Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 22:25     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
PP, you are conflating two equally unsubstantiated hypotheses: a) that intelligent life was designed by God, and b) that it happened the way it was described in the Quran. You understand that even if intelligent life WAS created by God, the Quran isn't necessarily more right about how it happened than any number of competing religions? That it's just one theory on an incredibly crowded marketplace of religious ideas?
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 22:05     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:But the misguided fools can only be misguided fools if evidence shows them to be. If you are going to imply they are such, shouldn't YOU provide the contrary evidence?

As for evidence, its there if you want to know.


Sure, the evidence is in the belief system itself: by their own admission, what they have is faith, which is belief with insufficient evidence. If a grown ass man told you he believed in Santa Claus as a real actual person described in the stories, complete with elves and reindeers who helped him deliver gifts all over the world, that's what I'd call a misguided fool. What makes the Abrahamic God any different?

Also, the original claim isn't that they are misguided, but that there is a God. That they are misguided is simply a reaction, a logical observation of those who believe in a supernatural being on insufficient evidence.


How and why did this morph into a broader debate about
God?


Anyhow, the Bible has made many prophesies, the Quran mentioned things no one knew about or published books on 1400 yrs ago. The statistical probability of intelligent life being born out of random occurences is far far less than winning the lottery. Even physicists are baffled by this. There were articles already written about this so need to repeat everything here. NDE's now are also adding more evidence to this. Didn't the Lancet already address this too?

So belief in God is not baseless to believers. Gravity is not visible but we know it exists. Black holes are not experienced by anyone, but we know they exist. Many physicists can not use logic to explain the origin of life. The randomness of it resulting in such perfect life forms defies logic. Yet you wholeheartedly cling to it.

Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 21:57     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
In the "earth-was-believed-to-be-flat" theory, groundbreaking revelation ultimately disproved their belief. There is no ground breaking revelation to disprove the existence of God.


It's impossible to prove a negative. Proof of God's existence has never been provided, either, so it's up to the believers to make the case for God.

Anonymous wrote: All believers in God know that the truth will be manifest on the Day of Judgment.

They don't know it. They believe it.

Anonymous wrote:Many people who were former staunch atheists have had NDE's which turned them into believers.

Many religious people have also abandoned their faith when the utter nonsensicality of it all turned them into unbelievers.

Anonymous wrote:The creation of life by random events is so unlikely that it has never been repeated. The statistical probability of such random occurrences that just happened to produce intelligent life is absurdly low, almost making it impossible.

That doesn't mean that God made it, and it especially doesn't mean that God is as he is described in the Quran.
Anonymous wrote:
Moreover, the perfection of the human body is so astounding that it is ridiculous to assume it occured by chance. There must be a Creator.

The human body is astoundingly imperfect, and if that's all Creator has to show, I wouldn't mention it too much.

Anonymous wrote:
The Quran mentioned how mankind was created, mentioned sperm, the early gestational periods, mentioned planets that travelled in orbits, that almost all life forms come in pairs of male and female. It mentioned that salt water and fresh water were kept separate with a barrier.

Quranic opinions on how mankind was created have nothing to do with science; that sperm exists can be noticed with a naked eye (it also never mentions the invisible parts - such as the egg). Quranic notions of embryonic development are half-borrowed from Greeks and half-invented; its theory of fetal gender determination is laughably false.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 21:49     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:But if you don't even believe in such rubbish, can't understand why you can't dismiss such people anyway.


I can't dismiss them. Because they will come to me and force aspects of their beliefs on me. For example, I mentioned I can't draw caricatures of Mohammad without being fearful of my safety, or my first amendment rights. Whether I am for or against abortion, some people vote on this issue based on their religious belief, these votes turn into laws, which directly impacts what I can or can't legally do. And of course as it has been pointed out repeatedly, we can't get any politicians elected if they claim to be atheist.

So no, I can't just dismiss them because they won't let me dismiss them. They insist on imposing their views on non-believers.



You want free and unfettered ability to draw denigrating pictures of an individual highly respected by 1.6 billion people. You wish to draw pictures of him insinuating he is a pedophile. You wish to draw cartoons of him as a sex obsessed individual. You want to present him in drawing as a man who abused women by denying them rights. You aren't concerned with the opinion or feelings of the 1.6 billion. Those 1.6 billion, in stark irony, would never draw caricatures or cartoons denigrating your beloved prophets or God. In fact, they have such respect for Mary, Jesus, Moses, and Isaac that they hold them in honor, equal to the prophet of their own religion.

Those who voice objections though violence are not acting in accordance with Islam. A pious person is generally a peaceful person. Don't let what fanatics or extremists do define your education about Islam.

Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 19:07     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:But the misguided fools can only be misguided fools if evidence shows them to be. If you are going to imply they are such, shouldn't YOU provide the contrary evidence?

As for evidence, its there if you want to know.


Sure, the evidence is in the belief system itself: by their own admission, what they have is faith, which is belief with insufficient evidence. If a grown ass man told you he believed in Santa Claus as a real actual person described in the stories, complete with elves and reindeers who helped him deliver gifts all over the world, that's what I'd call a misguided fool. What makes the Abrahamic God any different?

Also, the original claim isn't that they are misguided, but that there is a God. That they are misguided is simply a reaction, a logical observation of those who believe in a supernatural being on insufficient evidence.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 19:00     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:But if you don't even believe in such rubbish, can't understand why you can't dismiss such people anyway.


I can't dismiss them. Because they will come to me and force aspects of their beliefs on me. For example, I mentioned I can't draw caricatures of Mohammad without being fearful of my safety, or my first amendment rights. Whether I am for or against abortion, some people vote on this issue based on their religious belief, these votes turn into laws, which directly impacts what I can or can't legally do. And of course as it has been pointed out repeatedly, we can't get any politicians elected if they claim to be atheist.

So no, I can't just dismiss them because they won't let me dismiss them. They insist on imposing their views on non-believers.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 16:00     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
But the misguided fools can only be misguided fools if evidence shows them to be. If you are going to imply they are such, shouldn't YOU provide the contrary evidence?

As for evidence, its there if you want to know.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 15:57     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
But if you don't even believe in such rubbish, can't understand why you can't dismiss such people anyway.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 10:38     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


This is the argument equivalent of moving the goal post. Don't like Islam? It's because you are not devout enough. Only those who are not accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards Islam are devout enough.


What is it you hope to hear? I am a practicing Muslim and I love my faith. 1.6 bil people practice Islam, probably 1.5 of them peacefully. They can't all be misguided fools. I am not an expert in it but know enough to refute your assertions. If you were sincerely curious, you would call those with far greater understanding. I am comfortable with the points I made. Sorry you aren't convinced.


Why not? At one point, most of the world believed the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth, or that there was some rational validity to the claims of a royal bloodline in terms of nation ruling. Humans are currently ignorant of the true cause of consciousness, the beginnings of our universe, and a multitude of other things we wonder about. We don't just throw our hands up and say "well, we don't know, therefore God". As human knowledge and literacy rates increase, religion has been seceding ground in return. It is in fact the current argument that the Muslim world is in such turmoil compared to Christian countries is because it has lower literacy rates and never went through a period of reformation where the belief system was allowed to be modernized. This is why Christianity, while still a larger religion by practitioners than Islam, does not have a problem with fundamentalism nearly to the degree of Islam. When denominations like the Westboro Baptist Church voice their bigotry, they are ridiculed and shunned. Meanwhile, Islam apologists try to divert the conversation of the Charlie Hebdo attack away from fundamentalism and towards one of economic and political oppression. Problems are multi-faceted, I agree, but you lose credibility when you refuse to address the face value of facts and instead insist that there is some other hidden meaning/cause, which only an Islam authority can reveal correctly. It's a circular argument, ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst.




In the "earth-was-believed-to-be-flat" theory, groundbreaking revelation ultimately disproved their belief. There is no ground breaking revelation to disprove the existence of God. So you should withhold your accusation until the existence of God is disproved.


Point being, it's possible for a whole mass of people to be completely wrong about the nature of the world. Therefore, your comment that "They can't all be misguided fools." is a misguided conclusion, do you concede?

Second, it's not up to others to disprove the existence of God. Whoever makes the claim, has the burden of proof. You claim God exists, you must prove that he exists. Of course religious people then claim faith, which is belief absent evidence, and we are back to square one.



All believers in God know that the truth will be manifest on the Day of Judgment. Many people who were former staunch atheists have had NDE's which turned them into believers. The creation of life by random events is so unlikely that it has never been repeated. The statistical probability of such random occurrences that just happened to produce intelligent life is absurdly low, almost making it impossible. Moreover, the perfection of the human body is so astounding that it is ridiculous to assume it occured by chance. There must be a Creator. The Quran mentioned how mankind was created, mentioned sperm, the early gestational periods, mentioned planets that travelled in orbits, that almost all life forms come in pairs of male and female. It mentioned that salt water and fresh water were kept separate with a barrier.


All of these questions are so emblematic of the type of basal wondering of the human mind that gave rise to mysticism on innumerable dark prehistoric nights. Science, however, has dealt with this in modern times. Low probability doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The probability for hitting the jackpot on the big national lotteries is very low, but someone hits it consistently, sometimes multiple times per drawing. You need to account for the number of tries. The age of the earth is currently placed at 4.5 billion years old, with life beginning 3.2 billion years ago. 1.3 billion years is a LOOOOOOOOONG time. The earth's environment was also much more extreme, giving rise to a variety of conditions in which life creation can take place. What you've also failed to realize is that we are such a small and minuscule part of the universe, which has been around for 13+ billion years. There are countless galaxies like ours, countless solar systems like ours, and countless planets like ours. Given the vast number of planets where the conditions are conducive to life, it's not a question of could life happen, but how many times has it happened. In fact, intelligent life could have occurred across the galaxy, died off, without us ever knowing - we could have missed their existence by billions of years.


You need not believe in what others believe. But why so angry if others think differently?
I am not angry at others who think differently. I am angry that they think their belief in magic applies to me and that I am also subject to the same magic.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 10:00     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


We all need to become more devout before we can accept that your one true faith is damning us to hell? Wha??


Not what I said. I said first try to learn about and love your own faith, because you disapprove of Islam. Heaven is open to Christians and Jews too. The goal is to go to Heaven, not necessarily as a Muslim.


Not according to the Quran it isn't. Besides, I am an Atheist. I've read more of the Quran than probably most of what you'd call faithful believers of Islam. My goal isn't to go to Heaven, but to have people tend to their imaginary friends on their own time, in their own space, without insisting that I do the same.


Who insisted you do the same? It is quite strange how upset you are over the text of a book you don't even believe in.


If I drew caricatures of the prophet Mohammad, what would happen to me? You think I should be allowed? What percentage of Muslims think I should be allowed?

Oh but that's extremist fundamentalist view you claim.

Then what of the research study showing that in many of the world's majority Muslim countries, a significant portion of Muslims there believe that Islamic law should also be the law of the land and applicable to non-Muslims.

The US is not a majority Muslim country, you say, so I have nothing to worry about. Well, that's beside the point. The point is that Islam, like other religions in the past that have not been modernized, have violent tendencies towards those who don't believe the same, and have the ultimate central aim of expanding their numbers and eradicating those who do not believe. The current major conflicts of the world all have significant religious causes. Do you know how sad it appears to me, that the conflict centering on Palestine and Israel has been going on for decades because two groups of people think they have an actual right to possess it due to their religion? As an American I may have friends/family engaged in those conflicts, and I certainly have a portion of my taxes going to pay for our fight against our religion-driven foes. You may sit here and talk about how the Quran do not give these types of directions through "non-face value" interpretations, accusing me of incorrect interpretation, but there is no current shortage of the type of widespread interpretations of the Quran where Muslims see it as their duty to conduct violence against non-believers in the name of their religion.

Note that this issue is not unique to Islam. Christianity has also had a violent past, where non-believers are persecuted, subject to torture and death under Christian laws.
Anonymous
Post 09/24/2015 08:58     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


This is the argument equivalent of moving the goal post. Don't like Islam? It's because you are not devout enough. Only those who are not accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards Islam are devout enough. [/quote

+1. I've read the Quran, Hadith and other sources both pro and against. After this effort, I reject Islam because I find many aspects incompatible with my values, or the values I'd attribute to a God. That makes me a careful thinker. It does not make me an "Islamophobe" who "vilifies" Islam.


If you are a careful thinker after reading these in English, then what are Muslims who embraced Islam after studying the Quran in Arabic and studying islamic history also?? Wouldn't they be considered vigilant in their study and even more careful in their thinking?


I do have great respect for people who follow Islam after much study, or who are unable to read the Quran, but are essentially following the golden rule.

However, I'm sick of your whoppers. You keep falling back on "millions of other people think this, so I'm right and you're an Islamophobe." OK then. As we've already discussed, most have NOT read the Quran in Arabic. Most have not read the Quran at all, let alone studied history or interpretations, because they're illiterate. Most were introduced to the faith -- and this is true for most faiths -- by their parents and culture.

Sure, a few converts fell for the false gambit that "Islam is just like Christianity except we don't believe Jesus is divine." I see you yourself have been pushing that whopper here on DCUM just a few pages ago.



Anonymous
Post 09/23/2015 14:44     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


We all need to become more devout before we can accept that your one true faith is damning us to hell? Wha??


Not what I said. I said first try to learn about and love your own faith, because you disapprove of Islam. Heaven is open to Christians and Jews too. The goal is to go to Heaven, not necessarily as a Muslim.


Not according to the Quran it isn't. Besides, I am an Atheist. I've read more of the Quran than probably most of what you'd call faithful believers of Islam. My goal isn't to go to Heaven, but to have people tend to their imaginary friends on their own time, in their own space, without insisting that I do the same.


Who insisted you do the same? It is quite strange how upset you are over the text of a book you don't even believe in.
Anonymous
Post 09/23/2015 14:42     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


This is the argument equivalent of moving the goal post. Don't like Islam? It's because you are not devout enough. Only those who are not accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards Islam are devout enough. [/quote

+1. I've read the Quran, Hadith and other sources both pro and against. After this effort, I reject Islam because I find many aspects incompatible with my values, or the values I'd attribute to a God. That makes me a careful thinker. It does not make me an "Islamophobe" who "vilifies" Islam.


If you are a careful thinker after reading these in English, then what are Muslims who embraced Islam after studying the Quran in Arabic and studying islamic history also?? Wouldn't they be considered vigilant in their study and even more careful in their thinking?
Anonymous
Post 09/23/2015 14:35     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


This is the argument equivalent of moving the goal post. Don't like Islam? It's because you are not devout enough. Only those who are not accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards Islam are devout enough.


What is it you hope to hear? I am a practicing Muslim and I love my faith. 1.6 bil people practice Islam, probably 1.5 of them peacefully. They can't all be misguided fools. I am not an expert in it but know enough to refute your assertions. If you were sincerely curious, you would call those with far greater understanding. I am comfortable with the points I made. Sorry you aren't convinced.


Why not? At one point, most of the world believed the earth was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth, or that there was some rational validity to the claims of a royal bloodline in terms of nation ruling. Humans are currently ignorant of the true cause of consciousness, the beginnings of our universe, and a multitude of other things we wonder about. We don't just throw our hands up and say "well, we don't know, therefore God". As human knowledge and literacy rates increase, religion has been seceding ground in return. It is in fact the current argument that the Muslim world is in such turmoil compared to Christian countries is because it has lower literacy rates and never went through a period of reformation where the belief system was allowed to be modernized. This is why Christianity, while still a larger religion by practitioners than Islam, does not have a problem with fundamentalism nearly to the degree of Islam. When denominations like the Westboro Baptist Church voice their bigotry, they are ridiculed and shunned. Meanwhile, Islam apologists try to divert the conversation of the Charlie Hebdo attack away from fundamentalism and towards one of economic and political oppression. Problems are multi-faceted, I agree, but you lose credibility when you refuse to address the face value of facts and instead insist that there is some other hidden meaning/cause, which only an Islam authority can reveal correctly. It's a circular argument, ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst.




In the "earth-was-believed-to-be-flat" theory, groundbreaking revelation ultimately disproved their belief. There is no ground breaking revelation to disprove the existence of God. So you should withhold your accusation until the existence of God is disproved. All believers in God know that the truth will be manifest on the Day of Judgment. Many people who were former staunch atheists have had NDE's which turned them into believers. The creation of life by random events is so unlikely that it has never been repeated. The statistical probability of such random occurrences that just happened to produce intelligent life is absurdly low, almost making it impossible. Moreover, the perfection of the human body is so astounding that it is ridiculous to assume it occured by chance. There must be a Creator. The Quran mentioned how mankind was created, mentioned sperm, the early gestational periods, mentioned planets that travelled in orbits, that almost all life forms come in pairs of male and female. It mentioned that salt water and fresh water were kept separate with a barrier.

You need not believe in what others believe. But why so angry if others think differently?
Anonymous
Post 09/23/2015 13:09     Subject: American Muslims, why do you support same sex marriage?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My humble suggestion would be to become more devout in your own faith of Chrustianity or Judaism first. The devout Christians and Jews I know are kind and compassionate people who have never been accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards my faith.


This is the argument equivalent of moving the goal post. Don't like Islam? It's because you are not devout enough. Only those who are not accusatory, suspicious, or hostile towards Islam are devout enough. [/quote

+1. I've read the Quran, Hadith and other sources both pro and against. After this effort, I reject Islam because I find many aspects incompatible with my values, or the values I'd attribute to a God. That makes me a careful thinker. It does not make me an "Islamophobe" who "vilifies" Islam.