Ask a Muslim anything

[citizenzen]

Please only answer if you are a Muslim. If you respond and you are not a muslim, you are just a troll.

If you only want want responses from Muslims, then you should consider sending a PM to those members who you think are Muslim.

If you ask a question in a public forum, but don't want the general public to respond, you are just a troll.

 

[Leumas]

If you only want want responses from Muslims, then you should consider sending a PM to those members who you think are Muslim.

If you ask a question in a public forum, but don't want the general public to respond, you are just a troll.

I second that....

 

[Kopji]

Do you mind expounding a little on it then.?

Ok I'll try. Beliefs evolve over time and are a personal thing that guide in all kinds of thinking - and don't betray us until we try to convince others that they are true.

Why would he be so irrationally supportive of a religion that is not his inculcating one when he could have used just as much and similar irrationality to stay with his original religion with the added advantage of much less struggle?

Belief is more 'caught' than 'taught'. There is a huge social component to faith/belief. There is not a huge reason component to faith/belief.

Likewise, I think that for freethought to be nurtured, it needs a social setting where diverse ideas can be shared in a kind of community.

It is less diversity that makes Muslim apologetics weak - nonsense is not challenged very well. Sit in a circle, say some nonsense, and everyone around agrees that nobody could argue with that, let's move on.

An open community provides more of a process for better ideas to take hold. The dogpile effect seems more like a throwback to religious techniques. Stone the heretic.

The apologetics he is using to justify islam in his mind are the exact same ones he could have used to stay in christianity…..so what mindset results in one being critical enough to reject the religion that he has been indoctrinated in from youth requiring such an amazing will power and courage, only to turn around and adopt a belief system that is just as faulty, without any critical examination and with irrational apologetics to justify it?

I agree, but this tends to confirm the idea that the social component of religion is very important. For Islam, consider that at regular times every day they gather, kneel, and pray toward the same point on earth. It is I think, a rather nice social idea (and I'm a little surprised that nobody thought to all have sex at exactly the same time).

Christian apologetics are more developed than Islamic, but I'd say it is because Christians have more diversity of thought. (My very deep lifelong association with Mormon apologetics is that they are indiscernible from conspiracy theory. )

 

[Bill Thompson]

If you are not a Muslim, please do not respond to this. Doing so would be trolling and reason for banishment as well as a good tar and feathering and being shipped in a balsa wood box to Atlantas.

I have a question. Islamic text are to be interpreted literally. And yet, according to the Muslims I know, there is a lot of beliefs in the magic power of the Quran. For example, my Muslim friends from India do not know Arabic. They do not own a Quran in Urdu. And yet they pray in Arabic -- a language they do not understand. They believe this act has magic power. If you are a Muslim, then you have proven to yourself a belief in this tangible, provable, unconvertible, and demonstrative magic. My question is this. WHy not claim the Randi prize? Doing so would not only put one million dollars in your pocket, but it would do wonders for the spread of your religion.

Once again, in case you missed it the first time, if you are not a Muslim, please do not respond to this. Doing so would be trolling. The non sequitur logical fallacies that I am somehow insulting a Muslim by questioning Islam and/or since you assume I believe in God I somehow cannot examine Islam critically is boring and has not logic.

 

[citizenzen]

So instead of showing anything that insight has discovered you chose to balk over a word and try to shift the discussion to me personally.

Well, yes.

Because we've all heard accounts of insight many times in our lives. I have experienced it personally a number of times.

But how can I show you an undisputed result of an idea? You'll just dispute it. You'll ask for proof that the idea actually caused something. And that can not be proven.

Here. Let me show you.

Buddhism is a religion (my religion, by the way) based on personal insight. The Buddha enlightenment has become one of the most practiced religions in the world, one that has helped to shape a number of cultures and is practiced world wide by hundreds of millions of people. His insight helped to change the world.

[source] The Pali word vipassana — often translated as "insight" — has a variety of meanings. First, it refers to the flash of liberating intuitive understanding that marks the culmination of Buddhist meditation practice. In the Pali discourses vipassana also refers to the mind's ability to witness clearly as events unfold in the present moment. In this sense it is a skill that a meditator develops using a broad arsenal of meditative tools and techniques. With practice, this skill can bring the meditator to the threshold of liberating insight. In its third meaning, one that has become especially popular in the West in recent years, "Vipassana" (usually with a capital "V") refers to a system of meditation — vipassana bhavana, or "Insight Meditation" — that is based on an interpretation of the Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10), the Buddha's concise "how-to" guide to the development of mindfulness (sati).​

So there. I have given you evidence of insight and it's impact.

You are welcome to dispute it.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Why does an insight have to meet that standard?

Why can't an insight be nothing more that a moving personal moment?

Because accuracy is a component of the socially agreed meaning of the word.

 

[Resume]

As I said, it will just be disputed.

Prove to me that the idea that person claimed to have actually caused those changes that occurred after they did/made something supposedly based upon that idea.

I can't.

But I have to again ask ... have you never had an insight yourself?

What a pity, if your answer is no.

We could have a discussion if you had a useful definition of the word insight.

 

[tsig]

I guess I wasn't clear. When I said 'thing' I meant something real like electricity not spiritual balderdash.

Anyone can dream up stories about invisible realms but these have nothing to do with the world we see around us.

The spiritual world seems remarkably protean, we have Buddhism, Christianity and Islam* in all of their splintered glory, every sect of which is claiming to have an insight into the spiritual yet every one different and contradictory so it looks to me like they're all just making it up as they go along.

*If I tried to list all the different flavors of belief this post would never end

As I said, it will just be disputed.

Prove to me that the idea that person claimed to have actually caused those changes that occurred after they did/made something supposedly based upon that idea.

I can't.

But I have to again ask ... have you never had an insight yourself? What a pity, if your answer is no.

I see you haven't answered my post so I quoted it for your convenience.


in·sight
   [in-sahyt] Show IPA
noun
1.
an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive understanding: an insight into 18th-century life.
2.
penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or underlying truth.




I presume you have had one of these? I did and became an atheist.

 

[Toontown]

So, this is what has become of the "Ask a Muslim anything" thread?

If the thread title had been "Ask a Muslim anything and get an honest, meaningful answer", then we would have had the Muslim right where we wanted him. But he was too cunning for us. Sure, we can ask anything we want. We can keep asking until hell freezes over. Eventually, we can take to arguing among ourselves.

If we had been equally cunning, we would simply have declined to ask the Muslim anything, allowing the thread to fade into obscurity. That would have shown that we knew what to expect - which we should have known.

When, exactly, did the turnip truck roll through here?

 

[Brian-M]

Sorry one can't prove a negative...

This is not true. Please stop repeating it. Thank you.

I agree. I don't know how that myth continues to be perpetuated.

The negative assertion "there are no cookies in my cookie jar" can be proven (or disproven) by opening the cookie jar and looking inside. The negative assertion "Harry Potter is never described as wearing a pink tutu in any of Rowling's novels" can be proven (or disproven) by checking each and every sentence in the novels for a reference to pink tutus.

 

[Roma]

Okaaaay, here's a question for ya:

today a Muslim neighbor of mine brought me a plate of s'mores that some one at the church had brought him (he's a refugee from Iraq, churches bring refugees things all the time around here).

I understand that marshmallows are a central ingredient in s'mores and marshmallows contain gelatin which is, according to him, not allowed in the Muslim food guide.
Why not ??

 

[Sideroxylon]

The gelatin is an animal product that may have be sourced from a pig, or even if this is not the case it is unlikely to have been slaughtered to helal standards. Your neighbour probably prefers to look for these kinds of products with helal or kosher certification.

 

[leonAzul]

its an illusive thing this proof outside of maths that is.

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
Henry David Thoreau

 

[Eddie Dane]

haven't gone through the whole thread.

Has Jinn abandoned ship?

 

[Leumas]

haven't gone through the whole thread.

Has Jinn abandoned ship?

Yes...he skedaddled for fear of losing his faith I think...

 

[MRC_Hans]

Yes...he skedaddled for fear of losing his faith I think...

It is really a bit sad; we regularly have these nice and reasonably rational believers, who show up, seemingly with an honest wish to share their revelation. Their belief appears rational to themselves, and they are dismayed and hurt to find that it doesn't to others.

Hans

 

[Eddie Dane]

I have heard from former Muslims that they believe Mohammed was just a politician and nothing more.

Yep,

One of my best friends is a "Muslim" (Atheist of North African descent)

He sees religion as 'a trick to control the masses'.

He doesn't advertise his unbelief, though.
Still asks for a discreet table when we go out to eat during rama-dama-ding-dong.

 

[Cainkane1]

Jinn left. I hate that. Jinn seemed like a decent enough fellow.

 

[Bill Thompson]

LOL suddenly you care if the majority folows their rules....

You are graping at straws. What is your point? You never, as they say, "cut to the chase".

What do YOU think of Islam and why?

I have a long-time good friend of mine who happens to be gay who converted to Islam. When I told him about how Islam was anti-gay, he first did not believe it. Then I told him about all the hangings in Iran, he still did not believe it. Then I told him about the anti-gay passages in the Quran, first he insisted I was confusing the Bible with the Quran, but finally I convinced him when I cited the specific verses (you can see them on "the skeptics annotated bible" in the Quran section). He insisted that Allah had made him gay but he seemed confused. Then he came back a while later and said he switched religion to some sort of christian/islam hybred religion. I do not remember what it is called.

My point here is this. It does not matter if you are gay or straight. If you defend and support a religion that advocates encourages and demands the murder of homosexuals as both a popular and ruling policy, you are unethcial and wrong.

So, cut to the chase, DC. What is your point, man?

Let me guess. You are going to ignore this post and jump onto something I will say later that you regard as a clarical error, as if that proves or means anything. It is all a game to you. That, too, is unethical.

 

[Pardalis]

I am aware of a sufi order that weclomes gay clergy, so how does that fit into your argument?

You can always find a sect that does things differently.

There's even a Jewish sect that denies the Holocaust.

So what?