you make me proud zak

"not u dude"
sorry, the timing was just poor then haha

"hahah sorry about that user! i like to make it a big block just to fuck with people"
haha no problem. im just actually curious aas to what you have to say & dont really fuck with two sentence crams

"Yo I watched this video tonight, never heard of this guy before then, but he summed up the whole problem with arguing against 'Islam' in so general a way on an interview with Fox (surprisngly they let somebody talk sense for once, out of character, despite the insistent ignorance from the anchors):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PzusSqcotDw"

Aslan: "women in Indonesia are completely 100% equal to men"

In Indonesia, virginity tests are obligatory for female military and national police recruits. Doesn't the scholar of religion know about this or is this practice compatible with his definition of equality?

In Turkey 33% of police officers agree that "some women deserve rape", and in Bangladesh several atheist bloggers have been hacked to death with machetes this year. If these countries are posterchildren for moderate islam then that says something.

Aslan's opinions on the influence of religion on behavior are pretty problematic too, because he, a leftist western scholar, sees himself fit to define the nature of the religiosity of people worldwide. If people globally were cherry-picking verses from a text with significant internal inconsistencies, then his assertion would be more agreeable. As it is however he's making claims about the level of superstition of people he doesn't know.

As far as I know, no muslim nation produces poll results where support for terrorism and draconian punishments for blasphemy is significantly low, and support for freedom and equality high. Im on mobile so can't be arsed to search, but I'd love if someone corrected me on this.

Obviously not all muslim nations are Saudi Arabia, but based on what I know, I don't see any problems with the generalisation that freedom and equality are severely lacking in muslim nations.

Yeah Aslan is considered to be a zealot in scholarly circles as far as I have heard, with a biography exaggerated and entirely self-promoted. His rhetoric is his one saving grace and helps reinforce a lot of people's opinions against the idea of singling out fundamentalist Islam as a unique problem in the world. I have read from that interview that most of his claims are half-truths at best, though I haven't looked into it enough to be an authority.

"His [the Mahdi's] aim is to establish a moral system from which all superstitious faiths have been eliminated. In the same way that students enter Islam, so unbelievers will come to believe"

Shias believe that the arrival of the Mahdi will be signalled by the following portents:

The vast majority of people who profess to be Muslim will be so only in name despite their practice of Islamic rites and it will be they who make war with the Mahdi.

Before his coming will come the red death and the white death, killing two thirds of the world's population. The red death signifies violence and the white death is plague.

There will be a great conflict in the land of Syria, until it is destroyed.
Death and fear will afflict the people of Baghdad and Iraq. A fire will appear in the sky and a redness will cover them.


brace yourselves dudes.

lol

How can you laugh at a time like this doof dude?
A nuke will be detonated, me eyes will melt and then radiation sickness will off me to the land of nod where I'll get screamed at in Arabic by some petulant fucker who'll bar me from paradise.

that apocalypse totally doesn't sound plagiarized from Revelations at all. They totes didn't, erm, borrow the idea of a Messiah savior, either.

If god cared so much he should've copyrighted it

So John of Patmos is god now?

Ullo John gotta new motet?

Album Rating: 3.0

Terrible events.

generals gathered in their masses!

Sigh.

nah its black sabbath kid try again :D

I'm thinking more Soldier Side by SOAD right now

"In Indonesia, virginity tests are obligatory for female military and national police recruits. Doesn't the scholar of religion know about this or is this practice compatible with his definition of equality?"

That's not specifically an Islamic thing though, that's an Indonesian thing. I think the point he was trying to make is that comparing the way Muslim majority nations operate, we can see such a huge difference between different places.

"In Turkey 33% of police officers agree that "some women deserve rape", and in Bangladesh several atheist bloggers have been hacked to death with machetes this year. If these countries are posterchildren for moderate islam then that says something."

Once again, not an Islamic thing, there are no small amount of people in America or any other western country that believe women deserve rape in some situations, we call these people assholes and they're everywhere. Granted the numbers are probably higher in Turkey but that is a social issue, not directly because of Islamic beliefs.

"Aslan's opinions on the influence of religion on behavior are pretty problematic too, because he, a leftist western scholar, sees himself fit to define the nature of the religiosity of people worldwide.

"Because he, a leftist western scholar"

- here we see where our problems come out, because you can't take the information about Islamic countries from a non-Muslim westerner? Despite what you may think research is possible on these issues without having first hand experience. Granted I get that the view may be different but in a lot of ways it's also more objective.

"If people globally were cherry-picking verses from a text with significant internal inconsistencies, then his assertion would be more agreeable. As it is however he's making claims about the level of superstition of people he doesn't know."

People globally are cherry-picking verses from text. You see it every time the bible is quoted for being anti-gay, yet these same people aren't advocating for the stoning of adulterers or banning shrimp, or multi-coloured clothing for the same reasons. People pick and choose what they want to enforce and ignore what they don't, and use the applicable parts of religious doctrine to back their views.

"Yeah Aslan is considered to be a zealot in scholarly circles as far as I have heard, with a biography exaggerated and entirely self-promoted. His rhetoric is his one saving grace and helps reinforce a lot of people's opinions against the idea of singling out fundamentalist Islam as a unique problem in the world. I have read from that interview that most of his claims are half-truths at best, though I haven't looked into it enough to be an authority."

Could be, like I said I don't know much about the guy, and I'm not entirely sure everything he said was accurate, but the sentiment of his argument seemed spot on to me.

"Obviously not all muslim nations are Saudi Arabia, but based on what I know, I don't see any problems with the generalisation that freedom and equality are severely lacking in muslim nations."

There is so much wrong with that statement. First of all, you've got to look at the diversity between different counties with Muslim majority, and see the social and political differences are massive. Then you've got to ask yourself, if such extreme differences are possible between different countires following the same faith, is it not possible that the issue doesn't necessarily extend from Islam, but from the social values and ideals of the country and the people practicing it? Using Aslan's example of Christian countries that abuse human rights similarly to the ways we condemn Islamic countries, if we can see how corrupt Christianity, or any religion can become, then clearly there must be something else going on to lead to social conditions like the ones in question.