Infallibility No guard Against Stupidity

echo:
I have no idea how to post a picture that isn`t on somewebsite already.
:(

PM:
Pls. acknowledge that you grasped the P.S in the earlier post about the smilie posting system.

re. echo:
`` Ok so should the washerman stay or move on``.

bhai sahib aapke `services` meiN kya shaaml hai? Can dhobis kick sense into asses??

:))

Sanke-oil dearler:
re. ``Apparently this ``master of logic`` missed the word ``obeying``, similarity of command does not translate into similarity of identity.``

Duh! I was speaking of an identity of command. Let`s say that i was ambiguous in doing tha. Let`s say I was even wrong. (Hey, it`s hard to watch ones p`s and q`s when one is laughing this hard over the contortionist`s act!)

Now, that doesn`t detract from the fact that you picked up on the ambiguity, gave it your preferred meaning, and turned it into a red herring if there ever was one. Sanke-oil man, you knew very well that he arguments was about what YOU claimed were ``identical`` commands.

re. ``Fellow readers here, this damn fool, PM deliberately does not want to acknowledge that.``

The only ``fellow readers here`` who might be interested (apart from echo) who bothered to comment on the debate has already passed his judgement. Na na na na na!

``Obeying God and obeying the messenger- when the messenger`s only duty is to convey the message does not involve a redundancy. Why you ask?``

No, no one is asking. We already know that the statement ``Obey X and Obey Y`` when X and Y are identical, is a rank redundancy, (and moreover, preents one from being a pre-requisite for the other) no matter how much you grease the satement, with your snake oil. Thank you very much!

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Messrs PM and Masadi.

Seldom has it happened that such high brow subjects as Faith and Reason alongwith the postmortem and autopsy of ``The medium is the message`` been conducted at a street level
so well that even riff-raffs like myself feel a light-bulb of Reason glowing and a halo of Faith
surrounding my small head.

There is a story about these two women who quarreled with each other each afternoon and used some very colorful language to rebutt the other`s colorful language.

A washerman would sometimes stop on his way his launderyshop because one of the phrases uttered commonly by both was the desire of one that the other should be serviced by the washerman.

This day the washerman stopped in his tracks and was watching the show. When the above expressed desire became unbearable for even the dhobi...he shut them up and said:

`` Ok so should the washerman stay or move on``.

---

I, alongwith the other washermen on CHOWK, ask the same question.

P.S: P.M: THis is simply a picture. Just post it. ....this is in reply to your earlier question to me.

#309 PM writes <<< dimwit snake-oil dealer. Don`t give MY words a twist like you do your own, please. You said ``Obeying Allah`` and ``obeying His Messenger`` ``are identical``. That is the context of my use of the word `identity`. >>>

Apparently this ``master of logic`` missed the word ``obeying``, similarity of command does not translate into similarity of identity.

Fellow readers here, this damn fool, PM deliberately does not want to acknowledge that

Obeying God and obeying the messenger- when the messenger`s only duty is to convey the message does not involve a redundancy. Why you ask? Let me explain this for the 25th time. Obeying God is CONTINGENT upon, depends upon obeying the messenger- the one who delivers his message BECAUSE God is not talking to every human being. If that were the case, only that scenario would make the ``messenger`` part redundant. Very simple easy to understand concept. Why does PM, the dimwit, deny it? Because it busts his whole case against Islam that of using Ad Hominem (an illogical argumentation technique through and through) against the prophet in order to discredit Islam. Not to mention that his Ad Hominem will be based on reports seperated atleast 250 years from the events which will not stand in any court of law as evidence for anything.

I rest my case. Let this dog keep barking.

re. masadi madness @ #307:
``God and the messenger don`t share an ``identity`` in any way, this is your Christian bs speaking.``

dimwit snake-oil dealer. Don`t give MY words a twist like you do your own, please. You said ``Obeying Allah`` and ``obeying His Messenger`` ``are identical``. That is the context of my use of the word `identity`.

But trust you to obfuscate! after all you have no logical defense! Ido empathize with you. It must be a hard place to be in.

``My logical knowledge and my comprehension of English is much superior to yours``

HAHAHAHA!! This from a dimwit who continually refers to Chritian bs as being mine, right?
But go ahead Snake-oil man, go on twisting and contorting yourself and your words (and now mine too) all out of recognizeable shape. You`re good for little else.

#288 by ZahraJ

[Hello to all. Here`s an interesting commentary! Food for thought. ]

Can we have you comment on my rebuttals to the article?


To begin with, Uri Avnery is a extreme left wing liberal. That does not make what he writes necessarily incorrect, but one should be inspecting what he says, and check them against historical facts.

Lets` begin:


[Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, ``walked to Canossa``, standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope`s castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week`s speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush`s crusade against ``Islamofascism``, in the context of the ``Clash of Civilizations``. ]

The struggle between the Church and the Monarchy has NOTHING to do with whether Muslims are responsible for spreading Islam by the sword.

What`s wrong with a ``crusade`` against ``islamofascism``, or any other kind of ``fascism``?



[In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God`s actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope.]

Well, he did enter the fray, didn`t he? And even mentioned that the Pope is being illogical, without citing any reasons why.


[But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this ``war of civilizations``.

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

``Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached``.

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel`s death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim ``Axis of Evil``. Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

Is there any truth in Manuel`s argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur`an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: ``There must be no coercion in matters of faith``.

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur`an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: ``You will recognize them by their fruits.`` The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to ``spread the faith by the sword``?

Well, they just did not. ]

This is demonstrably false. I could quote historical documents from a number of court historians from different periods of Muslim rule in India where they give long lists of doing precisely that.



[For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration.]

Here`s some information about Ottoman Greece:



``The Sultan regarded the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church as the leader of the Greeks within the empire. The Patriarch was accountable to the Sultan for the Greeks` good behavior, and in exchange he was given wide powers over the Greek community. The Patriarch controlled the courts and the schools, as well as the Church, throughout the Greek communities of the empire. This made Orthodox priests the effective rulers of Greek villages. Some Greek towns, such as Athens and Rhodes, retained municipal self-government, while others were put under Ottoman governors. Some areas, such as the Mani Peninsula in the Peloponnese, and parts of Crete and Epirus, remained virtually independent. For their part, the Patriarchs regarded the tolerant rule of the Ottomans as preferable to rule by the Roman Catholic Venetians, who threatened the Orthodox faith in a way the Ottomans did not. When the Ottomans fought the Venetians, the Greeks mostly sided with the Ottomans. The Orthodox Church assisted in the preservation of the Greek heritage.

As a rule, the Ottomans did not require the Greeks to become Muslims, although many did so in order to avert the economic hardships of Ottoman rule. Many Greeks became Crypto-Christians (Greek Muslims who were secret practitioners of the Greek Orthodox faith) in order to avoid heavy taxes and at the same time express their identity by maintaining their secret ties to the Greek Orthodox Church. Crypto-Christians ran the risk of being killed if they were caught practicing a non-Muslim religion once they converted to Islam. Greeks who converted to Islam and were not Crypto-Christians were deemed Turks in the eyes of Orthodox Greeks.

Christians were subject to various forms of discrimination. Sumptuary laws forced Christians and Jews to wear distinctive clothing, distinguishing them from their neighbors. Non-Muslims were not allowed to ride horses, and if they were riding a donkey or mule they had to dismount if they passed a Muslim. Churches were not allowed to ring their bells. Christians also had to pay higher taxes than Muslims.


Taxation and the ``tribute of children``

``Young Greeks at the Mosque`` (Jean Léon Gérôme, oil on canvas, 1865); this oil painting portrays Greek Muslims at prayer in a mosque)Greeks also paid a land tax and a tax on trade, but these were either collected irregularly by the inefficient Ottoman administration. Provided they paid their taxes and gave no trouble, they were left to themselves. Greeks, like other Christians, were also made to pay the jizya, or Islamic poll-tax which all non-Muslims in the empire were forced to pay in order to practice their religion. Non-Muslims did not serve in the Sultan`s army, so the burden of conscription was lifted from the Greek peasants.

The exception to this was the ``tribute of children`` (in Greek παιδομάζωμα paidomazoma, meaning ``child gathering``), whereby every Christian community was required to give one son in five to be raised as a Muslim and enrolled in the corps of Janissaries (yenicheri or ``new force``), elite units of the Ottoman army. This imposition, at first, aroused surprisingly little opposition as the Greeks were a conquered people and could not offer effective resistance. Still, there was much passive resistance, for example Greek folk lore tells of mothers crippling their sons to avoid their abduction. Nevertheless, entrance into the corps (accompanied by conversion to Islam) offered Greek boys the opportunity to advance as high as governor or even Grand Vizier.




Opposition of the Greek populace to taxing or paidomazoma resulted in grave consequences. For example, in 1705 an Ottoman official was sent from Naoussa in Macedonia to search and conscript new Janissaries and was killed by Greek rebels who resisted the burden of the devshirmeh. The rebels were subsequently beheaded and their severed heads were displayed in the city of Thessaloniki.[2] The ``tribute of children`` was greatly feared as Greek families would often have to relinquish their own sons who would return later as their oppressors. The Greek historian Papparigopoulos stated that approximately one million Greeks were conscripted into Janissaries during the Ottoman era.


Demographics
The incorporation of Greece into the Ottoman Empire had other long-term consequences. Economic activity declined to a great extent (mainly because trade flowed towards cities like Smyrna and Istanbul), and the population declined, at least in the lowland areas (Ottoman censuses did not include many people in mountainous areas). Large numbers of Albanians, Vlachs (linguistically related to the Romanians) and Bulgarians settled in various parts of the country [citation needed]. Turks settled extensively in Thrace. After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardic Jews settled in Thessaloniki (known in this period as Salonica or Selanik), which became the main Jewish centre of the empire. The Greeks became inward-looking, with each region cut off from the others - only Muslims could ride a horse, which made travel difficult. Greek culture declined, and outside the Church few people were literate. The Greek language broke up into regional dialects, and absorbed large numbers of Turkish words. Greek music and other elements of Greek folk-culture were, to an extent, influenced by Ottoman trends.``





[The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian. ]

I have a friend who is a muslim from Yugoslavia. He tells me that his family used to be Christian, but were forced to convert. He calls himself an atheist.


[True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits. ]

Oh, so there was discrimination against the non-Muslims? Only Muslims could ``enjoy the fruits``? Doesn`t this negate what he has been saying in this article?


[In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today`s Palestinians. ]

Nobody is claiming that Christians were any better. In fact, they were FAR worse. But they have changed their ways in this respect.


[Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times ``by the sword`` to get them to abandon their faith. ]

Is that why Jews flee from any Muslim country?

PM writes <<< Mr. Dimwit, if you had the logical aptitude of a sixth-grader, and the English proficiency of a fifth grader, you would know that when two entities share an IDENTITY, one cannot be the PREREQUISITE for the other.>>>

God and the messenger don`t share an ``identity`` in any way, this is your Christian bs speaking. My logical knowledge and my comprehension of English is much superior to yours, your posts make that quite obvious. I have proved my case quite effectively from various angles, you on the other hand have been beating around the bush and trying to dodge the obvious. My posts were not for you, you have no clue about reasoning when you support Ad Hominem, which regardless of the other arguments is ALWAYS invalid, even if the prophet had invented the Quran (which is quite impossible), it would still be invalid as criticism of the Quran, comprendey? Further, you read the obvious explanation of ``rasool`` in the Quran, a carrier of a message and NOTHING else, absolutely NOTHING as far as that role and the status that comes with it goes, and yet you force your own meaning on it. You are beyond dumb. And when you call me ``dimwit`` it shows your dimwit nature as you cannot even come up with your own insults but have to copy others.

re. teshah #288:

Food for thought-- both your post and 49:14. Excellent!

Damn this is getting to be fun now!!

``You don`t get it because you have nothing but this last straw to hang on to, your entire case against Islam rests on just such childish reasoning and pointing fingers,``

dimwit, YOU think I`m pointing fingers, because YOU reason that i am coming to you from a Christian standpoint. Grow up already, and try reading for a change. Want to know what clutching to straws is: read your #303, where you, ad nauseum, go about telling us that the work of the prophet is conveyance, as if that guarantees that any other given verse cannot be either redundant (which I`ve proven, as per your interpretation), or self-contradictory (which I can`t be bothered to show, but it remains at least possible.)

``... so far we have not even approached the reliability of the sources that you pick and choose when you formulate your case against the prophet.``

Tell me, dimwit, are even you questioning the veracity of the Qur`an here? The past 100 or so posts you`ve been busy debating, if you can call it that, my contention viz what 5:18 [?] says. Or maybe you`re speaking of the case of Asma bint Marvaan, which, I`m sure, you`d like to tell us, comes from an unreliable source (unlike the case of the old lady who emptied her trash on the Prophet.) Go ahead. Give it a shot!

``Go figure, idiots claiming to be logicians, the most pathetically illogical system in the entire world that of Christianity and they point fingers at Islam, they destroy the whole world through colonization and unforseen barbarism and then call Muslims terrorists. Hypocrites plain and simple.``

Whoaaa! You`ve got serious issues, man! And I don`t just mean with the English language either!

Here`s a friendly bit of advice, man: take your anti-Chritian venom some place it will actually make a difference, like answering-Islam.org. And yes, I`m serious. You need to show those Christian clowns why picking nits in Islam from THEIR angle is like the pot calling the kettle black.

But grow up a little if you really want to debate with me.

re. snake-oil dealer #302:

Up to now, I was willing to believe that it was just the usual blind faith syndrom with which you were afflicted that prevented you from seeing the obvious implications of your OWN words. Now I am almost certain that you are deliberately deluded yourself, masadi.

This is rich: ``Two things being identical in essence of command does not make one of them redundant especially when one is a prerequisite for the other``

Mr. Dimwit, if you had the logical aptitude of a sixth-grader, and the English proficiency of a fifth grader, you would know that when two entities share an IDENTITY, one cannot be the PREREQUISITE for the other.

Continue to post, though. This is getting to be fun, seeing how you`re multiplying your own absurdities (thanks for that expression-- BOY is it apt!!) as you contort the English langauge completely out of shape.

re. #303: Why don`t you take up those bibical absurdities with some of your fundo-ahle-kitaab brothers. I understand that being in the desparate position you are now, you will strike with anything you can get your hands on, man, but c`mon... even many practising Chrisitians don`t regard the Bible as God`s unerring word. (They`ve grown up intellectually, you see). Now YOU, on the other hand... you`re a laugh in your true ignorance of these matters. You can recite the Qur`an backwards but have difficulty understanding the repeated statement ``The bible is a book of fairytales for me.``

But do please keep posting... Witnessing intellecual contortionism is always an entertaining pastime.

Also Mr. dimwit don`t expect the dictionary to help you either. I remind you of a the same concept in the saying of Jesus,

1. (John 14:6) ``No one can come to the father but by me``,

2. (John 5:30) ``I can of mine own self do nothing, as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of him who SENT me.``

Now just like you, the Jews were strutting around claiming to believe in God but not the messenger, these two above repeat similarly the necessity of obeying the messenger, and not the redundancy of it if you obey God, the two go together in obeying otherwise one is meaningless. There is absolutely no redundancy whatsoever. You wont get it because you are a dimwit hypocrite. And the Quran, completely self-consistent makes this concept very clear, the mullah takes the route of stating that they are different, Allah and rasool, one is the Quran other is the hadith and so ends up in idolatory whereas the Quranic verses on several occassions when they ask for obey Allah and obey the messenger (like in 5:92) end in the text (which you are detaching because your entire knowledge of the Quran is based on hearsay) with, ``...if you turn away KNOW that on our messenger is ONLY duty of conveyance of the message``

PM writes <<< BECAUSE the two are identical, you are faced with the fact that the verse admonishes to do TWO IDENTICAL things. That is, it is being REDUNDANT. >>>

Don`t expect a hypocrite to state facts now, should we people. Two things being identical in essence of command does not make one of them redundant especially when one is a prerequisite for the other