with 11 centuries (highest 250) and 12 half-centuries.

Christian Yousuf Youhana played 59 Tests for Pakistan, scoring 4272 runs at 47.46, including 13 centuries (highest 204*) and 22 half-centuries. Muslim Mohammad Yousuf has played 13 Tests, scored 1904 runs at 90.66, with 8 centuries (highest 223) and 4 half-centuries.

From these figures, we can conclude that Jesus has given Langer an extra 12.7% (in terms of average), and improved his conversion rate of fifties to hundreds by 11.6%.

Allah has given Yousuf an extra 91.0% (in terms of average), and improved his conversion rate by 102%.

These results support the Qur'anic hypothesis, in which Jesus was merely a prophet, and Muhammad was the last messenger of God.

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