Monday, February 16, 2015

Debate: Is ISIS Islamic? David Wood (Christian) vs. Osama Abdallah (Muslim)




David Wood is a Christian apologist probably best known for his criticism of Islam. He writes for the blog Answering Muslims and has debated many prominent Muslims on issues regarding Islam and Christianity. I saw one debate recently called Is ISIS Islamic? and I think Wood did a particularly good job in it. He certainly is well educated in Islamic history and theology and knows how to cut through most of the bullshit you often here coming from liberal Muslims who obfuscate their religion and its history to give you the kinder, gentler version of Islam that they want us Westerners to believe is true.

Some liberals that watch this may initially feel the urge to ignore Wood's criticisms and brush them off as the product of fundamentalist Christian "Islamophobia." Yes, Wood is a Christian, but that does not automatically render his criticism of Islam biased and false. Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz also recognize the same problems of the Islamic sources. If you are the kind that feels the need to believe Islam is a peaceful religion that has been hijacked by a small minority of extremists, please try and suspend that reaction and listen to the arguments Wood makes. And then do some research into the verses and their interpretations to see if Wood makes a convincing case that ISIS is indeed Islamic.

Hitchens On The Seriousness Of Textual Authority


"Turn any page or open any page of any newspaper today and you'll see they [religionists] find the authority for bullying you and lecturing you and trying to intimidate you in their holy texts, and why wouldn't they? Because in those man made texts, that authority for the punishment of apostasy, or infidelity, or womanhood, or sexuality, or free thinking, is already there, just like rats in the cellar in La Peste just waiting to be revived by the turn of the page. Please, know an enemy when you see one."

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Sometimes Comedy Is The Best Language


Thursday, February 12, 2015

Atheism Has No Prescription To Kill


The internet is abuzz with the recent news of an atheist who allegedly killed three Muslims in what appears to be a hate crime. Reports have suggested that the alleged killings by 46 year Craig Hicks were over a parking dispute, but anti Islamic comments made by him on social media have lead many to think he was motivated by a hatred of Islam or Muslims.

First let me say that killing someone over a parking space is extremely stupid, and killing someone because of their religion is perhaps even more stupid. Being an atheist and killing someone because of their religion is perhaps the stupidest, and even more stupid than when religious people kill other religious people because of their religion.

But there is a difference between this incident and the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The Charlie Hebdo murderers were motivated by a religious prescription to not depict the prophet Mohammad in any way, especially not in a derogatory way. And Islam prescribes many situations where non-believers can be killed, beheaded, and forced to submit to Islamic authorities. The killers were avenging the prophet, as they shouted while leaving the scene of the crime. Their crime was clearly motivated by their religious faith.

Atheism by contrast, is just the lack of a belief in any gods. It says nothing about what moral philosophies or prescriptions one should follow. There is no holy book in atheism that says "Kill the believer where ever you find them." And while it is certainly possible for someone to kill in the "name of atheism," atheism and even anti-theism are neutral on violence. They simply say nothing about it.

So while these murders are despicable and should make everyone ashamed, this person's alleged hatred of Islam is not a prescription of atheism. On Hick's Facebook page he has a banner describing his anti-theism. I too describe myself as an anti-theist, but anti-theism, or the "conscientious objection to religion" as the banner defines it, does not entail the unwarranted killing of theists or anyone. Anti-theism is an intellectual battle against religious belief, not a physical battle. I do not condone the killing of anyone based on their religious beliefs, politics, race, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else. And anti-theism doesn't stand for this. Period.


P.S. I'm glad to see so many prominent atheists coming out so quickly to condemn this violence.
#ChapelHillShooting





Tuesday, February 10, 2015

John Oliver On Big Pharma


Sunday, February 1, 2015

Was The Genocide Of The Cannanites In The Bible Justified?


It seems that for some Christians the genocidal conquests mentioned in the Old Testament are a constant thorn in their theology. I can definitely see the need for one to want to distance themselves from actually believing they were historical events commanded by an omnibenevolent deity. The most rational interpretation of those text that I think a Christian can have, as I've said many times, is the minimalist view that doesn't regard them as divinely inspired. Thom Stark's view is a prime example. In his book Is God a Moral Compromiser? he critiques the idea that the genocide on the Canaanites was justified by any reasonable moral standard.

When theists argue that the Canaanites "had it coming to them" because they performed child sacrifice, or they performed ritual sex acts, I like to kindly remind them that the Canaanites had no pact with Yahweh to solely worship him or to obey any of the Mosaic commandments. See, the thing about divine command theory (for those theists who advocate for it) is that "the morally right action is the one that God commands or requires." This means that in the absence of any divine revelation or command, a person has no objective moral duties to abide by. Him and his society are therefore free to do as they please, whether that includes child sacrifice or ritualistic prostitution. So if the Canaanites indeed did these things, they were not violating any moral laws set down by Yahweh, and were therefore innocent of any of the charges the Israelites used to justify their genocide against them.

And Stark knows this. Aside from the fact that the Israelites also once practiced child sacrifice (exodus 22:29) as the Canaanites did (but unlike the Canaanites they did so only to Yahweh), on page 32 Stark writes:

I’ll just note two problems here: (1) God never sent any prophets to Canaan to warn them of their coming destruction; not in Abraham’s time, not in Moses’s, and not in any time in between. The only thing he sent to Canaan was military spies. (2) He had to wait until their punishment was “fully deserved”? We’re talking about baby killing here. At what point is a baby’s slaughter “fully deserved”? And if Copan is going to cite “original sin” (though I’m not claiming he will), then everybody in the whole world “fully deserved” to get slaughtered. And their slaughter would have been just as “fully deserved” in Abraham’s time as it was in Moses’s.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Islam Is A Big Problem And The Numbers Show It



Once again Islam is in the news for reasons that have to do with violence and a clash of ideals with Western freedom of speech. Last week, two Islamic terrorists broke into the headquarters of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, and coldly executed several of is cartoonists and editors, killing a total of 12 people, including a police officer of Algerian descent. The motivation for the attack appears to be in retaliation of the paper's numerous cartoons portraying the Islamic religion and their prophet Mohammad in ways they consider offensive.

In the aftermath of the killings, thousands around the world have staged marches supporting Charlie Hebdo and free speech. "Je Suis Charlie" (I Am Charlie) became their motto. Pundits and talking heads from around the world have come out and given their two cents on the attacks and the problems with terrorism, immigration, and conflicting values the West faces with Islam. When people are killed over cartoons, it is every free speech advocate's duty to make those cartoons seen as much as possible. I really wished Hitchens were alive today as I have no doubt he'd have a lot of interesting things to say about the matter.

Someone who's opinion I also respect, and who is still alive, is Bill Maher, and he said over on Jimmy Kimmel recently, "I'm the liberal in this debate. I'm for free speech. To be a liberal you have to stand up for liberal principles, it's not my fault that the part of the world that is most against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world." Another person whose opinion I admire is Sam Harris. He said on Real Time a few months ago (in a debate that got a lot of attention) that there are about 20 percent of Muslims who are sympathetic to the extremist tactics employed by terrorists. He was challenged over those numbers, and so I decided to take a look into the data that Maher, Harris and others often cite that shows disturbingly large percentages of Muslims worldwide holding beliefs that are antithetical to common liberal Western values.

In his criticism of Islam, Maher often cites a well publicized study conducted by the Pew Forum about the opinions of Muslims in various countries on a wide variety of issues, focusing on religion, politics, and morality. The study has raised some eyebrows in how alarmingly high the numbers of Muslims are who think that sharia (Islamic) should be the law of the land, adulterers should be stoned to death, and who think the penalty for leaving Islam should be death. But the numbers are a bit deceiving and Maher tends to exaggerate them when making his point, allowing his critics to an open door to attack him.

Let's take a look at that survey and crunch some numbers. I want to see if we can assess the overall extent to which Muslims around the world view sharia and and hold ideas that conflict with common Western values.

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