MORALITY DEBATE:
ExamineTheTruth.com
vs.Tektonics.org
James P. Holding 3rd
response
Tektonics.org’s response has been taken from here.
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And yet again, Mr. Ahmed seems a
little more inclined towards self-torment as he whips himself into a frenzy for
what promises to be his final response. Engaging what we are told is his normal
modus operandi -- claiming to have us "on the run" even as he flees
from the field himself -- Mr. Ahmed professes the matter to be "SO
simple" and asks us to tell "which outfits are condemned by Jesus and
which clothing are approved by Jesus!!!" Simplicity indeed. It is only the
simple who make such grossly decontextualized demands; I made clear the issue
with an earlier point which, appearing to have escaped Mr. Ahmed, apparently
needs to be repeated: Mr. Ahmed may perhaps say, "bare breasts are not
considered immodest in Toga Toga," but before using that as a starter to
get bare breasts going as an American fad, please note that in Toga Toga, it
may be that bare breasts are not immodest because the Toga Togans possess moral
and sexual restraint that we do not; or that immodesty may be found in some
other activity. To put it another way, ALL societies accept restraint (of
which modesty, as we call it, is a subset) as a virtue, and therein lies a
universal absolute; they do differ in what constitutes restraint, and
the obvious reason for this is that there are simply too many environmental and
personal variables to implement and universal rule. The Toga Togans' bare
breasts would make a stink in the US of A on the average neighborhood street,
but not in Toga Toga; but it is not because the Toga Togans are hedonistic
jerks, it is because the sexual license associated with bare breasts in our
white-bread communities just doesn't exist in Toga Toga. Not being aware of
this reflects rather poorly on Mr. Ahmed's grasp of the philosophy of ethics,
as he cannot even figure out how one figures "how much cleavage you can
show according to Jesus". Poor Mr. Ahmed's conundrum is the inevitable
result of diversity meeting with bigotry; if he cannot conceive of a society
like Toga Toga, in which no amount of shown cleavage will be taken as sexual
license; or to the opposite extreme, a society so concerned to control
sexuality that women must be kept in homes constantly and covered completely
when outside, not even being able to show more than a single eye, then he
simply needs more cultural education. As it is he shows all the cultural
tolerance of certain atheists we have known.
Onward from this, Mr. Ahmed avers
that we "RAN LIKE A COWARD" from the challenges that he himself
invented based on a faulty reading of our material; in substance this is like
saying we ran from the pink elephants he released into our front yard. If one
is imagined, it is not hard to say the other is. He wants to know what "exactly"
is wrong with Britney Spears in our view; I noted quite some time ago that I
have about as much interest in celebrities as I do in nuclear binding, but it
has already been made clear that if any problem exists -- with Spears, or
Janet, or even Don Knotts -- it would have to do with a) them knowing by
what means they may dress or act to provoke licentiousness among their fellow
citizens; b) then deliberately dressing or acting that specific way. How
hard is this to figure? Confused and wandering further, Mr. Ahmed accuses us of
"evading" a "fundamental key question" of his, such as
"is wearing pants modest?" To which I say, those who missed the
answer given, represent themselves. Is Mr. Ahmed thinks this is what the issue boils
down to, let us ask him a question: 1) Is the Muslim burkah modest? 2)
If so, what would he say if over a period of time, wearing one came to be
regarded as "sexy" and daring (because it invoked a mystery of
forbidden romance)? Does he perhaps get the point now? We doubt it. "Pants"
are not modest or immodest in and of themselves. A pair of pants lays on the
floor; are they modest or immodest? I put a pair on Mr. Ahmed's head; is he
wearing them modestly, or not? The sexiest woman Mr. Ahmed can imagine puts
them on -- in private. Are they modest, or not? We sympathize with poor Mr.
Ahmed, whose own moral vision is so clouded that he cannot find his way to
think through these simplest of matters without direct instruction every waking
moment.
The irony here though is that while
Mr. Ahmed is looking for detailed instructions for putting on his pants, and
deftly claims that Islam "solves" such problems as to whether wear
pants or not, it is clear that within Islam's core document itself there is no
evidence that this level of obsessive detail is satisfied. As Sam Shamoun has
noted in assistance to us, the Quran ONLY mentions that women are to cover
their bosoms, not necessarily the head. The Islamic dress code comes mainly
from Muslim traditions, indicating that the Quran by itself isn't enough to
tell a Muslim how a woman should exactly dress. As an article here
Muslim Women's League notes:
Interestingly,
the Qur'an is really not that explicit about the exact definition of modest
dress. By reading the Qur'anic verses above, women are advised to cover their
breasts and put on their outer garments in a way that enables them to avoid
harassment. In addition, women are advised not to draw attention to their
"beauty" (zeenah). This term has been translated as both beauty and
ornaments (as women used to strike their feet to draw attention to hidden
ornaments such as ankle bracelets). Of note is that the Qur'an uses the term
zeenah elsewhere, perhaps showing that in different contexts the word has
slightly different meanings:
O
Children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel (zeenah) at every time and place
of prayer.(7:31)
The
exact rules defining women's dress have been determined based on interpretation
of these verses and incorporation of concepts established in hadith. The
inclusion of a head covering is derived from interpretation of the word khimar
in 24:31 above. Most translators and commentators agree that this was a loose
scarf worn at the time of the Prophet (pbuh) which covered a woman's head, neck
and possibly shoulders, leaving the rest exposed. Women were thus ordered to
use the khimar to cover their breasts. Naturally, a woman would continue to
cover her neck, head and shoulders and would then also cover her breast. This
understanding of the khimar as a head-covering explains why Muslims believe
that the Qur'an tells us to cover our hair. The injunction, however, regarding
covering the hair in addition to everything else is implied, not specified in
the Qur'an.
No doubt we will be told by Mr.
Ahmed that these people are apostate Muslims, or not Muslims, or really
Rastafarians, or some other such nonsense. The article, however, includes a
point not unlike our own: A more important question in this discussion is whether
individuals, Muslim or non-Muslim, should be forced to dress in a certain way. Every
society is entitled to establish minimum standards of dress (in the
Mr. Ahmed thinks "jealousy of
Islam" to be behind our arguments; but what of Muhammad's jealousy that
others may lust after his wives and daughters being the source of one of his
own rules of modesty?
O
Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters and the believing women that they should
draw over themselves their jilbab (outer garments) (when in public); this will
be more conducive to their being recognized (as decent women) and not harassed.
But God is indeed oft-forgiving, most merciful. (33:59)
A question arises: if this had been
a society in which men were more like true gentlemen, who did not harrass
women, would this stricture have been ordered? See more about the traditions
behind this here
and here
and here.
Also of interest: here
and here. And more:
· As Shamoun notes for
us, there are Muslims who even go so far as to say that Islamic veil IS NOT
TAUGHT IN THE QURAN; see here.
· As shown here the main issue is
how a woman manipulates her body and flirts with it -- dress itself is a
subset, as we have said: intentions are what is at issue.
· Shamoun adds that
Mr. Ahmed himself fails to deal with an important point -- "that at one
time Muhammad degraded women by allowing men to contract temporary marriages
with them, i.e. legal prostitution." See here.
Note as well that Shia Muslims (not real Muslims, according to Mr. Ahmed!) do
this still
today.
At any rate, Mr. Ahmed continues to
dodge past my own question of how one cannot be "forced" to go
outside the Quran to know the definitions of the Arabic words used therein;
then, in response to my request of whether he needs to get his story straight
with bin Laden et al, he admits: "Yes. For example, when I speak of
terrorism, I make sure I separate myself form Bin Laden." Well and well: I
separated myself from Matt Slick on this issue, so Mr. Ahmed cuts himself off
at his own waist. When I ask what prevents one from ripping a verse out of context
from the Quran so that when Muhammed says "be modest" he really meant
"party hardy and party naked," we are given the non-response that
"Muslims do NOT go to pagan Arab culture to interpret the Quran's code of
modesty nor anything else." That is not what I asked. I asked, precisely,
how one contextualizes the meaning of the Quran; how does one define
the words in it; and unless "God has revealed to Prophet
Muhammed(TM)" a full Arabic dictionary as well as a Quran, Mr. Ahmed has
no valuable retort to the point that one must define "restraint" in
terms of how the writers and the readers of the document understood it -- and
then, as needed, evaluate the crucial differences in our society and theirs to
decide how an application is to be made.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Ahmed has no
means to deal with our points about the nature of a collective society; he
insists -- as some of the worst atheists we have encountered do -- that this
means "Paul possessed NO individuality and no inspiration" (a
strawman; it means that Paul would and did subdue any such individuality
and inspiration he had, if it was any different, to the group's preferences),
and we are still left with the mysterious implication, by Mr. Ahmed's inkling,
that when Paul uses a word to his contemporaries, it is conveniently such that
his meaning, and theirs, might be (by no evidence whatsoever) entirely
different than that of every other document we have from that period. It
makes no difference in this context whether God was the author and Paul merely a
conveyor of the message. Mr. Ahmed virtually insists, for no other purpose than
to foist an argument, a deconstructionist reading that would play havoc with
any document, the Quran included. I ask again: Where is the Arabic dictionary
appended to the Quran telling us exactly what a "jilbab" consists of?
Why not say that we can't be sure that when Muhammed refers to a
"jilbab" he doesn't mean the equivalent of a bathing suit thong,
which is actually very "decent" (since we don't really know for sure
what Muhammed meant by that either)? The game is up, and Mr. Ahmed swings
mightily from his own petard.
Mr. Ahmed further plays the scholar
by claiming that "Paul did teach certain aspects of morality which did go
against collectivist culture in 1 Cor 11." Mr. Ahmed quotes no specific
verses from this chapter allegedly demonstrating this. In fact Paul is right in
line with the morals of his day here (see here). Mr. Ahmed says
"Paul also condemned women from wearing jewelry and braided hair" but
then so did other moralists of the day, so again Paul is not offering anything
new. It is alleged that "Paul may have had a particular code of modesty,
but simply did not write it down in his letters, therefore, that code is lost.
Paul's himself confirms that 1 Cor 11:34." This verse only says, "And
if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto
condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come." How we get
from this that Paul "lost" or did not write down a full moral code, ever,
is one of those great mysteries that we suppose will be forever locked in Mr.
Ahmed's head, which is the same place we will find his evidence that I am
"the only Christian in the world that has this bizarre morality
code."
Robbed of some excitement,
apparently, by the mere mention of the name, Mr. Ahmed asks, "Why did you
exclude Britney Spears?????????????" I dealt with Spears rather earlier
when I noted the difference in intention; I have no "prejudice against
Arabs" (I am descended from them myself!) and it does little good, other
than for cough relief salesman, for Mr. Ahmed to shout that "You and your
buddy St. James have NO RIGHT to dictate to others what they should or should
not find sexually appealing." While presumably Mr. Ahmed and his Islamic
cohorts do. However, a few points. First, if we live in the same society as
certain persons who lack restraint, and their lack of restraint cascades into a
greater affect that will or can affect US, we absolutely DO have a right to
speak out (hardly "dictation" since neither I nor Ms. James possess
dictatorial powers or own any military hardware). Second, Mr. Ahmed essentially
concedes to my main point: "If I man (or woman) wants to find a person's
nasty toes to be appealing, you have no right to pass judgment on them. That is
arrogance, par excellence." It is indeed. That is the point. The problem
with such persons is them, and their toe fetish, not us. However, there is
quite a difference between the person who walks in with their toe-jammed self,
unaware of the man with the sick fetish for dirty toes, and the person who
knows that there are those who find dirty toes appealing, and purposely walks
in, flaunts them, waves their dirty toes around in the face of the man with the
fetish, etc. In this we say no more or less than what the Islamic articles
linked above say -- which themselves belie Mr. Ahmed's spurious claim that
"Islam clearly does" address such issues. (In what Sura do we find
the line about dirty toe fetishes, may I ask?)
Out of his element once again, Mr.
Ahmed implies that there is no "proof" of arranged marriages in the
ancient world (never mind that it is all over the scholarship; i.e.,
Witherington's commentary on Corinthians, 170: "Roman marriages were for
the most part arranged and involved little person choice on the part of the
participants, at least among the prosperous"; hence it was not love, but concordia,
or a state of peace and harmony, that was a characteristic of a good
marriage!); we are told that we "misudnerstood" Mr. Ahmed's quite
unmisunderstandable point, and it is insisted that even if "arranged
marriages existed...love marriages have always existed side by side. There is
no way in the world any society can avoid it!" Well, too bad: They did
avoid it, and if love did come to pass in any marriage at this time, it was by
happy accident after the fact. And even then, the point remains that love
marriages or not, there was no dating. As we have noted in other
context, Malina notes in The New Testament World [66] that in a
collectivist culture, people "did not know each other very well in the way
we know people, that is, psychologically, individually, intimately, and
personally." People were not considered "psychologically unique
worlds" to each other; personal idiosyncracies obviously existed, but were
considered unimportant and uninteresting. So then: The whole purposes of
dating, to get to know a person as a person, did not exist; the whole basis for
a love marriage, unique attachment to a person as a person, was unknown, and if
Mr. Ahmed can't provide any better answer than, "Nah, couldn't be,"
his inability will continue to speak for itself.
Mr. Ahmed further challenges us to
"show how Islam's solution is like a knife in the heart." I suppose
cutting off a hand to stop a thief doesn't meet this requirement, but we might
also point to this.
It need not all be in the form of death, but coercion is part of the package --
and no amount of "well, those are not Muslims" will erase it, since
these practies go back to Muhammed himslf.
Further confused, Mr. Ahmed now
denies says, "Go back and read what I wrote again. I specifically stated
that Islam clearly prohibits drug use, which the Bible does not do." Here
again is what he said: "I agree with you on this point. But the
same holds true for the Quran, there was no drug problem during the
advent of Islam." Perhaps Mr. Ahmed is trying to bait and switch, getting
out of his admission that the Quran has no word against drug use by
pointing out that Islam does. Mr. Ahmed also blindsidedly misses the
point (using indeed partial quoting) that Galatians 5:20 is not used by me as a
direct address to modern drugs, but a verse which, using common sense, takes
its application to that day's sorcery, and realizes that the purpose of it,
being much the same (to induce an altered state of consciousness) has direct
application to today's use of cocaine, etc. In that way, we do nothing
different than those who Muslims use the hadith prescription against
intoxication generally (without mentioning a specific drug) and apply it to
specific drugs (a portion which Mr. Ahmed fails to quote from us -- and which
makes the author of that article, Osama Abdallah, a cut above Mr. Ahmed on the
moral perception scale). If we wish to be as abusive as Mr. Ahmed with human
language, here's a trick for him. Let's take this again:
"The
Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: If a large amount of anything causes
intoxication, a small amount of it is prohibited."
Is that so? Well, in that case, we
argue that Islam teaches that people are forbidden to breathe! What the
devil, you say? It's true. Here's informing word from "Wildcat", who
is in school for this sort of stuff right now:
"The
toxicity of oxygen is related to the production of oxygen free radicals which,
through their interaction with lipids, proteins, carbohydrates, and DNA,
produce cellular dysfunction. Evidence of free radical damage has been
described in over 100 disease states....The free radical damage could be the
primary cause of the disease, could enhance complications of the disease, or
could be the consequence of cell damage caused by other agents." Marks,
Dawn B. PhD; Marks, Allan D. MD; Smith, Colleen M. PhD. "Basic Medical
Biochemistry." 1996. pg. 330.
Oxygen
radicals are implicated in DNA damage as well, which leads to mutations, which
could ultimately lead to cancer. Humans (and many other eukaryotic organisms;
and aerobic prokaryotes) even have enzymes (e.g. superoxide dismutase;
catalase) used to break down and remove free radicals. Also, vitamin E is a
major anti-oxidant used to counter oxygen radicals.
So there you have it. A large amount
of oxygen can cause intoxication; therefore, a small amount of it is
prohibited. If you are Muslim, you must now hold your breath and never breathe
again.
Of course, we do not maintain any
such absurd view in reality. Context teaches us that this moral truism by no
means could apply to something like oxygen. Yet if we follow Mr. Ahmed's strict
hermeneutic as applied to the Bible, we would have little choice but to
conclude that Islam requires us to stop breathing. True Muslims would die of
asphyxiation upon conversion.
We are told (again, by the greatest
authority Mr. Ahmed knows in social science, himself) that it is not proven
that societies always considered intention, and it is claimed that "your
own Bible teaches against this". Where? We are given Matthew 7:21-23,
thus:
Not
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven(they had the right intention); but he that doeth the will (deeds have to
be correct)of my Father which is in heaven.
It goes further, but the exegesis
crashes into contextualism from the get go. Nothing about saying "lord,
lord" establishes "right intention". In fact, kurios
(Lord) was a word used as we use sir today; it is a title of acclaim but
expresses nothing about "intent" (other than maybe, intent to
ingratiate). But further:
Many
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
(they had the right intentions; they did it for Jesus) and in thy name have
cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
How again Mr. Ahmed presumes to read
minds and find "right intention" here (as opposed to ingratiating
spin doctoring) is yet another mystery that may never be solved; let us keep in
mind that one thing pagans were known to do was use the name of Yahweh (and
later, Jesus) in magical formulas, even for exorcisms, yet of course they no
more were Christians than Oscar the Grouch is a Muslim. There is no sign here
of correct "intentions"; in fact, if Mr. Ahmed had any sense at all
of Semitic anthropology
he would know that there could be no concept of intentions not matched with
action. Jesus' condemnation in 7:23 thus shows that these persons had neither
right deeds nor right intent. (Beyond this, Mr. Ahmed is lost in irrelevancy
when he says, Christians have coined the phrase, "Road to hell is paved
with good intentions". The origin of this phrase is variously
attributed to Samuel Johnson, but the attribution is off (see here); but the earliest form
still comes from no earlier than the 1100s, well after Biblical times and not
informed of Semitic anthropology, and its earliest meaning had to do with life
in hell itself, not the road to it.) Mr. Ahmed is also confused in saying that
"Christians also believe that INTENTIONS are irrelevant when it comes to
committing sin." They are indeed irrelevant in terms of paying a price,
just as we are expected to help an old lady up when we trip her by accident.
They are NOT irrelevant in determining the seriousness of the sin; even the OT
clearly distinguishes between sin committed purposely and by accident, and
prescribes a lesser penalty for the latter.)
Mr. Ahmed closes with an extended
diatribe against "male shovanistic [sic] pig hypocrisy" of Christian
men and bewilderments over why such things as hunting Bambi for sport are not
condemned. We'll leave those red herrings in their tub, thank you (sport
hunting, I am sorry, did not exist in the ancient world either -- we are told
"sport hunting is FORBIDDEN in Islam" but since it isn't in the
Quran, that means it's not worth a hill of beans) and note once again Mr.
Ahmed's own profession to lack sense, as he admits to loving to "pot
weelies [sic] on a motorcycle" because it "gives me thrill, and is
very fun." I know what he means: I get the same thrill out of seeing Mr.
Ahmed squirm under the microscope of Biblical social science.
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