A response to the video called 'Stupid Muslim Comments #11'

[metalized]

Of course the majority of men don’t rape women in non-Islamic societies, like they wouldn’t do in Islamic societies if women weren’t covering their hair. Most men are sensible, well-educated beings, that is not the issue here. The issue is the protection of women against rapists and other criminals, many of whom do it for sexual purposes. No matter how well you educate your population, lunatics like that are always going to exist in considerable quantities and therefor Islamic society has to deal with that through a dress code for women. And as to the alternatives, could you please present one? Masculine arousal to women is something of the mind and the spirit, so the only alternative I can see is men covering their eyes constantly, which doesn’t seem very practical.
They are discouraged to report it to the authorities, but not to several organisations who operate in those regions with the goal of helping such women. Furthermore, there are some muslim countries where this is not the case, and these also are not on the list, so, the way I see it, that would reflect on wider Islamic society, since it has the same design as those countries (such as, for instance, Turkey).

On the issue of women, women are absolutely equal in value and before the sight of God to men, there is no question about that. In some cases, however, due to practical reasons, that is not manifested in what westerners would call complete equality. For instance, a woman only inherits half what a man does, because she will never be responsible financially for her family; only the man is financially responsible for his family. It is forbidden for him to force his wife to give him her money. A wife, however, can compel her husband to give her the money she needs to run the family. Because of that greater responsibility, the man get more of the inheritance of his parents.
I would like to express my gratitude for the good questions you have posed so far, but nonetheless want to warn you not to read too much Youtube comments and certainly not react to them, since that can drive a person insane (trust me, I know what I’m talking about). You know as well as I do that the people you’re satirising are ignorant and not worthy of intellectual debate (I mean, come on, one of the muslims had the ISL flag as his Youtube picture).

So wearing a veil will protect women against muslims who would rape them because their lust is ucontrollable, if they see their face and their beauty. Why don't you do the following then? Instead of wearing veil, the women should be able to go around escorted by very ugly women, whose ugliness would make that lust fade away instantly?
Also: If a woman was to be stoned/burnt alive for reporting a rape, for so called "honor-killing/murder", because she could not have 2 male witnesses to backup her claim that she was raped, do you think that, even if she was raped, she would report it?


Regarding equality of women:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran ... ultery.htm
http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-t ... hp#002.282

Sorry to say but this is a load of bullshit. And, yes Turkey is maybe of the finest examples of muslim countries comparing to, for instance, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

[Viking Redbeard]

Having recently read the Qu'ran cover to cover, I'd just like to say a few things that I got from reading it, and really just the general gist of the book

First of all, the sheer rage and frustration emanating from the pages was remarkable. Many, many pages of the book were written to denigrate different people of different kinds, from polytheists to hypocrites, and most especially the Jews (and everyone who doesn't agree with everything Mohammed says or obey him unquestioningly). It's apparent that the writer really, really hates whole swathes of people with a passion that I haven't seen before in any other book ever.

There are little flashes of humanity throughout, such as the bit where he scorns the polytheists who bury baby girls alive, and his concern for orphans. I also liked the bit where Allah says something like 'O Muslims, when you visit your prophet's house for dinner, don't stay too late - it annoys him, but he's too shy to say.' Also, the book isn't as misogynistic as I thought it would be, although it still condones beating your wife and treating them as your 'tilth' (i.e. a field to be ploughed), and it certainly condones slavery, especially the enslavement of young girls for sex.

All in all, I found Mohammed to be a very human character, though profoundly hateful and bitter about the way he is always being ignored and made fun of by the wicked unbelievers. Allah informs us again and again that his prophet is absolutely positively not mad, and must not be made fun of. Mohammed reminded me of the loudest, most racist, most bigoted, most sexist and angriest bloke in the pub, sitting in the corner fulminating over his non-alcoholic beer.

Most of the horrible things I've heard about the book (slavery, capital punishment for adultary, calls to war with unbelievers) have turned out to be true (as far as my translation went). However, the thing that stood out to me the most - and this was a surprise - was the effect it began to have on me as I continued to read it.

Most pages have descriptions of Hell - and it really is some of the most viscious and gratuitous stuff I've read (and I've read 'American Psycho' and 'the Marquis de Sade). When you keep reading over and over, page after page about how you're destined to be tortured in horrific fashion forever unless you submit your mind, after a while I found that even I - a staunch skeptic - began to have thoughts like 'Wow, I sure do hope I'm not dreadfully mistaken here. I sure do hope that all this stuff is nonsensical as it sounds.' In this way, I think I caught a glimpse of why the book is so powerful to so many people. The price you pay for turning away is too terrible to imagine. I've read a few holy books, including the Bible, and I've never been affected in quite the same way.

[brimstoneSalad]

Where's that GIF image of that guy slowly applauding?

That was awesome, Viking Redbeard! Thank you very much for sharing that. And respect for being able to read the Qur'an all of the way through.

Which translation did you use? And why?

[Viking Redbeard]

I read this one: http://www.musily.usi.ch/documents/english.pdf

The reason I chose it was that it's the official version promoted by the Saudi Government, and one of the most widely read in the world. It also has the advantage of being peppered with notes by Islamic scholars who go to great lengths to explain the way many of the verses are understood by top scholars (obviously of the Wahhabi tradition).

It's a punishing read. It pummels your brain, and in the end makes you feel a little punch drunk. But still, I'm glad I read it. It illuminates much.

[garrethdsouza]

The acceptance of evolutionary biology is near unanimous. Lack of acceptance of evolution is as ludicrous as suggesting there is a flaw in heliocentrism and geocentrism is the truth simply.because it says so.in some book written thousands of years ago by scientifically ignorant men who didn't even know the basic cause of infectious diseases and ascribed it to demons or the wrath of deities.
The near unanimous acceptance of it can be seen for instance in project Steve.http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve or http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... te-change/
While you will always have a few wingnut scientists case in point here is that many times more scientists don't accept human driven climate change than evolution. If your suggestion to this is that scientists are biased to 99% a and curiously this happens to be one issue that would affect your religious beliefs so its not surprising you would hope that. The reality is that if you feel scientists are biased and even that what is unanimously accepted is false then there is no basis for you to accept any of the other scientific facts as true either. Gravity, photosynthesis, all can be dissed as mere bias and then there's no real basis for us to believe in anything what science has unanimously accepted.

And if something is universally accepted, generally a paradigm shift in what we know is usually accomplished by scientists themselves who know the subject through and through and then demonstrate empirically about the subject.

So what have you read on the subject that is universally accepted that you of all the scientists have found empirical evidence to contradict? Have you found rabbits in the precambrian? Have you found a flaw in the genetics data? Have you read even a single standard evolutionary biology textbook accepted by scientists and peer reviewed articles addressing it??

Your tactic of suggesting its just a theory is common creationist ploy, its like how certain MRA advocates say feminists are only concerned about woman's rights.
The way they do this is because the term has two definitions,/theory or feminism, they simply purport that it means the former whereas it is being said in terms of the latter, so its a cheap trick to say just a theory, that's not even what we were referring to, its a non issue.

Specifically a theory can mean a hypothesis or conjecture, alternatively it can mean a body of knowledge. When scientists say the theory of evolution they mean the body Of knowledge of evolution, not just a random hypothesis. So saying its just a theory as if to mean its just a hypothesis is patently false.
This double meaning definition usage has caused issues which is precisely why some refer to it as the theorum of evolution,

All of your contentions are baseless, the suggestion that macroevolution ie one species to another has never been observed yes it has, go grab a textbook you would know that.
As to the mechanism for such change please familiarise yourself with reproductive isolation and in particular genomics for it is a genomic phenomenon that leads to speciation. Can you address what your issues are with this: https://scholar.google.co.in/scholar?cl ... s_ylo=2014

Christianity at least Catholicism has reconciled itself to evolution as it has to heliocentricity, they are obvious and undeniable scientific facts denying one is as ludicrous as denying the other. One can be religious and believe in evolution so its better if ones religion reconciles to the science than asserting ridiculous conjectures like divine intelligence, because it just makes their followers anti science, at least as far as a lot of biology is concerned.

What do you mean by financially never responsible? Are you suggesting that they should be systematically deprived of pursuing jobs on par with men despite there being no data to suggest they are anything but just as intelligent and competent? Systems that worked millennia ago in predominantly tribalistic societies without industrial and agricultural revolution doesn't imply they work today where such gender based employment stratification need not take place and so to for inheritance rules. The bible as well suggested woman to always be subjugated and never reach a position where they could teach men/have authority over men, those systems aren't practiced today for very good reason. Hindus used to follow the caste system for inhwritance based employment but are such things are appropriate today? Christians used to have slaves.
When it comes to issues where people point out you quickly bring up the westerners card, as if geographical or cultural differences mean your interpretations are somehow gender equal and should be seen in this specific light, you just want to display it as such to prevent it from critism whereas in places where there is no conflict you seldom bring up the westerners card like using aeroplanes first developed in the west, why not play the card now?

Anyone can say our religion based god fiven social rules shall achieve the best society doesnt make it so right? the mayans could have made that claim, would we then assume human sacrifice is the way to go?
As far as how to judge whether a society is best there can be many METRICS,
eg happiness, equality of women, equality of different gender and orientation identities, accomplishments in science and %GDP devoted to scientific, ability to use reason, amount of violence, sustainability in practices, exology and environment, treatment of animals, interfaith harmony, interfaith relationship acceptability, iq, Amount of victim blaming for rape.
Does is look like any of the societies by so many metrics are ideal?

If women are punished for reporting rape shouldn't it be obvious that the number of reported rapes in such countries is less? And since the perpetrators can get away Scott free as a result, won't it encourage them to commit more rapes since no one will report it anyways?

If you want to tackle rape there are many demonstrated ways that do work. Women being deprived of an identity by restricting their clothing and employment options and not even their face left uncovered are not at all employed here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiati ... l_violence
Your suggestion bordering on that men will rape if they find a woman attractive, no with proper sex education and information about rape like in the above case that's not true. Men are not Venus flytraps with single logic gates of responding to a stimulus.

IMO with some things regarding prediction you were attempting the disingenuous authentication by association tactic. You're suggesting that since one claim is true regarding perceived foreknowledge of a particular subject (which anyways there are many doubts of) that means all of the rest is also true.
So if I say aliens exist and will be found some millennia later and make a lot of fantastical claims of an alien or a supernaturalistic entity appearing to me and I having seen flying whales and leprachauns and if later on they find out aliens do exist, does it mean that because one of my claims was found later to be true the rest are also true? No. Each claim has to be evaluated in isolation.

[brimstoneSalad]

I wouldn't recommend taking theists seriously and arguing with them about evolution, because:

1. Nobody is realistically going to see his anti-science arguments and think "Wow, science was wrong after all, Allah must exist". They are pretty much non-threatening. These people are really only preaching to the converted. To that end, it's simply not necessary.

2. He's not likely going to change his mind. The information is there. In order to have gotten to this far, he must have seen these kinds of arguments before, and just ignores them, or chooses to remain delusional. To that end, you're probably wasting your time there.
I just gave him the link to the index of creationist claims. If he has any interest at all in being open minded on the subject, everything he needs is there.

3. I wouldn't really want apologists to believe the earth is not flat, or that the Earth isn't the center of the solar system. The more obviously ignorant they are about these things, the more ridiculous they are, and the less likely anybody is going to take their other arguments seriously.
Somebody actually might say,
"Wow, you make a compelling argument about god because of X. Oh, wait, you think the Earth is flat? Umm, on second thought, I'll go with the atheists on this whole god thing, they seem more credible."
Why would you want the apologists to believe in evolution?
A theist who believes in evolution is a much more challenging adversary, just like one who doesn't believe the Earth is flat.
These beliefs are probably going to die off much faster if their primary advocates remain ignorant and can only be seen as delusional lunatics.

Anyway, that's pretty much why I will only argue with a theist who accepts evolution. It demonstrates that he or she is somewhat rational, in that he or she can at least accept overwhelming scientific proof (which makes it more likely he or she will be receptive to reason), and it's the only kind of theist who is enough of a threat to really be worth the time addressing.