Why Some People Convert to Islam

[Anonymous]

And here is the bio of PZ Meyer, the only critic of Dr. Keith Moore:

Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers (born March 9, 1957) is an American scientist and associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM).[1] He is founder and co-author of the Pharyngula science blog, hosted on both the Science Blogs and Freethought Blogs networks. He currently works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology and cultivates an interest in cephalopods.

He is an outspoken critic of intelligent design (ID) and the creationist movement, and is active in the American creation–evolution controversy. He is widely regarded as a confrontationalist

I'm not sure if he's even qualified to criticize Dr. Keith Moore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And here is the bio of PZ Meyer, the only critic of Dr. Keith Moore:

Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers (born March 9, 1957) is an American scientist and associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM).[1] He is founder and co-author of the Pharyngula science blog, hosted on both the Science Blogs and Freethought Blogs networks. He currently works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology and cultivates an interest in cephalopods.

He is an outspoken critic of intelligent design (ID) and the creationist movement, and is active in the American creation–evolution controversy. He is widely regarded as a confrontationalist

I'm not sure if he's even qualified to criticize Dr. Keith Moore.

Huh? Blunt Darwinists (and who doesn't know many of these) aren't "qualified" to criticize other scientists? People who work with cephalopods aren't "qualified" to criticize other scientists?

[Anonymous]

You are trying to say there is only one critic of Dr. Moore and he may not be qualified.

Therefore, Dr. Moore's arguments have stood up to tough scrutiny.

Dr. Moore is not famous--see his bio on Wiki--and smart people don't waste their time refuting every bit of foolishness that comes their way. (And yet I refute yours--wonder what that says about me--way to pass a Sunday I guess.)

Dr. Moore hasn't been criticized because almost no one has seen fit to bother to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


Dr. Moore no longer speaks about this subject. He used to only for the purpose of education to student associations, anyway. It may be that Dr. Moore suffered a backlash from Islamophobes. If the hatred and fury exhibited by the Islamophobes here on DCUM is any indication of all of how supporters of the Quran or Islam may be treated, I can't blame Dr. Moore for declining interviews and speaking engagements now. What everyone has seen on DCUM was similar to a mob attack when a Muslim woman who went by the name "Muslima" came on the thread, "Tell me about Islam" to defend/clarify Islam. When I joined the discussion to validate Muslima's points, the Islamophobes went haywire on me. If they were simply interested in learning more about Islam but in the end did not like the principles of the faith, they could simply have said, "Well to each his own, I do not understand or like your religion." That's not what happened. The Islamophobes often pulled the most severest and harshest interpretations of Islam in hadith, Sharia, and real life examples and refused to acknowledge that the Qurans words always trump these in the face of any contradiction. It was clear to me that their motivation was simply to vilify the religion of 1.6 billion people. So maybe it's no wonder that Dr. Moore is afraid of people like them.

Fact. The so-called Islamophobes quoted the Quran at you. You lie when you say that people only pulled out the "severest and harshest" hadith and sharia.

Fact. You and Muslima represented your rosy version of Islam as the only Islam. You denied centuries of Islamic thinking and shariah and hadith that are still followed by millions of Muslims today.

Fact. It is not "Islamophobic" to point out these things.

If this is how your mind works, I join the other poster in being underwhelmed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I will address your points, one by one, because it is important for DCUMers to see the fallacy of your arguments and how you twist and writhe to get out of tight corners:

You said, "It is worth noting that Dr Moore never formally converted to Islam. I guess there are some things even Al-Saud can't buy.."

First of all, once again, I repeat -- whether a person converts or not is not indicative of the truth or falsity of Islam. Recall our discussion about Dr. Jerald Dirks (the ordained Deacon, graduate of Harvard Divinity School) who researched original manuscripts and learned that concepts such as divinity and trinity were add ons to the faith due to geo-political strife during the time, that Jesus himself never taught this. Just as he saw those documents so must have many other seminarians. Not all convert, however, even though they, too, saw evidence that seem to suggest significant parts of Christianity were indeed doctored. As I said before, it takes a special kind of fortitude to convert upon learning the truth because they may suffer backlash from converting. Here, in this situation with Dr. Moore, he clearly and unequivocally acknowledged the miraculous nature of the Quran, as far as identifying important aspects of fetal development, at a time when even the microscope wasn't invented and no one else, not Hippocrates, Galen, the Chinese, or the Romans wrote about. That is sufficient to prove that in his expert opinion, the Quran was accurate. This implies the verses were divinely inspired and science simply validated it. Dr. Moore doesn't need to convert to Islam because he already validated it with science.

Besides, when I provided the example of Dr. Dirks, you said one person's conversion was irrelevant and not indicative of the truth of Islam. I find it amusing that you now use lack of Dr. Moore's conversion as evidence of the same point.

Here, sweetie. You clearly missed the discussion of Dr. Dirks and his Ebionites on the other thread, so I'll repost it here. (That, or this is yet another of your transparent attempts to "spin" a discussion that embarrassed you into a "win" that never was.)

************

First off, there's a lot of debate about who the Ebionites were, and what we mean when we say "Ebionite". Appparently at one point all Judeo-Christians (i.e, still practicing Mosaic law) were referred to as "Ebionites." Also, there is a lot of "legend" (not my own word, see the Jewish source that follows) about individual Ebionite leaders and their groups (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5411-ebionites).

We do NOT have an original Ebionite gospel, despite Muslim OP's claims that we do. Many believe the Ebionites used a modified version of the Gospel of Matthew (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05242c.htm, also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=gospel+of+ebionites&go=Go), with some obvious differences about Christ's divinity. Some groups of Ebionites may have had almost gnostic beliefs (i.e., they may have shared the gnostic idea of the "demi-urge"), but there appears to have been a lot of variation. The Ebionites probably continued to observe Mosaic law and things like circumcision. But again, we will never know for sure, because the original Ebionite manuscripts have vanished.

There were apparently some contemporaneous accounts of various Ebionite groups, but all of these have been lost, with the exception of the fragment from Epiphanius, who may or may not have understood the Ebionites. Again, you can read this fragment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=gospel+of+ebionites&go=Go. The references in Epiphanius to Ebionites arguing the point at which Jesus became divine (at birth vs. at baptism) are interesting for this debate on the Trinity, because this is the only fragment we still have today, and it doesn't actually challenge Christ's divinity.

I went to Dirk's website to see what exactly he says. There's nothing there about the Trinity, just how to contact him for speeches. (http://www.jeralddirksanddebradirks.com/)

Per his website, Dirks has been a practicing psychologist for the last 20 years. He is not, and never has been a Harvard Divinity School professor as OP claimed in her post of 09/11/2014 10:42 on the 2nd or 3rd page of thread. However, Dirks has taught at some Muslim middle schools. So I'm not sure about representing him as an eminent theologian. I definitely wouldn't put him in the same category as that home-churcher Muslim PP likes to cite as representative of all Christianity (this is the guy who says himself that he dropped out of two different universities because they told him not to take the Old Testament literally, but OP linked to this home churcher as supposed proof that all Christians should take the Old Testament literally). Also, it seems suggestive that none of the many online sites about the Ebionites even mention Dirks, although most of these sites (some of which I've linked to above) are very careful to cite multiple sources. You wouldn't necessarily expect the Christian websites to mention Dirks, but the Jewish sites or Wikipedia sources on the Ebionites might do so if he were a respected authority.

All of this suggests that Dirks' views on the Ebionites have yet to make him a widely-cited authority in this field. (How's that for an understatement?)

FWIW. Dirk's website makes it easy to contact him (for speaking gigs), so I'm not sure what OP is waiting for.

[Anonymous]

PS. I feel like, if the moderator is locking other threads, it's time to lock these Islam threads.

The original debates have petered out and there's little that's fresh.

Now we're just in a cycle of OP saying "this is how I won the argument about X" and other posters respond with, "no, we don't think it happened that way." Occasionally somebody new wanders on and asks a random question about why women in Virginia are veiling.

The debates between OP and others are recorded here for all posterity. Instead of fighting over OP's spins about how those debates came out, let's let future readers review the original arguments and decide for themselves.

[Anonymous]

I'd be for that as well. Islam is a fascinating subject and the theology can be very subtle and refined (mostly in medieval texts) but these discussions deteriorate very rapidly to the Islamic posters going into tedious detail about some verse in the Koran with reams of citations from scripture or dubious authorities and missing all the larger issues.

Would still like to see a "I am Muslim because..." thread from which all citations are banned. I think it would go a lot further in generating understanding and goodwill towards Islam, the OP's intent I think, then all the shrill pseudo scholarship evidenced on this and the other Islam threads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here, in this situation with Dr. Moore, he clearly and unequivocally acknowledged the miraculous nature of the Quran, as far as identifying important aspects of fetal development.

While on the payroll of Al-Saud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd be for that as well. Islam is a fascinating subject and the theology can be very subtle and refined (mostly in medieval texts) but these discussions deteriorate very rapidly to the Islamic posters going into tedious detail about some verse in the Koran with reams of citations from scripture or dubious authorities and missing all the larger issues.

Would still like to see a "I am Muslim because..." thread from which all citations are banned. I think it would go a lot further in generating understanding and goodwill towards Islam, the OP's intent I think, then all the shrill pseudo scholarship evidenced on this and the other Islam threads.

Fine with me if the moderator gives OP the last word on Islamic embryos, the righteousness of Dr. Dirks, or how Christianity allows polygamy and concubines just like in Islam. Just so we don't spend the rest of our lives reading OP's "recaps" of these discussions and then feeling like we have to set the record straight as to what really happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Dr. Moore no longer speaks about this subject. He used to only for the purpose of education to student associations, anyway. It may be that Dr. Moore suffered a backlash from Islamophobes. If the hatred and fury exhibited by the Islamophobes here on DCUM is any indication of all of how supporters of the Quran or Islam may be treated, I can't blame Dr. Moore for declining interviews and speaking engagements now. What everyone has seen on DCUM was similar to a mob attack when a Muslim woman who went by the name "Muslima" came on the thread, "Tell me about Islam" to defend/clarify Islam. When I joined the discussion to validate Muslima's points, the Islamophobes went haywire on me. If they were simply interested in learning more about Islam but in the end did not like the principles of the faith, they could simply have said, "Well to each his own, I do not understand or like your religion." That's not what happened. The Islamophobes often pulled the most severest and harshest interpretations of Islam in hadith, Sharia, and real life examples and refused to acknowledge that the Qurans words always trump these in the face of any contradiction. It was clear to me that their motivation was simply to vilify the religion of 1.6 billion people. So maybe it's no wonder that Dr. Moore is afraid of people like them.

But here's the youtube link of Dr. Moore lecturing about the accuracy of the Quran as far as these verses goes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upa4BSH7ua4

It's permanently recorded to show he believed in the accuracy of the Quranic verses.

Or maybe he's just embarrassed to repeat it. Or maybe the paychecks stopped.

There is no Islamophobia in the medical science. The medical field, particularly in Canada, is simply awash in Muslim doctors. A white, non-Muslim doctor is a valuable chip for Muslim proselytizers because the argument usually goes like this - see, even an educated American/Canadian/European person recognizes the Quran is true. For some reason, the same revelations delivered by, say, African physicians, don't have the same market value for the dawwah crowd and Al-Saud. It's always the white guy who gets held up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are trying to say there is only one critic of Dr. Moore and he may not be qualified.

Therefore, Dr. Moore's arguments have stood up to tough scrutiny.

Dr. Moore is not famous--see his bio on Wiki--and smart people don't waste their time refuting every bit of foolishness that comes their way. (And yet I refute yours--wonder what that says about me--way to pass a Sunday I guess.)

Dr. Moore hasn't been criticized because almost no one has seen fit to bother to do so.

Dr. Moore's books were used in many, many medical schools. Not sure if they are still used today. I'm sure others have written new books. But you have got to be living in isolation to have absolutely no idea who he is. Have you ever taken biology 101 in college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are trying to say there is only one critic of Dr. Moore and he may not be qualified.

Therefore, Dr. Moore's arguments have stood up to tough scrutiny.

Dr. Moore is not famous--see his bio on Wiki--and smart people don't waste their time refuting every bit of foolishness that comes their way. (And yet I refute yours--wonder what that says about me--way to pass a Sunday I guess.)

Dr. Moore hasn't been criticized because almost no one has seen fit to bother to do so.

Dr. Moore's books were used in many, many medical schools. Not sure if they are still used today. I'm sure others have written new books. But you have got to be living in isolation to have absolutely no idea who he is. Have you ever taken biology 101 in college?

Didn't you just trash Dr. Moore's credibility yourself? You suggested he, like all those Harvard seminarians, "lacked the fortitude" to convert to Islam.

[Anonymous]

Dr. Moore's books were used in many, many medical schools. Not sure if they are still used today. I'm sure others have written new books. But you have got to be living in isolation to have absolutely no idea who he is. Have you ever taken biology 101 in college?

Maybe in Canada--really don't know.

No Bio 101 class would use "Clinically Oriented Anatomy" as a text.

Despite your representations to the contrary, Dr Keith Moore is nowhere near a household name. From his bio, I think it would be a stretch to even call him "eminent" in his field, which appears specifically to be anatomy, not embryology.

[Anonymous]

A white, non-Muslim doctor is a valuable chip for Muslim proselytizers because the argument usually goes like this - see, even an educated American/Canadian/European person recognizes the Quran is true. For some reason, the same revelations delivered by, say, African physicians, don't have the same market value for the dawwah crowd and Al-Saud. It's always the white guy who gets held up.

Sadly, this is all too true. And the doctors, like Dr. Moore, are all too willing to do this for cash. Obviously, the more eminent the physician, the bigger the catch from the perspective of the dawa people. This is why PP keeps insisting anyone with the least bit of education must have heard of him, when in fact he is not the least bit well known in any generally accepted definition of that term.

[Anonymous]

The right religion is the one that brings you closest to god