If you don't believe in evolution, you also can't believe in...

[Tiassa]

So I deserve to be banned for this thread tiassa?

Compared to past bannings and ban requests, yes.

Ha not sure on what grounds but go for it, make that proposal, would love to see how it played out. Its about time I was a contraversial topic.

If you don't know, then you haven't been reading your own topic. In which case, I would ask you to please not be so insulting as to address me at all.

If you don't have the simple respect to read posts before you respond to them, then it's your own fault if you come off looking foolish.

In the meantime, don't worry. That post is already in the works.

I consider knowledge and truth as far more important than anyones feelings, pm was never corrected in here by you T despite being flagrantly wrong about many things, you don't seem concerned with that, you're more concerned that someone is having their mistakes pointed out, oh and ofcourse that that someone is of alternative cultural heritage to "the west", which makes them precious golden calfs that shant be addressed with anything other than a curious and apologetic tone

Actually, my problem is with the ambush. In the meantime, would you please advise me of my Daily Required Quota of Hating Islam?

Also, whine on all you want that I don't pick on Islam enough. But at least do me the courtesy of responding to the relevant point already posted:

I once responded to a two-bit hater who accused me of actually being Muslim on the grounds that I never openly criticized Islam by explaining that the day Sciforums wants to have a debate about Islam and Muslims that seemed legitimate and not utterly stupid, I would voice my criticisms of Islam and Muslims. On occasion, nearly-viable points in various debates have elicited from me some criticisms of Islam which-- wonder of wonders! --haven't openly pissed off the Muslims. And I'll tell you the secret of how that happens. It's not anything particularly difficult to figure out, but in case you hadn't heard, Muslims are human beings too!

The actual topic, despite its petulance, is rather quite stale. I would have left it alone as another orgy of the ignorant if it wasn't for the fact that the inflammatory, bigoted crap is getting really old around here.

Criticize Proud Muslim all you want. But save some for yourself, Dr. Lou Natic; it's useful for those occasions that you trip over your own honesty.

Now then, one last time:

My own opinion is that, compared to the history of those who have been banned, our topic poster ought never set foot around Sciforums again.

Seriously, if you don't understand, I would ask that you reconsider my critique of your topic post and try responding to it.

I mean, I did, after all, explain it once to you and once to Snakelord, twice within 90 minutes, and once in blue text so it stood out some.

So I'm curious what, specifically, escapes your grasp?

Please, if you're going to respond to my posts at all, at least read them.

 

[everneo]

The topic pointed out evolution at work in subtle manner (like passing of genes - heriditary etc). I agree with this and also i would like to add that evolution happens all the time, for example our immune system evolves constantly to counter the new strains of virus / bacteria (vice versa). While most of the creationists seem / have to agree with this subtle form of evolution, some of them question the theory in its fullest. I would also point out that the topic took a leap to state that whoever agrees with heriditary aspect should also agree with evolution as a theory (including 'orgin of humans'). The topic's ban gave way to PM to post a counter argument, that discards the theory that human and apes having common ancestor. The whole thing turned into religious Vs atheistic war with expected flames from both sides. Projecting the obvious facts like 'passing of genes' as the required proof for the 'orgin of humans' is not acceptable to anyone who don't agree with human's primate orgins (not withstanding whether it is true or false). PM was full of himself as usual.

 

[Proud_Muslim]

PMS.
No hope...An idiot is always an idiot, even if you arm him with an entire Quran to his defense.

Calling names wont advance your cause.

obviously you don't even understand what Islam means, yet you keep vomiting on these boards Quranic verses to justify a position that have nothing to do with Islam.

You are not even Muslim by your own admittion, so please dont talk about Islam.

For example, let's say right now that a group of christians decided to call themselves muslims (submitters to god).

You see how ignorant you are, being Muslim does not mean submitting to God ALONE....go study more about Islam.

hey think that some people (YOU) is hijacking the real islam and decide to follow the Quran by fighting you the infedel in the name of THEIR ISLAM.

The real Islam does not say fight the infidel in the name of Islam, this is crude propaganda aganist Islam.....maybe you are one of those pathetic haters of Islam in disguise, who knows.

Their actions and believes doesn't mirror that of yours at all, and then they spray you with Quranic verses that states that only THEM (submission to god) will be accepted by god and thus you and other so called muslims are fake and condemned to hell.

Your assumption is wrong, submitting to God is not enough, submitting to God and denying the prophet Muhammad (pbuh ) as the last prophet and obeying him for example will reserve you a nice place in hell...so submitting is NOT enough dude.

...What do you think about this scenario, do like that mirror that was just shoved to your face?? Look at the mirror carefully, I didn't describe a hypothetical christian, I described YOU.

You are only about scenarios and stories, do you have anything more intelligent to say ??

 

[Proud_Muslim]

Thanks for the answer, although you seem to speculate a whole lot about jews and christians....Not all christians believe that jesus is god and not all Jews believe that their maker is not god. The word Allah is an arabic word to describe the creator. Many christians and Jews believe in the creator, the last day and judgement....Many more than you think.

You forget that ONLY Islam is the religion that honours jews and christians and consider them the PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, this is a point of the side of Islam as a tolerant religion, we dont condemn everyone to hell, we dont have monopoly over heavn unlike christians and jews, we believe OTHERS who are not Muslims will go to heave as well.

Now, what you wrote above really bothers me, you know why? You said that Islam is more important than your life...how could you say that? You missed the whole point, because the only way to submit to god is through your life, not by defending Islam

Sister, what bother me in your answers is repeating the word submitt, you are so much influenced by the submitters false teachings, those are NOT muslims my dear sister.

Indeed, Islam is MORE important than my life, sumbitting to God is an ISLAMIC act, Islamic definition, Islamic concept...if you dont feel jealous about Islam, you are NOT Muslim.

...I'm sorry that while we both share the same god, book, and prophet, you seem to have your ideology in regards to Islam backwards.

Sister, but you admitted that you are not even Muslim but mere submitter !!

AMAZING, if you go to this paltalk.com the site I gave to you, you will find people there calling me SELL OUT, LOOSE MUSLIM, SECUALR MUSLIM..ETC and here you think I am extremist, which means, I am in the MIDDLE and that is what Islam is all about, a middle way.

I ask you to use your knowledge in it's entirety to light up your own house first, take care of your wife, kids, family, friends, and do them well an according to the peacefull teachings of Islam.

And I am doing that, how do you know what I do ? you dont know who I am, so how can you make judgements ?? I never make judgements about you and what you do, it is between you and your creator, it is not my right to interfene, even when you dress bikini ( which is totally against Islam ) still it is your FREE CHOISE, it is not me who will judge you, it is Allah almighty, so do what you pleases.

Only when your house is spotless, your stairwell is clean, your street is perfect, that you can peek to the rest of the world BY EXAMPLE ONLY to shine your light on them. God doesn't want you to be the street light while your own house is dark.

You see, you are again making assumptions about me and my house without even knowing who I am !! this is not fair dear sister and you know it.

I cant stand seeing HATERS and LIARS bashing islam and getting away with it, it is my duty as Muslim to defend Islam, Allah will ask you in the day of judgement about this person who insulted Islam or Allah(swt ) or the prophet (pbuh )in front of you while you did nothing !!! how would you answer him ??

You know sister, I think you upbringing in America has a lot to do with your understanding of REAL ISLAM, I know many American sisters who were born there but they were raised in TRUE Islamic environement, I NEVER met a single American sister who think the way you do...log in to paltalk.com and meet so many American sisters who dont share you a single thought about Islam.

I am not attacking you, I am not imposing my views on you, I am telling you you are mistaken, you have very very wrong ideas about what Islam is...PLEASE MY DEAR SISTER, stop reading the submitters nonesense, not a single Muslim consider them Muslims...Muslims always always kick them out from our Muslim rooms in paltalk.com because they are NOT Muslims, they are deviants misleaders...dont be mislead by them...be led by ALLAH and his prophet.

Why you dont have a chat with your dad, I am sure his influence on you is far much greater than anyone else, have a chat with him about your views, listen to him...please do it.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

As you note, the problem isn't just with Muslims. It's a human problem. And though you might find hateful bile and infantile stupidity to be a comforting expression of the frustration you feel, the fact remains that the topic post was inflammatory and ridiculous.

The original topic

If you don't believe in evolution, than you are hearby forbidden from using the word "hereditary".

I can?t really see what is inflammatory in this. It just points out the inconsistency in the reasoning of many theists. They use science at one point to support their religion r for other matters and at other times they claim scientists are ?morons? and ?idiots? (as can be seen in this thread). I actually find it quite inflammatory that a moderator comes in and utters the word ?banning? because he doesn?t like how the thread is developing. He convienently forgets that proud muslim fucks up the thread by starting to ?shout? all the stereotypical arguments of a creationist. None of these had anything to do with the original question the thread started with. Is it a wonder that people get upset in such a heated debate? Did Proud muslim show any consistency in his arguments? Yes, they were all plucked from a website. Did he ever counter any counterarguments?
I really don?t see what you are getting at here other than a personal dislike for a certain poster. I honestly thought when I was reading your last posts that you were referring to PM for being out of line.

I mean, why don't you just walk down the street and bludgeon people you think are religious? The more I read through the development of the dispute in this topic, the more disgusted I am with the topic post and the absolutely shitty excuse for thought coming from the idiot chorus.

It takes two to tango.

Given the fact that few people like the SFOG forum because there's not a ban war going on right now to satisfy their lust for chaos, I'm thinking of proposing action against the topic poster for this absolutely offensive hate campaign. Sciforums doesn't need that brand of bigotry, and if someone's going to go out of their way, as the topic poster has, to inflame an already difficult situation in our community, we ought to consider action.

I think you need to lighten up, because if anyone is fucking up the atmosphere it is people who do not take science seriously on a sciforum. PM can come into this thread and proclaim nonsense because he is a muslim? Suddenly the atheist can be pissed upon, but we have to handle the theist with silk gloves? What is the logic in that?

My own opinion is that, compared to the history of those who have been banned, our topic poster ought never set foot around Sciforums again.

I have the feeling that PM already has been banned before under a different name, or it was one of his colleagues with indistinguishable personality.

That's amazing.

Trying to understand your human neighbors is such a horrible idea that you'd rather see humanity extincted.

But some pigs seem to be more equal than others.

And I am having a bad fucking day too. So there you have it.


And PM are you going to make a decent argument against evolution or are you going to paste pictures of monkeys again?

 

[Proud_Muslim]

However, I still can't find the other word I'm looking for. What's really weird is there might not be a word for it. I keep coming across ideas that are close to it, but what is it about certain simplistic discussions of God that shouldn't be undertaken for their lack of applicability? Now that I have a use for the idea in a discussion, I can't find it.

Perhaps it is HARTAQA !!!

Oh, well, life is.The explanation is that I'm in this because a bunch of apparently ignorant people are having a problem with someone whose only real error was responding to an inflammatory topic in the first place.

Well said Tiassa, when they run out of any intellecutal debate and when they realized they will NEVER EVER convince me of the evolution nonesense, they started the 'usual' personal bashing and ranting.

WHEN THE MESSAGE DEFEATS THEM, THEY ATTACK THE MESSENGER.

Once we get over the bandwagon rushing to prove itself dumber than sheep, we'll see that there's not much of a topic here, and there never has been.But this is a fairly orthodox Sciforums debate: ignorance seeking to inflame. And now that the match thrown has ignited the tinder, people are rushing to criticize the fire and defend the arsonist.

I once responded to a two-bit hater who accused me of actually being Muslim on the grounds that I never openly criticized Islam by explaining that the day Sciforums wants to have a debate about Islam and Muslims that seemed legitimate and not utterly stupid, I would voice my criticisms of Islam and Muslims. On occasion, nearly-viable points in various debates have elicited from me some criticisms of Islam which--wonder of wonders!--haven't openly pissed off the Muslims. And I'll tell you the secret of how that happens. It's not anything particularly difficult to figure out, but in case you hadn't heard, Muslims are human beings too!

Yes, if you dont bash Islam and slander it then you are either:

1- A Muslim or

2- an ignorant and stupid, mind you, bashing Islam and slandering it is now a fashion, anyone who dare to stand to these bigots will be called names and in the case he is not even Muslim he will be still called Muslim !!!

''Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago'' - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Amazing, I told once to one member here that even if you criticize Islam we wont be offended because the way you criticize and the way you put forward your thoughts will kill off any offense which might be taken by muslims, but hey Tiassa, you are here UNIQUE among a sea of MORONS and BIGOTS.

The topic post is narrowminded and inflammatory. In fact, it seems to forget that it's dealing with theism.

Indeed, but sadly, their bigotry and fanaticism is bliding them from seeing this very simple fact.

Now then ... back to the present:Well, that moron shouldn't have started the topic in the first place.I'm tired of stupid people invoking stupid and inflammatory debates just to have someone to hate.

it is athiest's bigoty and fanaticism showing up here.

Just because a bunch of ignorant folks are laughing doesn't necessarily mean there's anything humorous going on except in their own minds.I could care less about Proud Muslim's stance on evolution. If I choose to take him up on it, I'll actually take him up on it.
In the meantime, I think the scorching bigotry is the most problematic aspect of this topic and "what the others are saying."

But their bigotry is not putting me off, it is making me more convinced of my faith, it is strengthening my belief in CREATION, I feel sad reading what evolution has done to their brains !!

 

[Proud_Muslim]

The topic post was inflammatory. Proud Muslim may--perhaps should, but that's left to him--wish to reconsider taking such bait in the future, as the scale of the waiting ambush should be apparent by now. But none of that redeems this topic or the absolutely flaming ignorance driving the laughing chorus.

I know that Tiassa, I know that I am the ONLY Muslim and the ONLY creationist here, I know how many bigots are here in this forum ganging against me, but this is making me even MORE determind, increasing my resolve.

Sometimes I avoid those bigots nonesense ( for example, some of them started some threads about Saudi Arabia to bash islam, I ignored these threads and I will continue to do so ) but my main point is to tell those bigots that I AM HERE, and I will continue to be a challenger to their nonesense.

I dont get intimidated by numbers, our Muslim history showed us that when Muslims were in the minority, they defeated the Roman and the Persian EMPIRES combined, the genes of those Muslim leaders are in my blood, I can defeat those bigots and refute their lies against Islam COMBINED, I have been doing that for the past 5 years, imagine, in one of the other forums I go to, there was 24 hardcore christians charging on me, and I swear By Allah my almighty God, the only way for them to get rid of me was to BAN ME !! they did not manage to affect me instead I exposed them by myself.

We have a proverb in Arabic which goes:

''Small tiny drop of black can spoil a litre of white painting''

So for me to be here is to spoil this sea of bigotry and hatred, that is why they are so pissed of...despite my clear linguistic disadvantage ( my mother languge is ARABIC not Eglish ) I am still able to mount an effective response that drove those bigots crazy and forced them to use racist fool langauge and accuse me of ignorance, backwardness...etc. but always remember this:

''Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. ''

 

[Proud_Muslim]

General note: So it really is, in the end, that PM is a Muslim?

EXACTLY!! They attack me because I am MUSLIM, PROUD MUSLIM, I dont give up, I dont compromise my faith to please these bigots, this pisses them off so much...only to my pleasure.

 

[Proud_Muslim]

People who think they can eliminate the Muslim voice at Sciforums by spitting on it and then whining and moaning when it strikes back ought to consider history: Such a tactic has never quelled the Muslim voice anywhere.

You never cease from amazing me with your in deepth understanding of Islam and its history.

Bravo....just if these bigots can listen to you.

 

[James R]

PM:

it is athiest's bigoty and fanaticism showing up here.

What is it that you think atheists are fanatical about, exactly? What makes you think that?

What, do you think, would be the mark of a fanatic? Could it be starting all your threads on only one topic? Could it be having the same argument over and over again in different threads? Could it be spending a lot of your time searching the web for even more articles to post as new threads on your pet topic?

I don't see many threads on atheism started by atheists in the Religion forum. Yet, strangely, I see many threads about Islam started by you.

So, remind me who is fanatical again. I am confused.

...the genes of those Muslim leaders are in my blood, I can defeat those bigots and refute their lies against Islam COMBINED, I have been doing that for the past 5 years, imagine, in one of the other forums I go to, there was 24 hardcore christians charging on me, and I swear By Allah my almighty God, the only way for them to get rid of me was to BAN ME !! they did not manage to affect me instead I exposed them by myself.

Would jumping from forum to forum posting about your faith, and getting irate to the point of being banned count as fanatical, do you think? I sounds that way to me.

 

[Proud_Muslim]

If representatives of certain religions come in here and say "wrong it works like my religion says", no I will not be sensative to their cultural heritage, no one is exempt from knowing the truth.

And who the hell you are to have the truth ?? who gave you MONOPOLY over the truth ????

if you think you know the truth then you are as your post confirms: primitive moron, not even evolved moron yet ( if I may use the term evolution here ! ).

Ignorance is ignorance, and I am prejudiced against ignorance.
Whether it comes from a proud muslim, a proud hindu, a proud yardee or my proud father, I really don't give a shit.

And I dont give a shit about you and your evolution garbage, I am here to challenge your bigotry against my faith and in fact against your contempt for any faith in general.

 

[Proud_Muslim]

PM:

What is it that you think atheists are fanatical about, exactly? What makes you think that?

They are fanatics about their disbelief, they are fanatic about their evolution garbage.

What, do you think, would be the mark of a fanatic? Could it be starting all your threads on only one topic? Could it be having the same argument over and over again in different threads? Could it be spending a lot of your time searching the web for even more articles to post as new threads on your pet topic?

But I am not obsessed with evolution as the athiests are, I dont post 100 threads about GOD whether it exists or not, it is ONLY the athiests who do that...sciforums is good example to notice the athiests fanaticism.

I don't see many threads on atheism started by atheists in the Religion forum. Yet, strangely, I see many threads about Islam started by you.

What ??? I never started a single thread about ATHIESM, it does not concern me whether you are athiest or not, most of the threads that started about God and creation are started by ATHIESTS.

As to threads about Islam started by me, this is not true as well, did you forget the hateful threads against Islam ??? were they started by me ?? the threads that started by me about Islam were all DEFENSIVE or trying to clear misconceptions because sciforums became a hotbed for bigots and ISLAMOPHOBES to come and spit their hatred with absolute impunity.

Would jumping from forum to forum posting about your faith, and getting irate to the point of being banned count as fanatical, do you think? I sounds that way to me.

It seems you dont understand the world we are living in now, maybe because you are NOT Muslim and thus you dont feel the heat and the HATE coming against Islam, getting banned without reason ( I never violate any rule in any forum ) means 2 things:

1- my message is very effective, otherwise,why on earth they should ban me ? weak argument can be easily defeated, you dont need to ban to do it.

2- They cant handle my refutations and my responses to their LIES and thus resort to the WEAK weapon,the ban.

But banning me wont stop me, there are thousands of forums out there in the internet where I can post, I will continue to post, I will continue to SHIELD ISLAM from hate, lies and bigotry until the last day of my life.

 

[Tiassa]

As I said before Tiassa, bigotry goes both ways.

Yes, it does. That is, technically, its own issue.

But it's not his place to call people retards, etc, because they do believe in it

You know, if someone's going to go so far as to call your supporting evidence "a joke" and then get all sarcastic, they at least owe you the courtesy of backing up the slam.

After that, PM's fuse was lit. If nobody wanted him to go off, why did they rush to light the fuse?

I agree that, technically, it's not his place to call people names, but by what rule does that apply so disproportionately to him?

As a child my parents ensured that I learnt both sides of the story before I made up my mind.

It is my belief that such a principle would help this situation greatly.

But remember that nothing ever begins. Discovering both sides of the story can be an arduous process that many people don't care to complete because they discover along the way that nothing ever begins, that there is no recorded point in history from which we can say the tale of our present human condition definitively and exclusively begins.

To wit, I would ask you where the "Proud Muslim Story" begins in the Sciforums context? The answer runs back well before he ever registered; very possibly before you registered. (Your join date tells me you arrived at a time that either overlaps or just misses the calls for genocide against both Arabs and Muslims.) I also think of a poster who wrote two scathing anti-Islamic topics, the first claiming to be seeking research materials for a class paper; the second was the paper itself. Somehow, the author felt that since he had scored so well, since he had met the basic requirements for a paper in a composition class, that his paper was therefore historically appropriate. There has been an indicting attitude in general toward Islam that is wrongly founded; casual political discussions about American policy often operate from a basis of negative generalizations about Islam and Muslims. An Arab Christian called a Muslim terrorist, ad nauseam. Most of us can put up with the dogpile; we Westerners play to a sympathetic audience, so when the dogs pile on we can know that there's someone out there who knows what we're saying. Whether or not that person stands up and clears their throat on any given occasion is irrelevant; knowing that they're there makes all the difference.

I must admit that the whole situation seems rather quite familiar to me if I change the terms; it's a little like inserting myself into the crossfire between atheists and Christians. It's ... an interesting perspective. But if I'm watching the lot of you on a TV screen--CNN, MSNBC, a movie of the week, &c. . . . high drama--I'm seeing the injustice of what is presently a "traditional" imbalance between cultures as clearly as ever. We in the West have victimized Muslims throughout history, and also the people who came before them to the point that, should we choose to consider the Prophet a politician and not an instrument of God,° he was moved to respond to the conditions he saw around him. It struck me just a few minutes ago, as I mulled these ideas over a cigarette, that were I to speak in Islamic lands and spell out my perception of the communicative needs remaining to be fulfilled in order to find greater harmony 'twixt disparate peoples, I would not appeal to reconciliation, but rather to conciliation. Nothing ever begins? Especially once we remove the "Sciforums context." Discovering both sides of the story is, in fact, an enormous task when you start with differences between individuals and try to account for even merely the apparent factors. Delving into the individuals is even more complex, as each thread of the weave can be traced back to an earlier condition, and that condition to the one that preceded it.

Last week, I ducked a portion of a discussion I was involved in when the subject turned to me; Alain asked Proud Muslim if he would still give such high praise were I to criticize Islam. The answer was yes, impressively credible as the question and response came on either side of ... yep, me criticizing Islam in an effort to accommodate someone who whined that I wasn't mean enough toward Islam.

Does this mean I have some grand, cross-cultural insight into Islam that the rest of my Western neighbors don't? I can't imagine that it would. More specifically, the answer is, "Hell, no." In the smartassed version of it, I simply say, "The difference is that I'm paying attention." More appropriately, I look to the notion that nothing ever begins. Do I get the "whole story" from one paragraph, one conversation, or one chapter of a novel? No, I do not. Neither does one post, one topic, or even the entire history of Islamic discussion at Sciforums sketch nearly enough of the story to make the story make sense in its present context.

Proud Muslim knows I am critical of monotheism in general and the Abramic troika specifically. It's entirely possible that he knows that, of all things, I give the Jews the most leeway of the three. And he's aware that I split hairs in order to deflect direct consideration of his methodology. None of this seems to cause the kind of problems between us that other people have. There are some reasons for this. Others hold too immediate a context, which condition includes both the inflammatory and reactionary symptoms in those others.

Additionally, and this one's trickier for some because it's more than two steps--although the folks I'm thinking of get lost with two steps on occasion--to explain: He knows that the seeming blind eye I turn to his methodology is conditional for the very reasons of history and immediacy I'm presenting here. I know he's human, and he knows I know. I choose to invest my efforts in these issues to what I think is more important than singling out the Muslim for tone. In the meantime, I trust that he's human and aspiring toward good and right, and if that petty respect seems inflated here, well, I'm not sure where to begin.

Some people focus on what they think is good. The OCA, which sought to ban gays in Oregon and cause the State Constitution to recognize God; Pat Robertson, George Bush, &c; terrorists of all colors and creeds and names; Paul Hill (for some reason, folks who kill doctors in pursuit of a political agenda don't count as terrorists in America as long as they're Christian) . . . the list goes on.

Others focus on the idea of good itself, and the idea of attaining it. This is what most people pretend to aspire to because they consider it virtuous. But, sadly, most are caught up somewhere on the other side of the line. This isn't because they're Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatnot; it isn't because they're American or Iranian or French or Rwandan. It's because they're undereducated. This term I will tread softly with, because it is separate from uneducated. Technically, we are all undereducated compared to the ideas we undertake. But when that lack of information becomes acute in relation to the ideas undertaken, the results can be disastrous. (Consider, for instance, violence in human history.)

And, while Proud Muslim is undereducated, so are you and I, and the rest of us on this planet. Despite this, I do, in fact, see him focusing on the idea of good itself.

But what does that actually mean?

Once upon a time not all that long ago, a poster in a gun topic downright insisted that I play a role in a high-school gun control debate (between adults?) essentially in order that I might make a better target for his ridicule. Soon after that, another poster in another gun topic called me out in a similar, yet less-severe way. And while I don't expect people to read every one of my posts except for college credit in deviant psychology, I take quiet inner comfort from the irony of one or the other of them praising someone for making a point that's been at the center of my gun-related platform for a while. (I found a two year-old topic in the "Related Topics" window that reminded me of this point.) Even sadder, they might have had a point five or six years ago.

Now, irony, deviant psychology classes, and all that aside, here's the thing: Do I think I did something evil or morally wrong in taking what I now recognize as the wrong side of the debate?

Well, the difference is the idea of focusing on goodness itself. Instead of declaring certain things virtuous or vicious, one seeks the definition of virtue. Just as two sides of a debate or war both can believe they're morally right, the difference depends on how one defines the virtues of goodness. So instead of arguing over whose quantification of goodness is right, one seeks to be good.

What? I want to be right, proper, well-considered in my conduct throughout my life. Quite obviously, that's a huge and lifelong project. But (developmental soap opera too long for this overlong post goes here) I eventually came to take the position that, being imperfect, I can never be the idyll of goodness. I'm not a Christ, not even a legitimate prophet°, and most humans I encounter prefer to think of me as stupid or hopelessly stoned rather than continue to regret asking me why I have a certain opinion on anything. Look at me. Christians often think I'm an atheist; atheists occasionally call me a Christian. War-dogs have accused me of being a Muslim; I'm quite sure I fall somewhere under the umbrella of atheist when I spell out the superficial points compared to Proud Muslim's view, and I'm also aware of a level where--as ill-expressed as people receive them--I also am included in the Jew and Christian diatribes.°

But I want to be "good," and here's the important part, whatever it equals.

This as opposed to presuming that I am in fact, right and good and licensed to dominion based on that presumption.

And that's the thing. Proud Muslim seeks to be right and good whatever right and good equals. People are generally afraid of the folks who do that, because the folks who seek to be right and good whatever right and good equals tend to confuse the majority, which takes comfort in padding the presumption of rightness and dominion with the fact of their majority.

Really. I promise you. He's human. He grows, he gains knowledge, he transforms as a human being. He's really rather quite reasonable when he's calm. I just don't know why people prefer to have him in a stir. Oh, right, because then they get to take comfort in the presumption of rightness with the fact of their majority and smear the . . . well, you know.°

That's how I was taught, that I should never ever make an opinion on something unless I study both sides in detail. That was all I was asking PM to do.

And, in the long run, it's a fair request.

Perhaps, with the feeding frenzy abated, he will see discounted ideas differently, attain a different perspective. While I have my own questions about his behavior (as I have of anybody, and also about my own), I'm not about to throw bloody fish in the water while there's a diver down swimming with sharks. Maybe some would find it humorous, but that wouldn't make it decent.

However, I don't start at a zero sum. He's under a specific handicap willed upon him by others. Is his methodology the most efficient? God only knows, only time can tell; meanwhile, we can all take a guess if we feel like it.

And he's human. Like we all are. But the burden is on the majority as I see it. His biggest strategic error, from one perspective, was to dignify this topic with a response in the first place. To the other, Origen wished for the lions, and I smile at the analogy involving a castrato because if there's one thing that's clear from the debates he gets into, he's definitely got some balls, quite possibly of steel.

It's funny in a way actually. The person who first taught me about evolution was actually a Muslim, and I'd mentioned him in my posts on previous pages. This man was inspirational to me when I was in high school, and even today I still look up to him. He once told me 'never discount what you haven't ever learnt'. As I read through this thread his words kept coming back to me.

And one of the coolest teachers I ever had in high school was a devout Catholic who saw no conflict between the Bible and evolution. This in a Catholic school at a time when the Church still opposed Darwin. And he had the liberty to teach that position in his biology class. This does not change the fact that there are plenty of Christians out there who do perceive a conflict.

I despise the current state of Christianity in America, but, as you already know, that doesn't mean that Christians forfeit any chance of my respect.

And when we couple that with sarcasm from elsewhere in this topic and your example, we see that by Christian and Muslim influences one can arrive at an evolutionary point of view. Considering that the Christian movement is mere inertia from the days when Darwin and evolution were taken to signal the defeat of God and religion, we might realize that the entire debate is horsepucky to begin with and wonder what, then, we should expect of it.

Frankly, I don't see how any aspect of Abramism conflicts with evolution, but if I'm going to pick the issue with someone, I would hope to be able to make the sale. If I choose to pick the issue with someone and don't at least try to make the sale, I'm just annoying them for my own satisfaction or something.

And then to hear PM say that this man could not be a proper Muslim, well I found his high handed manner to be insulting to a man who was not only a devout Muslim, but also a man who'd extensively studied both sides of the argument and only then made up his mind, all this while still keeping his mind open to any other possibility.

While I am not without my questions about the connection between his behavior and his faith--and your description reflects something that is among those questons--I hope to be damn sure of the question I'm asking. I hope to be absolutely f@cking positive of the question before I ask it.

So one last mess of words; I hope to keep it shorter than the last section.

I have ... bludgeoned? ... brutalized? ... got it--I have keelhauled Christianity as the scourge of the Earth in the past. And while I still hold to the models that led me to that position, the emphasis of what I read in those priorities has changed in accordance with my priorities. Many have charged the mountain and limped away defeated. A couple have never been heard from in these parts again. And in the end, the fights I chose in pursuit of understanding what are the virtues of goodness proved to be one of the less-effective routes I could take.

But the brutality does wear on me: after a while, I got bored swatting flies. Ironically, it was a rebellion against logic and rational thinking by atheists--believe it or not--that gave me perspective on the Christian issue. I'll skip the long-form on that for now.

I really don't feel like going through the same thing with Islam. Especially when you consider that I have a lifetime's familiarity with Christianity and have even tried at one point in my life to identify as a Christian. This is an intimacy I do not have with Islam.

With few exceptions, I could be sure of the questions I was asking about Christianity. I cannot be so sure with Islam.

So, if I figure the question I'll ask it.

However, outside the relationship of the faith to the faithful ... the question's not mine to undertake at this time and I don't really want to touch it with a Moroccan landmine-defusing monkey, speak nothing of a ten-foot pole. Of course, part of this is because I've been at this one too long and don't really want to go look it up.

I understand the frustration, but I haven't a clue what to tell you in any practical sense.

And as for ridding this or any other forum of the Muslim voice, I'd never sit back silently while such a thing happened. If such a thing were allowed to happen, then all Christian, Jewish, Buhddist, Mormon, etc voices should also be silenced.

Glad to have you aboard.

Man ... the Republican voice would be gone, too, by proxy of its ties to the religious right. And so the Democratic voice would have to go. In a nihilistic sense, it would be worth it, but nihilism serves us very little at present except to point out the futility of all our words. And our passions. And our lives.

Notes:

° consider the Prophet a politician and not an instrument of God - A necessary sanitization in order to frame the point in a context comprehensible to western antitheistic politics.
° legitimate prophet - To preempt the obvious question: No, I don't know if there has been in the history of the world a legitimate prophet. It is a matter of faith. My working definition of a legitimate prophet would draw more objections from redemptionist monotheism than it would from atheism.
° Jew and Christian diatribes - That so few people understand the Jew/Christian aspect puzzles me; are they really unaware, or are they just dicking around? To be included as such doesn't bother me. On the one hand, I've argued the Judeo-Christian influence in America to the benefit of my opinions and politics. To the other, Jew and Christian cease being an issue when justice is attained; they're only issues as long as they are directly related to perceived injustice. Justice is the reason for Islam.
° smear the .... - What? The word's been annexed. I would no more use the word in the bloodthirsty climate at Sciforums right now than I would employ a metaphor about striking a specific mammal with one's foot.

 

[crazymikey]

Forgive me for my ignorance, as I have not bothered to read the full thread. With regards to the last remark:

But banning me wont stop me, there are thousands of forums out there in the internet where I can post, I will continue to post, I will continue to SHIELD ISLAM from hate, lies and bigotry until the last day of my life.

I am not Moslem and I am not entirely knowledgable about Islam, though I do in fact consider Islam to be a primitive religion, as I do Christianity and Judaism. I admire your loyality to your faith.

Although you would be hard-pressed to convince me of the existence of Allah. I doubt you have any compelling proof of his existence.

 

[James R]

PM:

They [atheists] are fanatics about their disbelief, they are fanatic about their evolution garbage.

It is not necessary to be an atheist to believe in evolution. Many Muslims believe in evolution. Islam is not an anti-scientific faith. I'm surprised you don't know that.

Me: I don't see many threads on atheism started by atheists in the Religion forum. Yet, strangely, I see many threads about Islam started by you.

You: What ??? I never started a single thread about ATHIESM, it does not concern me whether you are athiest or not, most of the threads that started about God and creation are started by ATHIESTS.

You missed my point. You say the atheists here are fanatical, yet they do not continually post threads saying, essentially, "Look! Atheism is great!". Yet you post thread after thread saying little more than "Look! Islam is great!".

As to threads about Islam started by me, this is not true as well, did you forget the hateful threads against Islam ??? were they started by me ?? the threads that started by me about Islam were all DEFENSIVE or trying to clear misconceptions because sciforums became a hotbed for bigots and ISLAMOPHOBES to come and spit their hatred with absolute impunity.

I have seen few "hateful" threads about Islam here. "Hate" is a very strong emotion, and I seriously doubt that anybody here hates Islam. Of course, there are many here who do not believe that Islam is the One True Faith like you do. But that is far from hating it, or its followers.

It seems you dont understand the world we are living in now, maybe because you are NOT Muslim and thus you dont feel the heat and the HATE coming against Islam...

I understand that there are people who hate Islam and Muslims. Often, they are people who don't understand or know much about Islam. Often, they hate for political reasons - just as you hate the Jewish people for political reasons.

1- my message is very effective, otherwise,why on earth they should ban me ?

That would really depend on the rules of the particular forum, so I can't answer this directly. Perhaps you were spamming. Perhaps you were being vitriolic towards other posters. I don't know.

2- They cant handle my refutations and my responses to their LIES and thus resort to the WEAK weapon,the ban.

But banning me wont stop me, there are thousands of forums out there in the internet where I can post, I will continue to post, I will continue to SHIELD ISLAM from hate, lies and bigotry until the last day of my life.

It must be emotionally draining for you to be constantly in a state of white-hot righteous indignation against people who don't share your beliefs. You really need to learn to relax a little, and realise that the world will go on regardless. Islam doesn't need you to shield it. It is an old, established religion with millions of followers. It won't die out if you calm down enough to listen to what other people think about it.

You'll be better able to defend your faith if you come to understand why some people think differently from you.

 

[Tiassa]

Would jumping from forum to forum posting about your faith . . . .

To my understanding, faith and politics are inextricably intertwined in Islam. I was stunned by a short post in another topic that asserted a separation. I mean, even counting the writings and teachings of serious academics, such a notion seems ... absurd. I mean, the retort I'm thinking of may have been the first time I've ever seen someone assert a separation. Muslims apparently have not yet learned to detach their conscience from their basis of judgment. All else aside, they've got that going for them at least.

 

[Tiassa]

You say the atheists here are fanatical, yet they do not continually post threads saying, essentially, "Look! Atheism is great!"

They haven't had to for a while. The religious voice has really been lackluster for months. I also smile at the irony of the revival of the "Evolution - Yes it DID bloody well happen" topic.

 

[crazymikey]

Islam is not an anti-scientific faith. I'm surprised you don't know that.

I think it's quite an extraordinary claim to say Islam is a scientific religion. If science is understood to be a belief system that functions on observations, logic and empirical proof and although science maybe speculative in Islam, it is unreasonable to say Islam as a whole is scientific; as it is unreasonable to say Christianity is scientific because of some scientific speculation - "Earth is flat, Earth is at the centre of the universe"

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

After that, PM's fuse was lit. If nobody wanted him to go off, why did they rush to light the fuse?

hahaha what?
It sounds like your mad that I woke the baby. Or more accurately its like you're the big brother of the kid with down syndrome, reluctantly exposing that the down syndrome kid is indeed your brother by fighting off the kids who were picking on him.
I had no idea proud muslim was a ticking time bomb that should be approached with caution.
If he's such a dangerous liability then obviously he is the one who's place here should be questioned.

But hey, I don't want to discourage anything, I'm not even interested in this crap anymore, when will I be making my debut in sfog?
I'm genuinely excited.

 

[Tiassa]

I had no idea proud muslim was a ticking time bomb that should be approached with caution.

(1) Not so much caution. Just don't go out of your way to be a prig. Failing that, since many folks don't actually have to go out of their way--it comes naturally--try a little sympathy with your fellow human beings.

(2) You had no idea? Further evidence you're not paying attention.

Really, that's just disrespectful. It seems you have a lot to say about nothing at all. So what is it, then, that motivates you to such spite?

If he's such a dangerous liability then obviously he is the one who's place here should be questioned.

See? That's exactly the problem I have with people around here right now. This is the whole reason people tweak him.

Again, you can't silence the Muslim voice that way. Nobody in the history of the world has managed to take care of their perceived "Muslim problem" by pissing them off.

when will I be making my debut in sfog?

I'm thinking about opening the issue later today. The first part, lacking an opening argument, sits awaiting my further attention.