Blind faith among Muslims and Christians

I once taught a Muslim high school student who was one of the brightest in the class. But the subject of the dinosaurs came up one day, and he flat out told me he didn't believe in them. Upon further questioning he said that he did, however, believe that giant humans roamed the earth several thousand years ago because the Koran says so. (Some Christians believe the Bible also has such references, as in Genesis 6:4).

When I pointed out that there's no evidence for the belief that giants roamed the earth, but there's a ton of evidence for the dinosaurs, he replied that it doesn't matter - the Koran cannot be wrong.

This was certainly not the first time I'd been exposed to this kind of mindless blind faith in a supposedly holy book. It reminded me very much of a lot of Christians in my home country, the United States.

Bible contradictions: A fundamentalist preacher reacts

Many years ago when I was a Christian, a friend of mine showed me an apparent contradiction in the Bible that a non-Christian friend of his had pointed out. I looked at the passages and it certainly appeared to be an obvious contradiction. 

The two passages are from Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9. These passages deal with the story of the sudden conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Christianity on the road to Damascus, who would later be called the apostle Paul. Saul had been persecuting Christians, and was headed to Damascus to do the same. Here's the passage from Acts chapter 9 (King James Version):