My Debate with a Shiite Mullah on What Makes Us Human

This debate is one of the most enlightening debates I have ever had.   It shed a lot of light on many important issues that so far I had not discussed.  It reveals how Islam devalues man, denies his inherent dignity and regards him as a wicked and evil being that needs to be harnessed and controlled through stringent rules.  This view explains why there are so much human rights abuses in Islam; why the laws of Islam are so draconian, and why the Sharia prescribes beating, maiming, and beheading.  You can also understand why Muslims commit what we perceive as evil, while they regard them as divine, and learn why Islam is irrational and incompatible with human dignity.  My opponent was a learned mullah, a Shiite cleric from Iran.  I thank him for leading this debate towards this direction.

Mr. Farzad is an Iranian cleric with whom I had a mini debate in one of the forums of this site.  Although I consider him a learned person unfortunately the debate was just between him and me.  He prefers to write in Persian and I can only write in English.   I’d like that more people read the debates and learn from them and consequently I did not reply to his last comments. Mr. Farzad has come back complaining that I did not answer him, which must be interpreted as my inability to respond and hence I should remove my site.

Here is my reply to him.

Dear Mr. Farzad,

There are countless replies to my challenge. They are all over the web. None of them answers anything. I can’t reply to each and every person who writes a “rebutal” to one of my articles. That does not mean what they say has any value. They rehash the same things. Basically, the replies of Muslims consists in two fallacies. 1- The Sira and hadith are not reliable 2- We must not judge the morality of ancient people with the morality of today. These two are the only themes that are repeated in a billion different ways. Both are fallacies.

1- If the authentic Islamic sources are not reliable then Islam is alreay currupted. According to the Quran Muslims are required to follow the examples of their prophet (sunnah). The sunanh of Muhammad can be found only in the hadith and the sira. These sources say Muhammad was a criminal, rapist, mass murderer, terrorist, assassin. That is why Muslims do what they do. They follow the sunnah of their prophet. If this sunnah is corrupted then Islam cannot be practiced.

2- Moral relativism is also a fallacy. What Muhammad did  has been always evil. Furthermore, assuming what he did was a norm for his time. Why did he emulate the evil practices of the people whom he called ignorant? Did he come to follow the practices of the ignorant people and hence make them permanent or set a new standard?

If you write in English I’d be glad to reply. I can’t reply in Persian and if I respond only to you without translating your articles, it won’t be a fair debate since people don’t know what you wrote.

I have a proposition. If you translate my responses into Persian I will translate yours into English. In this way we have this debate in both languages.

Mr. Farzad responded.

جناب سینا
من جایی خارج از سایت شما در وب جواب ادعاهای شما را نداده ام اگر فراموش نکرده باشید در دو مقاله که در دو پست بالا آدرس آن را قرار دادم بحث مفصلی در دو سه مورد که شما ادعا کردید در معارف قرآن و اسلام تناقض وجود دارد من جواب ادعای شما را دادم و ثابت کردم که بر اساس اصول ثابت منطقی اشتباه کرده اید اما متاسفانه بحث از طرف شما رها شد و بی نتیجه ماند..

اگر به یاد بیاورید در این مورد جواب مفصل را به شما دادم در مورد سیره که بسیار مورد علاقه و توجه شماست یا باید کلیت آن را پذیرفت یا به کلی آن را رد کرد که متاسفانه شما به شکل کاملا گزینشی آنچه را فکر می کنید مدعای شما را ثابت می کند به عنوان سند قبول می کنید و بقیه سیره و حدیث را یکباره از هستی ساقط کرده و رد می کنید و این چیزی جز فریب دادن مخاطب ناآگاه و مغالطه و سفسطه ای روشن و آشکاربیش نیست.

در مورد عدم مقایسه اخلاق مردمان دوران قدیم و جدید، دیگران نمی دانم چه گفته اند اما اگر به یاد بیاورید از شما خواستم قبل از اینکه در موضوعات فرعی بحث شود ابتدا تکلیف مبانی اساسی دو فکر مشخص شود بعد در مورد اخلاق و رفتار گذشته و حال قضاوت کنیم؛ اخلاق و رفتار متکی بر خدامحوری در بعضی از شاخه ها کاملا متناقض و متضاد با اخلاق و رفتار متکی بر انسان محوری است.

آنچه مهم است این است که کدامیک از این دو مبنا منطقا قابل پذیرش است، همانطور که عرض کردم اگر مبنای خدامحوری و به خصوص خدایی که خاتم المرسلین معرف آن است عقلا قابل اثبات نباشد آن وقت نوبت به این می رسد که رفتار این کسی که مدعی پیامبری است را از زاویه دید شما (انسان محوری) نگاه کنیم و بسنجیم اما اگر یادتان باشد گفتید که علاقه ای ندارید بحث را ریشه ای حل کنید بلکه آنچه برای شما مهم است این است که به هر قیمتی شده از زاویه دید خود شخصیت حضرت محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم را لگد مال کنید.

مغالطه آن نیست که شما به آن اشاره کرده اید بلکه مغالطه این است که با عینک انسان محوری رفتار انسانی خدامحور را مورد قضاوت قرار دهی.

من کاملا آماده ام نوشته های شما را به فارسی ترجمه کنم؛ در مقابل پیشنهاد می کنم پست مجزایی به عنوان بحث آزاد با من ( در موضوعی که مورد علاقه شماست) ایجاد کنید تا در ذیل آن تا به نتیجه رسیدن کامل با یکدیگر بحث کنیم.
البته اگر این بحث در یک فروم انگلیسی یا فارسی انجام شود با توجه به قابلیت های مثبتی که فروم در پیگری یک بحث دو طرفه دارد بسیار مطلوب تر خواهد بود علاوه بر اینکه من جهت پست زدن در سایت شما باید حتما از فیلتر شکن استفاده کنم و این کار را کمی سخت می کند.

 This is the translation.

Mr. Sina,

I did not reply to you outside your site and I was not disrespectful either.  I answered in detail to a couple of your accusations that there are contradictions in the Quran and Islam.  I responded to these charges and logically proved you are wrong. Unfortunately, you abandoned the debate.

If you recall I had given ample response, especially regarding the Sira in which you are so interested, saying that you must either accept it in its entirety or reject it in its entirety.  Regrettably, you only pick the parts that you believe validate your own arguments and reject the rest of the Sira and hadith wholesale.   This is nothing but a clear demagogy, sophism and logical fallacy.

In regards to the impossibility of comparing the morality of ancient people to modern morality, I don’t know what others have said, but if you recall I said, before we discuss secondary issues we must first decide on the fundamentals of the two schools of thought and then decide about the morality in the past and in the present.  God-centered morality and ethics are in some cases entirely different from man-centered morality and ethics.

What is important is to know which one of these concepts is logically acceptable.  As I stated, if the concept of God-centered morality, especially the god that Muhammad is his last prophet, cannot be proven logically, then we should evaluate the conduct of his prophet from your perspective, i.e., human-centered morality.  However, as you may remember, you said you have no interest to solve this question radically, but what matters to you most is to trash Muhammad and trample his personality through your own point of view.

The fallacy is not what you pointed out, but the fallacy is in judging/measuring God-centered morality with man-centered morality.

I am totally ready to translate your write-ups into Persian.  In exchange, I request you to create a new article dedicated to our debate so we can discuss any subject of your interest [without interruption].

If this debate is conducted bilingually, considering the positive qualities that each language has, it would become very much desirable.  I must also add that in order to write in your site I must necessarily use proxy servers and filters [as it is blocked in Iran].  This may represent some difficulty.

My response:

Mr. Farzad,

You say I must either accept the hadith and sira in their entirety or reject them in their entirety and that by accepting a part of it and not all of it I am committing demagogy.

I am afraid your reasoning is flawed. I am acting as the prosecutor of Muhammad and Islam. My goal is to prove he was a liar. An impostor may laud himself loftily. His bragging about himself are not taken into consideration in his trial.  His prosecutor will highlight only the parts of his statements that can be used against him to prove his guilt.

There are many tales of miracles attributed to Muhammad in the Sira and in the hadith and even in the Quran we find the fable of the Mi’raj. Do we have to accept them? Once I prove he was a liar by his own admission, all his claims of grandiosity become null.

This is a simple logic and I am surprised that you bring such a fallacy up when you know or should know it is a fallacy.  Let us say someone steals something from you. You charge him with theft. He denies it, but under cross-examination, he contradicts himself.  You then prove his guilt only by picking a few contradictory statements which establish he is a liar.  His other claims about him praising himself and saying how honest he is are irrelevant.  The judge will not accept everything he says nor will he reject everything he says.   He hears it all and only pays attention to where he contradicts himself.   That is what I am doing with the claim of Muhammad in the Quran, the Sira and the hadith.

In my previous response I also accused Muslims of using moral relativism to defend Muhammad’s immoral conduct.  You argue that first we have to decide whether the basis of morality should be God-centered or man-centered and think this is  crucial to resolve the problem of immorality imputed to Muhammad.

God-centered morality is a logical fallacy. It is a circular reasoning.  Let me make a simple example to debunk this fallacy. Let us say I claim to be a prophet of God and manage to deceive a few people. Then I order my followers to do things that they consider immoral and unethical from human perspective.  For example, I tell them to raid the homes of people, loot their belongings and rape their women.  I tell them to allow me to have sex with their daughters.  I tell them they should assassinate anyone who badmouths me, etc.  They know everything I say is immoral and unethical but I tell them, you should not judge me by your flawed human-centered morality. I am the prophet of God. My morality is God-centered. Now shut up and do as I say.

Do you see the absurdity of God-centered morality argument?  This fallacy was used by every cult leader. The followers of Shoko Asahara injured hundreds of innocent people in Tokyo and killed dozens of them. They used this very argument.  They convinced themselves that they must not question the wisdom of God.  The followers of Charles Manson went on a killing spree, butchering innocent people at random. They used this very reasoning.  The same can be said of the followers of Jim Jones, David Koresh and all other cults.

Assuming God exists, his morality cannot go against our morality.  God gave us an infallible moral compass to discern between right and wrong.   This compass is called the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says don’t do to others what you don’t like to be done to you.  This rule is called golden because we can understand it in the core of our being. It is self-evident and it has existsted for thousands of years among virtually all the people (Islam, Nazism, Fascism and communism being exceptions).   The Golden Rule is the basis of all morality and ethics.  Anything that goes against it is unethical and immoral.

Any person who says, I don’t practice the Golden Rule because I don’t follow human centered morality but God centered morality is a deceiver.  That is how we can recognize false prophets.  Jesus said you will recognize them [the false prophets] by their fruits.    This throws out of the window your argument that God-centered morality is different from man centered morality and incomprehensible to humans.   If that were the case how could we distinguish a true prophet from a charlatan?   How can we reject the claim of Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, or myriads other cult leaders?

Assuming there is a God, His morality cannot be different from man’s morality.   It can be superior but never opposed to it.  Muhammad lived like a thug and a criminal and you say his morality was God-centered?   Jesus and Buddha lived by a morality superior to that of common men.  When on the cross, Jesus pleaded to his God: Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing. This is a higher morality. Muhammad sent assassins to kill his critics, including a mother of five children. And you claim his morality was God-centered? In what ways his actions were different from those of a criminal?

This is the problem with Islam. You Muslims have mistaken Satan for God. Everything Muhammad did was Satanic.

Sadly, this fallacy is not yours alone. It is shared by all the Muslim scholars.  In the book Reliance of the Traveller, a classic manual of Islamic sacred law by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (Died 1368 AD) we find a variation of this fallacy.  The author says, “since the source of legal rulings is Allah the question arises. Is it possible for the mind alone, unaided by Allah’s messengers and revealed scriptures to know rulings, such that someone not reached by a prophet’s invitation would be able through his own reason to know Allah’s rule concerning his actions? Or is this impossible? The position of the Asha’ris, the followers of Abul Hasan Ash’ari, is that the mind is unable to know the rule of Allah about the acts of those morally responsible except by means of His messengers.”

This is the position of all Muslims today, whether Sunni or Shiia. This is the fundamental flaw in Islam that proves its origin is not divine.   The message of Jesus can be logically understood to the extent that one can reach at the same conclusion without ever having heard his name.  Here are a few examples:

Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:43)

For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matthew 6:14)

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

Do not judge or you too will be judged. (Matthew 7:1)

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:2)

He said unto the people who brought to him a prostitute asking what to do with her, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

These teachings resonate with our human sense of morality. They don’t contradict them.

The teachings of Muhammad contradict our sense of morality.  They go against every fiber of our being and what we perceive as good. It is impossible for one to come to them using one’s own commonsense and logic. One has to be indoctrinated in Islam.  Islam goes against human nature.  Here are a few examples:

Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you (Q. 2:216)

This verse admits that humans loath fighting, and yet Muhammad encourages his followers to go against their commonsense and nature and  prescribes fighting for them. If we ignore all the absurdities of the Quran and all the crimes of Muhammad, this verse alone is enough for any person with commonsense to realize Muhammad was not a true prophet of God but a charlatan cult leader.

Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah  (Q,3:28 )

This teaching is also contrary to our sense of morality. If children are not indoctrinated and don’t learn to hate others based on their race, religion or caste, they have no prejudice against each other.  Religious hatred is not natural. It must be indoctrinated, as this verse does.

Allah forgives not that partners should be set up with Him; but He forgives anything else.  (Q. 4:48 )

A rational person would naturally think that God abhors doing injustice and cruelty more than anything else. But no, Allah will forgive any crime and even prescribes cruelty and injustice towards the unbelievers/ He is only worried about people setting a partner with him.  This makes no sense.  If there is no other god but Him, why this much paranoia?  How can a sane god be so jealous of non-exiting gods? It appears that Allah is not very much convinced that he is the only God. Could it be that he is not God but Satan and that is why he is so possessive?  This much insecurity is suspicious.  One must be indoctrinated to believe in such absurdity.

I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. (Q. 8:12)

No sane person would come to this conclusion on his own. These teachings are contrary to human sense of morality. Assuming someone who is not a messenger of God wrote these verses. Isn’t it obvious that that person is evil?  Why should we accept them as divine when they are uttered by Muhammad?

The Islamic argument that man cannot understand God’s laws or morality without the aid from a messenger and that it is possible for God’s morality to be entirely contrary to human consciousness is a patent proof that Islam is not from God.   It would be utterly cynical and unjust for God to give man a sense of morality and a rational mind and then send a message that goes diametrically against them.  How can a just God make us believe that killing, raping, stealing, torturing and abusing others is wrong and then send a messenger who does all these things?

It is not difficult to see Muhammad fooled the ignorant people of his time.  What is incomprehensible is that in this day and age of enlightenment still there are over a billion otherwise normal and intelligent people who believe in that charlatan and think that scoundrell will take them to heaven. This is the tragedy Mr. Farzad.

Update: 2/24/2012  4:14 pm

ترجمه قسمت ابتدایی متن “اسلام دین نسبیت گرایی در اخلاق”

جناب فرزاد

شما می گویید من یا باید حجیت حدیث و سیره را به طور کامل قبول کنم و یا هیچ اعتباری برای آن قائل نباشم، پذیرش قسمتی از آن (که مدعایم را ثابت می کند) و رد کردن (قسمتی که به سودم نیست) مابقی آن نوعی عوامفریبی است.

من نگرانم استدلال شما معیوب و ناقص باشد. عملکرد من همانند عمل پیروان محمد و اسلام است. هدف من این است که ثابت کنم او یک دروغگو است. شیادی که ممکن است مغرورانه خود را ستایش و مدح کند. ستایشات او از خود از منظر خود او بررسی نمی شوند، پیروانش تنها قسمتی از عبارات او که می تواند بر علیه او استفاده شود و گناه او را اثبات کند پر رنگ می کنند.

تعداد زیادی معجزات افسانه گونه منسوب به محمد در سیره و حدیث وجود دارد و حتی در قرآن افسانه معراج را می بینیم، آیا ما باید اینها را قبول کنیم؟ وقتی من با استفاده از اعترافات خود او اثبات کنم او یک دروغگو بوده است، تمام ادعاهای پرمطمطراق او باطل خواهد شد.

این یک استدلال ساده است و من متعجبم که شما از آن تلقی مغالطه دارید (درک بهتری از جمله شما برای من حاصل نشد).

اجازه دهید تصور کنیم کسی از شما چیزی دزدیده است. شما او را دزد خطاب می کنید. او انکار می کند، اما زیر بازجویی او تناقض گویی می کند. سپس شما فقط با تعداد کمی از این تناقضات که ثابت می کند او یک دروغگو است گناهکار بودن او را اثبات می کنید. در این صورت سایر ادعاهای او در باره ستایش خویش و اثبات درستکاری اش نامربوط خواهند بود. تمام این تعریفات تنها خاطر نشان می کنند که او در مورد خود گرفتار تناقض گویی شده است. این آن چیزی است که من با استفاده از ادعای محمد در قرآن و سیره حدیث انجام خواهم داد.

در جواب قبلی من همچنین مسلمین را به استفاده از نسبیت گرایی اخلاقی در دفاع از سلوک غیر اخلاقی محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم متهم کردم. شما استدلال کردید که در ابتدا ما باید تصمیم بگیریم که آیا اخلاق خدامحور است یا انسان محور و این موضوعی تعیین کننده در حل مشکل رذائل نسبت داده شده به محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم است.

(and think this is crucialاین جمله مفهوم نشد(

اخلاق خدامحوری یک مغالطه منطقی است. این قضیه مبتلا به دور است. اجازه دهید یک مثال ساده بزنم تا این مغالطه را روشن کنم. اجازه دهید ادعا کنم که من پیامبر خدا هستم و قصد دارم که تعدادی کمی از مردم را فریب دهم. سپس پیروان خود دستور می دهم امور غیر اخلاقی از دیدگاه انسان را تصور کنند. به طور مثال به آنها می گویم به خانه مردم یورش برند مایملکشان را به غارت برند و به زنانشان تجاوز کنند به آنها می گویم به من اجازه دهند تا با دخترانشان آمیزش کنم به آنها می گویم باید هر کس به من بد می گوید را بکشند و غیره . آنها می دانند هر چیزی که من می گویم غیر اخلاقی و از رذائل است اما من به آنها می گویم شما نباید با ملاکهای معیوب اخلاقیات انسان محورانه در مورد دستورات من قضاوت کنند. ساکت شوید و آنچه من می گویم عمل کنید.

آیا چرند بودن استدلال مبتنی بر اخلاق خدامحور را مشاهده می کنید؟ این مغالطه توسط تمام رهبران کیش ها استفاده شده است که مثالهایی در متن از این گروهها از جمله “شکو آشارا” “چارلز مانسون” آورده شده که عینا همین استدلال را برای توجیه رفتارهای غیر اخلاقی خود به کار می برند.

فرض کنید خدا وجود دارد، اخلاق این خدا نمی تواند بر ضد اخلاق ما جریان داشته باشد. خدا به ما یک فهم اخلاقی مصون از خطا عطا کرده تا بین درست و نادرست را تشخیص دهیم این فهم قانون طلایی نامیده می شود. این قانون طلایی هر آنچه برای خود نمی پسندی را برای دیگران روا نمی دارد این قانون طلایی نامیده می شود زیرا ما می توانیم آن را در درون وجود خود حس کنیم این قانون بدیهی است و هزاران سال به طور واقعی در میان تمام مردم بوده است (اسلام، نازیسم، فاشیسم و کمونیسم استثنا شده اند). قانون طلایی پایه و بنیان تمام اخلاقیات و فضائل است. هر چیزی که بر ضد آن باشد غیر اخلاقی و از رذائل است.

جواب

جناب سینا

قبل از شروع در جواب دو نکته را متذکر می شوم اول اینکه لطف کنید برای بیان یک موضوع از توضیح بسیار زیاد و بیان آن به صورت های گوناگون اجتناب کنید و خلاصه و لب مطلب را کاملا مستدل و کوتاه بیان کنید این جمله معروف است که “خیر الکلام ما قل و دل” یعنی بهترین سخن آن است که کوتاه و گویا باشد، پر حجم کردن نوشته اگر صاحب آن را به پر گویی و حرافی متهم نکند، چیزی به وزانت آن نخواهد افزود.

دوم اینکه به دلیل فوق و به دلیل اینکه احساس کردم شما به درک درستی از مدعای من نرسیده اید و ادعای دیگری را رد کرده اید تنها قسمتی از متن شما را ترجمه کردم و جواب آن را بیان می کنم و بقیه را به روزهای بعد موکول می کنم.

اما جواب از قسمت اول در مورد معتبر بودن و نبودن سیره و حدیث:

ادعا کردید که با اثبات کذاب بودن پیامبر رحمت صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم، تمام آنچه در سیره و حدیث در باره محسنات اخلاق او آمده است را تبدیل به تناقضاتی می کنید که هیچ ارزش مثبتی برای اثبات مدعای او و سایر پیروان او نداشته باشد. به قول ما بسم الله، دست از کلی گویی برداشته و مدعای خود را اثبات کنید، محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم در دوران جاهلیت معروف به محمد امین بوده است، از همین دوران که مشتمل بر دو سوم از مدت عمر شریف آن حضرت است شروع کنید و با استفاده از سیره معتبر چند مورد از دروغگویی های ایشان را در دوران قبل از بعثت و سیزده سال قبل از هجرت ثابت کنید تا نوبت به ده سال پایانی عمر او برسد، البته بعد از انجام آنچه که در جواب از قسمت دوم از شما درخواست خواهم کرد چرا که آن بحث حکم پایه و اساس برای این موضوع را دارد.

جواب از قسمت دوم:

برداشت شما از کلام من کاملا نادرست است لذا عنوانی که برای این موضوع انتخاب نموده اید و به دنبال آن جوابی که بیان کرده اید کاملا نامربوط است. مدعای من این نیست که اخلاقیات دو نوع است اخلاقیات از دید انسان و اخلاقیات از دید خداوند، بلکه منظور من این بود که نگاه به هستی دو گونه است یکی اینکه اصالت را به وجود خدا بدهیم و این منظر به هستی بنگریم دیگر اینکه انسان را اصل تصور کنیم و همه چیز را با توجه به نفع و ضرر او بسنجیم. اگر اصالت را تنها لایق خدا دانستیم تعریف ما از اخلاقیات در بعضی از موارد (تنها در بعضی از موارد) با زمانی که اصالت را به وجود انسان می دهیم متفاوت و گاه متعارض می شود. مثلا موضوع قتل و کشتن از دید دوم با توجه به اینکه موجب حذف انسان از هستی می شود کاری غیر اخلاقی است و تنها هنگام دفاع مجاز شمرده شود اما از دیدگاه اول با توجه به ا ینکه زندگی در دنیا و آخرت یک جا دیده می شود و زندگی در دنیا از جهت زندگی بودنش تقریبا ارزشی معادل صفر دارد قتل و کشتن معنا و مفهومی دیگر پیدا می کند بر اساس این نظر مرگ انسان چیزی بیش از عبور از یک گذرگاه و عبور از یک مرحله به مرحله دیگر نیست؛ اگر قرار باشد انسانی در دنیا در راستای رسیدن به سعادت و کمال تلاش نکند و یا علاوه بر این مانع سعادت و تلاش دیگران شود بسیار به نفع اوست که هر چه سریعتر از این مرحله عبور کند و یا عبور داده شود.

آنچه در این مرحله از بحث از شما انتظار می رود این است که مدعای خود بر انسان محور بودن هستی را با دلایل محکم و قابل قبول اثبات کنید و نقائص و تناقضات منطقی خدا محور بودن آن بیان نمایید.

در پایان این قسمت باز هم خواهش می کنم بحث را دسته بندی کرده و از حاشیه رفتن زیاد اجتناب نمایید

Mr. Sina

Before answering you, I’d like to request to please refrain from repeating the same arguments in different ways.  It would suffice to present the gist of your argument briefly. There is a saying, “the best speech is the shortest one.”  If excessive wordiness is not an indication of the speaker’s garrulity it adds nothing to the subject.

Secondly, partly because of the above and partly because I thought you did not grasp my argument and instead refuted another argument that I had not raised, I only translated a portion of your write up.  I will translate the rest in the coming days.

Now, here is my response regarding the authenticity of the Sira and the Hadith.

You wrote that by proving the prophet (PBUH) a liar, all his claims and the claims of his followers about his virtues mentioned in the Hadith and Sira become invalid.

Very good! Instead of making unsubstantiated claims please prove your accusation.  The prophet (PBUH) was known as Amin (honest) in the pre Islamic era of ignorance (jahelliyah).  Starting from the time before his anointment and the thirteen yeas after it, please show us some of his lies that you find in the hadith and Sira and then tell us about the last ten years of his life.  But first read the following as it is fundamental to this question.

You completely misunderstood my words.  Therefore the title that you have chosen for this debate and your response are irrelevant.

I did not say that there are two kinds of moralities, i.e. a morality from man’s perspective and morality from God’s perspective.  What I said is that the perception of reality is of two kinds.  One is to view God as the focal point of existence and evaluate the world from this perspective and the other is to consider man as the focal point and evaluate everything based on their utility to him, i.e. whether they are beneficial to man or hurt him.

If we consider God as the only focal point, the objective of existence, our definition of morality in some cases (and only in some cases) will be different from what we understand as morality from human point of view.  For example, killing, from the latter (human) perspective, which results in the destruction of a human life, is seen as unethical and acceptable only in the case of self-defense.   But from the former (God’s) perspective, life has almost zero value, because life in this world and the next is not separated, but it is a continuum.  From this perspective, killing takes an entirely different meaning and death becomes nothing more than a passage from one state to another.  If a person does not endeavor to attain beatitude and perfection, and hinders others from attaining beatitude, it is in his own interest that he passes from this stage of life to the next as quickly as possible.

What I expect from you is to prove convincingly that the world is human-centered and disprove the claim that it is God-centered.

At the end I plead again to be concise and avoid beating around the bushes.

.

Mr. Farzad,

As for your first claim that Muhammad was known as Amin before his be’that (anointment) by everyone and Amin means honest, I am afraid this is a lie that Muslims have been repeating so much that now they believe in it.  I have debunked this claim in my book, Understanding Muhammad and I quote.

Muslims claim that Muhammad was known to be an honest man as the Meccans called him Amin. This claim is disingenuous. Amin means trustee. It was the title of those who sold and bought merchandise on behalf of others.  One is called school trustee, or city trustee because of his profession.  The title “Amin” is a label for every sort of profession.  Here are some examples: Amin El-Makataba (Trustee of the library); Amin El-Shortaa (Police Trustee); and Majlass El-Omnaa (Council of Trustees.)

Abul Aas, husband of Zeinab, Muhammad’s daughter, was also called Amin because of his profession.  He did not convert until he was forced to. Muhammad ordered Zeinab to leave him unless he converted.

Muhammad acted as the trustee (Amin) for Khadijah once, when he took her merchandise to Damascus and sold it on her behalf. Had the Meccans believed Muhammad to be trustworthy they would not have derided him when he told them that he had received a message from God.  According to Muhammad’s own admission made in the Quran, those who knew him best called him a liar and a madman, (Q.15:6) a charge that he denied by making his Allâh testify: “Therefore continue to remind, for by the grace of your Lord, you are not a soothsayer, or a madman.” (Q.52:29)

The Sira does not give much information about Muhammad before his claim to prophecy.  There is no data for me to show that he was a liar then. However, there is plenty of evidence that show he was a liar after his claim.  All my articles show he was a liar. There is no point for me to repeat. Just read any of my articles. Here is one example: http://alisina.org/is-muhammad-mentioned-in-the-bible/

You say I misunderstood you completely and that you did not say God-centered morality and man-centered morality are different, but what you said is that our perceptions of these two moralities are sometimes different.

I don’t think I misunderstood you.  It is the same.  God’s morality should not be perceived as evil. If it is, humans can’t be blamed for rejecting it.  A real god can’t play such tricks on humans.    If the conduct of a true messenger of God can appear as evil, how can we know he is from God?

Even though you object that I repeat the same thing more than necessary, it is clear you still did not understand that I already refuted the claim of God-centered morality as circular reasoning. Please refer to the example I made about me claiming to be a prophet and acting unethically.  This argument is debunked.  The burden of proof is on you to show that the world is God-centered.

You say in the eyes of God, human life is worth nothing because He does not see a separation between this world and the next.  This claim is also a fallacy.  First you have to prove the existence of God.  Next you have to prove that Allah is God. And then you have to prove that Muhammad was a true prophet of this god. You have done none of the above.  You are engaging in the fallacy of Begging the Question. Your premises include the claim that the conclusion is true. Forget about proving the existance of God. Let us take that for garanted. Please prove the other two claims.

Without providing evidence to any of the above claims you come to the conclusion that it is in the best interest of those who disagree with you to be killed.  The absurdity of this claim is self-evident, but ruefully, it is not so to Muslims.  Therefore, allow me to explain the obvious.

What escapes you and your co-religionists is that everyone believes to be right.  According to you, I am not attaining felicity and perfection because I don’t believe in Islam and since I write about my views I am hindering others from attaining them too. Therefore, it is in my best interest to be killed as quickly as possible.

There are two problems:

a)      Let us assume that your twisted way of thinking is right and that Islam bestows beatitude to humanity and those who don’t want to believe in it must be killed.   Why your god can’t kill them personally?  Why does he need henchmen to do his dirty work?

I have been writing against Islam for about 14 years. Thanks to my writings thousands of Muslims have left Islam.  According to your diabolic logic, Allah wants Muslims to kill me.  Why can’t he do this himself?

A Muslim challenged me to a mubahila and promised that within 90 days I will be a dead man. He prayed and asked other Muslims to pray.  That is about four years ago.  I never heard from him again.  I hope he is not dead.

Your god has no power.  He depends on his henchmen.  How is he different from a Mafia godfather? 

b)     We the non-Muslims, believe that Muslims are trapped in the dark pit of ignorance. They are the ones who are living in misery and causing pain to others.   All we have to do is to point at the wretched Muslim world to prove our point.  So based on your warped Islamic logic, we the non-Muslims must kill the Muslims.

You see, we feel exactly the way you feel.  We feel we are right and happy, and Muslims are miserebel and a hindrance to the happiness of mankind.  Tell me why we should not give you a taste of your own remedy and get the world rid of Muslims and Islam?

The reason you Muslims are not killing us yet wholesale, is because you are weak.  You will if you become strong.  We are strong now and we can squish you like cockroaches.  We can send your world into Stone Age in mater of hours.  Tell me why we shouldn’t?

You think it is divine to kill the unbelievers. Why do you think it is wrong for the unbelievers to kill you first in self-defense?

This is where the Golden Rule comes into play – something you Muslims don’t understand.  The reason non-Muslims are not killing you is because we believe in the Golden Rule.  And the reason you exposed your evil thoughts with a straight face is because you don’t believe in the Golden Rule.

Let us assume that Satan exists and he wants to destroy mankind.  According to the scriptures of all the religions he has no power except in deceiving people.  Let us say Satan asks you to advise him the best way to destroy mankind using his only faculty which is deception. What better ways can you think of than inventing a false religion that calls the believers to kill the unbelievers?  

Please answer these four questions. I highlighted them so you don’t forget.

Update: 2012/02/24,  11.00 PM

Mr. Sina,

I am quite aware of your inability to produce logical arguments in defense of your position.  I understand the reason you avoid focusing on preambles and draw your desired conclusion right from the start, which is disparaging Muslims and their prophet, and repeating constantly the same things in different words.   Please don’t worry. Let us proceed slowly and step by step and let us delineate the structure of our debate first. Eventually, we will get to the conclusion with logic and reasoning. Then we can deal with details.

Fourteen hundred years ago, a man claimed to be a prophet.  His main contention was that the world has a creator and that the universe without God (who is named in the Quran) is meaningless.  To prove his claim he presented reasoning and a large number of people accepted his reasoning and believed in his claim.

Now you say that there is no need for a god and that Man is the pivotal point of existence, not God.

Please prove your claim. If you can prove it, I will end the debate right here and courageously will accept your claim.

Here is the rest of my response:

You say, amin does not mean truthful, but trustee, and that it was the title given to merchants and hence it is a profession and not an attribute.  Therefore, Muhammad was called amin because of his profession and not because he was known to be truthful.  And you argue that if the Meccans thought Muhammad was truthful, they would have accepted his claim when he told them he is a prophet.  Not only they did not accept him they called him soothsayer and madman.

My answer is that the root of the word amin is amn which means safety, the opposite of fear and the opposite of treachery.

The Quran describes the city of Mecca as: This is an amin city

It describes Gabriel as, “نَزَلَ بِهِ الرُّوحُ الْأَمِينُ   The Faithful Spirit has descended with it, (Q.4:174)

In the description of Moses it says,

قَالَتْ إِحْدَهُمَا يَأبَتِ اسْتَءجِرْهُ إِنَّ خَيْرَ مَنْ اسْتَءجَرْتَ الْقَوِيُّ الْأَمِينُ

“One of the two women said: O my father! Hire him! For the best (man) that thou canst hire in the strong, the trustworthy (amin).”

The city of Mecca cannot be a profession.  The Angle also does not have any need to work as a trustee.  And Moses, when still a wanderer and before that when he grew up in the court of Pharaoh in opulence did not need to become a trustee merchant.  You can’t consult an English dictionary to understand the true meaning of the word amin and say it means trustee.

The Arabic language is acknowledged by all the linguists, as the most perfect language in the world.  Every word in this language has a specific meaning.  Therefore, if someone claims that Islam is the most perfect religion because it has been revealed in the most perfect language, that claim deserves consideration.

In addition, in Arabic most professions are described in a single word, for example baqqal means grocer, haddad means smith and khabbaz means baker.  If Amin was also a profession then it would have rhymed with the above words.

2-Your second argument is that there is not enough material about Muhammad prior to his claim to prophesy, hence it is not possible to prove or disprove he was a liar.  But we have a lot of documentation to show he lied after he claimed to a prophet.

My answer:

If it cannot be proven that Muhammad was a liar out of the sphere of his claim to prophecy then proving him to be a liar by disproving his claim will be difficult.  It is like saying he is a liar because he claims to be a prophet.  If the claim to prophethood is equated to lying then you are right.  But you haven’t proven such thing yet.  Of course we must leave that argument for later and I am not asking you for it now.  That is a secondary issue and to discussing it before setting the norms of discussion is futile.

3- Your third argument is that there is no difference between god centered morality being essentially different or perceived different.  Therefore, humans have the right to reject the so called god-centered morality if it contradicts their perception of morality. If any person claims to be a prophet of God and practices a morality contrary to what we human perceive as immoral, that person is an impostor and not a prophet of God.

My response is:

The difference between these two definitions is astronomical.  One is for our life in this world and the other is for our beatitude in the next world.  The former will lead us to our death and burial in the ground and the latter will take us to heaven.  After you try to prove your claim, you will come to understand this point.

4- Your next argument is that I have jumped to speculate about the morality of God  before proving the existence of God or that Allah is God or that Muhammad is a messenger of God and that is a fallacy.

My response is:

I did not come to such conclusion.  Just for the sake of our debate I described your claim and my claim.  That is all.  When it comes the time for me to prove my claim, I will certainly do so.

5- You said Muslims believe that whoever does not believe in Islam and whoever hinders others to converting to Islam must be killed and the reason they are not doing it in grand scale now is because they are weak.

My response:

I only made one example to explain the difference between God centered morality and man centered morality. Unfortunately, you took advantage of this example and pontificated about the lack of morality in Islam.  But this is not the time to discuss that.  I will not enter into details later.

6- You wrote the reason the non-Muslims don’t want to kill the Muslims even though they have the power to do so, is because they follow the Golden Rule. Had they had a doctrine similar to Islam they would have killed Muslims and violated their rights, as Muslims do where they are the majority and in power.

My response:

These killings are not as much religiously motivates as they are politically motivate.  As far as I know no real religion prescribes killing the unbelievers.  Again, you climbed on your high pulpit and preached to the coir.

Now, in regards to the Golden Rule, it is not yet the time to discuss this matter, if you think no one in the Muslim world has ever thought about it you are wrong. There is a law in the Quran that is billions of times superior and better than the Golden Rule.

إِنْ أَحْسَنتُمْ أَحْسَنتُمْ لِأَنفُسِكُمْ وَإِنْ أَسَأْتُمْ فَلَهَا

“If you do good, you will do good for your own souls, and if you do evil, it shall be for them. “

The Golden rule is transactional – Because I don’t want others to treat me badly I don’t treat others badly.  This is a transaction pure and simple that has a trace of morality in it.

Furthermore, a similar golden rule of yours can be found in our ahadith.

In the book   تحف العقول page 14 it says, “O Ali, don’t chose when you would not choose for yourself and favor for your brother what you favor for yourself.”

In his will to his son Hassan, Ali said: “My son, hearken to my advice.  Make your own self the measure between thyself and others.  Love for others what you love for yourself and don’t do to him what you don’t like yourself.  Don’t treat others cruelly just as you don’t like to be treated cruelly; and be kind to others just as you would like others to be kind to you.  If you consider anything unpleasant for yourself don’t choose it for others and just as you wish others to be content of you be content of them.  P. 74.

I will reply to your questions after we clarify the structure of our debate.  Of course, if you pay attention you will find your responses in what I have written already.

Finally, I’d like to request all the friends who may want to ask questions from me to wait until the end of this debate. If you don’t find your response at the end, I will be at your service to answer any question.

You can also email me your questions to [email protected]

 

Update 2012/02/05 6:44 am

Mr. Farzad,

You say 1400 years ago Muhammad claimed to be the messenger of God and presented his reasoning which were accepted by people who believed in him.

I have studied Islam intensively for the last 14 years and even before that, I had some basic knowledge of it as most Muslims have, but I never saw any convincing reasoning.  If you present that reasoning and it is logical then it would be the end of discussion.  The problem is that there is no evidence for the claim of Muhammad and yet Muslims merrily kill anyone who disagrees with this unproven claim.

You said, “Now you say that there is no need for a god and that Man is the pivotal point of existence, not God. Please prove your claim.”

You are engaging in the fallacy of the burden of proof. The burden of proof is on you not on me.

My claim that morality is man based is self-evident. Is it not evident that killing, raping, torturing and looting others is evil?  I don’t have to prove this human based morality.

You on the other hand say that although all these things are evil when viewed from human perspective, they can be moral and good when seen from God’s point of view.  It is you who has to prove this outlandish and seemingly absurd claim.  Unless your god is Satan, your claim makes no sense at all.

You explain that amin used in several verses of the Quran can only be interpreted as truthful and not as trustee.  That is true.  But amin also means trustee as in Amin El-Makataba (Trustee of the library); Amin El-Shortaa (Police Trustee); and Majlass El-Omnaa (Council of Trustees.)

Arabs gave the title of Amin to the merchants who traded goods on behalf of others. People trusted their goods to them and called them trustees. Muhammad acted as Khadijah’s trustee only once in his lifetime.  I also said that Abul Aus, Zeinab’s husband who reluctantly accepted Islam was known as amin. If you just pay attention to what I write, there will be no reason for repetition.  If you bring up this subject again, you will get the same answer.  Once a topic is answered, please let us close it and move on.

You also make another unsubstantiated claim that all the linguists agree that Arabic is the most perfect language. No they don’t.  English is by far the most comprehensive language. Try to write a scientific thesis in Arabic.

You said, “If the claim to prophethood is equated to lying then you are right.  But you haven’t proven such thing yet.”

Yes I have. All my articles prove Muhammad was a liar and I gave you this link as example. http://alisina.org/is-muhammad-mentioned-in-the-bible/ Muhammad claimed that he is mentioned in the Bible by name. He is not. This is just one of the thousands of his lies.

When you say there is a world of difference between God centered morality and man centered morality I believe you did not understand me.  My point was that it makes no difference whether the injustice we perceive in what you term as God’s morality is real or perceived.  All realities to us humans are perceived.  So if our perception is that your god is immoral and evil we should not be blamed for rejecting him. Our responsibility as humans is to judge the claims of all the claimants based on our commonsense and our own sense of morality. If a man claims to be a prophet of God and engages in theft, rape, raid, pedophilia and killing we must not accept him. Such a man cannot be the prophet of God, whether his name is Charles Manson or Muhammad ibn Abdullah. The claim that we can’t understand God’s morality and that it is possible that things that appear to us as evil may actually be divine in the sight of God is baloney. That is the trap in which all foolish cultists fall and become unable to see their guru is an evil impostor. Here is one example of that. http://alisina.org/which-religion-is-good/ Read the email Thomas wrote to me to defend his guru’s sexual perversity, at the end of the article.

You say you have not begun debating about God centered morality yet and that I am jumping to conclusions hastily. Yes you have and you defended this fallacy from the start. I debunked it in every response I gave, as if such a silly idea needs debunking.

You say the terrorism and killings we see in Islamic world are politically motivated and not necessarily religiously motivated.  I say they are both. In Islam politics and religion are inseparable. Muhammad started a religion to dominate and control.  Islam has always been a tool of political domination. Unlike Christianity and other faiths Islam is not a personal faith, It is a religion of state.

You then quote the first part of the verse 17:7 “If you do good, you will do good for your own souls, and if you do evil, it shall be for them,” and say it is a billion times better than the Golden Rule.  What you don’t say is that the above is not a teaching of Muhammad to Muslims. It, like the other verse in the same sura that says whoever kills one man is like he has killed the entire humanity, is part of a fable about the Israelis that Muhammad is rehashing in the Quran.  If you read it in its context you’ll see it is not a teaching at all.

At the end you berate the Golden Rule and say it is nothing but a mercantile transition. Obviously you have not understood it.  I am not going to explain it because I believe the rule is self-explanatory, and even those who pretned not to understand it, perfectly understand it when it comes to their interestes. Even a psychopat wants to be treated fairly. He just does not want to treat others in the same way he likes to be treated.  Take the example of Muhammad. he could not tolerate  anyone stealing from him and tortured to death a few Bedouins who stole his camels. However, he had stollend those very camels. It was okay for him to steal. It was just not okay for others to steal from him.

Ali Ibn Abu Talib was a ruthless man

Then you surprise us by quoting a few passages attributed to Ali that are repetitions of the Golden Rule.

The question is whether those words were actually said by Ali or were attributed to him by the zealot Shiites later.  How can we know the truth? All we have to do is look at how Ali treated his opponents.  He was one of the most ruthless and evil men in Islam after Muhammad himself. So if he really said those words then he did not walk his talk. Confucius said the greatness of the superior man can be measured by the extent that his deeds and his words coincide.  Apart from the fact that I believe those words are falsely attributed to Ali, words without action are dime a dozen.  But let us focus on Muhammad.  Ali may be important for the Shiites but he is not important for the majority of Muslims. There is enough to say about Muhammad.

Your response was long but you ignored my four questions. I repeat them again.

1        If the conduct of a true messenger of God can appear as evil, how can we know he is from God?

2        If Allah is powerful why he depends on his henchmen and cannot kill his critics without the help of Muslim assassins?

3        If in your “God-centered morality” it is okay to kill the unbelievers, why do you think it is wrong for the unbelievers to kill you first in self-defense?

4        If Satan asks you to advise him the best way to destroy mankind using his only faculty which is deception. What better ways can you think of than telling him to invent a false religion that calls the believers to kill the unbelievers?

Update: 2012/02/26 2:38 AM

ترجمهشما می گویید محمد 1400 سال پیش مدعی پیامبری شده و دلایل ارائه شده از طرف او به وسیله عده ای از مردم مقبول واقع شده و به او ایمان آورده اند.من ازبیش از 14 سال قبل اسلام را مورد مطالعه قرار داده ام و مانند اکثر مسلمین اطلاعات مهمی از اسلام دارم، اما من هرگز این دلایل را متقاعد کننده نیافتم. اگر شما این دلایل را به صورت منطقی ارائه کنید بحث تمام می شود. مشکل اینجاست که هیچ دلیلی برای صحت ادعای پیامبر وجود ندارد و هنوز مسلمین مشتاقانه هر کسی را که با مدعیات ثابت نشده او مخالف کند می کشند.جواب: من در این قسمت از بحث تنها آنچه در عالم خارج واقع شده را تصویر کردم، شکی نیست که این اتفاق افتاده؛ شخصی ادعای پیامبری کرده و در طول هزار و چهارصد سال گذشته میلیاردها نفر که میان آنها از روستاییان ساده بیسواد تا انسانهای فرهیخته ای که مورد افتخار بشریت هستند مدعای او را به هر دلیل پذیرفته اند.مدعای او به طور خلاصه چنین است:هستی دارای خداست، تمام هستی از جمله انسانها مخلوق این خدایند، هدف از خلقت انسان عبودیت و شناخت این خداست، مرگ نه تنها پایان زندگی نیست بلکه آغاز زندگی حقیقی بر اساس عملکرد و رفتار در زندگی دنیایی است.در مقابل افرادی مثل شما مدعی هستند که خدایی وجود ندارد و یا اگر هم دارد کاری به کار انسان ندارد، تنها هدف ما از زندگی کردن این است که زندگی کنیم، مرگ پایان همه چیز است.لطفا دقت کنید پیامبر خدا صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم ادعا کرده، دلیل آورده، میلیاردها نفر دلیل او را معقول دانسته و ایمان آورده اند در این مرحله من کاری ندارم که در واقع دلیل او معقول بوده یا نبوده است.شما نیز در مقابل این ادعا، ادعای دیگری دارید، برای ادعای خود دلیل بیاورید شاید من و بسیار از دیگر مسلمانان ادعای شما را معقول دانسته و به شما ایمان بیاوریم.اصلا بگذارید من چند پله جلوتر بروم، فرض کنید شما اثبات کردید که راهی که حضرت محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم پیشنهاد کرده راه غلطی است و من هم دلایل شما را کاملا معقول دانستم و فهمیدم راهی که تاکنون رفته ام کاملا بیراهه بوده است. اکنون می خواهم راه جدید دیگری را انتخاب کنم و شما راه خود را پیشنهاد می کنید. به طور حتم شما انتظار ندارید که من گوسفند وار به دنبال شما بدوم و طلب دلیل از شما حقی غیر قابل اغماض است، لطف کنید دلیل خود بر درستی راهی که می روید را ارائه نمایید.ترجمه بقیه مطالب شما و جواب به آنها را به بعد از عبور از این مرحله موکول می کنم و تا این نکته اساسی روشن نشود وارد بحث جدیدی نخواهم شد. البته چهار سوال شما را جواب می دهم.. اگر رفتار یک پیامبر راستین قابلیت تطبییق بر زشتی داشته باشد، چگونه ما می توانیم بفهمیم او از طرف خدا آمده است؟زشتی و زیبایی بر اساس تفکر شما کاملا نسبی است، به طور مثال سکس در ملاء عام، همجنس بازی و همجنسگرایی حتی در فرهنگ غرب در جایی موضوعی اخلاقی هستند اما در جایی دیگر غیر اخلاقی. بسیاری از رفتارها در فرهنگ غرب اخلاقی است اما در فرهنگ شرق کاملا غیر اخلاقی. لذا از این منظر هیچگاه نمی توانید ملاک و معیاری بر درستی و نادرستی ادعای پیامبری از طرف کسی پیدا کنید.خدای تو قدرتی ندارد. او متکی به بندگان خویش است او چه فرقی با یک سرکرده مافیا دارد؟فرق در نیاز و عدم نیاز است، خدای من غنی بالذات و خارج از دایره فعل او انفعال است. اگر او به من روزی زیاد داده و درمقابل خواسته که به فقرا کمک کنم این نشانه ناتوانی او در رفع فقر آن فقیر نیست بلکه در اینجا دو امتحان است یکی برای من و یکی برای فقیر، این سر موکول کردن انجام امور به بندگان است نه عجز و ضعف او. علاوه بر اینکه اگر بنده ای کاری انجام دهد از آنجا که نیرو و توان بنده از طرف خداست باز این خداست که آن کار را انجام داده است.شما فکر می کنید این خدایی است که ناباوران را بکشید. چرا فکر می کنید که اگر آنها در مقام دفاع از خود شما را بکشند کار غلطی کرده اند؟ما هرگز فکر نمی کنیم که آنها در مقام دفاع از خود کار غلطی کرده اند من تاکنون جایی ندیده ام که کسی کافری را به خاطر دفاع از خود ملامت کرده باشد، حتی حیونات هم حق دارند از خود دفاع کنند. در ضمن مقدمه سوال شما کاملا غلط و عوامفریبانه است هیچ قانونی در اسلام مبنی بر اینکه صرف ناباور بودن دلیل بر استحقاق کشته شدن است وجود ندارد.. اجازه دهید از شیطان بخواهیم که از شما درخواست کند بهترین راه برای نابودی انسانیت را با توجه به تنها توانایی او یعنی فریب دادن به او توصیه کنید. چه راهی بهتر از جعل یک مذهب غلط که دعوت به کشتن غیر مسلمانان کند به فکر شما می رسد؟راه بهتر از نظر من تشویق به حرص و طمع است، که اکنون مدعیان قانون طلایی به دلیل گرفتار شدن به آن در همین چند سال اخیر میلیونها نفر را فقط در خاورمیانه به خاطر حفظ منافع پست دنیایی خود به خاک و خون کشیده و به خاک سیاه نشانده اند

Mr. Sina,

You say you have not seen any evidence that Islam is true and asked me to give you that evidence.

I only mentioned the historic fact about what happened.  A person claimed to be a prophet of God and for the last 1400 years billions of people of all walks of life, literate and illiterate, have believed in his claim.

He claimed that the world has a god and that everything including humans are His creations, and that death is not the end.  Please note that the Prophet (PBUH) has made this claim and has presented his evidence and billions of people have accepted his evidence and believed in him.  At this moment I am not interested to analyze whether his evidence is logical or not.

You have a different claim. Please provide an evidence for your claim. Maybe Muslims and me will find your claim more logical and will believe in you.

Let me go a few step further. Let us suppose you prove the way that Muhammad (PBUH) has proposes is wrong and I accept your reasoning and believe that I had been misled.  Now, I want to choose a new way and ask you to show me your way.  Most certainly you don’t expect me to follow you like a sheep without asking for proof.  So please give me the evidence that your way is correct.

I will translate the rest of your article and my response to it after you answer the above fundamental questions.  Until then I prefer not to enter into a new discussion.  But here is my answer to you four questions.

1-      If the conduct of a true messenger of God can appear as evil, how can we know he is from God?”

My response:

Beauty and ugliness, according to your thinking are completely relative.  For example, having sex in public, homosexuality, and promiscuity, even in western cultures are sometimes morally acceptable and sometimes morally unacceptable.  A lot of conducts in the western culture are considered morally acceptable, but in eastern cultures are unacceptable.  Consequently, it is impossible to find a universally agreed upon standard by which to judge the conduct of a prophet.

2-      If Allah is powerful why he depends on his henchmen and cannot kill his critics without the help of Muslim assassins?

My response:
The difference is in need and lack of need. My god is self-sufficient and outside the circle of action/reaction.  If he gives me riches and in exchange he asks me to help the poor, it is not because he is powerless to remove the poverty from that poor.  In this there are two tests. One is for me and the other is for the poor.  God wants to delegate his affairs to his slaves (people). That is not because he can’t do them himself.   Furthermore, if a slave does something, since his power originates from God’s power, it is in reality God who has done the work through that slave.

3-      If in your “God-centered morality” it is okay to kill the unbelievers, why do you think it is wrong for the unbelievers to kill you first in self-defense?

My Response:
We don’t think that self-defense is wrong.  I have not seen anywhere [in the scriptures] that anyone blamed a kafir for self-defense.  Even animals have the right to self-defense.  Furthermore, the premise of your question is wrong.  There is no law in Islam that says that unbelievers deserve to die for merely not believing.

4-      If Satan asks you to advise him the best way to destroy mankind using his only faculty which is deception. What better ways can you think of than telling him to invent a false religion that calls the believers to kill the unbelievers?

My Response:
A better way, in my opinion. Would be to encourage people to be greedy. Thanks to this greed the proponents of the Golden Rule, in these past few years, only in the Middle East, have butchered millions of people to protect their base worldly interests.

Update 2012/02/26 5:32 AM

Mr. Farzad,

Your response is replete with logical fallacies.  Nothing unusual about that! Islam is a collection of logical fallacies.  I will point them out shortly, but first let me answer your question.

You ask me to suggest a better way than Islam.  I have answered this question in a separate article titled, Which Religion Is Good?  In that article I quote Krishnamurthi who said, “Truth is a pathless land’. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.”   

Truth is like sunlight. You don’t have to go anywhere or follow anyone to find it. No path will take you closer to it. All you have to do is get out of the cave of your mind and bask in its splendor and warmth. 

Religions in general and Islam in particular take us away from truth.  They are based on unsubstantiated claims supported by logical fallacies, and sheer lies. 

The claim that there is a god in heaven who does not need to be worshipped, but nonetheless he creates humans with freedom to worship him  (there is no compulsion), or else, he will chop them and mince them and roast them and toast them and bake them and boil them, sounds a bit phony.  It is not befitting for smart people of any time, let alone of this day and age, to believe in this balderdash.

You ask me to show you a good way so you can follow me.  Okay! You need to change your paradigm. The problem is this very notion of following.  Following is for sheep, not for humans.  We are all endowed with a brain that, unless insane, can lead us to the right path.  We all have a compass within us that can show us the true North.  We don’t need to follow anyone.  We all can be prophets to ourselves. 

How do we find the truth in science? Not by following this philosopher or that scientist.  We find the truth in science through research, investigation, observation, analysis, tests and a lot of trial and error.  Sometimes we make mistakes and come to erroneous conclusions, but if we follow this foolproof methodology we will eventually find the right answer.  This is called the scientific method. 

Finding the truth about spirituality, morality and ethics should also be done in a scientific method.  Yes intuition helps, and even scientist credit intuition and inspiration for many of their discoveries.  But they always support their intuitions with facts and scientific observation.

If God is infinite, truth must be infinite.  We humans are finite and as such it is impossible for us to reach the infinite truth. But we can get closer to it.  Our truth can expand, just as our knowledge expands. 

In order to expand our understanding of the universe we question it. We challenge what we know and that is how we learn more.  Shouldn’t we do the same for our spiritual understanding?

In the middle ages people believed in Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as the ultimate authority on knowledge.  As the result science became stagnated.  Enlightenment took place when we stopped beliving and quoting these masters and  started questioning our knowledge and the knowlege of the above sages.  It was then that our knowledge of science exploded.  We began to doubt and to experiment. That brought us to where we are today. It is thank to this scientific approach that you and I can debate live while living on opposite sides of the world. 

We need a similar approach in matters of religion and spirituality.  There is nothing those primitive people knew that can be of any use to us.  The sacred books of all religions are full of errors about the universe and how it came to exist.  If they are so wrong about this world why should we believe in their stories about the next?  The knowledge of the ancient people is of no use to us. Why their morality and spirituality should be of any use?

If you treat others the way you’d like to be treated you have found the right path.  Why would you need to follow someone else to tell you what you can find on your own?  Is it not clear that cheating, lying, hurting, abusing, discriminating and violating other people’s rights is wrong?  Do we need a messenger from God to tell us what we already know?

The problem with following someone else is that if this person is an impostor, he can make us do very evil things.  Look at ordinary people who become cult members.  They can often become very dangerous to others and to themselves.  They do evil cheerfully and with total devotion and conviction.  Is it not possible that Muhammad may have been a cult leader? 

That is my argument. I can’t prove this in few sentences. But if anyone is interested I invite them to read my book where I have provided irrefutable evidence to this claim.

Good people do evil things when they follow false doctrines.  That is why Muslims do so much evil to themselves and to others.  Those who follow Muhammad have forsaken their humanity and have become monsters.

You repeated what you said before that you can’t provide any evidence to the claim of Muhammad, but that there must be some truth to it or else why would billions of people, some very educated,  believe in him for so many centuries.

There are no less than four logical fallacies in your reasoning.

1-      Truth cannot be attained through the consensus of the majority.  If a proposition is false the mere fact that many people believe in it does not make it true.  There was a time that most mankind believed that the earth is flat and stationary while the firmament revolves around it.  Despite the consensus of the majority, this belief was always wrong.  This fallacy is called, argumentum ad numerum.

2-      The next fallacy in your statement is argumentum ad populum. The fact that a proposition is favored by many does not make it true either.  

3-      The next fallacy is argumentum ad verecundiam. A false proposition does not become truer if many educated people believe in it.  Educated people can also be wrong.  For example, Einstein was wrong when he said God does not play dice. God plays dice all the time.  Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is a scientific fact.

4-      Your next fallacy is argumentum ad continuum.  A false proposition does not become truer because it has lasted a long time. The fact that Islam has survived for 14 centuries is not the proof of its truth.  The reason for its survival is to be sought in Islamic suppression of free enquiry.   Had Islam allowed free thought and questioning it would have been eliminated a thousand years ago or even in Medina where the Jews could debunk it easily.  But Muhammad assassinated his critics.  Islam has survived not because it is true but because it is intolerant of criticism.  You can keep a space dark for ever, as long as you don’t allow light to shine in.

But that era is over.  Now truth is coming out.  For the first time opponents and proponents of Islam can discuss freely as you and I are doing, without the former fearing for their lives.  Now truth can be exposed and when truth is out Islam will be eliminated.   The Islamic regimes know that.  That is why they are so fearful of the Internet.  The mullahs want to ban all search-engines in Iran and create their own version of it called Yahaq.com, where they can control information.  They know that to survive they have to keep people ignorant.  But I doubt they will succeed.

And here is my response to your response of my four questions.

1-      You say morality is relative to cultures and since there is no universally accepted standard of morality we can’t judge the conduct of Muhammad.

Morality may have different meanings for different cultures. One culture may think woman are talking walking vagina and that every part of their body is erotic and therefore they should cover themselves from head to toe. Another culture may think there is nothing wrong in nudity and may even license nudist camps. These two are extremes.  Personally, I prefer moderation in everything. Most people share my views.  However, this is not the point of our discussion.  I am not condemning Muhammad for practicing one form of morality or another.  I am condemning him for practicing the morality of jungle where might is right.

Whether your culture allows nudity or practices hijab and which is better is not the point. The point is that abuse and violation of human rights is wrong in any culture.  Just as you find it objectionable for someone else to tell you how to dress, what to eat and what not to eat, what to read and what not to read, etc. Others also don’t want you to impose on them your morality and values.  This is what the Golden Rule is all about.  Muslims have no understanding of the Golden Rule and you have been pooh-poohing it all along, which shows those words you quoted earlier attributing them to Ali about the Golden Rule are not really his words.  One zealot mullah must have thought they sound good and attributed them to Ali.  However, as you have made it clear Islam has no room for such thing.   You want to violate the human rights of others and abuse them, but want them to treat you fairly, even preferentially.   You believe in the law of jungle,.  As long as you have the power, you will ignore the rights of others.. You jail and kill the apostates and those who preach other faiths to Muslims, while you spent the money of the poor Iranians to build mosques in Europe to deceive and convert the westerners to convert to Islam.   Your conscious is so low that you see nothing wrong in that and genuinely believe this is how things should be. This is the morality of the psychopath. I am not talking about you personaly. I am talking about Muslims in general.

 In Understanding Muhammad, I argue that your prophet was a psychopath and Muslims become like him to the extent that they follow him.  

 Even if morality may be relative, ethics are not. No civilized culture allows pedophilia, raid, rape and theft.  Islam sanctions these evil practices.  No ethical culture allows killing people for having different views or abandoning what is agreed by the majority. Islam practices it. You justified it by claiming that the morality of God may seem diabolic to humans, but we must not question it. This is of course a fallacy as I have pointed out numerous times.

 I don’t accuse Muhammad for lack of morality. I accuse him for lack of decency, for his inhumanity, for his cruelty, injustice and ruthlessness.

 2-      I asked why your Allah can’t kill his critics and he depends on his followers to do his dirty work. You responded that he delegates his work to others to test them and made an example that God can eliminate poverty, but he doesn’t do it. Instead he gives a lot of money to some people and keeps other hungry and asks the rich guy to feed the poor guy and in this way he can test both of them.

I know you wrote this with straight face but I can’t stop laughing. This alone shows the stupidity of this deity.  Assuming the rich guys are all good Muslims and give generously to the poor, isn’t this denigrating for the poor.   I know if I become poor and don’t have food to eat I rather die than ask for help.  Why would a sane god act so stupidly?

Can you explain why this god of yours, whom you say knows the future and the past, needs to test people?   Testing is to evaluate the abilities, aptitudes, skills, performance or qualities of an individual.  Don’t you say you god know all these things? Then what is this test for?  Thousands of innocent children suffer with hunger and die of malnutrition all over the world every day.  Your god can end their misery, but he doesn’t.  What are they being tested for?

This is a ridiculous fallacy. But you use it to explain the injunctions of murder and violence in the Quran.  You want us to understand that Allah can kill his critics, but he doesn’t because he wants his believers to do it so he can test them. Test them for what?  Is becoming a murderer a requirements to get into Islamic paradise?

You are an educated man. You’ve spent decades learning all the Islamic nonsense. If only you spend one minute thinking rationally you’d see these arguments that you use to defend Islam are baloney. Islam is a very idiotic religion. Any person with a little rational thinking can debunk it.

I was challenged to a mubahila. I told this guy that this is ludicrous. He insisted that it works because it is in the Quran. If Allah had any power over me that time was the best time to kill me.  But he couldn’t.  He allowed Islam and his challenge of mubahila ridiculed and proven wrong.  And I never heard from my opponent.  I only hope he did not die.

You believe your god can do miracles but he doesn’t do it because he wants to test us. I can say the same about a can of Coca Cola.  If I claim that I am a prophet of a can of Coca Cola who is capable to destroy mankind if they don’t believe in me, but it doesn’t. Instead it tells me to kill those who oppose me, wouldn’t you say I am crazy and dangerous? Wouldn’t you lock me up as a threat to the society?  Of course you would and you should. Yet you have no problem believing in exact same ridiculous claim made up by the lunatic Muhammad.  What is wrong with you?

3-      I asked since Islam says sly the unbelievers why shouldn’t we the unbelievers, preempt and in self- defense and kill you Muslims before you can kill us.  You responded that no one blames the kafirs for defending themselves and you added that Islam does not prescribe killing unbelievers indiscriminately.

Well in that case why do you object when the western powers attack Muslim nations that harbor terrorists?  But forget about what other countries do. Let us talk about our own country Iran.  Mr. Ah-Nejad had repeatedly said that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of time and he is in the pursuit of nuclear bombs. Despite the denial of the regime the intention is clear to everyone.  So I believe you should have no problem with Israel attacking Iran before Iran nukes her out of existence.

Furthermore, there are many injunctions in the Quran to kill the infidels. The Sura Nine is all about killing anyone who does not submit to Islam or does not pay the jizya tax feeling humiliated and subdued.   We Iranians posed no threat to Islam, but Muhammad sent a letter to our king giving the ultimatum to submit or face war. A few years later we were attacked.

4-      I asked whether you can advise Satan a better way to destroy mankind than devising a false religion that instructs its followers to hate and kill the unbelievers.  You said I would tell him to encourage people to be greedy and then said the proponents of the Golden Rule are greedy and that is why they have killed millions of people in the Middle East.

It is clear that you don’t understand the Golden Rule. But we discussed that already.   You are also wrong about greed. Greedy people have always existed and probably will always exist. However, most people are not greedy and in true democracies, where the opposition is strong, there are checks and balances and a greedy ruler does not have the power to do as he pleases.  This can happen in our Iran and in other banana republics that are controlled by tyrants.

When there are natural disasters anywhere in the world you can see the humanity of good people shining. They come out by millions and donate whatever they can, food, clothing, money and their time to help the affected people.   This is less so in Islamic countries and that is a matter of statistics. It is not that Muslims don’t care about the misery of others, but because of their indoctrination they think giving money to advance Islam (jihad) is more important than to help other humans.

You also never see an Islamic country helping a non-Muslim country that is hit by a natural disaster in any significant way. Why help those who don’t believe in Allah and his messenger?  Musims must slay the unbelievers wherever they find them not to help them.

Israel is generally the first to come to help and the Israelis give most per capita than any other nation. Damn these Jews! They beat Muslims even in charity and good deeds.  One wonders how these cousins of apes and rats excel Muslims in everything, and not just a little, but by thousands of times.   Who knows! Maybe Muslims are the cousins of cockroaches.

I too used to think that evil is caused by greed.  It was when I read the Quran that I realized a lot of evil in the world is caused by evil beliefs.  Good people do evil cheerfully when they are under the influence of an evil doctrine.

Take the example of Hamza Lashgari, the 23 year old Saudi journalist. He wrote three tweets that Muslims thought is insulting their prophet.  They were not insulting at all. Tens of thousands of Muslims demanded him to be killed. What these people want is sheer evil. How can so many people be so evil? It is not greed!  It is Islam that has reduced them into monsters.   Nothing is more evil than evil indoctrinations and that is why Islam is the number one evil in the world.

Update: 2012/02/26  9:50 AM

جناب سینا

همانطور که قبلا هم به شما گفته ام انسان بی تجربه ای در زمینه بحث با مخالفان اسلام نیستم، با این نوع بحث کردن شاید بتوانید مخاطبانی که آگاهی کافی نسبت به این نوع بحث ها ندارند را فریب دهید اما راهی برای فریب من پیدا نخواهید کرد.

توسل به مغالطه و سفسطه یابی در کلام طرف بحث غالبا زمانی اتفاق می افتد که انسان هیچ جواب منطقی در دست ندارد و ناگزیر است جهت خلاصی از مخمصه ای که در آن گرفتار شده انواع مغلطه ها و سفسطه ها را بر طرف مقابل خود تحمیل کند.

نکته دیگر اینکه سخن شما آن قدر طولانی و مفصل و توضیح واضحات و تکرار ذهنیات پر از تناقض است که انسان رغبت به خواندن آن نمی کند چه برسد به اینکه یک شخص مبتدی در زبان انگلیسی مانند من وقت زیادی را جهت ترجمه کردن آن به فارسی صرف آن کند.

هر انسان آگاه و با انصافی اگر جواب بسیار طولانی شما را در برابر سوال بسیار ساده و کوتاه من بخواند متوجه دست و پا زدن شما برای اینکه به گونه ای خود را از پاسخ دادن رها کنید می شود؛ بسیاری از سخنان شما بسیار زیبا و شاعرانه است ما من برای مشاعره با شما اینجا نیامده ام، در مواردی متوسل به توهین شده اید، این نیز مرا عصبانی و وادار به مقابله به مثل نخواهد کرد. تنها چیزی که می تواند راهگشا باشد استدلال عقلی و منطقی است اما متاسفانه علاقه بسیار زیاد شما به سخنرانی و خطابه باعث گم شدن این عنصر اساسی در لابلای ده ها موضوعی که در حال حاضر ربطی به موضوع اصلی بحث ندارد می شود.

سوال کردم: آیا دلیلی بر درستی راهی که می روید دارید؟

جواب دادید: حقیقت یا اصلا وجود ندارد و یا اگر وجود دارد دست یافتنی نیست پس هیچکس اعم از فیلسوف و غیر فیلسوف، روشنفکر و غیر روشنفکر، پیامبر و غیر پیامبر ابزاری برای اثبات حقیقت بودن راهی که می رود ندارد. هیچکسی نباید از دیگری پیروی کند و هیچکس حق ندارد به دیگری رفتن راهی را توصیه کند.

تنها و تنها و تنها یک راه اطمینان بخش وجود دارد و آن هم اینکه هر کسی به ندای درون خود گوش کند.

آیا درست متوجه شدم؟ جواب دهید بله یا نه و اگر نه در یک جمله کوتاه آن را تصحیح کنید تا نظر خود را بیان کن

Mr. Sina,

As I stated before, I am not an inexperienced person when it comes to debating the opponents of Islam. With these arguments you may be able to deceive those who are less informed, but you can’t deceive me.

Resorting to fallacies and sophisms in debate often recurs when a person is left with no logical answers and is forced to resort to all sorts of sophism and fallacies so he can release himself from the grasp of his opponent.

Another point is that your writings are so long, replete with repetitions, contradictions and errors that one has no desire reading them let alone for a beginner in the English like me to spend excessive time translating them.

Any fair person, by reading your long responses to my simple questions will see your desperation to avoid responding.  A lot of what you write is quite beautiful and poetic. But I am not here for a poetry contest. In some cased you have resorted to insults. This too makes me angry and forces me to retaliate in kind.

The only thing that can solve the problem is logical arguments. But unfortunately your intense love for garrulity and preaching results in the loss of this crucial element in the pile of arguments that have nothing to do with the subject we are discussing.

I asked, can you prove that your way is correct.

You answered, either truth does not exist or if it does it is unattainable. No one, whether a philosopher, a thinker, a prophet or a commoner can prove that his way is right, no one should follow another person and no one should impose his way on someone else. There is only one correct way and that is listening to ones one inner voice.

Is my understanding correct? Please answer yes or no and if not please in a simple sentence explain your position.

Mr. Farzad,

Whether I am struggling for answers or it is you who can’t come up with one, is something for our readers to decide.  If it makes you feel better to beat your chest, you may do so. My interest is to see truth exposed.

I don’t think I am repeating myself too much. I do my best to explain my views clearly.  If too much reading bores you, you may read and answer as much as you like.  I like to answer to every point that my opponent raises.  A question may be short, but sometimes the response my take volumes and sometimes a long question has only a word of affirmation or negation as response. Often, Muslims incorporate numerous fallacies in one sentence. I think it is important to refute them all.

I am not interested in you Sir. I know you are part of the regime that kills my brothers and sisters.  I know Islam is your source of income. It is not just your religion but also your business and career. You will deny the truth even if it hits you in the head. If you don’t’ you’ll be in big trouble.  Although I am debating with you, I am actually writing for many Muslims who want to know the truth. They want to read both sides of the argument in one page.

Please also note that I did not insult you. I am quite aware that Muslims feel insulted when their faith is criticized. But I don’t apologize for that. I speak my mind and will use the proper words to describe Islam and its founder. I am not here to protect anyone’s feelings. My concern is the lives of the people that you Muslims destroy. Believe me; your feelings have no value in comparison to those precious lives.

You are also free to say what you want about my beliefs. But if you insult my person, I will withdraw. When it comes to insults I am no match to Muslims. That is not my turf.  In that arena Muslims are champions. My specialty is logic not personal attacks.

As for your question, yes I think you got it more or less. However, I suggest you read what I wrote one more time before responding to it. That part is not long.  If you are in doubt about what I actually say, you’ll not be able to answer properly and this will not look good on your overall performance. Remember that your job is not to convince me, but our readers.  If you have difficulty to understand my English I will reword it.

Update 2012/02/26 8:48 PM

 

ترجمه پاراگرف آخر

با توجه با سوال شما، بله من فکر می کنم شما کما بیش درست فهمیدید. اما من پیشنهاد می کنم شما قبل از اینکه جواب مرا بدهید یکبار دیگر نوشته مرا بخوانید آن نوشته چندان طولانی نیست اگر در فهم مقصود واقعی من شک دارید به طور طبیعی قادر نخواهید بود به درستی جواب مرا بدهید و این سبب نگاه بدبینانه روی عملکرد شما خواهد شد. توجه داشته باشید که کار شما متقاعد کردن من نیست بلکه باید روی خوانندگان تاثیر بگذارید اگر در فهم نوشته های من به زبان انگلیسی مشکلی دارید من با عبارت دیگر آن را بیان خواهم کرد.

جناب سینا

تمام تلاش من این است که به شما نشان دهم تمام تفکرات شما روی اساس و پایه ای بنا شده که هیچ مبنای عقلی و منطقی و حتی انسانی (به معنای خاص) ندارد. کلمات چند گانه دزدی، تجاوز، کشتار، کودک آزار یا بچه باز و … که به صورت چندش آوری تکرار می شود موضوعات دست چندمی هستند که تا نتوانید اصل مبنای مرا رد کنید قابل حل نیستند، برای اینکه بتوانید ضربه محکم و کاری به مبنای من وارد کنید باید ابتدا جای پای خود را محکم کنید و مبنایی خالی از هر گونه اشکال برگزینید. پس لطف کنید اجازه دهید ببینیم شما قادر به دفاع از مبنای خود هستیدا یا نه.

من هنوز شروع به دفاع از اصول اعتقادی پیامبر رحمت نکرده ام که شما مرا به ارتکاب مغالطه توسل به ا کثریت و …. می کنید تنها وضعیت موجود را گزارش کرده ام همین وبس، برای اینکه نشان دهم هر کسی که ادعایی دارد باید این مسیر را طی کند و شما از این قاعده مستثنی نیستید.

حال برسیم به بررسی مدعای شما

1) حقیقت یا اصلا وجود ندارد

2) یا اگر وجود دارد دست یافتنی نیست

3) هیچکس اعم از فیلسوف و غیر فیلسوف، روشنفکر و غیر شنفکر، پیامبر و غیر پیامبر ابزاری برای اثبات حقیقت بودن راهی که می رود ندارد

4) هیچکسی نباید از دیگری پیروی کند

5) هیچکس حق ندارد به دیگری رفتن راهی را توصیه کند.

6) تنها یک راه اطمینان بخش وجود دارد و آن اینکه هر کسی به ندای درون خود گوش کند.

بر اساس سه مقدمه اول هر کسی هر چیزی که بگوید درست است (حتی پیامبر رحمت که این همه مورد ملامت شماست) و به عبارت دقیق تر اصلا درستی و نادرستی معنا ندارد زیرا با توجه به آنچه در بخش ششم آمده تنها راه ممکن برای تولد یک اعتقاد ندای درونی انسانهاست و هر کسی حق دارد به آنچه از ندای درونی او زائیده شده اعتماد کند بلکه چاره ای جز اعتماد ندارد چون اولا راه دیگری برای فهم حقیقت وجود ندارد ثانیا بر اساس مقدمه چهارم پیروی کردن از دیگران موضوعی مذموم و ناپسند است و براساس مبنای پنجم آیا می توانید توضیح دهید علت رفتار پیامبرانه شما در این سایت چیست؟ چرا بر خلاف مبنای پذیرفته شده خود این همه دیگران را امر و نهی می کنید؟ نکند شما هم از جمله کسانی هستید که مرگ را تنها برای همسایه حق می دانید؟ فقط در یکی دو جمله بیان کنید که

آیا به لوازم مبنایی که انتخاب کرده اید پایبند هستید؟ شما در لابلای استدلالهایی که می کنید از عقل و منطق زیاد سخن می گویید درحالیکه این دو عنصر اساسی هیچ جایی در میان مبانی اعتقادی شما ندارد؛ چه توجیهی برای این موضوع دارید؟ .

ادعا و سوال اساسی خود در مورد مبنای شما را بعد از جواب شما که امیدوارم که گویا و البته کوتاه باشد بیان خواهم کرد

 

All my effort is to show you that your thoughts are not logical, rational and not even humane.  Words such as raid, rape, plunder, massacre and pedophilia, etc. that are disgustingly repeated by you, are second and third hand concepts that cannot be resolved unless you reject my point. If you want to demolish my argument, you have to first strengthen your footstep and choose a concept that is free from error.  Therefore, let us first see whether you can defend your own views or not.

I have not yet begun to defend the principles and the beliefs of the Messenger of Mercy that you accuse me of using logical fallacies. I only reported the present situation.  That is all. All I wanted to show is that any person who has a claim must follow this procedure and you are not an exception to this rule.

Now let us analyze your claim.

You said 1)truth either does not exist or 2) if it does, it can’t be attained, and 3) no one, including philosophers, thinkers, prophets, etc. can prove the correctness of his way.  Therefore, 4) no one should follow someone else and 5) no one should impose his views on others. 6) There is only one secure way and that is for each person to listen to his own inner voice.

Based on the first three claims, any idea presented by any person must be correct (even that of the Messenger of Mercy whom you attack constantly).  In other words right and wrong have no meaning at all. Because based on your point 6 the only truth is the inner voice of the individual and each person has the right to trust his inner voice and in fact he has no other choice but to trust it.  Because first there is no other way to understand the truth and second, following someone else is something that has to be shunned.

In that case can you explain your prophetic conduct in this site? Why, despite inviting others to think for their own, there is so much lecturing, preaching and sermons in your writings?

Are you among those who don’t walk their talk, or as we Persian say believe that death is good, but only for the neighbors?  Please answer in one or two sentences.

Are you bounded by your own principles and rules? You speak a lot about logic and reason, whereas these two concepts have no place in your thoughts and beliefs.  What is your explanation?

I will give my main answer after your reply and I hope it will be clear and short.

 

Update 2012/02/26 11.09 PM

Mr. Farzad,

You say you haven’t started the debate yet.  Believe it or not this is it.  You keep saying you will answer my questions only after we delineate the structure of the debate or after I explain to you my beliefs about the nature of truth or when this or that condition is satisfied.  You are just beating around the bushes.  This debate is about Muhammad.  You claim that imprisoning people, abusing their human rights and killing them are acceptable because they are sanctioned by your god.  We want to see the proof that your god is the real God and not Satan. .

What I believe and what I think about truth is irrelevant to our readers.  No one is interested to know what Ali Sina thinks about truth and reality.  They come here to learn the truth about Islam.  So please don’t try to divert the subject.

I have explained my views in the article I gave you in the link. But I am not asking people to believe in what I say.  I may be wrong.

Here is the gist of my epistemological thoughts.  I believe that if there is a god, he/she/it must be infinite. Therefore, the divine truth must also be infinite.  We humans are finite. All we can understand are some aspects of the truth.  For example, let us say a group of people are standing at the foot of a tall mountain.  They can’t see all of it and depending on their vantage point each person gets a different perspective of it.  Likewise, it is impossible for one person to know the entire truth.  Therefore, we should neither follow others nor try to impose our views on others.  However, we can exchange our views and learn about this mountain more from those who have different perspectives of it.

You say I am wrong. Maybe I am! I am not trying to convince anyone to believe in what I believe. I say each person has to find the truth on his own. Truth is a pathless land.  Each person’s truth is good for himself.  But he may be wrong. The point is to keep searching. This search must continue to the end of life.  It is like knowledge.  We can never gain all the knowledge. Knowledge is infinite. But we keep searching for it and keep learning more every day.

Was Muhammad’s truth also right? Of course not! From his own perspective his truth was right because he was insane.  This does not mean that what an insane person perceives as truth and is convinced of it is actually true.  No one can claim to have found the whole truth.  Anyone who makes that claim is a charlatan. It is like someone claiming to have learned all the knowledge of the universe.

You say I am not logical at all and not even humane. Well, in that case you should have no difficulty to point out my errors and highlight my inhumanity.  Don’t keep attacking me. Instead attack my arguments.

This debate is not about Ali Sina and his thoughts. No one give a damn about my thoughts and no one should.  If I ever solicit followers, you are most welcome to dissect and disprove my thoughts.  Until them please let us stick to the subject. The subject of our debate is Muhammad and his claim, not Ali Sina.

You are making a claim that Muhammad was a prophet.  Based on that belief you also say some people who don’t contribute to the felicity of others, as defined by Islam, should be eliminated.   Do you have any proof for this claim for which you are so eager to kill?

You said that Muhammad made his claim to the people around him and showed them his evidence and they accepted it. But now you can’t produce that evidence. You just follow him because you think all those people who followed him could not have been wrong.   I explained that your faith is based on a series of logical fallacies.  Yes it is possible for billions of people to be in error for many centuries. The intensity of their faith and their zealotry is not the proof of the validity of their belief either.

As far as I can see this debate is over. Instead of proving Muhammad’s claim you want to prove my epistemology is wrong. Who cares? This is also a logical fallacy. It is called red herring.  You want to divert the subject. Let us say I am wrong.  Will you be any closer to prove Muhammad’s claim?  There are many people who don’t believe in my philosophy.  Can you address them and prove to them Muhammad’s claim?

If you can’t follow this debate and have nothing else to add, maybe it is time to say goodbye.   However, if you can show us the evidence that Muhammad was a prophet of God, I am all ears.  If you want to continue please focus on the question.  The question is not about what I think. It is about giving evidence that Muhammad was a prophet of God and hence all these killings, rapes and raids, imprisonments and executions are justified.

Update 2012.03/01 9.00 AM

ترجمه

شما می گویید هنوز بحث را شروع نکرده اید، اما خواسته یا نخواسته این کار را می کنید. شما مدام تکرار می کنید زمانی به سوال من جواب می دهید که پایه های اساسی بحث مشخص شود یا بعد از اینکه من عقیده ام در باره ماهیت حقیقت را توضیح دهم یا این یا آن شرط محقق شود. این بحث در باره محمد ص است. شما ادعا می کنی حبس کردن مردم، ضایع کردن حقوق انسانی آنها و کشتن آنها قابل قبول است زیرا آنها توسط خداوند محکوم شده اند. ما می خواهیم ببینیم ادله و نشانه خدای شما مطابق با خدای واقعی است نه مطابق با شیطان.

اعتقاد و تفکر من در باره حقیقت ربطی به خوانندگان ما ندارد. هیچکس علاقه ای به اعتقاد علی سینا در باره حقیقت و واقعیت ندارد. آنها اینجا هستند تا حقیقت را در باره اسلام بدانند بنابر این لطفا سعی نکنید موضوع را عوض کنید. من در لینکی که به شما دادم اعتقادات خود را بیان کرده ام اما از مردم نخواسته ام که به نظران من ایمان بیاورند. شاید من اشتباه کرده باشم.

جواب

علت اصرار من بر کشف نوع جهانبینی شما این است که به شما و خوانندگان نشان دهم که دلیل اصلی علی سینا دردشمنی با حضرت محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم همین نوع جهانبینی اوست. شما عینکی سیاه به چشم زده و همه چیز در باره اسلام و پیامبر آن را سیاه می بینید و من تا این عینک را از چشم شما برندارم نمی توان به شما ثابت کنیم که هستی شناسی و جهانبینی پیامبر آخرالزمان رنگ دیگری دارد. علت اینکه مثلا مولای رومی با آن همه بزرگی خود را عبد و بنده محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم می داند اما علی سینا که هیچ محلی از اعراب ندارد (بنابر اعتراف خودش) اینگونه بی باکانه بر او می تازد، فهم و دانایی سطح بالای علی سینا و احمق و نادان بودن مولوی نیست بلکه علت اصلی نوع نگاه این دو نفر به هستی است. من باید بدانم با چه کسی بحث می کنم نوع بحث با یک کافر مطلق، یک مسیحی، یک یهودی و … کاملا با هم متفاوت است. پس به من حق دهید که ابتدا خوب شما را بشناسم.

ترجمه

خلاصه ای از اعتقادات معرفت شناختی من:

من اعتقاد دارم اگر خدایی وجود داشته باشد او باید لایتناهی باشد. از این رو حقیقت خدایی نیز باید نامحدود باشد. انسانها محدود هستند. تمام آنچه ما می توانیم بفهمیم گوشه هایی از حقیقت هستند برای مثال اگر عده ای از مردم پایین یک کوه بلند ایستاده باشند آنها نمی توانند تمام کوه را ببینند و بنابر موقعیت آنها هر یک تجسمی از آن کوه دارند همچنین برای یک نفر ممکن نیست که تمام حقیقت را بشناسد به همین دلیل ما نباید از دیگران تبعیت کرده و نباید سعی کنیم عقاید خود را به دیگران تحمیل کنیم دانایی و علم بیکران است اما ما مدام به دنبال آن هستیم و از یادگیری هر روزه غفلت نمی کنیم.

جواب

بعضی از این اعتقادات شما درست و بعض دیگر نادرست است و شما هیچ راهی برای اثبات درستی آنها ندارید، بله درست است که حقیقت نامتناهی است اما همه مردم از یک سطح و یک زاویه به آن نگاه نمی کنند (داستان مولای رومی در مورد فیل در تاریکی) و گرنه این همه سطح معلومات مردم با یکدیگر متفاوت نبود. از کجا می دانید که پیامبران خدا روی نوک قله این کوه نایستاده و هستی را تصویر نکرده اند در اینکه شما و من در دامنه این کوه هستیم و پشت و دیگر زاویه های آن را هرگز نمی توانیم ببینیم شکی نیست اما همه انسانها در حد من و شما نیستند بعضی پایین تر و بعضی بسیار بالاترند.کار درست این است که ما هم تلاش کنیم خود را بالاتر بکشیم و معرفت خود را افزایش دهیم نه اینکه آنها که بالاتر اند را پایین کشیده و بخواهیم از زاویه دید تنگ ما هستی را بنگرند. اینکه من تلاش می کنم چنین دیدگاه مهمی را به شما بشناسانم چه ارتباطی با مغالطه و سفسطه دارد؟

ترجمه

آیا حقیقت محمد ص همچنین درست است؟ البته نه از زاویه دید او حقیقتش درست است زیرا او یک دیوانه بود. این به این معنا نیست که ادراک یک انسان دیوانه از حقیقت و تلقی او از حقیقت واقعا درست است. هیچکس نی تواند ادعا کند همه حقیقت را درک کرده است. هر کسیکه چنین ادعایی کند کذاب است این مانند این است که کسی ادعا کند که تمام علوم هستی را فرا گرفته است.

جواب

آری محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم دیوانه است چون بسیار فراتر از فهم شما و امثال شما حرف زده است اگر آن عینک سیاه را از چشم بردارید و فهم خود را ملاک قرار ندهید مشکل حل خواهد شد.

ترجمه

شما می گویید من منطقی نیستم و حتی انسان نیستم، خب در این موقعیت شما هیچ مشکلی جهت نشان دادن خطاهای من ندارید و انسان نبودن مرا برجسته کنید، حمله به من را متوقف کنید در مقابل ادعاهای مرا مورد حمله قرار دهید.

جواب

معلوم می شود ترجمه درستی از حرف من نکرده ا ید و آن را خوب نفهمیده اید من نگفتم شما انسان نیستید بلکه ادعا این است که مبانی تفکر شما نه تنها عقلانی و منطقی نیست بلکه حتی انسانی به معنای خاص که توضیح خواهم داد هم نیست یعنی شما تنها تصور می کنید که تفکرات شما انسان محور است.

ترجمه

این بحث در باره علی سینا و افکار او نیست کسی برای افکار من اهمیتی قائل نیست و نباید هم باشد. اگر من تاکنون درخواست متابعتی داشته ام شما حق دارید افکار مرا زیر و رو کرده و آنها را رد کنید. تا آن موقع لطفا اجازه دهید به بحث خود ادامه دهیم موضوع بحث ما محمد ص و ادعاهای اوست نه علی سینا.

شما ادعا کردید که محمد ص یک پیامبر بوده است بنابر این عقیده همچنین گفتید بعضی از مردم که مشارکتی در سعادت مردم ندارند همانطور که بوسیله اسلام تایید شده باید از میان برداشته شوند. آیا دلیلی براین مدعای خود مبنی بر اشتیاق برای کشتن دارید؟

جواب

شما دائما در گوشه گوشه سایتتان به دیگران توصیه می کنید که اگر می خواهند دینی انتخاب کنند آن دین چه مشخصاتی باید داشته باشد، اگر می خواهند ازدواج کنند اصلا با یک مسلمان ازدواج نکنند و ….

بعد ازاینکه اثبات کردم مبانی معرفتی شما هیچ اساس و بنیانی ندارد جواب سوال شما را خواهم داد.

ترجمه

شما گفتید محمد ادعایی کرده برای اطرافیان خود کرده و دلیل خود را بیان کرده و آنها نیز قبول کرده اند اما اکنون شما نمی توانید آن ادله را بیاورید شما فقط از ایشان پیروی می کنید چون فکر می کنید که تمام آن مردمی که به او ایمان آورده اند نمی توانسته اند به خطا رفته باشند. من توضیح دادم که اعتقاد شما مبنی بر یکسری مغالطات منطقی است بله ممکن است میلیاردها نفر از مردم برای قرن ها اشتباه کنند شدت ایمان آنها و تعصبشان درستی اعتقاداتشان را اثبات نمی کند.

جواب

اگر چنین باشد من اکنون باید یک مسیحی باشم چرا که امروز تعداد مسیحیان بیشتر از مسلمانان است. چون بیشترند پس حق با آنان است یا حداقل باید یک مسلمان سنی مذهب باشم چرا که تعداد آنها حداقل چهار برابر شیعیان است. قبلا هم در مباحث چند ماه پیش به شما تذکر دادم کثرت دلیل بر حقانیت نیست اما اتهام نفهمی و نادانی به عده کثیری از مردم آن هم توسط کسی که به نادانی خود اعتراف دارد ادعایی نیست که به این راحتی ها قابل پذیرش باشد و یکی از دلایل اصرار من بر شناخت مبانی معرفتی شما اثبات این موضوع است که شما اصلا در حد و اندازه کسی که صلاحیت برای وارد کردن چنین اتهام بزرگی داشته باشد نیستید.

ترجمه

آنچه من می فهمم این است که این بحث تمام شده است. به جای اینکه ادعاهای محمد ص را اثبات کنید شما می خواهید غلط بودن معرف شناسی مرا اثبات نمایید اما اگر شما بتوانید دلایل اینکه محمد ص پیامبر خداست را به ما نشان دهید من سرا پا گوش خواهم بود اگر می خواهید به بحث ادامه دهید لطفا روی سوال تمرکز کنید. سوال در باره تفکرات من نیست بلکه درباره ارائه دلیل بر اثبات پیامبری محمد از طرف خداست دلایلی که تمام این کشتارها، تجاوزات و حملات و حبس ها و اعدام ها را قابل توجیه می کند.

جواب

از اینجا اثبات مدعای خود را شروع می کنم

اگر خدا وجود نداشته باشد و یا اگر وجود دارد نقشی در هستی نداشته باشد

انسان به معنای خاص هم وجود ندارد

انسان به معنای خاص یعنی موجودی که دارای کرامت است ،دارای حق و حقوقی است و امتیاز خاصی بین همه موجود دارد

امتیازی که سبب می شود به خود حق دهد هر آنچه در هستی است را بر اساس منافع خود نظاره کند و همه آنها را در خدمت خود ببیند

حال سوال این است که این امتیاز را چه کسی به انسان داده است؟ .

آیا اعتباری است که چون هیچ رقیبی وجود نداشته انسان برای خود قائل شده است و این افتخار را به خود داده که خود را مرکز و محور هستی معرفی کند و بر اساس آن حقوقی را معین کند که اگر ذره ای از این حقوق نادیده انگاشته شود هستی زیر و زبر شود؟.

یا این کرامت، این خاص بودن، این دردانه بودن، از سوی دیگری به او عطا شده است؟ .

آنها که انسان محوراند چاره ای ندارند که شق اول را انتخاب کنند

و به طور طبیعی خداباوران این امتیاز را از طرف خدا می دانند؛ وَ لَقَدْ كَرَّمْنا بَني‏ آدَمَ وَ حَمَلْناهُمْ فِي الْبَرِّ وَ الْبَحْرِ وَ رَزَقْناهُمْ مِنَ الطَّيِّباتِ وَ فَضَّلْناهُمْ عَلى‏ كَثيرٍ مِمَّنْ خَلَقْنا تَفْضيلا

چرا بر مبنای اول چنین انسانی وجود ندارد و اصلا انسانیت معنا ندارد؟ .

چون بنا به اعتراف همه انسان محوران حتی اگر خدا وجود داشته باشد انسان موجودی با قصد خاص نیست بلکه خداوند تاس انداخته است. موجودات زنده آغازشان از تک سلولی هاست و انسان هم بنابر اتفاق نه براساس نقشه قبلی و از پیش هدایت شده انسان شده است؛ توانایی های خاص انسان که سبب شده برای خود کرامت و حق و حقوق بتراشد ریشه در طبیعتی دارد که هیچ قسمتی از آن بر قسمت د یگر مزیت ندارد در حقیقت

انسانیت واژه ای است کاملا معادل خریت، گاویت، اسبیت و دریک کلمه حیوانیت منتهی حیوانی با ویژگیهای خاص همانطور که سگ نیز دارای ویژگیهای خاص خود است.

بدون محور قرار دادن خدا حتی اصطلاحاتی مانند پدر، مادر، خواهر، برادر، دوستی، دشمنی و …. بی معنا هستند ما جزئی از طبیعتیم و در طبیعت این کلمات معنایی ندارند

انسانها موجوداتی هستند که در علفزار طبیعت سبز شده، رشد می کنند و بعد هم خشک شده و از بین می روند همین و بس

حال چه فرق می کند یکی هنوز سر از خاک بر نیاورده توسط پاهای تنومند یک فیل له شده و از بین برود و دیگر در پناه درختی تنومند یک بهار دوام بیاورد سپس خشک شده و از بین برود؟ .

علی سینا ادعا می کند این موجود بدون اینکه ریشه در خدا داشته باشد دارای کرامت است و چون از این دیدگاه کرامت او در بعضی از جهات توسط دین اسلام نادیده گرفته شده پس اسلام باطل است

حال سوال این است کدام کرامت؟ کدام حق و حقوق اگر بتوانید با دلایل منطقی و عقلانی نه با کلماتی احساسی و شاعرانه این کرامت را ثابت کنید به گونه ای که اگر غیر از این باشد ما با تناقض مواجه شویم حق کاملا با شماست و ادعای محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم دروغی آشکار است.

اما اگر نتوانید آنگاه نوبت خدایی که به انسان کرامت داده و او را بر دیگران برتری داده می رسد تا حق و حقوق و مرزهای کرامت انسان را معین و مشخص کند.

منتظر می مانم تا شما خود را به عنوان انسان خاص اثبات نمایید.

The reason I am interested to understand your world view is to show you and the readers that the real reason for Ali Sina’s enmity with the Prophet (PBUH) is his world view.  You wear dark eyeglasses and see everything about Islam and its prophet darkened.  As long as I don’t remove these glasses from your eyes it is not possible to prove to you that the wisdom and the world view of the Last Prophet have a different color than what you see.  For example, the reason Maulana Rumi, with all his greatness considers himself a slave of Muhammad (PBUH) and Ali Sina who according to his own admission is not an important person, attacks the Prophet so recklessly, is not proof of his understanding and knowledge and Rumi’s ignorance. The difference is the way these two look at things. I must know who my challenger is. The language I’d use to debate with a complete atheist is different from how I’d address a Christian or a Jew, etc.  Therefore, you have to give me the right to know you first.

You accuse me of wearing dark glasses when I view Islam. I could accuse you of wearing rose colored glasses when you view the same.  It is obvious that we both are biased.  This is normal in every religious discussion.  Our goal is to shed light on the subject from both angles so our readers can see it better.  They can be atheists, or belong to any religion.   You should expound the truth as you see it, irrespective of my beliefs.  You want to convince the readers, not me.

Your argument that Rumi who was smarter than Ali Sina was a believer is an argumentum ad verecundiam.  Incidentally, Muhammad refuted this fallacy when he called the wise men of Mecca, fools and ignorant and credited the lowly slaves and youths for believing in him.  Of course he was wrong, but his argument that one is not necessarily right if he is a learned person was valid.  One should not automatically believe that eminent people know more.  Rumi was a genius poet, but his understanding of spiritual world had many holes in it.  Compared to Muhammad he was a lot wiser but compared to today’s enlightened people, or even yesterday’s, such as Buddha, he was a confused man.  Rumi also believed in Muhammad’s balderdash that God transformed the Jews into monkeys and pigs for breaking the law of Sabbath. And there are many more gross absurdities in his beliefs.  But let us not digress.  However, your argument that we see the world with different glasses is correct.  The question is which are the right ones, the black ones that I wear or the rosy ones that the believers wear?  We are here to decide that.

Some of your beliefs are correct and some of them are incorrect and you have no way to prove them.  It is correct that truth is infinite, but all the people don’t look at it from the same level and angle. (I remind you of the Indian parable of the elephant in the dark that is quoted by Rumi). If not for this, there would not have been so many different views among the people.   How do you know that the prophet of God is not standing on the peak of this mountain and can view it in its entirety, whereas we are at the foot of that mountain with our limited views?  There is no doubt that all the people are not in the same level of understanding. Some are lower and some are higher.  We must strive to climb higher and increase our understanding and not pull those who are higher down and force them to view the world from our limited perspective.  I am trying to show you this higher perspective. What this has to do with fallacies and sophism [of which you accuse me]?

I agree that people have different understanding. An uneducated person has a much lesser understanding of science than a scientist.  But this higher understanding must be demonstrated.  One cannot simply claim to be the greatest scientist without any evidence.  You claim that Muhammad was standing on the peak of the knowledge and hence could see things that are beyond our grasp.  Where is the proof?  He said a lot of things that are proven to be wrong. His views about the physical universe and science have been all incorrect. If he was so ignorant about this world, why should we believe his claims about the next?  If someone claims to be the biggest scientific mind and can’t do a simple math, should we believe his outlandish claim?

Here is the problem that I try to make you see, which you can’t because you wear those rose colored glasses when you view Muhammad.

You said Muhammad was a mad man.  My response is that yes he was, because his understanding was way superior to yours. If you remove your dark glasses and don’t use your own understanding as the measure the problem will be solved.

You just put our finger on the problem.  You want me to not use my own understanding.  Then whose understanding should I use?  If we stop using our own understanding we become easy prey to any charlatan.  God has given us understanding to use it.  Each person has to use his or her own understanding.  If there is going to be a day of reckoning, what excuses will you have in front of your creator when he asks, I gave you understanding so you can discern between truth and falsehood and distinguish good from evil, why did you not use it? Why did you believe in an impostor whose teachings were contrary to your understanding?

How will you answer Him?  Will you tell him I did not trust the instrument you gave me and was not sure whether it works?  If you don’t use your own understanding, what standard do you use to find the truth?

Obviously you did not understand me correctly. I did not say you are not ensan, I said your thinking is not rational and not even ensani.  In other words your thinking revolves around human.

Ensan means human and ensani is humane. My translation is correct.  However, if you meant humanist then the word in Persian is Ensan gara. And yes I am a humanist and I believe Man is the measure of all things.

We know what is Man. In our essence we are all the same.  We can use Man to measure all things human.   If I give you the distance between two points in number of feet, you can understand, because the size of the foot in all humans is more or less the same.  But if I give you this measure in God’s feet no one will understand, because no one knows the size of God’s foot.

When I talk about human love, everyone understands me because we all feel love more or less in the same way.  But when I talk about God’s love I am talking of something abstract.  My speech becomes vague and incomprehensible.  The same can be said about God’s wisdom, God’s knowledge, God’s justice, etc.  Like god’s foot size all these attributes are imaginary and vague.  Their use is deceptive.   Therefore, Man must be the measure of all things human.  Any other measure is vagu.

In your site you advise people that if they want to choose a religion they should follow a personal religion and if they want to marry they should not marry Muslims, etc.  When I prove to you that your understanding is wrong and with no foundation I will answer you accordingly.

You accused me of committing the fallacy of argumentum ad numerum.  If this were the case I should have been a Christian because there are more Christians in the world than Muslims. Or at least I should have been a Sunni Muslim because they are four times more numerous than the Shiites.  I also mentioned this in our earlier discussion a few months ago. However, accusing a large number of people of ignorance especially by someone who admits to be ignorant is not a claim that can be easily accepted.  One of the reasons of my insistence in understanding the basis of your belief is to prove that you are not in the position to make such an accusation.

If you have already accepted that argumentum ad numerum is a fallacy then we agree on something.  Are you saying this logic becomes invalid when it comes to Muslims?  I hope not! I have the right to say Muslims are wrong.  Why I should not be in a position to make such claim?

Acknowledging ones ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.  The more you know the more you realize how little you know.  Those who don’t admit their ignorance are in compound ignorance.

From here on I will begin to prove my claims.

If God did not exist or if He did not have a role in the world, there can be no meaning for Man either.  By this I mean a being with greatness, with rights and especial privileges among other creatures.  These privileges allow him to have rights over whatever there is in the world, take advantage of them and use them for his benefit and at his service.

The question is who has given Man this privilege?

Is it correct to say that because Man has no rival he has claimed these privileges on his own and has positioned himself at the center of everything?  Or has this specialism and uniqueness been bestowed upon him by someone else?

Those who believe in humanism have no other option but to pick the former hypothesis.  Theists on the other hand believe this privilege is given to man by God. “And surely We have honored the children of Adam, and We carry them in the land and the sea, and We have given them of the good things, and We have made them to excel by an appropriate excellence over most of those whom We have created.  (Q. 17: 70)

Why based on the humanists’ premise such a person does not exist at all and humanity has no meaning?

Because according to all humanists, even if God exists, Man is not created intentionally, but his creation is accidental. They believe that living began as bakteria and Man is also the product of accident and not an intelligent design.  And Man’s faculties that allow him to excel over other creatures are rooted in nature, meaning, no creature is better than the other.   Man is placed at the same level of other animals such as donkeys, cattle and horses.  Man is an animal with special characteristics, just as dog has its own unique characteristics.

Putting God out of the picture will render even concepts such as father, mother, sister, brother, friend and foe meaningless. We become a part of the nature and these words mean nothing.

Humans are seen as blades of grass that grow in the pasture of nature and then die and perish.  It makes no difference whether they are squished under the feet of an elephant or grow under the shade of a tree and survive for a season as they will eventually die and perish.

Ali Sina says that this blade of grass is great without having any root in God and since from this perspective, Mans greatness is sometimes ignored by Islam then Islam must be false.

Now the question is which greatness and which rights? If you can prove this greatness in a logical way, without resorting to emotionalism and sentimentalism, in a way that would make the alternative explanation impossible, you win and the claim of Muhammad (PBUH) is false.

But if you can’t prove this greatness in Man is innate or natural, we have to attribute it to the God that has excelled him over other creatures and has given him special rights and privileges.

I look forward so you can prove your own self as a special human.

The answer to this question is not in theology. Science has already provided the answer.  Man is the result of 4 billion years of evolution.  Intelligent man is about 40,000 years old and as a civilized creature he is barely 4,000 (approximately) years old. That is when we started hearing about God for the first time.  Life in this planet is 100,000 times older than us and 1,000,000 times older than our civilization.  Where was God all this time?

We don’t excel over other creatures.  We are smarter and have a rational brain that they don’t have. They have faculties that we don’t have. They can see, better, run faster or see hidden objects with sonar waves, etc.   kookoo chick hatches in surrugate nests and then travels over a thousand mile to find her parents.  We humans can’t even comprehend that.  Most animals sense pending natural disasters. We don’t.  Because of our larger brain we have positioned ourselves at the top of the food chain.  It is very clear why we dominate other animals. We are smarter.  And the reason we are smarter is because of our evolution.  I don’t have to prove this because this is a fact. You claim that we excel other animals because of God. This is not true because first you have to define in what ways we excel.  Dogs excel humans in smelling.  Eagles excel humans in sight. We only excel in intelligence.  Each creature has developed faculties that allow it  to survive best.  This does not need any proof because it is self-evident.  It is you who has to prove this presumed “excellence” in humans is bestowed by an alleged god. You can’t even prove the existence of that god.  You back up one fallacy with another.

However, this subject is red herring.  I don’t want you to prove to me the existence of God.  Let us agree that God exists and he has created man and has made him excel over other creatures, just as you say.  What this has to do with Muhammad?  I want you to prove that Muhammad was a prophet of this god of whom you talk about.

Let us assume God exists. This God must be, knowing, merciful, forgiving with all the divine attributes that we expect from a real god, which are basically our own good atributes.   His messenger must exemplify those attributes.  But Muhammad did not evince any such qualities. He was a ruthless man. He raided, looted, raped and massacred innocent people.  What he did was not godly. He acted like a thug not like a holy man.  Please let us not digress from the subject and answer the question I ask you in every post.  What is your proof that Muhammad was a prophet of God?

Can you answer this question without going tangent and beating around the bushes?

Update: 2012/ 03/ 02  10:35 PM

خب الحمدلله به نظر می رسد در یک سری اصول اساسی بحث نظرمان یکی شده یا بسیار به هم نزدیک شده، در چند مورد هنوز اختلافاتی هست که به آنها اشاره می کنم.

یکی از سوالات اساسی که مطرح کردید این است که خداوند به ما قوه فهم و درک داده اگر قیامتی و روز جزایی در کار باشد و خدا از تو بپرسد چرا قوه فهم و درکی که به تو دادم تا خیر و شررا از هم تمیز دهی به کار نبردی؟ چرا به شیادی ایمان آوردی که آموزه های او بر خلاف دانسته ها و فهم توست؟ چه جوابی به خدای خود خواهی داد؟

آیا به او می گویی که من به آن وسیله ای که تو به من دادی اطمینان نکردم و به عملکرد آن مطمئن نبودم؟

اگر ما فهم و ادراک خود را به کار نگیریم چه ملاک و معیار دیگری برای رسیدن حقیقت وجود دارد؟

سوال بسیار خوبی است و البته یکی از نقاط اصلی اختلاف من و شما.

فهم و درک درونی که در معارف قرآن و اسلام از آن تعبیر به فطرت می شود چیزی نیست که قابل انکار باشد و یکی از قابلیت های برجسته انسان است، در فطرت، خمیرمایه و سرشت انسان درک خوبی و بدی بر اساس نیازهایی که در خود احساس می کند وجود دارد که البته حیوانات نیز به صورت ابتدایی از چنین قابلیتی برخوردارند. یکی از چیزهایی که در میان تمام انسانها از ابتدا تا کنون درک شده است و مشترک بین همه آنهاست توجه به مفهومی به نام “خدا” ست. علی رغم تمام تلاشهایی که جهت خدا زدایی از ذهن انسان در گذشته شده و اکنون نیز ادامه دارد، هیچگاه این تلاشها راه به جایی نبرده است و یکی از دلایل محکم من بر وجود خدا همین حس مشترک (فطرت) است.

عدم توجه به این حس کلی و دخالت ندادن آن در فهم جزئیاتی که به آن خوبی و بدی می گوییم یقینا باعث گمراهی ما خواهد شد لذا اگر قیامتی در کار باشد یکی دیگر از سوالاتی که خدا از ما خواهد کرد از همین عدم توجه خواهد بود. به طور قطع و یقین جای این سوال باقی است که مگر من به توی انسان عقل و فهم درک نداده بودم چرا خود را به دنیایی که انتهای آن نیستی و نابودی است و هیچ ثمری ندارد مشغول کردی؟ آیا جای این نبود که اگر کسی ادعا کرد از من خبری دارد با استفاده از همین حس تمام زوایای ا دعای او را بررسی کنی؟

ادعا کردید که

انسانگرا هستید و انسان را ملاک و معیار همه چیز می دانید. چون ما همه چیز را در باره انسان می دانیم اما هیچ چیز درباره خدا و ملاک و معیارهای او نمی دانیم و همه معیارهای او مبهم است.

جواب

خب این کاملا طبیعی است اما تکلیف ما با آن حس مشترک چه می شود؟ همه ما حس می کنیم که هست؛ آیا به صرف اینکه مبهم است باید از آن گوش دادن به این الغاء درونی صرف نظر کنیم؟

در جواب این سوال من که آیا می توانید خود را به عنوان انسان خاص که دارای کرامت است اثبات کنید جواب داده اید که:

جواب این سوال در خداشناسی نیست بلکه علم به این سوال پاسخ داده است. انسان نتیجه چهار میلیارد سال از تکامل است. انسان هوشمند حدود چهل هزار سال عمر دارد و به عنوان یک موجود متمدن در حدود چهار هزار سال طول عمر اوست. به همین دلیل زمانی که برای نخستین بار در باره خدا چیزهایی شنیدیم زندگی در این سیاره صدهزار بار مسن تر از ما بود و یک میلیون بار مسن تر از تمدن ما. در تمام طول این مدت خدا کجا بود؟

جواب

ظاهرا فراموش کرده اید که خدای مفروض ما ازلی و ابدی است و در محدوده زمان و مکان نمی گنجد. زمان حتی خارج از سیاره ما چیزی بی معنا و یا حداقل مبهمی است. زمین ما تنها یکی از میلیاردها میلیارد شیئ در فضاست که در محدوده خاصی به دور یک شیئ فضایی دیگر که نام آن را خورشید گذاشته ایم در گردش است و این گردش را ملاک سپری شدن ایام و سالها و قرنها قرار داده ایم. اگر موجوداتی هوشمند از ورای منظومه ما به ما بنگرند یقینا با صدای بلند به ما و ملاکهایمان خواهند خندید.

در قسمت بعدی

خلاصه حرف شما این است که چون انسان با هوش تر از دیگر موجودات است پس سطان جنگل است وحق دارد روزانه میلیونها موجود زنده دیگر را سلاخی کند تا شکم خود را سیر کند! و برتری ما دلیل علمی دارد و نیاز به خدا برای اثبات برتری انسان نیست.

جواب

من شک ندارم که شما متوجه منظور من شده اید ولی چون جواب منطقی برای آن نداشته اید مجبور شده اید چنین جوابی بدهید، شاید هم سالها دوری از فرهنگ ایرانی و اسلامی و خدایی فهم معنای واژه کرامت (گرامی بودن) را برای شما سخت کرده است، من اصلا نمی دانم این واژه در فرهنگ غرب معادلی دارد یا نه؟ که البته بعید می دانم داشته باشد چرا که اگر وجود داشت این همه کشتار و خونریزی برای پر کردن شکم ( همان قانون جنگلی که به آن اشاره کردید) قابل توجیه نبود.

جناب سینا

تمام آن اخلاقیاتی که بر اساس آنها دیگران را متهم به بی اخلاقی می کنید مبتنی بر اثبات وجود چنین کرامتی برای انسان است و الا به صرف اینکه تکامل طبیعی باعث بزرگتر شدن مغز انسان شده است تنها هوشمندتر بودن انسان را اثبات می کند نه گرامی تر بودن او را. بر اساس منطق شما چه اشکالی دارد که ما همانطور که گاوها، گوسفندها، مرغ ها و …. برای پر کردن شکم خود پروار کرده و سلاخی می کنیم در گوشه ای هم همنوعان خود را پروار کنیم بعد هم آنها را سر بریده و مصرف کنیم آیا صرف اینکه مغز انسان بزرگتر است چنین مصونیتی به او بخشیده که خورده نشود؟ در کجای طبیعت چنین قانونی نوشته شده است؟

به طور قطع به قانون طلایی بر منع این کار اشاره خواهید کرد غافل از اینکه قانون چیزی است که تخلف ناپذیر باشد در حالیکه قانون طلایی هیچ ضمانت اجرایی ندارد و تنها در حد چند توصیه اخلاقی است یعنی اگر جایی کسی بداند که یقینا دست قانون جزایی به اونمی رسد و مال زیادی از مردم را بدزد چه اتفاقی می افتد؟ همینطور است سایر چیزهایی که از دید شما اخلاقی و انسانی است.

اشاره کرده اید که

بیاییم فرض کنیم خدا موجود است؛ انسان را آفریده و او را بر سایر موجودات برتری داده است، این موضوع چه ارتباطی به محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم دارد؟ من می خواهم شما اثبات کنید او پیامبر خدایی است که در باره او صحبت می کنید.

جواب

اگر دقت می کردید در همان پست قبلی جواب این سوال را داده ام. اگر خدا موجود باشد و به انسان کرامت داده باشد آن وقت این خداست که تعیین می کند چه چیزی اخلاقی است و چه چیزی نیست. انسان تنها مجری قوانین خداست و حق قانون گذاری ندارد. بله ما به واسطه فهم و درکی که همین خدا به ما داده بسیاری از جزئیات اخلاقی را درک می کنیم اما به طور یقین به واسطه دید محدود و اطلاعات ناقصی که داریم مواردی هم هست که قادر به درک آن نیستیم و اینجاست که نیاز به موجودی به عنوان واسطه بین خدا و انسان ضروری است و عقل حکم می کند که بر خدا واجب است قوانین خاص خود را به انسان اعلام کند که اگر نکند حق تعقیب نخواهد داشت (ما كُنَّا مُعَذِّبينَ حَتَّى نَبْعَثَ رَسُولا ) اسراء- 15

برای اثبات رسالت حضرت محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم علاوه بر معجزات ریز و درشتی که در سیرهایی که شما – و برای اثبات مدعای خود در مورد رفتار پیامبر به آنها تمسک می کنید – به عنوان سند قبول دارید آمده است، نشانه و معجزه اصلی قرآن است؛ پیامبر خاتم در قرآن ادعا کرده که أَ فَلا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ وَ لَوْ كانَ مِنْ عِنْدِ غَيْرِ اللَّهِ لَوَجَدُوا فيهِ اخْتِلافاً كَثيراً (نساء- 82) اگر این قرآن از طرف غیر خدا بود هر آینه در آن تناقضاتی آشکار می یافتند.

استدلال بسیار ساده است، در بحث چند ماه قبل شما دو مورد از این تناقضات را در باره زندگی آخرت و شفاعت از من سوال کردید و من جواب دادم و در مقابل از طرف شما جوابی به جز سکوت نشنیدم که نشان از متقاعد کننده بودن جواب من داشت. اگر شما بتوانید تناقض آشکاری را در قرآن اثبات کنید آن وقت انتساب آن به خدا و در نتیجه اثبات پیامبر بودن حضرت محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم با مشکل مواجه خواهد شد.

علاوه بر این موضوع تحدی نیز دلیل محکمی بر اثبات رسالت پیامبر خاتم صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم است یعنی قرآن از دو جهت محتوا و سبک دلالت قوی بر اثبا

موضوع بحث دارد

Update: 2012/03/03  9:30 PM

Great! It looks like in many basic principles we have the same views or are close. There are discrepancies in a few topics that I will point them out.

One of your main arguments is that God has given us understanding. You say we are responsible to God to use our understanding. You asked if we don’t use our own understanding what we shall use to find the truth.

This is a good question and is one of the main differences between our positions.

The inner understanding that in the Quran is referred to as  فطرت (nature) is not deniable and it is one of the prominent human faculties.   Man can sense good and evil in his nature, essence and core because of the needs that lie within him.   Even animals are endowed with that faculty, albeit at a much primitive level.

A concept that is commonly understood by all humans from early on is the concept of God.  Despite all the efforts, of past and present to erase the belief in God, it has survived. One of my strong evidences in the existence of God is this very ubiquity of the belief in Him.

Ignoring this universal sense and precluding it in understanding of what we define as good and evil will most certainly lead us astray.  Therefore, if there is a Judgment Day one of the questions that God will ask us will be this very omission.  He will certainly ask, didn’t I give you understanding? Then why did you preoccupy yourself with a transient and ephemeral world that does not benefit you?  Why you did not investigate the claim of the one who claimed to bring you my news?

You claim that all humans universally understand the concept of God and therefore this is one reason of the existence of God.  This is not true. Your premise is false.  Many cultures, such as Chinese and Japanese evolved without having any idea about God. Many other cultures such as Africans believed in different forms of animism. Others, such as Indians, worshipped multiple deities who had little in common with the gods that were worshipped in the Middle East.  The God of the Bible and the God of Muhammad are gods of desert.  Today, thanks to Christian and Muslim proselytism these two gods are accepted by a large number of people. But still there are many, such as yours truly, who has no belief in any god.    The belief in God must be indoctrinated. It does not occur naturally in humans.  Your premise is false.  This is petito principi fallacy.

You then conclude that if there is a Judgment Day, God will ask why you did no use your understanding to realize that your world is ephemeral and did not listen to the one who claimed to have my news.

This logic is typical fallacy of circular reasoning.  I can see this world. Where is the evidence of the next? Why should I believe in the invisible and unconfirmed and even illogical world that Muhammad described and not believe in the world described by Lemuel Gulliver where he claimed he have travelled and saw finer size people?   Unless you provide an evidence of Muhammad’s next world, it is a fantasy.  No sane God would send people to hell for not believing in a fantasy.

Then you say God will question me for not using my intelligence to believe in Muhammad who claimed to be his prophet. I believed in Muhammad when I was not using my intelligence. I stoped believing in him when I used my intelligence. It was through my intelligence that I realized this man was mentally sick, a charlatan impostor and not a prophet of God.  I have shown his crimes, his blunders and his moral depravity as evidence that he was not a prophet of God.  Give me one evidence that he was.  This debate is becoming prolonged and you beat around the bushes while you have not answered this question.

There is not a day that a loon does not claim to be a messenger of God. Why should we investigate their claims?  They are all liars because God is not stupid to send messages like that. If  God wanted to send messages to humans he would make himself known to them.  If all those millions of other claimants who have no proof for their claims are liars why Muhammad should be different? He too has no proof for his claim. In addition he was more evil.

Now I don’t say you should not believe in the next world or in Muhammad’s.  You are free to believe in anything that makes you happy. But you are not free to kill those who don’t believe in your fantasy.

People with understanding and reason don’t believe in unsubstantiated claims and fairy tales. Gullible  people do.  And I don’t mind it. What I mind is when they want to kill others, or as you put it, hasten their passage from this word to that imaginary world.

You said you are a humanist and regard man as the measure of all things.

Alright! This is perfectly natural. However what shall we do about that universal feeling about God? We all feel that He is. Should we ignore that inner call just because it is incomprehensible/non clear?

This is another fallacy.  That feeling is not universal. I have no such delusions whatsoever. Once upon a time I too believed in that boogeyman in the sky but not anymore. If you feel it, you are free to believe.  But don’t assume everyone does and don’t try to impose it on others.  I have the right not to believe too. You can believe in a stone, but don’t throw it at me.  You can parrot as much as you like about the Golden Rule but as long as you don’t understand that my rights to not believe are just as sacred as yours to believe you have no understanding of this rule.  A person who does not understand the Golden Rule and does not apply it is not an evolved human. He or she is a sub-human whose consciousness is still lingering in the animal kingdom. Muhammad was one such person and so are his benighted followers.

You said humans are the result of evolution and ask where was God all this time when we were not evolved yet to be called human.

You seem to have forgotten that our hypothetical God is eternal and. Time out of our planet is meaningless. We measure time by counting the revolution of the earth around one of the billions of stars that we call sun. If some intelligent creatures viewed us from outside our solar system, they will certainly laugh at us.

And what this has to do with my question? I asked where God was for billions of years when we humans were still living in animal kingdom.  Your response that time is measured by the revolution of the earth and that the ETs think humans are funny creatures has nothing to do with my question.

I asked why Man excels over other creatures and can dominate them. Isn’t this proof that God has given his virtues and superior faculties?  You wrote that our superiority to animals has scientific reasons explainable through evolution and there is no need to drag God into the picture.

I have no doubt that you correctly understood me. However, since you could not find a logical answer, you were forced to give this answer.  Perhaps thanks to years of alienation from your Islamic culture you have forgotten the meaning of the word کرامت which means to be noble and virtuous.  I don’t know whether this word has an equivalent in the western lexicon.  I doubt it has because if they had any understanding of it, there would not be so much killing and massacrs just for filling their bellies (just like the law of Jungle that you mentioned).

Yes these words exist in western languages and the westerners understand them a lot better than Muslims.  They seek honor in honesty and in integrity in their belief and action.  They seek nobility in exalted moral and mental character and in exellence. Unlike Muslims, their honor and dignity does not hinge on what their women wear or do, but in how they conduct themselves.  They don’t beat or kill their daughters for talking to a boy or for revealing her hair to strangers.

And as far as killings, please pull your head out of the sands and look around yourself.  Nine out of ten conflicts worldwide involve Muslims, while they comprise only one fifth of humanity.  This means that Muslims, as a group, are a whopping 36 times more likely to resort to violence than others.   Our Iran that is ruled by religious people like you has the highest political prisoners per capita in the world and highest execution per capital. These are the only shameful records Iran holds in the world community.

The Islamic regime in Iran is about to execute Youcef Nadarkhani, an innocent man, a father of small children because he has changed his religion to Christianity and you have the chutzpa to talk to me about nobility?  These acts of barbarity ranks  Muslims lower than beasts. What nobility are you talking about?  It is you who does not know the meaning of this word.

Mr. Sina,

Whatever is your definition of ethics that you accuse others of lacking it prove the necessity of the existence of many virtues in humans. Otherwise, if evolution were the only cause for growth of human brain, Man would have been smarter, but without virtues, ethics and morality.  Based on your reasoning, why should we not be like animals, and just as we kill and eat beef and lamb and chickens, raise also other humans, then slaughter them and consume them?   Is the fact that humans have larger brains reason enough not to cannibalize them? Where in the nature it says not to eat your kind?

Most certainly, you will bring in the Golden Rule to refute my argument, ignoring the fact that a law must be inviolable, whereas the Golden Rule is not binding. It is nothing but a mere suggestion.  If someone knows for certainty that he can steal and get away with it, why should he follow the Golden Rule? The same can be said about other things that in your view are unethical.

You are making many baseless claims without substantiating them.  You say that humans are not ethical or moral by nature, but instinctively evil and it is only through the fear of retribution that they can behave ethically.

This claim is false scientifically.  Psychological studies performed on infants, show that the sense of justice and the grasp of good and bad exist in children, less than one year old.  Even babies understand crime and think it deserves punishment.

This is the sad thing about Muslims. They don’t read. Muslims are as a whole unread and ignorant.  Instead of searching the truth in labs and in experiments they rehash the absurdities of the ancient people.

Yes morality is innate in humans. Your understanding of human nature is based on your Islamic indoctrination. Islamic indoctrination stems from the mind of Muhammad who was a narcissist. Narcissists have a distorted understanding of human nature. They think others are also like them. A narcissist breaks the rules if he thinks he won’t be caught. The only thing that stops a narcissist from breaking laws is fear of being caught.  Islam is a fear based religion. It is because its founder was a narcissist.

Many years ago I had a talk with a young  Muslim. He told me basically what you are saying. He said if it were not for the fear of God nothing would stop a person to fornicate with his mother. I asked him whether he lusted after his mother and whether his belief in Islam is the only thing that stops him from jumping into bed with her.  Do you see the absurdity of this reasoning?  You say if it were not for religion and the fear of retribution nothing would stop people from stealing, committing all sorts of crimes and even cannibalizing each other.  Will you do these things if you did not believe in God?

More and more people are becoming vegan because they think it is unethical to abuse or kill another creature when we can easily survive by eating fruits and vegetables.  These people prove that there are many with higher consciousness who do the right thing because it is right and not because of fear of retribution.  Muhammad was a very sick man and his ummah is also sick.  Islam brings humans at the lowest level of consciousness. – the consciousness of a psychopath.

Why an educated person such as you should utter this much nonsense? It is because instead of using your brain you get your inspiration from the brain of a mentally sick Arab of the seventh century.  You babble nonsense because you follow a mad man.

Good people, whether theist or atheist, do good things and evil people do evil things. But for good people to do evil you need religion.   Killing another human being is the ultimate evil.  Killing someone for his belief is even worse than cannibalism.  At least the cannibal kills someone else to survive. But Muslims kill countless others for a lie.  You see no problem in killing apostates like me or Yucef Nadarkhani. Why would an educated man like you condone such insanity? It is because when sane people follow insane people they act insanely.

Your faith is a lie. That is okay.  Most faiths are lies.  The problem with Islam is that you kill others because of this lie.

You asked me to prove that Muhammad (pbuh) was a prophet of God. If you had paid attention I have already answered this question in my previous post.  If God exists and he is the one who makes humans virtuous, making him excel of other animals, then it is God that decides what things are moral and what things are not. Man is nothing but the executor of Gods laws and he cannot make laws.

Yes, It is thanks to this very understanding that God has given us we can understand many details of morality, but certainly because of our limited knowledge and our imperfection we cannot grasp many other facts about morality.  And it is here that we see the need of an intermediary between God and Man. Therefore, logically, it is incumbent on God to announce his laws through a human. If he doesn’t he can’t blame and punish us.     “And WE shall never punish until WE have sent a Messenger.” (Q. 17:15)

What a twisted logic? So God sends messengers in order to  punish those who don’t believe?  Your God is also insane. It is because he too is the figment of a sick mind.  This whole notion of God creating mankind and punishing them is idiotic. If you use your brain for one minute rationally you will see it is utterly stupid.

I discussed these points with an educated Muslim about 13 years ago.  He was a strong believer but a good man.  We discussed a lot. He stopped talking to me and left in anger. But I had sown in him the seed of doubt. Many years later he left Islam.  Recently he wrote to me and thanked me. This made me very happy.  Since he was a teacher in an Islamic school, he lost his job.  He lost also his friends. But he found the truth and his soul.  Please listen to his impeccable logic about why the belief in the kind of God you believe is insane.

To prove that the Muhammad (PBUH) is the prophet of God, there are many miracles in the Sira and the Quran which prove that claim and that is the same Sira that you use as evidence to attack him.  The Quran says, “Will they not then ponder on the Qur’an ? If it had been from other than Allah they would have found therein much incongruity.” (Q. 4:82)

Presenting miracles attributed to Muhammad in the Sira as evidence is a fallacy.  Those stories are all false.  Muhammad denied being able to perform miracles. He said “I am only a man” (Q. 17: 93) “And the Unbelievers say: “Why is not a sign sent down to him from his Lord?” But thou art truly a warner, and to every people a guide.” (Q. 13: 07). In the article, Did Muhammad Perform Miracles I have proven that he didn’t, according to the Quran.

As for the verse 4:82 that challenges anyone to find an error in the Quran, there are over a thousand of them. Look at this site for a list of them. http://1000mistakes.com/

The evidences are many. A few months ago you asked me about two of these contradictions and I responded, but you did not reply and I did not hear anything from you other than silence, which is proof that my reply was convincing. If you can prove the contradictions of the Quran then we can’t attribute that book to God and therefore proving that Muhammad was a messenger of God becomes difficult.

In addition, by its style and by its content the Quran is evidence of that the Prophet (PBUH) was a prophet of God.

If I did not respond to you, it does not mean you won and I could not answer you.  I simply ignored you because debating in two languages is not useful to my site, where most of the readers are English speakers. This time we agreed to translate each-other’s responses.  I am the only one who is doing it.  This is time consuming and tedious.

I’d like to end this debate. You are repeating yourself. You have not provided a single logical proof that Muhammad was a prophet of God.  Your evidences are logical fallacies as I have pointed them out.  I did not start this debate hoping that you’d see the light and leave Islam. I wanted this debate as evidence that no one, whether Sunni or Shiite has any evidence for his belief in Islam and that his religion is entirely based on logical fallacies, and sheer lies.  I have achieved my objective and I bade you fair well.

Update: 2012/03/05  1.00 PM

جناب سینا

من به قصد مجادله اینجا نیامدم

تنها سه نکته

اول اینکه نوشته طولانی شما هرگز نتوانست جواب سوال من را در خود گم کند.

1- سوال از منشاء کرامت و عدم کرامت انسان بود و شما بحث را منحرف به منشاء اخلاق مداری انسان کرده و مدعی شدید که ریشه در طبیعت دارد و حتی کودکان نیز آن را درک می کنند. اینکه طبیعت انسان را اخلاق مدار کرده نه تنها به شما کمکی نمی کند بلکه به ضرر شماست و اخلاق انسانی را هم ردیف دیگر مشخصه های سایر حیوانات کرده و ارزش آن را در حد قوه شامه سگ، چشم تیز بین عقاب و …. پایین می آورد.

خلاصه استدلال من بر درستی راه خود و نادرستی راه شما

همه ما اعم از باخدا و بیخدا حس می کنیم که انسان دارای کرامت است و تمایز او از سایر حیوانات به بزرگی مغز و سایر ویژگیهای طبیعی او نیست؛ هیچ چیزی در طبیعت برتری ارزشی بر چیز دیگری ندارد چرا که هیچ کس و هیچ چیز دخالتی در کسب ویژگی خاص خود نداشته است.

2- تنها و تنها موجودی برتر می تواند دست انسان را گرفته و بر مقام رفیع انسانیت نشانده و او را متمایز بر سایر موجودات کند؛ آن موجود جز خدا نمی تواند باشد، اگر هست من را نیز مطلع کنید.

3- از میان تمام خدایان قابل فرض تنها خدای قرآن قابلیت دفاع منطقی و عقلی دارد و این نشان می دهد حضرت محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم پیامبری حقیقی و راستین است.

4- استدلال فوق کامل باشد یا دارای نقایصی باشد به هیچ وجه جایی برای عقیده شما نمی گذارد زیرا شما مدعی کرامت انسان هستید اما نمی توانید منشاء آن را اثبات کنید.

دوم اینکه

شما تنها ادعا می کنید که پایبند به قانون طلایی هستید، قانون طلایی می گوید به دیگران توهین نکن تا به تو توهین نکنند اما متاسفانه تمام نوشته های شما از جمله آخرین نوشته تان در جواب من مملو است از اهانت و فحش همین یک مورد کافی است که اثبات کند مدعیان پایبندی به قانون طلایی تنها عده ای شیادند که می خواهند با پرچمداری قانون طلایی هر بلایی که بخواهند به سر دیگران بیاورند.

سوم اینکه

اگر یادتان باشد در بحثهای قبلی در مورد تناقضات قرآن با توپ کاملا پر به میدان آمدید اما وقتی جواب دو مورد از تناقضات را دادم به یکباره میدان را خالی کردید اگر این بار هم این کار را بکنید جای تعجب چندانی نیست، توصیه می کنم به جای سوار شدن بر موج احساساتی که تنها بچه ها را قانع می کند به سلاح عقل و منطق مسلح شوید تا بتوانید محکم و قاطع از موضع خود دفاع کنید

Mr. Sina,

I did not come here to argue.

I have three points that have remained unanswered. Your long replies have not been able to refute them.

The first is about the source of karamat کرامت in humans. You diverted the discussion and instead talked about the innate origin of morality in humans and how they are manifest in babies. This concept that nature is the source of morality, not only does not help you, it works actually against you as it puts human morality at the same level of animal faculties, devaluing it to the level of the dogs olfactory and the eagle’s vision.

The following is a summary that shows the correctness of my argument and the incorrectness of yours.

1-      Everyone, whether theist or atheist senses that Man is superior to animals and this superiority is not due to the size of his brain or his other natural characteristics.  Nothing in nature is superior to something else, because no one and no thing has any role in attaining his or its attributes.

2-      Only a superior being can take Man’s hand and place him on the higher rank of humanness and make him excel over other creatures.  That being can’t be any other but God. If not God then please let me know who.

3-      Among all the presumed gods, only the god of the Quran can be defended logically and rationally and this proves that Muhammad (PBUH) was the true messenger of God.

4-      Whether the above reasoning is complete or whether it has holes in it, it leaves no room for your belief because you agree that Man is endowed with کرامت but you can’t prove its source.
Second Point:

You claim that you adhere to the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says don’t insult others so they don’t insult you. But unfortunately all your writings, including your last one in my response were filled with insults and curses. This alone is enough to prove that the advocates of the Golden Rule are a bunch of con artists who by championing the cause of the Golden Rule want to inflict on others all sorts of calamities

Third Points

If you remember, in our previous discussion in regards to the contradictions in the Quran you came along very defiantly and when I replied to your questions, you withdrew from the scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if you do the same this time too. I recommend instead of riding over the waves of emotions, which can only convince children, to use the weapon of reason and logic so you can strongly defend your position.

Mr. Farzad,

You keep asking about the source of کرامت.   You have to first define what you mean by it.  I translated it as nobility.  And I explained that what makes humans dominant over other animals is our superior brain. We have a better tool for thinking.  Then you argued that one can be very intelligent person and still act like a beast.  That is very true.  Germans were very smart people and still they acted worse than beasts when they allowed themselves to be deceived by Hitler. The same is true about Muslims.  Muslims are no less smart than other people and yet they are very savage people.  This is not an insult. Just look at this video.   Muslims have been doing these barbarities since the time of Muhammad.

Your friends in the regime in Iran rape virgins before executing them. This is because in your belief virgins don’t go to hell and to free the hands of God so he can send these innocent girls to hell they are raped the night before their execution.  I am sure you have a very convincing explanation for that too. Actually I know your explenation. You will probably say that they are not raped but forcefully married to the prison guards and a box of sweets is always sent to thier families to celebrate that happy occasion.  It may be hard for the world to comprehend , but this is the karamat (dignity)  of the Shiite Muslims.  No one can beat Shiites in depravity, not even the Sunnis.

What is this کرامت you are talking about Mr. Farzad? When Muslims act according to Islam they become worse than animals.  Please explain what is your definition of کرامت.

Man is ethical naturally. Just as apple is sweet naturally, but apple can become sour if something goes wrong (lack of sunshine, bad soil, draught, etc.), when humans are abused or brainwashed with doctrines of hate, they will lose their goodness and can become monsters. (This is what happened to Muhammad.  For more explenation read my book, Understanding Muhammad).

Like all our other faculties human ethics, his nobility and dignity are products of evolution.  Just as parental love is a necessity for the survival of a species, so is human ethics.  Physically, we are weak creatures. We can’t survive on our own.  We need the support of other humans, our family, our tribe and now the entire humanity, to survive.   This very computer we are using to communicate is the fruit of the effort of other people from all over the world.  Since our survival depends on others, we have evolved a set of precepts that lubricate our interaction. These precepts are innate.  Even babies understand the concepts of justice and fairness.

You say this faculty is God given. Not so!  It has evolved gradually and it is still evolving.  Human consciousness is expanding.  There is no doubt that western societies are ethically more evolved than Islamic societies.  The western nations wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Muslims have difficulty subscribing to it. They can’t accept the freedom of faith that is so intrinsic part of our human rights.  They can’t accept equality of genders because it goes against the misogyny of the Quran.

You make fallacious claims without any attempt to substantiate them.  You say only a superior being can lift man and make him excel over other animals or, as you put it,  give him karamat.  What is this karamat you are talking about?  According to your reasoning Muslims must have more karamat than those who reject Islam. Then why Muslims as a whole are more savages compared to others?  Why they commit so many violance and violations of human rights?

You claim among all the presumed gods, only the god of the Quran can be defended logically and rationally.  What is logical and rational about Allah?  It is the most asinine definition of God.   Allah, like his inventor, is a narcissist. How can the creator of the universe suffer from a mental disorder?   Please see this, http://alisina.org/what-is-god/

You say whether your reasoning is right or not it leaves no room for my reasoning because I (Ali) agree that Man has karamat but I can’t prove the source of it.

This is called straw man fallacy.  I don’t even understand your definition of karamat let alone agreeing that it is God given.  I know human ethics, his nobility and his dignity, as well as all his virtues  are evolutionary necessities.  They are not handed down by any god. They have evolved along with our psychological evolution.

Then you say my articles are full of insults and conclude that proponents of the Golden Rule are con artists who want to bring calamity to mankind.

First of all criticizing a doctrine, calling it savagery and stupid is not insult.  We say the same things about Nazism or other diabolic creeds.  A religion that demands killing its detractors and prescribes rape should not be respected.  If what I say is not true, you can prove them wrong.  Also, you are free to attack my beliefs. Beliefs don’t need protection.  If they can’t be defended they must be discarded.  Some beliefs are wrong and some are stupid. Islam is an asinine faith.

Secondly, what this has to do with the Golden Rule, the law that says, treat other as you wish to be treated?  Didn’t you quote several passages that you claims are from your Imam Ali that said the same things? Are you saying that Ali was a con artist too?  Well, of course this only proves that those passages you attributed to Ali are forgeries. Ali never said those things.  It requires an evolved human to understand the Golden Rule. Ali was a ruthless thug who murdered innocent people because they did not want to submit to Islam. He burned a man alive because he had apostatized. How could such a brute understand the Golden Rule?

You also say the proponents of the Golden Rule want to bring calamity to mankind? Really? How can treating others the way one would like to be treated will bring calamity?  Didn’t I say Muslims are unable to understand the Golden Rule? They can parrot it, but understanding it? No way!

In your third point you repeated your claim of victory because I did not answer you.  As I said before I have no delusions about you seeing the light any time soon.  The reason I debate is to show to others the intellectual bankruptcy of Muslim intelligentsia. My goal is achieved.  The readers don’t need my assistance to see the fallacy of your arguments.

I asked what happens to people who die until the Day of Resurrection. You replied they stay in the grave conscious so they can be punished and rewarded in the grave.  Do I have to respond to this?  The readers don’t need my assistance to see the ridiculousness of this belief.

Update: 2012/03/06  1:10 AM

شما اگر انسانی به دنبال کشف حقیقت بودید

به جای این همه داستانسرایی و قصه پردازی و آشکار کردن نفرت درونی خود نسبت به مسلمانها که لحظه ای نمی توانید خود را از آن جدا کنید

تنها با یک جمله پرسشی ساده مانند

” فلانی من معنای کرامت از نظر شما را متوجه نمی شوم ممکن است آن را دقیق توضیح دهید؟”

می توانستید بحث را دنبال کنید.

کرامت چیزی است که انسان را انسان می کند و به او ارزشی جدای از حیوانات می بخشد این ارزش به هیچ وجه نمی تواند ریشه در طبیعت داشته باشد زیرا در طبیعت ارزش معنا و مفهوم ندارد بدون وجود این کرامت و گرامی بودن هیچ انسانی نمی تواند از انسان دیگر انسان تر باشد همانطور که هیچ گاوی از گاو دیگر گاوتر نیست بلکه تنها می تواند قوی تر، زیباتر یا شیرده تر باشد و هیچ اسبی از اسب دیگر اسب تر نیست بلکه تنها می تواند سریعتر و چابکتر و یا سنگین و سبک تر باشد.

انسان تا وقتی که از زاویه طبیعت به او نگاه شود چیزی جدای از طبیعت نیست و تنها یکی از حیوانات پستانداری است که روی دو پا راه می رود، توانایی خندیدن و گریه کردن و تعقل و … دارد. نگاه به انسان از این زاویه با توجه به اینکه هر کاری انجام دهد ریشه در طبیعت او دارد نه می توان او مورد ملامت قرار داد و نه او را تشویق کردن کما اینکه هیچ گرگی به دلیل خونخوار و درنده بودن مورد شماتت قرار نگرفته و بازخواست نمی شود و هیچ گاوی به دلیل شیرده بودن مورد تقدیر و تشکر واقع نشده و به او جایزه نمی دهند.

اگر بخواهیم انسان را مورد امر و نهی قرار دهیم ، برایش حقوق بشر بنویسیم، ملزم به رعایت قانون طلایی کنیم و او را به دلیل کارهای اخلاقی و غیر اخلاقی که انجام می دهد مستحق جزا و پاداش بدانیم و در یک جمله او را متصف به انسانیت کنیم به یک ویژگی نیاز داریم که ریشه در طبیعت نداشته باشد چرا که هر چیز طبیعی، طبیعی است و وقتی طبیعی بود دیگر جای چون و چرا ندارد همینی هست که هست نه چیزی بیشتر و نه چیزی کمتر اگر کسی آدم می کشد بر اساس طبیعت خود آدم می کشد و اگر به دیگران احسان و نیکی می کند باز بر اساس طبیعت خود این کار را انجام می دهد در حالیکه همه ما بر اساس همان حس مشترکی که از نظر شما اساس معارف انسان است می یابیم که اینگونه نیست و ویژگیهای انسان چیزی واری ویژگیهای سایر حیوانات است. این ویژگی خاص تنها از طرف یک موجود بالاتر و والاتر که خارج از طبیعت است می تواند به انسان اهدا شود؛ این همان موجودی است که ما به آن خدا می گوییم و این خدا در آیه 70 سوره اسراء به اهداء کرامت به انسان تصریح کرده است: ما آدميزادگان را گرامى داشتيم و آنها را در خشكى و دريا، (بر مركبهاى راهوار) حمل كرديم و از انواع روزيهاى پاكيزه به آنان روزى داديم و آنها را بر بسيارى از موجوداتى كه خلق كرده‏ايم، برترى بخشيديم.اخلاق مدار بودن یا نبودن انسان در مقایسه رفتار او با دیگران آشکار می شود در حالیکه کرامت انسان چیزی مستقل در وجود انسان است یعنی اگر تنها یک انسان روی کره زمین زندگی کند دارای این ویژگی است.

نمی دانم لحظاتی که مشغول نوشتن این جمله خود که “انسان به دلیل باهوش تر بودن در راس هرم غذایی است” متوجه این نکته بودید که با دست خود انسان را از مقام انسانیت خلع کرده و او در حد حیوانی از حیوانات که در طبیعت زندگی می کند تنزل دادید و اعتراف کردید که موجودی به نام انسان وجود ندارد؟

تا اثبات نشود که انسان بدون وجود خدا وجود خاص دارد جواب دادن به سایر اتهامات شما علیه اسلام ضرورتی ندارد

If you were someone interested in truth, instead of this much storytelling and exhibiting your inner hatred for Muslims, which you can’t avoid even for a moment, you would have responded to only one question.  You could have said, I don’t understand the meaning of karamat from your point of view. Can you please explain it?

Karamat is what makes a human, a human and distinguishes him from animals.  There is no way for this thing to be rooted in nature. In nature values have no meaning.  Without this karamat no person can be more human than others, in the same way that no cow is more cow than other cows. She can only be stronger, better looking, or have more milk.  And no horse is more horse than other horses.  He can only be faster, more agile, heavier or lighter.

If we want to command humans to the right path and prohibit them from the wrong path, ascribe any rights to them, prescribe the Golden Rules for them, and punish and reward them for their moral and immoral deeds, or in a nutshell, attribute to them “humanness,” we need one thing that has no roots in nature. That is because everything that comes from nature is innate and one cannot be responsible for what is innate in him.  That would be his nature and no one can be blamed for what is his nature.  Nothing can be added to it, nor can anything be subtracted from it.  If a person kills someone, he does it because it is his nature and if he shows kindness, it is also because it is his nature.

All of us, based on that very common perception, which in your view is the basis of human consciousness, can see this is not the case.  Human characteristics are different from animal characteristics.

These superior characteristics can only be bestowed upon Man from a being that is outside the nature.  This being is what we call God.  There is a confirmation of this God’s gift to mankind in the Quran 17:70.  “Indeed, WE have honoured the children of Adam, and WE carry them by land and sea, and provide them with good things and have exalted them far above many of those whom WE have created.”

The ethics of a person can be determined by how he deals with other humans. whereas, his dignity (karamat) is something independent from his ethics.  In other words, if there is only one person in the world, this specific characteristic that makes him human and we call Karamat is present in him.

I don’t know whether you are aware that when you wrote “thanks to his intelligence man has placed himself at the top of the food chain,” you stripped Man of his humanity and placed him at the same level of animals who are subject to nature, and admitted that humanity as a reality does not exist.

Until we can’t agree that humanity is a distinct reality that can only be given by God, responding to your other charges against Islam is unnecessary.

Mr. Farzad,

Your explanation of the word karamat is not different from what I understood in the first time.  We agree on the meaning of the word.  The best translation of it is humanity or humanness.  It can also be understood as dignity, nobiity, honor, etc.  The difference between us is that you believe this humanity is something outside the nature, which can only be given by a being that is outside the nature, and hence this proves the existence of God and I don’t.

I will refute this claim in a moment. However, let me emphasize that even if you were right and there is a being outside the nature that bestows the special gift of humanity to humans, it still does not prove the claim of Muhammad.   I repeatedly asked you to prove the claim of Muhammad.  I even conceded, for the sake of argument, to accept the existence of God with the same characteristics that you attribute to him, so we can move on to the subject of our concern.   You prefer to talk about the red herring, in this case God,  becuse you have no proof for Muhammad.  Many of the readers of this blog believe in God and I have no problem with that.  I am not promoting atheism.  I want people to leave Islam.  So let us assume that there is a god in the sky with the exact same characteristics that you say.  Can you prove that Muhammad was a prophet of this god?

As for your claim that karamat is something unique to humans outside the nature it is up to you to prove it.

I agree that  our humanity is not limited to our interpersonal interaction.  Even a person stranded in another planet with no other human to interact, is still a human. What makes him a human is his brain.  Our highly advanced brain allows us to have spatial and conceptual thoughts that most animals can’t have.  It enables us to plan, to fantasize, to invent religions, imagine an afterlife and forge a god in our own mind.  Animals can’t do that. This is what sets us apart from them.

Our humanity stems from our consciousness and our consciousness is the function of our brain.   If a perfectly normal, intelligent and consciontious person becomes a drug user, his brain gradually gets damaged.  Every time he uses that substance he loses the function of a few million brain cells.  In a short time this person can no longer reason like a human. His conscience will be affected. He may steal from his parents and grandparents. He will lie and manipulate his loved ones. He will spend the money that must be used for food, clothing and education of his children on his addiction.  His humanity is diminished.  The same is true with people abusing alcohol.  Some of these brain damaged people molest even their own children.  This proves that our humanity or what you call karamat is a function of our brain.  If the brain ceases to function properly, whether as the result of mind altering substances, a mental illness, or mind altering doctrines, we can lose our humanity.  A narcissist has no conscience.  He has no empathy. In other words he has no humanity.  Narcissists are often victims of childhood abuse.  You can’t blame their inhumanity on God.  They are victims of circumstances.  The same is true of cultists.  They too lose their conscience.  They are perfectly normal people who under the influence of their belief become bereft of conscience and can kill others with total clarity of mind and justify that. just as Muslims justify killing the apostates.

Our emotions, our feelings, our sense of justice, love,  compassion, magnanimity  and altruism are all functions of our brain.  It is the sum of all these faculties that make us human.  It is our brain that distinguishes us from other animals.  These faculties can be nurtured or they can be damaged.

The brain is not just a powerful computer. It is also the regulator of our emotions such as happiness, sadness, joy, anger, depression, optimism, jealousy, envy, greed, kindness, etc.

This subject is the realm of psychology, not theology.  Theologists often make assumptions that are not based on facts.  Your assumption that humanness or what you call karamat is not from nature has no basis in science.  It is a false premise and I challenge you to prove your claim.   The proofs that you presented so far are all based on false premises.

Man is a biological machine. What we term as spiritual is also the function of the brain.  Nature is more complex than what meets the eyes.  There is a new realm of science called quantum physics that provides an explanation to all the phenomena that so far were the exclusive domain of religions and occult such as telepathy, psychic power, clairvoyance etc.  These are physical realities.  They are part of our nature and functions of our mind.  Nothing exists out of the nature.  There is a whole new universe in the subatomic world for us to discover.  This is the world of thoughts.  And here lies the answer to our spiritual quest.  The more we discover this world the more answers we can provide into what has been hitherto the domain of occultism.

Let me recapitulate.  You say there is something intangible in humans that does not exist in nature. That thing, must have been bestowed on us by a god.

I say, this is a false premise.  Nothing exists out of nature.  The faculties you refer to and call karamat are functions of our brain.  They stem from human mind.  They can be nurtured and they can be damaged.  There is no difference between them and any other faculty that we humans possess, like our eyesight or our muscle power, or brain power, etc. If they were given to us by God no one could have altered them.

The ball is in your court to prove that humanness has divine origin. This is tough to prove becuse first you have to prove the existance of God.  So any atempt to prove that humanness has divine origin is circular reasoning.   You simply can’t win this argument.

Update: 2012/03/07 1:10 AM

خدا یا وجود دارد یا ندارد اگر ندارد که ما در جنگل طبیعت زندگی می کنیم و هیچکس حق امر و نهی دیگران را ندارد، بلکه هر کس زور بیشتری دارد (ثروت و قدرت) حق دارد خود را بر دیگران تحمیل کند و البته دیگران نیز حق دارند به هر شیوه ممکن از خود دفاع کنند؛ یعنی همین کاری که انسانها در حال حاضر مشغول به آن هستند.

اما اگر خدا وجود داشته باشد این خدا باید عاری از هر گونه تناقض منطقی باشد و تنها خدایی که از هر گونه تناقض خالی است خدای قرآن و محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم است و شما نمی توانید از این مرحله به راحتی عبور کنید و بگویید من با خدا مشکلی ندارم بلکه مشکل من با کسی است که بی نقص ترین تعریف را از خدا دارد، همین جا باید توقف کنید و خدای قرآن را بر اساس تنها معیاری که جهانی و یونیورسال است یعنی منطق (نه خواست و میل دورنی خود و دیگر همفکرانتان) بررسی کنید یا آن را منطقا بپذرید و یا منطقا رد کنید. اگر هم از منطق چیزی نمی دانید که ظاهرا همینطوراست حق ورود به چنین عرصه ای را ندارید همانطور که من حق جراحی قلب یا حق نشستن در کابین خلبان به عنوان خلبان را ندارم.

شما مدعی هستید که مغز ما این توانایی را دارد که خیال پردازی کند، دین ومذهب اختراع کند، دنیای دیگری تصور کند و خدایی را در ذهن ما جعل کند.

به طور طبیعی قبول دارید که اختراع قانون طلایی و نوشتن حقوق بشر نیز از توانایی های مغز ماست چرا ما باید به بعضی از توانایی ها مغز خود احترام بگذاریم و بعضی دیگر را مورد بدترین توهین ها قرار دهیم؟

دلیل کاملا روشن است مغز ما بر اساس دیدگاه شما کار و فعالیت بیهوده انجام نمی دهد بلکه هر کاری می کند برای بقاء انسان است؛ محمد صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم هزار چهار صد سال پیش فکر خود را به کار گرفت و با کمترین تلفات ممکن دینی اختراع کرد، خدایی ساخت و براساس آن سرزمین خود را به یکی از مراکز مورد توجه دنیای آن روز قرار داد و باعث رونق تجاری آن شد و امروز یک و نیم میلیارد در سراسر دنیا یکی از بزرگترین آرزوهای آنان سفر به آن دیار است. لنین و استالین و هیتلرو چنگیزخان مغول و … هم همین کار را کردند منتها چون از هوش و ذکاوت کافی برخوردار نبودند شکست خوردند و امروز نیز دنیای غرب نیز همین کار را می کند اینها نیز حقوق بشر را اختراع کردند و آن را حربه و ابزاری کردند برای تسلط بر دیگران هر کجا به نفعشان باشد این ابزار را به کار می گیرند و هر کجا به نفعشان نباشد چشمان خود را به راحتی می بندند و حتی اگر لازم باشد از جنایتکار دفاع می کنند مانند حمایت از جنایات صهیونیستها در اسرائیل. خلاصه کلام اینکه انسانیت حقیقی وجود ندارد بلکه آنچه موجود است انسانیت ابزاری است، ابزار و وسیله ای برای تسلط بر دیگران بر اساس قانون جنگل!

براین اساس دشمنی علی سینا با مسلمانان کاملا قابل فهم و درک است من هم حق را به او می دهم او حق دارد برای مرگ خود نگران باشد اما هیچ نگرانی برای کشته شدن و از هستی ساقط شدن میلیونها افغانی و عراقی و فلسطینی و یمنی و … توسط همفکران خود (لیبرالیسم و صهیونیسم) نداشته باشد؛ ما در طبیعتی کاملا وحشی زندگی می کنیم و در طبیعت جنگ برای بقاء در جریان است و ترحم بر دشمن معنا و مفهوم آن وداع با زندگی خود است. تمام ایسم های موجود در دنیا شیطانی و تنها دو ایسم (لیبرالیسم و صهیونیسم) مقدس و رحمانی هستند.

علی آقا شما که انسانیت مورد نظر مرا نفهمیدید آیا من منظور شما را درست فهمیدم؟ آیا ثابت کردم که انسانیت حقیقی اگر وجود داشته باشد نمی تواند ساخته دست طبیعت باشد و باید از ماوراء طبیعت به انسان تزریق شود؟ (نفخت فیه من روحی) آیا ثابت کردم اگر انسانیت حقیقی وجود نداشته باشد علی سینا تنها برای بقاء خود در تلاش است و دشمنی او با مسلمانان کاملا طبیعی (حیوانی و جنگلی) است؟

Either God exists or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t then we live in the natural jungle and no one has the right to tell others what is right and what is not.  Whoever is stronger (has more money and power) has the right to impose himself on others. Of course others also have the right to defend themselves in any way possible. That is what humans do at the present moment.

However, if God exists, this god must be sanctified from any logical defect. The only flawless god is the God of the Quran and Muhammad (PBUH). You can’t ignore this matter easily and say I have no beef with God but my beef is with the one who has given the most flawless definition of God.

Let us stop right here and define God with the only logical and universally accepted parameter (and not our own whims and caprices).  You either accept this definition logically or you don’t. If you know nothing about logic, which apparently you don’t, you have no right to enter in this arena, just as I have no right to perform heart surgery or become a jet pilot.

You say that humans can fantasize, invent religion, envision a next world, and forge a god in their imagination.  Naturally, you must also agree that the invention of the Golden Rule and writing the human rights are the products of our brain.  Why should we pay homage to some of our mental activities and disparage and insult its other activities?

It is clear that according to you, our brain does not function uselessly, but whatever it does it is for our survival. Muhammad (PBUH) used his brain 1400 years ago and with the least casualties invented a religion, forged a god and based on that he made his country the focal point of the world of his time and made it a center of commerce and wealth.  And today the greatest wish of 1.5 billion people from all over the world is to visit that land.  Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan, etc., did the same, but because they were not smart enough they were defeated.  Today the West is doing the same. They have invented the human rights and use it as a tool and a weapon to subjugate others. Where it is in their advantage they use this weapon and where it is not in their advantage they easily close their eyes. And should it be necessary they will defend the criminals, for example the support of the crimes of the Zionists in Israel.  The bottom line is that there is no real humanity. What exists is that humanity is being used as a tool and a means of domination – just like in Jungle.

Based on this principle, the enmity of Ali Sian with Muslims is perfectly understandable and I too say he is right. He is right to be worried for his own death but he shows no concerns for the death of millions of Afghans, Palestinians, Yemenis,… in the hands of his co ideologists (liberalists and Zionists).  We live in a wild natural world. In nature there is fight for survival and compassion to the enemy means forgoing one’s own life. All the isms of the world are satanic and only two isms are sacred and divine, i.e., liberalism and Zionism.

Mr. Ali, you did not understand my idea of humanity. Have I understood you correctly? Have I been able to prove that if humanity is a reality, it cannot be a product of the nature, but must be given to humans from a supernatural source?  (I blew in him my spirit), that if there is a real human (endowed with humanity) Ali Sina is only striving for his own survival and his enmity with Muslims is perfectly natural, i.e. based on the animalistic instinct of the jungle?

Mr. Farzad,

The reason you and I cannot find a common ground is that we have two distinct and mutually exclusive understanding of man (انسان). You see man as a wicked creature, with no nobility and inherent goodness, one who if left alone will engage in all sorts of crimes, immoral and evil conduct, who has to be reined like a wild beast. Of course if this is your definition of human the need for a trainer, someone who can put him on a leash and tame him becomes imperative. Then you propose Islam because its harness is tighter and its leash is shorter.

My definition of man is diametrically opposite to yours. I see man as a noble being, naturally endowed with dignity.  Things can go wrong and he can turn to be a monster. If Hitler had a loving father who did not beat him savagely he would never have become the mass murderer he became. If Stalin, Saddam, Genghis Khan, Muhammad and other psychopaths of history had a happy childhood they would not have turned into the monsters they turned to.

This is the crux of the matter and the reason we can’t see eye to eye. I see man as a noble being and you see him as a wild, pervert, potentially criminal who may even fornicate with his mother if left uncontrolled.  You believe that man can become human only if instructed with “humanity,” which can only be taught by a messenger of God.   He must be told what is right and wrong because on his own he can’t know the difference.   And because there is no inherent dignity in man, he can be beaten like an animal until he submits and obeys.   His life  also  has no  intrinsic value.  If he rebels, he can be slaughtered like an animal.   That is why you keep insisting that without God’s rule man will become a canibal.  This is your idea of man – a crooked being who without the stick and carrot and a harness is naturally inclined towards evil and will go astray.

Your definition of man is consistant with your defintion of right and wrong.  In your Islamic world view, right and wrong are not  obvious to man.  Things that we may regard as evil, such as raiding, killing, rape, theft and pedophila may actually be good and divine and things that we perceive as good, such as kindness to strangers (unbelievers), may actually be bad. “Fight the unbelievers around you, and let them find harshness in you.” (Q.9:123)  “Oh, Believers, do not make friends of your fathers or your brothers if they love unbelief above Islam. He who makes them his friends does wrong.” Quran 9:23)  Based on this reasoning Man cannot know what is good and what is evil. He must be instructed by the messenger of God and after him by mullahs like you. If the messenger of God says fighitng is good, rape is good, killing is good, child rape is good, we should discard our own commonsense and believe him.

This is contrary to my belief. I believe humans have a rational mind that can distinguish right from wrong.  This faculty of discenment is innate.  If something appears abhorent, it is abhorent and vice versa.  If someone claims to be a messenger of God and tells us things that go against our reason and commonsense, like for exampel “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you,” (Q.3:216) that person is an impostor and not a messenger of God.   I believe humanity is inherent in man, and that he instinctively knows the difference between right and wrong.

Each person judges other with his own standards. An honest person is trusting and a crooked person is suspicious of everyone. کافر همه را به کیش خود پندارد .  Why you have such a low estimation of man? It is because you view the world through Muhammad’s eyes.  Muhammad was a narcissist. Narcissists are law breakers. They have no control over themselves. They have no conscience.  The only thing that can stop them is the fear of being caught.   Judging others according to his own standards the narcissist who wants to control others uses fear as the instrument of control.  He invents a vengeful deity and makes his followers believe that should they deviate from his orders there will be dire consequences.  The more twisted is the mind of the psychopath the more stringent are his rules.  That is why Islam is so demanding and it has so many rules and requirements. I invite every Muslim to read my book Understanding Muhammad.  I have laid this point so clearly that leaves one with no option but to agree that Muhammad was a psychopath.

Since your entire world view is based on this false premise that man is naturally evil, and only when in leash he can behave properly, you come to all sorts of false conclusions such as there must be a God to show mankind the right way

Update 2012/03/08  1:30 AM

جناب سینا
ظاهرا حدس من درست است شما منطق ارسطویی نخوانده اید، خوانده اید؟
برای اثبات خود مجبور شده اید یک صفحه روزنامه کامل حرافی کنید و حداقل هر مطلبی را دوبار تکرار کنید؛ اثبات حرف حق نیاز به این همه زور زدن ندارد بلکه طی یک یا دو خط و حداکثر یک پاراگراف کوتاه قابل بیان و اثبات است.

متاسفانه حتی نزدیک به فهم حرف من هم نشده اید لذا مجبور شده اید این همه آسمان و ریسمان به هم ببافید.
اینکه من مدعی می شوم اخلاقی که ریشه در طبیعت انسان دارد ارزش برای انسان محسوب نمی شود معنای آن لزوما خلاف اخلاق رفتار کردن انسان و شیطانی بودن ذات انسان نیست انسانها برای حفظ جان خود هم که شده مجبورند به گونه ای با هم کنار بیایند (مفاد قانون طلایی).
در طبیعت انواع و اقسام موجودات وجود دارند بعضی ذاتی بسیار آرام مانند اکثر علفخواران و بعضی دیگر ذات و طبیعتی ستیزه جو دارند مثل اکثر گوشتخواران اما نه دسته اول را می توان مورد ستایش قرار داد و نه دسته دوم را مورد ملامت، هر کدام بر اثر طبیعت خود عمل می کند. در میان موجودات طبیعت یکی هم انسان است که بر اساس توانایی های طبیعی خود این “اختیار” را دارد که بد یا خوب عمل کند؛ اما چه خوب عمل کند و چه بد عمل کند باز متاثر از طبیعت خویش است و مختار بودنش نیز امتیازی دارای ارزش برای او نیست چرا که خودش جهت کسب این امتیاز هیچ دخالتی نداشته است و بر اساس تفکر شما طبیعت بر اثر روند تکامل به او عطا کرده است همانطور که به حیوانات دیگر ویژگیهای دیگری عطا کرده است اینکه دایره عمل انسان دارای گستره بیشتری است به دلیل فوق موجب امتیاز او نمی شود.
آقای علی آقای سینا بر خلاف شما که وجود اسلام بزرگترین مشکل شماست و به زعم خود کمر به نابودی آن بسته اید، من هیچ نگرانی از این موضع شما ندارم تجربه تاریخی نشان داده این مدعای خداوند در قرآن که فرموده: إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَ إِنَّا لَهُ لَحافِظُون حقیقتی ثابت و غیر قابل تغییراست و کار اشخاصی مثل شما مصداق کامل این آیه است که: يُريدُونَ لِيُطْفِؤُا نُورَ اللَّهِ بِأَفْواهِهِمْ وَ اللَّهُ مُتِمُّ نُورِهِ وَ لَوْ كَرِهَ الْكافِرُونَ. شما هر مقدار که قدرت فوت کردنتان زیاد باشد ممکن است بتوانید چند پر کاه بی ارزش را جابجا کنید اما در نهایت تنها گلوی خود را پاره کرده ا ید؛ نگرانی اصلی من خود شما هستید که اسیر توهمات ذهنی خود شده و سراب را آب پنداشته و هروله کنان و شتابان به سوی آن می دوید اما در نهایت دیر یا زود جز خاک گور چیزی نصیب شما نخواهد شد. بر اساس دیدگاه شما مرگ همه چیز را برای انسان صفر کرده و او را نسیا منسیا می کند حال هر عددی که در این صفر ضرب شود نتیجه تغییری نخواهد کرد و حاصل تنها صفر خواهد بود.
بعد از شکست همه ایسم های به ظاهر انسان محورانه در مقابل تفکر خدامحورانه به نظر می رسد تنها لیبرالیسم باقی مانده و تنها تفکری که در مقابل لیبرالیسم ایستاده اسلام (از نظر من تفکر شیعی آن) است؛ بر اساس فورمول بالا که نهایت کار من و شما برگشت دوباره به خاک است حاصل فعالیت انسانهایی مانند شما چاق و فربه کردن مکتب لیبرالیسم است؛ یعنی تک تک انسانها فدای مکتب می شوند بدون اینکه بهره ای از آن ببرند اما بر خلاف ظاهر مکتب اسلام که به نظر می رسد می خواهد همه انسانها را فدای خود کند (که در حقیقت اینطور نیست) هر چند فعالیت مسلمانان باعث فربه شدن اسلام می شود اما تک تک مسلمانها مزد خود از این فربه ساختن را می گیرند و اینطور نیست که فقط خاک گور نصیب آنها باشد و این موضوع هر چند از نظر شما توهمی بیش نباشد اما بی شک در مرحله عمل باعث شکست مکتب مقابل خواهد شد.
در مقابل اصرار و سفارش و توصیه شما مبنی برخواندن نوشته هایتان که حاصل استمنائات فکری یهودی زده شماست توصیه می کنم برای رها شدن از این توهمات، که سایه انواع ظلمتها را بر ذهن شما گسترانده است، منطق صوری را خوب بخوانید تا بتوانید بین یک قضیه منطقی و توهمات ذهنی فرق بگذارید و به بیراهه نروید

Mr. Sina,

Apparently my feeling is correct. You have not read the Aristotelian logic. Have you? In order to prove your point you were forced to write a whole newspaper page size of prolixity and repeat each point at least twice.  To prove something truthful, it does not require so much effort. It can be demonstrated in one or two lines, or maximum in one paragraph.

Unfortunately, you have not come even close to understanding my point and consequently you were obliged to engage in so much garrulity.

When I say the morality of man that is rooted in nature has no value it does not mean that necessarily man is immoral and his essence is satanic. Even for their own survival, humans have to get along in any way possible (in other words, they must follow the Golden Rule).

There are all sorts of creatures in nature. Some of them are peaceful, like most herbivores and some are more aggressive, like most carnivores. However, we can neither praise the first group nor blame the second group. Each acts according to their own nature. Among the animals in the nature one is man who according to his nature is free to act either good or bad. However, whether he acts good or bad he is influenced by his own nature. His freedom to act also is a privilege of no value to him, because he has had no role in acquiring that privilege. According to you he has acquired it naturally through evolution, just as other animals have acquired other faculties and just because man has a wider circle of action it does not give him any superiority over animals.

Mr. Ali, Mr. Sina, contrary to you who thinks Islam is the biggest problem and in your own thinking want to eradicate it, I have no concerns about your position. The historic experience shows that “WE verily have sent down this Reminder, and most surely WE are its Guardians” (Q. 15:9) is a confirmed truth. And the efforts of people like you are refuted in the Quran 61:8, “They desire to put out the light of Allah with their mouths but Allah will perfect His light, though the unbelievers may be averse.” No matter how forcefully you blow, you may displace a few worthless straws and at the end you will only tear your own throat.

My main concern is your own self who are enslaved by your fantasies and have mistaken the mirage for water and heedlessly and hurriedly are running towards it.  At the end, sooner or later, you’ll attain nothing but the dirt of the grave.  According to you, death is the end of everything. It is coming to nothingness. Now, it makes no difference what number is multiplied to nothing (zero) because the result will be still nothing.

After the defeat of all allegedly humanist isms, vis-à-vis God centered thinking, the only ism left is liberalism and the only thought that is challenging liberalism is Islam (in my view the Shiite Islam).

Based on the above equation, which will inevitably make you and me to return to dust the result of the effort of people like you is to fatten the ideology of liberalism.  One by one, people are sacrificed for this ideology without gaining any benefit from it.  Contrary to the appearance that Islam wants to sacrifice everyone for its own survival, although the activity of Muslims results in fattening Islam, every individual Muslim will get his reward for fattening Islam.  It is not that they will get just the dirt in the grave.  Although you think this is nothing but a fantasy, without a doubt, in practice, it will result in the defeat of the opposing ideology.

In response to your insistence that I read your writings, which are the result of Judaic influence in you, I suggest that to get rid of your confusions, you should read the logic of Sovari, so you can distinguish between a rational argument and illusion and don’t go astray.

 

Mr. Farzad,

Is this all you can say?  You start with a few ad hominem comments and end your article by saying I don’t understand logic.  You also say that I will die one day and my life will be wasted.  How do you want me to respond to these? Shall I remind you that in my view you are the one whose life is a waste? What is the point of these talks?

We are here to prove our points of view. You say Allah has promised to protect his religion. In that case why did you want to debate with me? Didn’t you come to prove me wrong? You couldn’t and now leave it to Allah? Let me tell you that Allah is not god. He is the figment of Muhammad’s imagination.

The reason Islam has survived so far is because Muslims silenced and killed any person who criticized it.  But things have changed. No one can stop the Internet and the truth about Islam is spreading like wild fire.  Islam’s biggest enemy is truth and the days of Islam are numbered.

You say if man’s faculties are acquired through evolution then he cannot be superior to animals because he has not worked for them.  Who said man is superior to other creatures? We are smarter.  Of course we ascribe more value for our selves than we do to other animals. I doubt animals share this opinion.  This argument about superiority and inferiority is absurd. We are humans and have to live like humans. Animals should live like animals.  The problem arises when some people live like animals.  Raiding, raping, plundering, abusing, beating and imprisoning others are not human behavior.  That is my problem with Islam.  Muslims devalue humans and treat them like animals and in the process they act like animals.

You say, “When I say the morality of man that is rooted in nature has no value it does not mean that necessarily man is immoral and his essence is satanic.”  Didn’t you say without religion there is nothing to stop man to eat his own kind? You obviously don’t think much of humans. Now you try to backpedal.  But if you agree that man’s dignity is intrinsic then what was all that talk about human dignity must come from out of nature?

You justify beating, imprisoning, raping and killing and think all that is divine because they are sanctioned by your religion and practiced by your prophet. What if your belief is a lie? Shouldn’t you investigate the claim of Muhammad before committing all these crimes?

For your information, I don’t subscribe to liberalism.  Liberalism is another sickness of mind barely better than Islam. I am a free man, a rational being and I value my independence of thought and my individualism. I don’t subscribe to any ideology. I am a prophet to my own self, not a follower of any school of thought.

Thank you for this debate. This was a subject I had not discussed before and I am happy I did.  I think we managed to shed light on many important issues such as what Muslims think about themselves and others as human beings. Wish you the best

Update: 2012/03/ 12:08 PM

بحث کردن با کسی که از منطق چیزی نمی داند مانند بحث کردن با کودک دوساله است بر سر اثبات اینکه بستنی برای مریضی او خوب نیست.

هدف اصلی من از بحث با شما این بود که در مرحله اول به خودتان و در مرحله بعد به خوانندگان ثابت کنم که شما چیزی از منطق نمی دانید و شما اعتراف کردید که منطق نخوانده اید.

تمام ادعاهای شما تراوشات ذهنی بیماری حراف و یاوه گوست که با تکرار مکرر این کلمات:

Raiding, raping, plundering, abusing, beating and imprisoning others

به ارگاسم فکری می رسد و چنان به این استمنای فکری معتاد شده که گاه در یک نوشته کوتاه مانند این نوشته آخر با یک مرتبه تکرار ارضاء نشده، دوباره آن را تکرار می کند.

اگر من در جایی کوتاه آمده و از زاویه دید یک منکر خدا انسان را بررسی می کنم برای این است که به کودکان دبستانی که از منطق چیزی نمی دانند واقعیت وجودی انسان را بفهمانم و الا طبیعتی که این همه هنرمند است که قادر است موجودی با این همه قابلیت بسازد چرا تنها به همین یک مورد بسنده کرده است چه چیزی مانع شده از اینکه قدرت خود را در راه بزرگتر کردن مغز سایر حیوانات از دست بدهد؟ چه اتفاقی افتاده که بنابر نظر بعضی از بزرگان علم تکامل، تکامل در زمان ما متوقف شده؟ اصلا در آن چند میلیارد و چند میلیون سال چه غلطی می کرده که قابلیت او در این چهار یا چهل هزار سال اخیر در ساختن انسان متمدن بروز کرده است؟ شما خوب می دانید که این موضوع یکی از بزرگترین معماها و مجهولات علم روز است.

موضع من به عنوان یک مسلمان کاملا محکم و پا برجاست من معتقدم که درک خوبی و بدی توسط خداوند در وجود انسان نهاده شده است:

وَ نَفْسٍ وَ مَا سَوَّئهَا، فَأَلهَْمَهَا فجُُورَهَا وَ تَقْوَئهَا، قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّئهَا، وَ قَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّئهَا

و قسم به جان آدمى و آن كس كه آن را (آفريده و) منظّم ساخته، سپس فجور و تقوا (شرّ و خيرش) را به او الهام كرده است، كه هر كس نفس خود را پاك و تزكيه كرده، رستگار شده

و آن كس كه نفس خويش را با معصيت و گناه آلوده ساخته، نوميد و محروم گشته است!

بدون وجود خدا انسان تنهای حیوانی از حیوانات جنگل است منتها حیوانی که در این چند ثانیه آخر عمر خود (نسبت به وجود حیات چند میلیارد ساله روی زمین) یاد گرفته کمتر وحشی باشد تا در آسایش بیشتری زندگی کند.

 Mr. Sina

Debating with someone who does not know logics is like trying to make a two year old child understand that ice cream is not good for him.

My objective of coming here was to prove to you, primarily, and to the readers, secondarily, that you don’t know much about logics and you confessed that you have not read logics.

All your claims are the cogitations of a sick and garrulous mind who by repeating the words such as “Raiding, raping, plundering, abusing, beating and imprisoning others” arrives at an intellectual orgasm and is so addicted to this mental masturbation that sometimes in one short writing, like the last comment, is not satisfied to mention them once and has to repeat them twice.

If I give in sometimes and analyze God from the point of view of a denier of God, it is to make school children  who don’t understand logic, to understand the reality of man.  Otherwise, why would nature that [according to you] is so capable of making a creature as smart as man has stopped short of enlarging the brains of other creatures?   What has happened that according to some proponents of evolution, this evolution has stopped working? What the heck this evolution was doing in all those four billion years and why only now, in these last four or forty thousand years its effect has become manifest? You know very well that this is one of the biggest puzzles and conundrums of science today.

My position as a Muslim is completely strong and firm. I believe that the comprehension of good and bad is given to man by God.  “And the soul and Him Who made it perfect, Then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it; He will indeed be successful who purifies it. And he is indeed a failure who stunteth it. “(Q.91: 7-10)

Without God, man is only an animal among animals of the jungle, but a man who in these last few seconds of his existence (compared to his several billion years of his existence on the planet) has learned to be less savage so he can live in more comfort.

Mr. Farzad,

This debate is over. When someone foams his mouth and attacks his opponent, it is clear that he has run out of things to say.

I never said I have not read logic.  However, I see no reason to boast about my erudition either.   عطر آن است که خود ببوید نه آنکه عطار بگوید

As for your statement about evolution, this is something you can learn if you Google it.  Any child knows how evolution works. Also evolution has never stopped and it will never stop.  No one who understands evolution will ever say such asininity.

The bottom line is that you believe man is utterly unable to distinguish right from wrong. In fact what we perceive as evil, like stealing, raping, killing, abusing, torturing, cheating, discriminating, etc., may be good for us and vice versa, things that we instinctivly beleive to be good like kindness to strangers (unbelievers) may be bad.  We can’t find the right way without Muhammad’s guidance. Our conscience can mislead us.  Instead of trusting our own conscience we must listen to the prophets of God and not just any prophet, only to Muhammad because the messages of all other prophets are corrupted by man.  If Muhammad says things that we may believe to be evil and go against our commonsense and conscience, we must ignore our commonsense and conscience and beleive what Muhammad says.  Who are we to judge and question the messenger of God?

This is in nutshell the philosophy of Islam and your conviction of it is unshakable.  You won’t even allow doubt to rattle your belief. After all you admit that your commonsense and conscience are not adequate instruments for you to distinguish between right and wrong.  You will not use your brain or your conscience because you believe they may mislead you. Instead you blindly follow Muhammad. It does not matter how egregious his teachings may sound and how evil they may appear.  He is after all the Prophet of God and he is the one who will decide what is good and bad not you.

All I can say is to quote  Bertrand Russell who said,   “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”

Update: 2012/03/11 11:08 PM

جناب سینا
ادعا می کنید که از بسته شدن کامنت این بحث اطلاعی نداشته اید و ناخواسته این اتفاق افتاده است، اگر خودتان ادعای خود را باور کردید من هم باور می کنم، البته این موضوع چندان مهم نیست.
آیا حذف شدن ترجمه آخرین نوشته من و جواب شما به آن نیز اتفاقی بوده است؟
گفته اید این بحث تمام شده است، بله از جهاتی بحث تمام شده، از این جهت که یک دیدگاه و فلسفه انسان محور هرگز نمی تواند بر مدعای خود برهان عقلی و منطقی ارائه کند بحثی باقی نمانده است؛ اما بحث عقل و جهل، دین و کفر، عدل و ظلم، خداپرستی و شهوت پرستی هرگز تمام نخواهد شد و همچنان ادامه دارد.
اشاره کرده اید که به شما اهانت و حمله کرده ام، یکی از چیزهایی که در طی این بحث من از شما آموختم این بود که اگر کسی به چیزی اعتقاد داشته باشد و بر آن دلیل اقامه کند بیان آن توهین و فحش نخواهد بود بلکه واقعیتی است که جهت آگاه شدن دیگران باید بیان شود، آنچه در نوشته پیشین به شما نسبت دادم اعتقاد من نسبت به شماست و دلیل آن را نیز در آن نوشته و در نوشته های قبل بیان کردم لذا مطالب بیان شده بر اساس دیدگاه خود شما به هیچ وجه حمله شخصی و اهانت نیست بلکه واقعیتی است که نباید از بیان آن ابا داشته باشم، این که من اعتقاد دارم شما مبتلا به استمنای فکری شده اید حمله به شخص شما نیست بلکه یک نوع بیماری است که ذهن شما به آن مبتلا شده است، همانطور که می دانید شخص مبتلا به بیماری ذهنی کمتر متوجه بیمار بودن خود می شود و شما استثنا نیستید.
در باره فضل و دانش خود نقل کرده اید که: “عطر (مشک) آن ا ست که ببوید نه آنکه عطار بگوید” عطر ممکن است چنین خاصیتی داشته باشد که ندارد و بسیاری از افراد نمی توانند بین عطر واقعی و عطر قلابی تفاوت قائل شوند، اما قضایای منطقی چنین نیستند حتما باید اهل خبره ای باشد تا بتواند فلسفه را از سفسطه و برهان را از مغالطه باز شناسد اگر در تمام نوشته های طولانی خود توانستید یک قضیه منطقی که بر اساس شکل اول از اشکال اربعه منطقی باشد پیدا کنید حق با شماست.
آنچه از برتراند راسل جهت رد نظر من بر استواری بر اعتقاداتم نقل کردید که احمق ها و متعصبان همیشه به خود مطمئن هستند اما دانایان پر از شک و تردیدند،
اولا قسمت اول آن بیشتر شامل حال خود شما می شود که با اعتقادی راسخ در لباس یک پیامبر تمام عیار به ترویج عقاید سست و باطل خود مشغولید ثانیا این حرف شامل هر فرقه و گروهی که شود شامل ما شیعیان نمی شود، خوب می دانید که اهل سنت به ما می گویند رافضی؛ رافضی یعنی کسی که هیچ مطلبی را بدون مدرک و دلیل قبول نمی کند؛ کیش ما بر سه ضلع تشیع، فلسفه و عرفان استوار است یعنی قرآن، برهان و عرفان. کسی که با این سه درآویزد هیچ شانسی برای پیروزی او قابل تصور نیست و شما از این قاعده مستثنا نیستید.
در خلال بحث به موضوعات متعددی وارد شدید که هیچ ربطی به موضوع اصلی بحث نداشت و علیرغم باطل بودن به دلیل دور نشدن از موضوع اصلی من به آنها ورود نکردم و جواب شما را ندادم که به مرور جواب آنها را خواهم نوشت البته بیشتر برای خودتان اگر مایل بودید آنها را برای اطلاع خوانندگان سایتتان ترجمه کنید

Mr. Sina,

You claim that the comments were closed accidentally and you were not aware of it. If  you yourself believe in what you say I believe too. This is not an important issue. Was also the deletion of my last comment and your response to it [that you had already published] also accidental?

You say this debate is over. Yes, it is in some respects.  Since a humanist philosophy cannot provide any logical argument, there is nothing left [for you] to say. However, the discussion about reason and ignorance, religion and disbelief, justice and injustice, theism and lustfulness, will never end and will continue forever.

You said I attacked you. One of the things that I learned from you in this debate is that if someone believes in something and presents his proof to support his belief that is not considered personal attack because it is to inform others. What I wrote in my previous message about you is my belief about you and I also presented my reasons both in that comment and in previous comments. Therefore, what I said, according to your own self, are not insults or personal attacks; they are truths that one must not hide.   The fact that I believe you are infected by intellectual masturbation is not an attack on your person. It is an illness that has affected your mind.  As you know the person who is mentally sick is not aware of his sickness and you are not an exception.

You talked about your erudition. It is possible for the perfume to smell fragrant even if it is not. Many people can’t distinguish between a real perfume and a synthetic one. However, logical problems are not like that. Only an expert can separate philosophy from sophism and reason from fallacies.  If in your long write-ups you can find any arguments based on logical principles, then you are right.

You quoted Bertrand Russell to dismiss my conviction, saying only fools and fanatics are certain, but the wise people are full of doubts.  First of all the first part of that best suits you who with absolute conviction in the grab of a prophet are spreading your unfounded and invalid beliefs. Secondly, this applies to all sects and groups and not just to us the Shiites.  You well know that the Sunnis call us Rafezi. Rafezi means someone who does not accept anything without evidence.

Our doctrine is based on three foundamentals, shiism, philosophy and erfan (knowledge), in other words the Quran, reason and knowledge. There is no chance to defeat someone who clings to these three principles and you are no exception from this rule.

You touched many subjects that had nothing to do with the main subject of our discussion. And despite the fact that they were invalid, I did not respond to them so I won’t get away from the main subject, but I will gradually.  Of course, it would be more for your own sake. But if you wish you can translate them for the readers of your site.

Mr. Farzad,

In another post I explained why our last comments that I had published were deleted several hours later.  As it happened I had another open browser on the same page which was not updated. Hours later when I came to my computer I saw that browser and I saved it before closing it.  So the updates were lost.  When I found out I went to the history and copied what I had written  and added it to the page again.  Your comment was not lost because a copy of it  exists in the comment section.  Why these things are so important to you? Have you really run out of things to say? Is it why you are grabbing to any straw?

You say the discussion about reason and ignorance, justice and injustice, theism and lustfulness, etc., will never end.  I am afraid that discussion is also over.  Once you say that man is imbecile; all his wisdom, his consciousness and his morality amount to nothing; and he can’t know the difference between right and wrong on his own; and only Muhammad can teach him these things, otherwise he may become a canibal, there is nothing else to talk about.  This is, as you mullahs say, فصل الخطاب   the end of discussion. What is the point of arguing when all that has to be known is already said by Muhammad and is written in the Quran?   You love the word masturbation, so let me say that by your reasoning arguing is nothing but intellectual masturbation.  What is the point of discussing anything when all one has to do is to open the Quran and read it?

You either side with reason or with religion. You can’t have it both ways. These two are mutually exclusive.  If reason can lead us to truth then why we need religion and if religion is supreme why we need to argue about anything?  If you side with reason, religion is superfluous and if you side with religion, reason is redundant.

As for your justification of personal attacks on me, I believe you misunderstood me. You and I are not the subjects of this debate.  The subject is Muhammad. If we attack each other it will be ad hominem and red herring.  Assuming, your charges against me are true and my logic is at the same level of a two year old toddler. What this has to do with the questions I am raising about Muhammad? Why you don’t show the flaws of my logic? Let others grade my logic.

You say the Sunnis call the Shiites Rafezi رافضی because you don’t accept anything without evidence.  You are wrong.  That would be skepticism. Believers can’t be skeptic. Rafezi drives from rafaz which is the origin of the English word refuse.  Sunnis call you refused, i.e., rejected from religion, or those who have refused the true religion and walked away.  They don’t even accept the Shiites as true Muslims. Your faith is refused.

Update: 2012/03/13  5:23 AM

جناب سینا

تجربه دیگری که از بحث با مخالفان خدا و دین برای من حاصل شده این است که هنگام عجز از جواب، حرف طرف مقابل را به صورت غلطی آشکار تفسیر و معنا می کنند سپس با قدرت تمام شروع به پاسخ دادن به قضیه ذهنی خود ساخته می نمایند.

من در هیچکدام از سخنان سابق خود ادعا نکردم که انسان ضیعف العقل است و تمام توانایی های منحصر به فرد او یعنی عقل، هوشیاری و اخلاق مداری او هیچ ارزشی ندارد، حرف من این نیست که انسان توانایی تمییز بین درست و نادرست را ندارد و این تنها پیامبر رحمت صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم است که می تواند این امور را به انسان آموزش دهد و اگر او چنین نکند شاید انسان آدمخوار شود؛ من جایی ادعا نکردم هر چیزی که باید دانسته شود در قرآن آمده است و توسط پیامبر خدا صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم بیان شده است.

جواب این حرف شما را از زاویه دیگر در بحث چند ماه پیش داده ام؛ اختلاف من و شما در منشاء توانایی های منحصر به فرد انسان است شما مدعی هستید که طبیعت کر و کور و لال و نفهم، موجودی بصیر و سمیع و گویا و علیم تولید کرده است و من مدعی هستم اولا فاقد کمال نمی تواند معطی کمال باشد ثانیا اگر فرض را بر اعطاء این قابلیت ها از طرف طبیعت بگذاریم دیگر نمی توانیم آن را کمال بنامیم و به قول یکی از کامنت گذاران تنها یک فکت و واقعیت عینی خارجی است که قابلیت ارزش گذاری ندارد و ارزش محسوب نمی شود؛ واقعیت های طبیعی بسیار زیادی در اطراف ما وجود دارند که بعضا هم بسیار شگفت انگیزند اما هیچکدام نمی توانند ما را مجبور کنند که تا کمر در مقابل آنها خم شده، آنها را گرامی بداریم و تکریمشان کنیم؛ انسانی که محصول طبیعت صرف است هم یکی از این واقعیت هاست، این انسان با همه ویژگیهای منحصر به فردش اگر توسط موجودی علیم، قدیر و حکیم انتخاب نشده باشد هیچ دلیلی بر اینکه احترام او واجب باشد نیست. بله انسانها می توانند بر اساس قابلیت های مذکور یک سری امور اعتباری را جعل کرده و با وضع یکسری قوانین اعتباری دیگرآن امور را لازم الاجرا بدانند و متخلفان را تنیه کنند. اما این موضوع صرف اعتبار است و کرامت ذاتی برای انسان نمی آورد. امیدوارم توضیح کاملا رسا و قابل فهم باشد.

قصه اینکه ما چه اموری را درک می کنیم و پیامبر خدا صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم و قرآن او چه چیزی را به ما آموزش می دهند باشد برای بعد.

در بخش دیگر مدعی تعارض عقل و دین شده و آنها را مانعة الجمع تصور کرده اید. جواب را خیلی کوتاه می دهم، عقل و دین مکمل هم اند هر قضیه صحیح منطقی نیاز به دو عنصر دارد یکی ماده و دیگری هیئت؛ عقل هیئت قضیه است و دین ماده، اگر دین نباشد عقل چه چیزی را می خواهد پردازش کند که به کار انسان آید؟ اگر هدف غایی گذران زندگی و طی فاصله تولد تا مرگ است، حیوانات بدون نیاز به عقل بدون هیچ دغدغه ای این فاصله را طی می کنند در این صورت آیا عقل ما زائد نیست؟

در مورد حمله شخصی و اینکه موضوع این بحث پیامبر خدا صلی الله علیه و آله و سلم است نه شما

قبلا دلیل خود را بیان کردم؛ در اینجا این موضوع را اضافه می کنم که وقتی فردی با عقل جمعی مشکل دارد و موضوع مشکل آنها یک واقعیت عینی و علمی محض نیست ابتدا باید صحت مشاعر آن فرد از یک طرف و صحت مقدمات استدلال او از طرف دیگر مورد سنجش قرار گیرد اگر از این دو امتحان سربلند بیرون آمد آنگاه نوبت به بررسی مدعای او می رسد و ما اگر فرض را بر صحت جسم و جان شما بگذاریم، صحت مقدمات استنتاج شما سخت مورد تردید بلکه همانطور که بحث شد به طور قطع و یقین باطل و بی اساس است لذا بررسی اصل مدعای شما معنا و مفهوم ندارد اما با این حال من بنا به قولی که در پست قبلی به شما دادم برخواهم گشت و از ابتدای بحث تاکنون خطاهای فکری و مدعیات باطل شما را تک به تک بیان خواهم کرد. البته احتمالا این موضوع به بعد از تعطیلات عید نوروز موکول خواهد شد

 Mr. Sina,

My experience with debating with the enemies of God and religion is that when they feel powerless to reply, they twist the words of their opponent and interpret it differently and then they respond powerfully to their own imaginary construct.

I never said that man is imbecile and all his faculties, like reasoning, consciousness and his morality are worthless. I am not saying that man cannot distinguish right from wrong and only the Prophet of Mercy (PBHU) can teach him these things and if not he may become a cannibal. I never said everything that needs to be known is in the Quran and is already stated by the Prophet (PBUH).

I already answered this point a few months ago in our previous debate. The difference between you and me is in our beliefs the source of man’s unique powers. You say that the blind, deaf, dumb and ignorant nature has produced a seeing, hearing, talking and knowing being.  I say that first of all something imperfect cannot create something perfect and secondly, if we assume that these faculties are endowed by nature, we can no longer call it perfect.  It is only one external and obvious fact that does not deserve to be appreciated and it cannot be considered a value.

There are many natural phenomena around us, some of them quite amazing, but none can force us to bow to them, revere and glorify them. A man that is only a product of nature is one such phenomenon. There is no reason to respect such a man, despite his unique characteristics, if he is not chosen by a knowing, powerful, and wise being.  Yes, it is possible to forge a series of credits based on undesirable traits and regard those traits obligatory through other series of rules and punish the detractors.  However, this is based on credit and it does not bring innate dignity to man. I hope my explanation is clear and understandable.

Let us leave the discussion of things that we can understand and things that must be instructed by the messenger of God (PBUH) for a later time.

In another part you talked about the incompatibility of religion and reason and regarded them as mutually exclusive. I will reply briefly. Reason and religion are complementary. Each correct and rational subject requires two elements. One is its matter of it and the other its self. Reason is the self of the subject and religion is its matter. If there is no religion, what will be the utility of reason for man?  If the ultimate goal is to spend the life between birth and death, animals can do it without the need of reason and with no concerns. In that case isn’t our reason superfluous?

In regards to personal attacks [on you] and your claim that the subject of discussion is the Prophet (PBUH) and not you, I mentioned before my reason. Here I add that when someone has an issue with the wisdom of the majority, and the subject of their problem is not an apparent and scientific reality, first we must evaluate, on one hand the soundness of that person’s intelligence, and on the other, the soundness of his reasoning.   If he passes these tests then we can analyze his claim.  If we assume that you are physically and psychologically healthy the correctness of your reasoning is very dubious. As I said before, it is certainly invalid and unfounded. Therefore, there is no point in responding to your main arguments. Despite that, because I had promised since the beginning of our debate I will point out your mental errors and your invalid claims one by one, although it may be for after the Norooz festival.

Mr. Farzad,

You accused me of using straw man fallacy and disproving things you never said.  You claim you’ve never said that man is imbecile and his conscience, reason and morality amount to nothing and that only your prophet can teach these things to him.  I am afraid that is what your statements boil down to.  You made it very clear that man without divine guidance will go astray to such extent that he may even eat his kind. You asked me to disprove this claim based on the evolution or nature.

You confirmed that claim even in your latest reply when you said if human faculties come from nature they have no value. You believe that in such case man does not have to be revered because he is just an animal, only with a bigger brain.

So what is wrong in accepting that man is another animal with more evolved brain and hightened faculties and that his wisdom, discernment, intelligence, morality and ethics are all products of the nature?  You say human’s noble traits cannot come from nature because nature is devoid of them. Yes they can.  Date is sweet even though the dirt that sustains it is not.  Likewaise humans can acquire intelligence and other faculties from the nature that is devoid of them. Everything exists in nature in potential.

These superior human faculties that you believe are given to us through an external source such as a revelation don’t have a physical or spiritual existence. They are functions of the brain, just as life is the function of living organisms or sound is a function of a musical instrument.  It is meaningless to ask who gave the violin its sound. When the cords of the violin are stroked they make a sound. Sound has no independent existence outside the violin. Likewise, intelligence and other human faculties are functions of the brain.  The difference between us humans and animals is not in substance but in degree.  Our brain is bigger and functions better. That is why we can think about concepts that animals can’t.

A dog can smell millions of different smells that we don’t know even exist. His nose is not different from ours. It is just more powerful.  Likewise, we have the same kind of brain that animals have. Ours is more powerful.

You have made your position very clear. You deny man is naturally endowed with enough intelligence to discern between right and wrong and that is why he needs instructions from Muhammad, without which there is a risk that he may become a savage and eat his kind.   This is in nutshell what you believe. But every time I nail you down you try to backpedal and deny it.   That is okay, you are free to say what you want. Our readers are smart.

You say if human’s nobility is a product of nature then it does not merit any respect and no one should bow to man because he is just an evolved animal.

Why should anyone bow to us? Why are you so obsessed with values and ranks?  This line of reasoning has dire consequences. When you consider yourself superior to someone else, whether animal or human, you belittle and objectify them. You tend to use and abuse them..  That is why humans have used and abused animals for so long.  We thought God created them for us.  But that is not true.  Animals are not created for us to use and abuse.  In the past it was forgivable, but not anymore.  Now we don’t need animals for our survival and we must respect their life and their dignity.  The only thing that sets us apart from animals is our rational mind.  Emotionaly, they are similar to us.

Animals are not the only victims of this twisted reasoning. When you say some people have more value than others, because of their belief or disbelief, you dehumanize the disbelievers, discriminate against them and violate their human rights.  That is why you think it is okay to beat, imprison and kill the disbelievers, particularly those who oppose Islam. They simply have no value for you. Nothing has any value for you unelss it is services Islam.

Islamic thinking is dangerous.  Its philosophy is based on false premises that are harmful to mankind.  Why so much obsession with values? According to this thinking there must be a system of punishment and rewards for the world to make sense.  This is a primitive way of thinking. A more mature way of thinking is to focus on capacities and potentials.  No one is better or worse, we have different potentials.  Take the example of cells in a body. They are different and have different functions, some of those functions are more vital than others, but we don’t discriminate between them. They are all important.

Instead of thinking of values why not think of functions. No one is superior or inferior. Democracies are based on this premise. All men (includes women) are equal.  In Islam men are superior to women, the believers are superior to disbelievers, free men are superior to slaves, etc.  This value system is even translated in monetary terms where the blood money of a Muslim man is twice that of a Muslim woman and at the bottom of the scale is the polytheist (Hindu) woman whose life is worth 33 times less than that of a Muslim man.

You say religion and reason are complementary. This is not true. They are mutually exclusive.  Belief means accepting a postulate without evidence. Reason means never accepting anything without evidence.   How can these two complement each other?  We believe in things that we can’t prove. For example, one may believe in Bigfoot. This is not an illogical belief.  Bigfoot is believed to be a primate.  But because there is no evidence of such creature we can only believe. However, we never say we believe in gorillas, because we know grillas exist.  Another example: If I ask you the time and you don’t have a watch you may guess and say, I believe it is 3 PM.  But if you have a watch you’ll look at it and with certainty will say the hour.  In the first case you believe because you are not sure and in the second case you know because you are sure. Belief is based on speculation and conjecture and knowledge on facts.  Faith and reason don’t complement each other, they exclude each other.

It is simple to prove this point. Take the example of evolution. Evolution is not a theory anymore. It is a scientific fact. But believers in creation cannot accept it.  So how can religion and reason complement each other?  Believers will deny facts to defend their faith. Muhammad believed earth is spread out like a carpet. He also believed that sun and moon are both luminary objects in the sky that revolve around the earth every 24 hours, chasing each other without ever reaching each other.  Reason opposes that beleif.  Muslims defended Muhammad’s belief until finally the evidence became overwhelming and they were forced to reinterpret their scripture and side with reason.  There are countless examples that show reason and religion don’t mix.

Now a person can be religious and rational at the same time. However, in areas that he is more religious he is less rational and vice versa. We humans are good in compartmenting our brain. That is why one can find scientists who are also religious.  However, they don’t use religion and science as complementary elements. They think less as scientists when they put on their religious hat one and less as believers when they think as scientists.  Show me one instance where science and religion complement each other.  There is none.

You ask, without religion what good is reason for. This is an absurd question but you made your reason for asking it clear.  You said if the goal is to live life from birth to death, also animals can do it without the need of reason.  This belies another twisted Islamic thinking that life in this world is worthless and one should live only for the next world. Where is the evidence of the next world?     نه عاقل است که نسیه خرید و نقد بهشت  I am not saying that the next world does not exist. It may exist, just as the Bigfoot may exist.  The point is whether it is wise to give up this life in the hope of a one that may not exist at all?  Believing in the next world gives hope to some people and I don’t oppose such belief.  What is foolish is to throw away this life for something unproven or worse, take the life of someone else for it.

I sometimes  buy lottery tickets.  I know the chance of hitting the jackpot is very slim – one in 14,000,000. But I spend two dollars to dream for a few days of becoming a millionaire.  Ah what would I can do with that much money!  It gives me hope and it is worth the two dollars.  I am buying a dream. But what if I spent all my money buying tickets to increase my chance of winning?  Wouldn’t that be stupid?

That is what you Muslims do. You give up everything in this life for something unproven.  This life is in front of us. Why not make it better for ourselves and for others?  You make this life a hell for everyone else and for yourselves in the hope of a life that may not be true.  This is ulitmate stupidity.

At the end you make the surprising claim that if you can prove I am not mentally sane or rational, you will be exonerated from answering my main questions about Islam.  Only a Muslim can come up with a reasoning as warped as this.  I don’t mind that instead of answering my charges against Islam and Muhammad you attack me because that is basically like throwing the towel and conceding defeat.  Ad hominem is the last weapon of the loser. I believe that is where we are at.  You are finished and you know it. That is why you cling to logical fallacies as your last weapon.  “Go ahead, make my day.” Disgrace yourself as much as you want.

It is funny that you know this too. At the beginning of your latest reply you said when a person sees he is losing he will twist the word of his opponent and attack it.  That is called straw man fallacy and it is very true. So you know that using logical fallacies is a sign of defeat. Of course I did not use straw man fallacy which you accused me of. But you are now saying you want to use ad hominem fallacy.  You basically have confessed to what is obvious to everyone else  that you’ve lost this debate.

Update: 2012/03/14  2:03 AM

You wrote:

“The only thing that sets us apart from animals is our rational mind.”

“We must respect their life and their dignity.”

“Emotionally, they are similar to us.”

Dr.sina

All of my effort was to achieve to this point and prove that you are just an animal that its brain is a bit bigger than other animals. And you with all of your ability tried to hide this reality but at end succumbed and acknowledged completely to this fact. Your loyalty is appreciated and I thank you although thanking of animals is not prevalent.

Now at this point the debate is over.

just one point, maybe “Emotionally”, they are similar to us but “logically” they are not.

Mr. Farzad,

Any person who knows anything about evolution knows that humans are animal.  How did I try to hide this?  I have been saying this all along. This is a scientific fact now proven by DNA, something that did not exist at the time of Darwin.  That is why evolution is no longer called a theory. It is a proven principle. Not only we are apes we actually originated from bacteria, which in all likelihood, fell on this planet about four billion years ago taking a ride inside an ice meteorite.

We come from animal kingdom. Biologically we are no different from other animals.  We are cousins to all the creatures that you see including the earth worms and insects.  Emotionally, we are very similar to our nearest kin, the mamals.  Intellectually we are somewhat different. Everything that sets a man apart from an animal is in the evolution of his brain.  It is this evolution that is responsible for the appearance of human consciousness, morality and ethics. It is thanks to this evolution that man has the ability to grasp the Golden Rule, feel empathy and altruistic love, not just for his kind but also for all the living creatures.  This evolution is in progress. That is why we have so many people turning to veganism.  Veganism is an evolution in human consciousness. Many people are realizing that not only abusing other people is morally and ethically wrong, abusing animals is also morally and ethically wrong.

However, this evolution of human consciousness is not homogeneous. Not all the people are equally evolved morally.  Just as physical environment is responsible for the bodily evolution intellectual environment is responsible for the evolution of our consciousness.

For us to evolve morality, understand fairness and be ethical, we need a right intellectual environment.  You can throw the best seeds on an unfertile ground and they will not grow. Likewise, if people are raised in cultures that are bereft of ethical values, they will not evolve as ethical humans. Their level of consciousness will remain at the same level of animals.

This is what has happened to Muslims.  Thanks to Islamic indoctrination that comes from the mind of a psychopath  Muslims have not evolved morally.  Their level of consciousness is at the same level of the consciousness of animals.  They act beastly.  In Islamic world might is right. Minorities have no right. Oppositions are subdued – just like in jungle.  Muslims are morally less evolved humans. They are sub-humans. This is obvious to anyone who reads the daily news coming from the Muslim world.

In the early morning of March 7, 2010, between 200 and 500 Nigerian Christians, mostly women and children, were butchered in the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat, by Muslims

You say that all you wanted is to prove was that I am an animal.  We humans descend from animals but I am not an animal anymore. I have strived to evolve. I left Islam and became a human.  This may not be your choice, because your religion is also your business and your source of income.  But I hope that other Muslims who read this debate will make that choice.  One cannot be a Muslim and a human.  Islam and humanity are not compatible.  The Muslims who perpetrated the atrocities shown in the above pictures followed the teachings of their prophet.   This is the naked Islam.  Muhammad set the example. He ordered his followers to burn a mosque that he thought was rebelious, with its worshippers inside.

This human evolution must happen at our consciousness. It is not genetic.  Genetically all humans are the same.  But our consciousness is at different stages of evolution.

Many ex-Muslims wrote to me and told me that now that they have left Islam, it is as if a load has been lifted off their shoulders. For the first time they don’t feel guilty loving all mankind, irrespective of their beliefs.  This is what makes us human – to have the ability to love other people irrespective of their belief, race, etc.

My hope is to help all, or at least most Muslims to take that evolutionary step and pass from the animal consciousness into human consciousness. No person who can have so much hatred of mankind in his heart, as Muhammad had and instructed his followers to have, can be truly called an evolved human. I took that evolutionary step consciously when I left Islam and I want to help other Muslims to take it too.