Greetings,
Whew! What a furious "debate"!
If this is what passes for serious discourse in some parts of the world, we're all in trouble. There are clear faults on both sides.
To start with, watching the female psychologist, I felt her analysis of the current situation was somewhat simplistic ("barbarism and rationality" etc.), but there was some truth in her later assertions and she did actually put forward a reasoned argument. It wasn't entirely convincing in all respects, and the tendency to broad strokes never disappeared entirely, but much of her speech was specifically designed to be rhetorical and attention-seeking. It's also worth noting her considerable bravery in talking the way she did, given the inevitable reaction she would face.
The two replies from two different chaps were on an altogether different level. Both came across like ranting maniacs, quite frankly, neither ever addressing the specific points of the original argument and going off on irrelevant tangents that went nowhere.
The first speaker began with a totally self-defeating argument about the great Islamic philosopher Ibn-Rushd. It was self-defeating in not one, but two ways. First, he was obviously promoting Ibn-Rushd as some kind of ideal Islamic philosopher. In fact, he held some very heterodox views, and is regarded by many as the founder of Western secularism as a result of his epistemological separation of reason and religion, which provides the intellectual foundations for the separation of church and state.
Second, the chap making the first response claims that the Pope issued a ban on the works of Ibn-Rushd, and included hatred of him as a part of Catholic worship. I can find no evidence for this, or even that Ibn-Rushd was placed on the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books (a perfectly ludicrous document if ever there was one, but that's another story), although he might well have been, as just about every other valuable intellectual work was. However, what I'm getting to is that the same speaker later makes the point that "Christianity cannot be judged by the actions of Christians", thus demolishing his own argument.
Later, we hear from the second responder, who makes absolutely no attempt to address the arguments put before him, beginning with a laughable politician's tactic: " Instead of asking about.... she should have asked about..." He then goes into a long list of Muslim complaints against the West which does nothing to answer the charges. I am ready to admit that almost everything he says is true, but it is totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand. He should be trying to prove that Islam is not a backward religion, as the lady argues, and there are many examples he could have used, but he ignores the issue and charges full steam ahead into debating oblivion.
I'm sorry, folks, but these two chaps got completely owned in this discussion. They are unfortunately typical of the kind of Muslim "intellectual" that we see on our screens day after day. There are far more intelligent Muslims out there who could have done their religion a real service by addressing this lady properly (Ansar Al-'Adl, where the heck are you?); these two will just amplify the negative and hugely damaging backlash that Islam continues to face.
Peace
laying:
