Thursday, July 16, 2009

Last Muslim email, I'm done. Your turn.

All right, seriously, we're going around in circles. I'm bored. You can talk to Muhammad if you want.

Parts 1 , 2, 3.

Why do you think your god just existed without anything happening that caused the god?

Because it makes sense to say that god led to the creation of something then to say things JUST HAPPENED by itself. The same way you guys are saying that the burden is on me to prove the existence of god, the burden is also on you guys to prove that whatever is out there actually led to the creation of the universe and you guys still havent found out.

Why don't you give me a good reason why I SHOULD go around killing strangers?

The fact that you kill all sorts of animals etc via pollution what makes it different then your own species? They are all bunch of interacting atoms so why does it make it right to kill insects birds fish or even dangerous lethal species but not your own species? Im sure if you ever see a bee hive on top of your doorway the first thing you would do is kill it you wouldnt think about "HEY ITS NOT BENEFITING ME IN THE FIRST PLACE SO WHY NOT JUST LEAVE IT THERE"

Many apologies, but I don't believe you. If you make up a story using conversational Arabic, you can even write it in English. All you need is a translator who understands both English and conversational Arabic. It sounds like you're asking me to believe that Muhammad didn't know any people who could translate between conversational and written Arabic. You want me to accept your claim that Muhammad had no believable earthly means for committing his thoughts to paper, but as an alternative you want me to believe that it was accomplished by magic.

I see where it is going. You can't find a valid response so you have to say "I DONT BELIEVE YOU" Well its the truth and thats how arabic works. You can translate conversational to english and write it down sure. YOu can also translate written arabic to english even though its going to sometimes distort the meaning but if you were to translate conversational arabic to written arabic it would also disort meaning and looking at the perfection of the quran in its meaning etc there is no way it was translated it like that.

Another thing that doesn't seem to add up about your story: If Muhammad was illiterate, how was he able to know what it was that he wrote?

I think you're a bit confused. Muhammad did not write the story. Allah reveals it to Muhammad, Muhammad memorizes the revelations. Muhammad recites it to a group of people the group of people write it on a book. The fact that the writting of the quran into a book happened shortly after the Prophet's death makes it impossible for any deviation.

Oh, I see how it works now. All I have to do is make some kind of claim, and then it becomes "history," and then it is undeniably true. There is no need to verify anything at all.

Well, in that case, I've got a claim for you. I am illiterate. I have no means of writing this email to you right now. But I'll tell you how I do it: I have magical supernatural powers, thanks to the angel that I am channeling right now. And you know what the angel just told me? He says Muhammad -- both of you -- are full of shit.

No but the claim needs to be logical and based on true observation. I obviously know you are literate because I've read your background and you've read on TV so thats a fail on your part. Muhammad was a loner back the and it was confirmed via counts in poems etc. There couldnt have been another person comming up with a story and then reciting it to Muhammad. THink of the logic here. If there was a person who came up with a story and gave it to Muhammad, why would he come up with something that would disprove his religion? It just doesnt make sense. People back then did not believe in god and now all of a sudden youre telling me that there could have been a person who did not believe in god help someone deny his religin?

Have at it. I'll let Muhammad know you're discussing his masterful arguments.

32 comments:

  1. Ah but he does not realise that your invisible angel was in fact reading those notes on TV for you and whispering their details into your ear.

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  2. Oh boy! I wonder if this guy really exists. At this level, it's not even twisted logic, it is twisted madness.

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  3. Wow... so many holes in his arguments. There are even places where he refutes his own arguments: "...why does it make it right to kill insects birds fish or even dangerous lethal species but not your own species?"
    Dangerous lethal species? There isn't a single situation that this person could think of if they spent 3 seconds thinking about it where there would be a reason to take the life of a "dangerous lethal" creature.

    Anyway... this person has demonstrated that he is ignorant and doesn't even think past his nose. Reasoning with him is useless. Give it up!

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  4. It is obvious that one type of theist can be just as irrational as any other. Mohammed is so sure of his faith that he cannot understand why you do not just accept his flawless logic. This is the kind of thinking that is the result of only associating with like minded people.

    It is unlikely that Mohammed will change his mind but he does make a good example of logical fallacies. It is amazing how many people think they can create a god with logic, and at the same time have so little insight as to how logic works. If I ever start sounding like Mohammed please let me know it's time for a brain tune up.

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  5. See, there's something I still don't understand... if we agree that the Universe was shit out by a god, then what did he eat that made him shit?

    Also, what kind of shit are we? If we are diarrhea, this may lead credence to string theory, as strings are much more liquidy than what I expect a high-fiber universe would be. Don't you understand, you guys? SCIENCE IS REVEALED IN THE KORAN!!

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  6. Ok, a couple of things...

    He wrote:

    "Notice how I said it was recited to many people. There couldn't have possibly been a change or edit because any deviation in writting it would be easily detected by the people who memorized it at the time. The quran was written in book form within a few years after the prophet's death."

    ...and...

    "Bible book and others have been proven to be edited through out the year.The old and new testament is from god himself but they have been changed and edited through out the years the Koran was never changed...."

    The written Koran was assembled from oral accounts circulating after Mohammad's death by his two immediate successors, Caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar.

    Even Muslim historians admit we have no information on the form or extent of these sources. What we do know is that their compilation and inscription into what would become known as "The Recitation" (Koran) was a deliberate human effort - similar to that of the early Christian church leaders putting together the 'official' New Testament.

    There is nothing necessarily sinister about this; the Muslim leadership was wise to do it, given the difficulty of preserving oral history without loss or corruption.

    (In fact, this is exactly what DID happen with the Hadith - collections of Mohammad's words and deeds - which became so vast and often contradictory that several famous Muslim scholars made it their life's work to roll back the Hadith list to something defined and reliable.)

    Simply put, we have no idea of exactly what the Caliphal scribes actually heard when they collected those oral sources.

    If someone wants to claim that there was no corruption whatsoever from Mohammad to his followers, to more followers, to yet more followers and then to final written form... well, so be it. But this claim does not arise from any extant historical evidence.

    He wrote:

    "You may say, well someone who knew how to read came up with the story and told Muhammad.

    Saying that wouldnt make sense in 2 ways. First the people back then did not believe in a god so why would a non believer help someone come up with a story to disprove his religion?"

    People "back then" were acquainted with monotheism of both Jewish and Christian varieties.

    This brings us back to the earlier point about Koranic sources.

    There is a great deal of borrowed material in the Koran - all the Old Testament stories, the Jesus/Isa stuff, etc.

    The Arabs of the day would not have needed to hear any of this from someone claiming divine revelation any more than a late first century Christian would need to hear about Heracles or Mars from some wandering mystic.

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  7. Wait... I just read this part again:

    "Muhammad did not write the story. Allah reveals it to Muhammad, Muhammad memorizes the revelations. Muhammad recites it to a group of people the group of people write it on a book."

    Did he recite it to a group of people in conversational Arabic? Because then it would be impossible to write down!

    Or was it dictated in written Arabic, in which case it was entirely possible for someone to be illiterate and still understand the spoken version of written Arabic, in which case it IS entirely possible to make up a story in written Arabic, which the theist disagrees with.

    The other alternative is that the prophet did not understand the written OR spoken version of the written Arabic he was dictated, but I do not address that because the theist was arguing Kazim's point that "how was he able to know what it was that he wrote?"

    Seems to me that no matter how you slice it, the arguments in these letters are w-r-o-n-g. Sorry, Allah.

    Also:
    "The fact that the writting of the quran into a book happened shortly after the Prophet's death makes it impossible for any deviation."

    Has this guy ever watched the news? The media can create deviations in MINUTES, let alone an entire lifetime!

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  8. I really can't tell if it's a prank or not by this point. It's amazing how someone can use so many words and say nothing.

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  9. I see where it is going. You can't find a valid response so you have to say "I DONT BELIEVE YOU"

    Oh, LOL! There's no reasoning with someone like this. I agree with Ing; he talks and talks and says absolutely nothing, but somehow manages to impress himself tremendously in the process.

    This is going nowhere.

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  10. Lurker, I believe that the Universe is a type 5 or 6 on the bristol stool chart.

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  11. This is amazing, how is a person able to recognize the fallacy shown in an example, but not in their own religion?? I am baffled by this guy's rationale.

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  12. So is the Shite Sunnie split due to disagreement on whether the universe is chunky-nut filled or runny diarrhea?

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  13. After studying linguistics it pisses me off these sanctimonious Mo-men yelling how much better their language is than every other language on earth. Classical Arabic is nothing but the dialect that was spoken around Mecca in the 7th century. When it was written down it became a liturgical language, like Sanskrit or Hebrew, and the spoken form kept changing, just like every other dialect on earth.

    I could make his same claims about the Southern dialect of English: if you transcribe it exactly the way it is pronounced, it won't look like English, and if you write it with standard spelling it won't look like Southern Dialect. Claiming it's impossible to write it would just make me look ignorant. And claiming that say Chaucer, or Hillbilly Redneck, was inspired by god would just make me look stupid and arrogant.

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  14. Note writers HAVE written in dialect, and YES it is still readable. Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain is cited as one of the better examples.

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  15. How did it even get on Arabic, instead of you know his more important claim of Cacagenesis?

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  16. "Muhammad did not write the story. Allah reveals it to Muhammad, Muhammad memorizes the revelations. Muhammad recites it to a group of people the group of people write it on a book. The fact that the writting of the quran into a book happened shortly after the Prophet's death makes it impossible for any deviation."

    If Muhammad didn't write it why did he bring up his illiteracy? And why does he think that hearing a story and then writing it down shortly after (shortly could mean a few generations) wouldn't leave any room for deviation? This is the really stupid to be honest. The sad thing is it's not the stupidest.

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  17. After studying linguistics it pisses me off these sanctimonious Mo-men yelling how much better their language is than every other language on earth. Classical Arabic is nothing but the dialect that was spoken around Mecca in the 7th century.

    This is an important point. There's a strain of Arabic triumphalism in the Muslim world, and you often hear this - "Arabic is the most precise language in the world, you can use it to convey ideas as in no other language, it's the most poetic, has the richest imagery... the best, the best, the best." This leads (as it did with this guy) to "You can't even hold an opinion until you learn the Qur'an, and you can't do that unless you master Arabic, and that will take twenty years." It's their safeguard; and, of course, if someone did spend years mastering Arabic and studying the Qur'an, and came away still not believing, they'd simply say, "You never really understood it." - as in, "You were never a REAL Christian."

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  18. Did he recite it to a group of people in conversational Arabic? Because then it would be impossible to write down!

    Or was it dictated in written Arabic, in which case it was entirely possible for someone to be illiterate and still understand the spoken version of written Arabic, in which case it IS entirely possible to make up a story in written Arabic, which the theist disagrees with.


    Just to clarify, then: The distinction between these two - written and spoken - did not exist back in Muhammad's day. The distinction arose as a later result of Muhammad's activities (ie creating the qu'ran, however it may have happened).

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  19. I still stand by my previous "The stupid! It burns!" comment in the last post. I hate to resort to using the word "stupid" for this guy but...he has proven to be at the very least incredibly obtuse and unwilling to listen.

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  20. Uzza,

    I agree with the content of your post, but find myself uncomfortable with the seemingly derogatory nickname "Mo-men." It seems unnecessary.

    Just wanted to throw that out there.

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  21. cipher,
    a while ago a regular at rdnet who was fluent in Arabic demonstrated that one famous muslim apologist ('Dr.' Naik) was not capable of delivering a correct translation. Naik is not an Arab, but nevertheless lectures people on his religion. I suspect that many more such apologists could be shown to have a poor grasp of the Qur'anic language.
    If anything, they are even more dishonest than Christian apologists.

    word ver: poeinga

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  22. kazim;
    well, yer right. Sorry.

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  23. I prefer "Morlocks" myself. Or "C.H.U.D.s"

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  24. Felix

    Perhaps it's so complicated even they can't do it!

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  25. We are genetically wired to feel the pain of others (empathy), so we avoid causing pain. This works through emotion: if I don't torture a dog to death, it is not because I believe it is wrong or because I'm afraid I'd be caught if I did it, but because I would be emotionally unable to do it. My brain prevents me from hurting others by making me feel bad at the idea of doing it.

    Those of our ancestors who did not have this genetic wiring were more likely to hurt others (think psychopaths). By doing so, they were considered a threat to their community (remember: humans live in groups) and they were dealt with by the community -- they were killed or banished. In any event, being killed or banished has consequences reproduction-wise. Also, in the event where you weren't killed or banished, you certainly became a paria, which comes also with consequences, namely the difficulty to find a mate and reproduce.

    Also, if you are inclined to hurt others, you will be more likely to be hurt, which also results in a higher likelyhood of being hurt in turn.

    This is why:

    - most people do not use violence except in rare occasions, like when violence is already being used against them, or when something threatens their safety or the safety of their family;

    - most people do not like to cause pain, except when doing so increases their survival, like killing animals in order to eat them.

    There will always be exceptions, of course, as evolution cannot produce perfection, but people who are not driven by these imperatives (not causing useless pain or violence) will be in the minority (just like blind, deaf, retarded, etc people).

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  26. About my previous comment...

    Oups! I forgot to mention that it was a response to why we atheists do not go around killing people even if we don't believe in a god.

    Sorry!

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  27. Note writers HAVE written in dialect, and YES it is still readable. Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain is cited as one of the better examples.

    Also Alice Walker in The Color Purple, a brilliant example.

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  28. woo-HOOO uzza and leisha, bring on the linguistic skepticism. i love it!

    why, we can watch talkies from only a few years back when a fella spoke to the gals like this, see? we have the technology to see how we spoke then, and already it's dated enough to be imitated. imagine how rapidly language could have changed when most people couldn't read, kept to their in-groups, and had no benefit of magnetic tape.

    how, then could this dude comment on arabic's double-life between print and ear?

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  29. What I don't understand is his founding assumption that Muhammad was illiterate. He was the king of an empire, or at least the start of one. And he married a rich woman. I'm pretty sure he learned how to read and write somewhere along the way.

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  30. "looking at the perfection of the quran in its meaning etc there is no way it was translated it like that."
    =====
    Ayyyy. Oh come on that old excuse? The 'problem' is not with the 'perfection' of the Arabic Language (it is actually quite deficient) - the problem is that each translator has an AGENDA for their translation. For example Abdullah Yusuf Ali's agenda was to make the Quran (and Islam) appear more palatabe to Western readers, hence he added a lot of (bracketed statements) that are NOT in the original Arabic. Edip Yuksel & Rashad Khalifa seek to modernize Islam so their translations are greatly softened, removing quite a bit of the mysnogistic crapola within.

    The other problem is that the Quran is very poorly written - I mean it reads like a Chinese to english instruction manual (you all know the ones!). Go here:
    http://islamawakened.com/Quran/default.htm
    Have a look at the literal translations there. There are words missing all over the place, and whole sentences in sections too!

    "The fact that the writting of the quran into a book happened shortly after the Prophet's death makes it impossible for any deviation."
    ======
    No, Uthman's Quran (when it was standardized) explains the no deviation. He of course ordered all deviating copies burnt (which they were). Of course I wont mention the Verses of Rajm which the goat ate (oops!)

    "it was confirmed via counts in poems etc."
    ======
    LOL yes, ALL Islamic literature - there are no other sources. Who wants to bet none of those sources say Muhammad wasn't a prophet?


    "People back then did not believe in god"
    =====
    Garbage. They were pagan polytheists. They believed in many gods. Muhammad decided to elevate one of the gods (the moon god) to AL ILAH (the god) and he smashed the other 364 idols that were housed in the Ka'ba. AL ILAH was contracted to ALLAH (his name now) and the black stone is still lodged in the wall of the Ka'ba to this day - Allah is an idol. This is why Muslims face Mecca and bow down when they pray - they are literally bowing to their moon god idol (not that any Muslim will admit this).

    So Islam isn't really Monotheism, it's Moonotheism (hehe I'm so witty!)


    Hey Muhammad (damn same name as your profit lol), come over to http://www.wikiislam.com there are things there you may learn.

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  31. So far as I know, the original aim of Muhammed the founder of Islam was as a sort of reformation of Monophysite (non-trinity) Christianity - and since that was the version of Christianity that had spread to Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, Syria, the Middle East in general... that explains why it took over so fast when it was defined as a whole new religion. It was relatively similar to the Monophysite view, so people could "convert" without really changing what they believed, just what they did.
    This also meant that the actions of Emperor Justinian (who persecuted the Monophysites as part of his plan for papal approval to reconquer the Western Empire) could be seen as aiding the spread of Islam when it emerged, as this persecution split them from supporting Rome/Byzantium.
    Of course, the reconquest that ravaged the Western Roman Empire and bankrupted the East, followed by the Great Plague that utterly devastated the entire Empire, probably crippled any response Rome could have made to the spread of this new religion.

    Simply put, Islam in it's fundamentals was very similar indeed to a faction of Christianity already prevalent around the Middle East - hardly a remarkable divine inspiration to believers in spirits.

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