:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)
:)
To be clear: I wouldn't be embarrassed because they're male, but because they are fellow workers. If we have something we're supposed to be working on together, it's frustrating and embarrassing when people don't turn up on time.
:)
Yes. I think he's an awful debater and rather a horrible human being. He also believes Muhammad (pbuh) flew to heaven on a winged horse, and as you know that's the kind of thing that tends to make me question people's judgement.
Really - what debates have you been watching of his? And why would you think he's a horrible human being? I don't understand. Do you know something I don't know?
Well, as to the last comment, so, what I can surmise from this last comment is that if you were living in Elizabethan era, and a fellow man expressed to you that one day some human beings might travel to the moon, your comment to him would have been something like, “Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.” And yet if that exchange was recorded, we would discover that the person who was incorrect to have made the "brain" comment was the one who should have perhaps reserved review of his own.
Why do I say this? Because this event would have been part of the future in which you would had not lived to be able to say with any definite way that this definitely could not happen. Yet you would have denied it anyway without evidence because you had personally not seen it happen.
In that same way, Prophet Muhammad :saws:
(peace and blessings be upon him) traveling on a winged horse is part of the unseen reality to which we didn't bear witness, and yet you deny it based on no evidence except your own lack of witnessing. Wouldn't it be better if you said that you didn't know either way? Just because something "seems" impossible to you doesn't mean that it
is factually impossible.
I admit this is an Islamic belief and one to which I didn't bear witness but just because a person holds a specific belief does not mean that person's judgment is clouded or questionable for the following reasons which will become clear to you in a moment:
This might seem weird to say, but think: You are a product of your parents having copulated (yes, beyond
icky for us to think of parents copulating but here's to moving on), yet you didn't bear witness to your own conception. So, how do you know that you are in fact the son of your parents? Did you ask at any time your parents to present you your birth certificate for verification purposes as to knowing that you are their son? How do you know you are not adopted? Yet I imagine you accepting being born the son of your parents at face value. Yet what real evidence have you of this belief? What about any sibling of yours - even if you, for example, have been able to verify that you're the son of your parents, how can you say for a fact that any sibling of your is also your biological sibling? Have you seen the birth certificate? How do you know at least the sibling wasn't adopted?
I have listed my religion on IB as a Muslim and my gender as female. And yet, yet, I have already told you that I could be an obese tattooed Buddhist man eating another bag of chips even as I write this and you wouldn't know the difference. Yes, yes, *rolls eyes* I remember you made the comment about my garrulousness as proof of me being female ("very funny" to quote your own words), but really, I could just be the talkative man who pretends to be a female Muslim. Maybe I'm just a bored obese tattooed Buddhist man who's been funning you all this time. What's your real proof for the belief that I'm female and I'm a Muslim. Because I say so or my profile says so? That's no evidence. That's hogwash. Essentially, you "believe" something of me of which you can have no possible personal knowledge, no proof, no real idea.
Did you know in 2015 in Canada,
Nick Williams lifted off a very heavy four-wheel vehicle off of a boy trapped underneath? Science is still studying this phenomena of superhuman strength that can lead people to perform these types of feats. And yet an Internet newspaper that covered this story reported on the story afterward. Also, I think I can safely say you have personally neither interviewed nor examined or witnessed any part of this miraculous event. Yet if you had read this story in your news feed in 2015, you'd believe every word without actual evidence that any of what was reported was true. Just because an Internet newspaper reported it. How many stories then, do you know, in real life do you read in newspapers or media that you accept without personal verification because you trust the source?
Also, graduate student
David Markowitz searched the archives of PubMed, a database of life sciences journals, from 1973 to 2013 for retracted papers. They identified 253, primarily from biomedical journals, that were retracted for documented fraud due to falsified data. And yet when these papers were first published, you personally might have found no reason to suspect that these papers were in fact frauds. So, really, how many scientific findings and science data do you have full access to verify on a personal basis so that you can determine is true and accurate on more than belief? I imagine not many. So, again, you believe things that you cannot personally verify because you trust the source.
My IB friend, theists and atheists are not so different. You hold a great many beliefs of which you may have no personal avenue to verify except to take on trust, yet you fail to scrutinize these beliefs and do not question your own judgment. That's because you have learned to not think of them as "beliefs," yet by any dictionary's definition that's what they are: Beliefs. Therefore, if you're going to question people's judgment, perhaps you should first start with your own.
Yes. He also has the considerable advantage of being right.
In what world is he right? Yours, my IB friend? I live in the same world, and I see that he's not right. He fans anti-Muslim bigotry. I have personally read enough of his
The Spectator articles to recognize that. In his world, there are villains, and they are almost always Muslims and almost never non-Muslims. If this kind of tribal mindset had been found in a Muslim, you'd probably have had no qualms about calling that person perhaps an extremist, a radical, or an Islamist. However, because you find this mindset in a fellow educated man, in your eyes, he has the "considerable advantage of being right" because he's doing this on the subject of Islam, which by the way is nowadays such an easy target in the media and public sphere that his doing so is no longer even
avant-garde. Did I not tell you once that intelligence does not inoculate people against prejudice? He's a great debater, but that's where my praise ends for him.
Also, his opinions were considerably influenced by Ayan Hirsi Ali, a woman who is a vitriolic ex-Muslim. May I just ask if you've ever stopped to think in your life as to how many people in real life you know who have all and only good things to say about their exes? Exes are exes for a reason. Relationships and religion are not so dissimilar in that respect. Similarly, she left the religion because it did not suit her for whatever reasons; that doesn't mean that she's objectively right only about Islam. Nor is he.
Let me share a funny yet sad story: Do you know when I was 7-years old, my sister loved eating chicken? However, due to this, I'd notice that the chicken my mom cooked in our home would run out of chicken legs fairly quickly. So, realizing my sibling was eating some of the chicken legs contributing to this general lack, I informed her that chicken still had leftover blood and veins and opened the chicken I'd had on my plate then to show her how the juiciness could possibly be due to both. Well, I never lacked for chicken legs from then onward. Years later, I fessed up to having done that. The result: She still doesn't eat chicken.
I'd warped "chicken" for her, though of course there is nothing objectively wrong with cooked chicken; and I think if you've been listening to some persons who are prone to take Islamophobic stances, they'll have warped "Islam" for you too.
You're certainly intelligent; you just believe a number of things that aren't true.
I'm intelligent
Masha-Allah (as God-willed) and that's why I don't limit intelligence to that being which I can only experience with my five senses.
I should point out that there is an exception to my sweeping generalisation in that question: I have seen one Muslim debater on TV who didn't display stunning ignorance or malice. His name is Usama Hasan, and I remember being very impressed by an appearance he made on The Big Questions. I've found it; here it is. The contrast between his calm, informative approach and the much more typical shouting from two other Muslim guests is very noticeable. However, after watching this episode and mentioning Usama Hasan on the forum, I was told he is an innovator who deserves hell-fire. So there we go.
Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of being an American is that I am unfamiliar with most U.K. personalities. Therefore, I
wikied the man. And I still wasn't able to understand why an individual should think he deserves to be put in Hell-fire. I then went through Google searches and discovered that he works for the Quilliam Foundation. Perhaps that's why Muslims may have an unfavorable opinion of him.
For the record though, I should tell you that no person knows for a fact which human being actually "deserves" Hell-fire. For even all I know, you're the one destined for Paradise and I may not be so (God forbid that it happen that I not be so and
InshaAllah (God-willing) we're both destined for Paradise as hopefully you'll one day be a believer also as anything can happen), and only Allah judges and knows; I don't, you don't, nor does anyone else. Similarly, this man, whatever perceived faults he has, is one on whom only God can pass judgment and decide what he deserves; and know that any time human beings speak for God in this respect, they are just trying to cope with their frustration by making the person a target of their opinions of what he/she deserves when the fact is that even they don't know and will never know.
Let's hope it stays that way.
I'm sure I've said this before but one day I believe the world will be unified under a figure called Mahdi :as: (peace be upon him) who will have emerged to correct the injustices of the world and bring back mercy and hope wherein before there'd been hopelessness and despair reigning instead due to nuclear warfare having wiped entire nations. From what I understand, at that time, on earth, there won't be many people remaining on the earth. After
Dajjal (Anti-Christ) is destroyed with the Second Coming of Prophet Jesus
(peace be upon him), the rule at that time from God's Will will be Heavenly rule with Islam for all people, though no one has specifics as to the information. During that time, the secrets of the Qur'an will have been opened generally so that those people would be living in a Miraculous Age.
I'm sure this all sounds like some fantasy to you, but the reason I'm telling you this is because you implied that you didn't want the criminal penalties of statutory law of shariah to ever be applicable in U.K.; so, while I cannot say what type of
shariah (Islamic law) will exist in the world as you know that Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) was an Orthodox Jew whom God had favored to be born without a father but is identified as a Muslim in Islamic theology because he'd been one who'd submitted to God in his own Time and Mahdi :as: will be a Muslim from birth reigning as a ruler in the Miraculous Age, I do know that secularism at that time will not exist.
And regardless of whether you think this will happen or not, I hope you realize that all of us - purple, brown, white, black, yellow - in the end just want a government that is just and merciful and good and literally "for the people" accountable "to the people" and therefore the type of governance should not matter and only that it is "by the people."
I still don't understand why not. Sharia is a fundamental part of Islam; how can you seek to separate it out from the religion as a whole?
You have misunderstood. I do not parse or separate it as a whole from the religion. However, what I'm trying to tell you is the following:
Shariah (Islamic law) is only part positive statutory law comprising of penalties but mostly as a bulk comprises of meeting everyday needs of Muslims such as how to pray 5 daily prayers, how to marry or divorce, how to do business dealings, how to fast, how to raise children, etc. This means that while already Muslims practice
shariah (Islamic law) in Western countries in their everyday affairs, the part of the
shariah - criminal penalties - that scares non-Muslims and perhaps even you is not something which Muslims are needed to practice in Western countries as that's necessarily the domain of only a true unified and accepted Islamic State wherein the state and religion are the one and the same. Therefore, asking questions about criminal penalties within
shariah to Muslims panelists or hosts is an exercise in futility for the reasons that Muslims can only conjecture as to how criminal penalties will be exercised in a hypothetical Islamic State, Muslims are not looking to bring in those criminal penalties in Western countries, and a connection cannot be made between Muslims practicing
shariah and then subverting state's interests because the Muslim majority already do practice
shariah - fasting, praying, marrying, financial dealings - peacefully in Western countries even as citizens today.
Is this some sort of defence? Perhaps he will learn from this: if he doesn't want people questioning him for saying stupid or hateful things, maybe he should stop saying stupid or hateful things?
I think you and I will have to disagree on what's "hateful" and "stupid" then. For example, one of the other comments on which Peter said Hamza had made was about apostasy being punishable by death. As you may remember, you and I've already had debates about this topic. Already, you know, for example, in the U.S., treason and murder are punishable by death. I've already told you that I supported death penalty as an atheist by virtue of being an American, and, now, as a Muslim I still support capital punishment. I've already told you that I do not find vigilante justice or violence acceptable but that I find it completely within the domain and right of the state to execute a person that it considers has committed treason or murder. I've already told you that I do not and have never liked
Daesh. And I've already told you that a true Islamic State would not be anything like
Daesh or even a Khomeini's Iran; however, I've also told you that I do find that in a true Islamic State wherein religion and the state are the one and the same, it is expected that the state would execute any person who would be seen as a security threat because not doing so would undermine the state and national interests. I've also told you that given the requirements for execution to take place on such a person, the likelihood of that occurrence becomes virtually improbable. And I've also told you that a person who does not like this rule in a true Islamic State would also be free to escape the state's jurisdiction by living in self-imposed exile. If you think, for example, that capital punishment is wrong (as I know you do), then you should also then feel free first to start with asking U.S. to remove that penalty altogether. However, you should know that despite international pressure and human rights organizations' pressure, U.S. has maintained the death penalty and shows no signs of wanting to do away with that punishment; and now more so than ever, since right wing politics has gained dominance in the U.S., I see no chance of that happening either. So, you should ask yourself then why Britain allies itself with this "hateful" and "stupid" country; and then you should ask yourself why in Britain the people who are asked to reject this as a penalty as a belief are only Muslims who don't even have a Islamic State whereas U.S. who already has this punishment and has
executed already 20 people in 2016 is able to send leaders to Britain and ask Britain instead to do its bidding in foreign affairs of which non-Muslims too are both wary and weary when instead Britain's own contemporary ideological values are against this "hateful" and "stupid" idea of U.S.
You're going to make me repeat my eloquent words? In October 2015, there was heightened scrutiny of Muslims from the government, the press, and the public, and against the backdrop of this anti-Muslim climate, Peter questioning the Muslim panelists was inappropriate. He was there to discuss the main topic, not to verify the panelists' beliefs as to whether they are Islamists or not.
I've read your words again and again and I still don't see how his questions were inappropriate. What difference does the anti-Muslim climate make? Does that suddenly make certain questions off-limits? Why?
Let's imagine you are teaching as a college professor and are now invited as a panelist on a discussion forum after the college has just found out that one of your colleagues, another professor, a middle-aged male, raped a female student on campus. Now, everyone's concerned about this horrifying event and it's garnered all sorts of negative publicity. The forum has been set up by the college for good publicity and also to ensure that no rape happens to any female on campus. You're all there to discuss this horrifying event and issue and then give your input. As panelists, you've all been having a robust discussion. Suddenly, one of the female panelists, a colleague and another professor, turns to you and asks, "Have you ever been attracted to a female student?" And then not satisfied with that, she then turns to all the other male panelists, her being the lone female on the panel, and says she is now posing this question to all her fellow panelists while the audience watches.
Now, here's the problem: First and foremost, the panel has not congregated there to discuss all the male professors themselves nor has it congregated there to discuss you ever having been or not having been attracted to a female student. However, let's even say you had once developed an attraction to a female student - so what? If that attraction never led you to cross any ethical or legal boundaries, what does that question do for you or anyone on the panel except to crucify you or others? How is that relevant to a middle-aged professor having raped a female student on campus? Does you answering the question or not prove anything as to this issue? What is the answer's probative value to the discussion? The two are not remotely related by any stretch of the imagination. Therefore, the question that the female panelist posed can validly be said to be irrelevant and inappropriate; and the reasons for that is that posing that question in that venue and atmosphere was irresponsible. She might have had her concerns due to being shaken with this unfortunate incident; but that was neither the place nor the time nor her right to question you all in that venue because now instead of discussing the topic her diverging from the main topic into asking those questions leaves the entire panelists vulnerable to potential attack as to your name, reputation, and career and all this for no crime of your own should you answer in any way that can be misinterpreted. And there's even the chance that should you answer no, you might still not be believed; therefore, this question should not have been posed at all. Instead, the scope of the discussion should have, out of circumspection and self-modulation, been limited to the crime itself and the solutions to prevent females from becoming vulnerable to any sexual assaults on campus. Let's say, however, you and other male panelists say to her that you would not subject yourselves to this interrogation and have managed to not answer - well, all I can think is that's good - because the line of questioning was inappropriate.
No, no, no, hey, you don't get away with that; I won't let you. I never said he was a bully. In fact, I went to great lengths to make clear that I don't think he was a bully or trying to bully the panelists; however, I do think his attempts at questioning were validly perceived as bullying by others on the same panel.
Haha! You must be a lawyer.
Right you are, boyo!
You don't think he's a bully, but you think it was right for his questioning to be described as bullying? Are you kidding?
Let me ask you something: Who determines or decides what
your (extra emphasis on the "your") feelings are - you or someone else? The answer is you.
So, say, for example, you are in a restaurant with your girlfriend. You're both discussing an issue you'll have been having in the relationship, and your girlfriend says, "How can you say that? That doesn't make sense." And a waiter has just come to your table. You feel disrespected with her address. But when you discuss the issue with your girlfriend at home, she apologizes and says she hadn't intended to disrespect you. Let's believe her that didn't intend to disrespect you.
Does that change the fact that you felt disrespected at the time of her saying those words to you? The answer is no.
So, similarly, that should tell you a person can intend to not bully a person nor be seen as a bully by an observer and yet have the other person still have felt bullied at the time of a specific incident. Because the other person decides his perception of the specific incident as it pertains to himself at the time of the incident when it's happening; that person may later change his mind or not, but that still does not change the fact of his then-existing perception of what had happened.
:)
Anyway, maybe working for a common cause on a large-scale doesn't change anything for the future of foreign affairs even if non-Muslim and Muslim communities work together, but it might just bring us enough closer together as communities so that we don't mistrust one and learn to see one another as human beings and let go of any residual tribal mindset;
Do you think this noble task might be made easier if the Qur'an didn't say things like: "O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and Christians as friends" (Qur'an 5:51) ?
Do you think this noble task might be easier if people didn't quote-mine and understood verses in context? Tell me what's the most intimate relationship that exists. I don't know about you, but I think the most intimate is a spousal relationship (i.e. marriage). Isn't
that relationship more intimate physically, spiritually, mentally than a friendship between two persons? And yet we understand from another verse ("
And [lawful in marriage are] chaste women from among the believers (Muslims) and
chaste women from among those who were given the Scripture (Jews and Christians) before you" in Qur'an 5:5) that a Muslim man is allowed to marry a Jewish or Christian woman if he so chooses. We can then surmise simply using logic without even using exegesis known in Arabic as "tafsir" that the former verse has probably context and detail, information which would clarify holistically what this verse connotes because obviously its literal meaning makes no sense given the other verse.
Also, let me tell you another funny story that I find funny primarily because of its supreme irony pivoting on a person's blind spot:
Sam Harris had said in the past that he thinks Qur'an's literal readings are fine and he expects divine texts to not require contexts for clarification as they should be clear enough on their own due to divine authorship. That's been his position, though I do understand he has since written a book with Maajid Nawaz giving Maajid Nawaz in that book an opportunity to give in-context readings of the same texts even though in his own previous releases and statements on Islam he'd not done that himself.
Yet in a blog post titled "
On the Mechanics of Defamation" in October 2014 Sam Harris has said that his critic Reza Aslan was in wrong to say that he was a "genocidal fascist maniac" in a retweet that held both a scary picture of him and a quote out of context from his own book, "Some beliefs are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them." So, in his blog post, he highlighted the passage from his book in its entirety to ensure that his readers and fans do not misunderstand and again talked about how wrong it was for people to deliberately misinterpret or misrepresent his views.
However, in another blog post titled "
True Believers," Sam Harris says the following in March 2015: "I grant that there are many possible readings of the Qur’an and the hadīth. There’s simply no question that many different traditions have emphasized one reading or another.
All I argue is that there are more or less plausible, more or less straightforward, more or less comprehensive readings of any scripture. And the most plausible, straightforward, and comprehensive readings tend to be the more literalistic, no matter how self-contradictory the text. So, for instance, when it says in the Qur’an (8:12), 'Smite the necks of the infidels,' some people may read that metaphorically, but it’s always tempting to read it literally. In fact, a line like that fairly cries out for a literal reading."
Huh.
I fear you may be right. I'm terrified of what Trump and his ilk are about to do.
All I'll say is that we all need to get out of our echo chambers if we're going to try to be on the right side of history.
Tsk. Tsk. Hey, I really do believe that Angel Jibreel/Gabriel dictated the answers to all life's questions to an illiterate merchant in the 7th century.
I continue to find it amazing that someone as intelligent as you could believe this.
Maybe you'll one day join me in amazement that the unseen world is as real as the seen world and that we should take into account both to profit here and hereafter.
I think I've already expended enough effort in this quest, and you know the conclusion I've come to. I could easily say: "You'll never understand what I'm saying until you come to realise that atheism is true", but I don't do that because it's so unlikely to happen. Until either of us undergoes this change of mind, let's see if we can discuss matters on the basis of things we can agree on.
Uh-uh, you can't renege on our deal - that's sacrilege
I do declare in any friendship: Remember we in our early PMs discussed you having patience with me and willingness to work with me to get you there to the other side. 18 years you'd tried to give being Catholic a chance; you'll give me at least almost as much as 18 years. I insist. Fair's fair. Deal's a deal.
And hey, I've been all over the spectrum: I was a believer in some personal God in early childhood, an atheist since my early teens and then since junior year of college tending to be "spiritual" atheist and then tending towards agnosticism and then moving more towards uncertainty to feeling more open to the possibility of mysteries in the universe and then accepting in my heart to be a Muslim one year after I'd graduated college and then being a practicing Muslim ever since. And then I lived happily-ever-after - well, almost, since this isn't a fairy-tale but in all honesty if it's as good as it gets, I'm still content.
So, in practical terms, I have already been an atheist. And just because I am no longer an atheist doesn't mean that I don't understand from where you're coming as a person who's still an atheist. I just happen to disagree with you just as I disagree with my former self.
And anyway, since "caring is sharing" or so kindergartners are always taught, I'm trying to share. So, you'll appreciate :p - thank you, dear British sir.
There are two parts to this very honest answer: 1) Religiously, I personally believe that Islam forbids gay marriage and for people to become transsexuals and allows polygamy. 2) In a secular setting, however, I cannot understand how and under what valid terms the state feels it can ban gay marriage, deprive transsexuals certain rights and liberties, and deny Mormons and Muslims and any other religion's adherents to practice polygamy.
So, while I cannot say that I support things forbidden in Islam, I can tell you that I'm a liberal for the reason that I do not politically support the state
interfering in these matters because a secular society has no standing in my eyes to dictate in these matters.
This is more evidence of your legal training! I can't for the life of me see how what you've just said isn't straightforwardly self-contradictory.
Lol. What matters in the end, my friend, is that I don't see it as contradictory. :)
So, rather than prove to you that I'm an imbecile with my ignorance, I'll shut up very nicely - see, sometimes you do get what you wish for - and so you should believe in God *nods head eruditely* for who else could have granted you this dear wish.
Very funny!
Well, what can I say. We all have our skills. You play the guitar. And I don't even have to play at making you grin. ;)
Wishing you awesomeness, :)