"Objective" povs

[Wasp]

• 1st point: If you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by Roman soldiers, then you and I have an "irreconcilable difference".
• 2nd point: If you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected, then you and I have a second "irreconcilable difference".

Next portion of my second objection:

• "what the good news was that Jesus of Nazareth shared, first with the lost sheep of Israel, and then with Gentiles"
• In another thread, you wrote: "The Qur'an confirms the gospel - the revelation given to Jesus, not the words of other people."
  
• I say: Either the Qur'an confirms the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth as is recorded in the Christian Scripture or the Qur'an doesn't. If you say that the Qur'an does, well and good. If you say that the Qur'an doesn't; then you and I have a third "irreconcilable difference" between us.

Of course it doesn't.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Of course it doesn't.

Thanks for the confirmation that the Qur'an does NOT confirm the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth as is recorded in Christian Scripture.
That's "irreconcilable difference" #3.

Now, to my last objection:

• Do you have or can you point to a collection of Jewish and Christian Scriptures that you consider authoritative and that predates the Qur'an?

 

[Wasp]

Thanks for the confirmation that the Qur'an does NOT confirm the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth as is recorded in Christian Scripture.
That's "irreconcilable difference" #3.

Now, to my last objection:

• Do you have or can you point to a collection of Jewish and Christian Scriptures that you consider authoritative and that predates the Qur'an?

No.

 

[Terry Sampson]

Glad to hear it.

As painful as this exchange has been, it has confirmed for me that neither you, nor the Qur'an, nor Islam has anything to teach me about Jesus of Nazareth, about anything in the Jewish or Christian Scriptures, or about my religious belief system (e.g. faith). And, ... you and I have three irreconcilable differences between us.

 

[Dawnofhope]

I don't know how often it happens regarding other religions, but when non-Muslims study (or, more correctly speaking, usually just feed their hatred) about Islam they almost always cite books written by non-Muslims and most often westerners.

These writers may be Christian or they may be atheists, but why would anyone do that and expect to "find the truth"? Why would they cite those books to Muslims who have actually been to a Muslim country and who have studied the Qur'an and who know Arabic, and expect their citation is somehow valuable because it's supposedly objective?

Is there a reason to imagine it to be objective?

Have you noticed this phenomenon in discussions about other religions?

It’s an interesting OP for all sorts of reasons.

An observation that I take from being on RF for a few years which is exemplified by this thread: Despite having access to good quality English translations of the Quran which we would both agree is the inerrant Word of God, the truth within this outstanding work is NOT well presented to those who aren’t Muslims.

 

[danieldemol]

I don't think there'd be a "pro-Islamic bias" if a Muslim tells the truth about Islam. I wouldn't call a priest biased if he spoke about Christianity just because I disagree with him. "biased" to me, as used usually in media this way, means something unreasonable and deceptive. Is a mother protecting her child from violence biased? Is a patient accepting treatment for cancer biased?

And if a non-Muslim tells the truth about Islam, or a non Christian tells the truth about Christianity they are just as unbiased

 

[Wasp]

And if a non-Muslim tells the truth about Islam, or a non Christian tells the truth about Christianity they are just as unbiased

You lost me again.

 

[danieldemol]

You lost me again.

My point is the criteria for objectivity is whether they are truthful or not which is independent of their religion

 

[Wasp]

My point is the criteria for objectivity is whether they are truthful or not which is independent of their religion

It goes that way in science but religions are different. While it may be ideal for a sceptic it just doesn't happen - moreover, it can't be proven. So even if you say someone's objective pov is correct that would in practice be your subjective pov.

 

[blü 2]

I don't know how often it happens regarding other religions, but when non-Muslims study (or, more correctly speaking, usually just feed their hatred) about Islam they almost always cite books written by non-Muslims and most often westerners.

Several points in reply:

─ I haven't known many Muslims closely over the years, but the few I've met have been warm and decent people.

─ From an outsider's point of view I find the Qur'an effectively as unreadable as any book of shorter and longer fragments. I note from historians that it has problems with its authenticity, much as the NT has.

─ I don't think there's such a thing as 'The Truth'. But in all human relations I think decency is the place to start, and I have no reason to think Muslims are less able at it than anyone else.

─ The present wars and military posturings between Sunni and Shi'a bring no more credit to Islam than the wars in history between Catholic and Protestant bring to Christianity, from the Thirty Years war through to Northern Ireland

─ 911 was an extremely bad idea,

─ The consequent invasion of Iraq was another extremely bad idea, not improved by Bush's remark that Jesus had told him it was a good one.

─ The encouragement of terrorist actions by militant Muslims is going to remain a difficulty in the lives of moderate Muslims as long as they go on. It isn't fair, but unfortunately it's not hard to explain.

─ If anyone has a workable solution to the West / Oil / Saudi question, I'm listening.

 

[danieldemol]

It goes that way in science but religions are different. While it may be ideal for a sceptic it just doesn't happen - moreover, it can't be proven. So even if you say someone's objective pov is correct that would in practice be your subjective pov.

Likewise if we are talking about a Muslim’s perspective of Islam in practice it will just be their subjective point of view

 

[Heyo]

Hi Wasp,

I'm not sure what you mean by "books written by non-Muslims and most often westerners. [...] supposedly objective"? "Supposedly objective" may hint at scientific studies. Do you mean scientific studies? Do you want Islam excluded from scientific study?

 

[Wasp]

Likewise if we are talking about a Muslim’s perspective of Islam in practice it will just be their subjective point of view

To you, yes.

 

[Wasp]

Hi Wasp,

I'm not sure what you mean by "books written by non-Muslims and most often westerners. [...] supposedly objective"? "Supposedly objective" may hint at scientific studies. Do you mean scientific studies? Do you want Islam excluded from scientific study?

I don't mean scientific studies. I didn't refer to anything in particular, but perhaps I was thinking about historical and political books. The only way to make good money out of such books in the west is probably to write like an Islamophobe.

 

[Heyo]

I don't consider travelogues, historical or modern, or political commentary objective or even supposedly objective.
Otoh, apologists (of all religions, not only Islam) like to bury facts that are not convenient. That often results in attacks on science because it's science that is the messenger of facts.

 

[Wasp]

I don't consider travelogues, historical or modern, or political commentary objective or even supposedly objective.
Otoh, apologists (of all religions, not only Islam) like to bury facts that are not convenient. That often results in attacks on science because it's science that is the messenger of facts.

So far I have never had to attack or deny science while studying Islam with complete faith in it.

 

[GreenpeaceRECo-operative]

Yes, ultimately the accusations of "bias" rest on some kind of assumptions and standards. The point someone made about pro-Islamic bias in contrast to perceived anti-Islamic bias, and pro-Christian or anti-Christian bias all needs to be evaluated according to criteria. In fact, trying to get "objective" is what that means, and actually itself reflects the scientifically influenced discourse of University-based scholarship. Does that have an origin? Modern secular ideology likes to hold that it is unbiased, or seeking to be, in University secularism. The UN, for its part, "secular" in most respects, has that funny document, the UN Universal Dec of Human Rights. Well, that´s funny. It turns out that forty plus Islamic countries, their governmental leadership, has opted to refuse to sign on. They call it too "Christian." They have formed their own 1990 agreement, the Cairo Dec of Islamic HR based on Sharia Law.

University-based "objectivity" is associated with that UN document. Uh oh. Guess what that corresponds to? You guessed it. The Age of Enlightenment wasn´t an atheist phenomenon, and secularism wasn´t an atheistic strategy. It is part of Christian modernization. John Locke can be held up as a representative thinker, and he wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity. Yeah. Christianity is more complex than most people recognize. And "secularism" has been distorted. So expect conflict and confusion while people throw terms around without getting clear on their own underlying assumptions. It is all waiting to be discovered in the University-based resources of scholarship, however....

 

[GreenpeaceRECo-operative]

I don't consider travelogues, historical or modern, or political commentary objective or even supposedly objective.
Otoh, apologists (of all religions, not only Islam) like to bury facts that are not convenient. That often results in attacks on science because it's science that is the messenger of facts.

Hey, Heyo! I know you already! Well, "facts" are all well and good until we get to the apologetics. You try to pin that on religions, but of course Christianity is the big practitioner of that. Now, "science" apologists emerge because what they are really promoting is not Science´s true form of Scientific Philosophy. That operates within certain limits. Getting into the Social Sciences, Humanities, etc puts Science in its larger proper perspective, and as we get into Religion, we can also find that Science´s influence is supplementary and relative, not deterministic and unmodified from the hard sciences. That´s because as a subdomain of Philosophy, Science is not the Absolute Truth, its "facts" are limited in significance, and other forms of "facts" are important to grasp through the other epistemologies of the Social Sciences, etc, especially in the interdisciplinary Philosophy of Comparative Religious Studies. That´s all an introduction to the bigger picture. Science, meanwhile, taken as a supremacist epistemology instead of University-based academics, is being misused in ye ole Scientism.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

I don't know how often it happens regarding other religions, but when non-Muslims study (or, more correctly speaking, usually just feed their hatred) about Islam they almost always cite books written by non-Muslims and most often westerners.

These writers may be Christian or they may be atheists, but why would anyone do that and expect to "find the truth"? Why would they cite those books to Muslims who have actually been to a Muslim country and who have studied the Qur'an and who know Arabic, and expect their citation is somehow valuable because it's supposedly objective?

Is there a reason to imagine it to be objective?

Have you noticed this phenomenon in discussions about other religions?

This sounds like a rant, especially with the purpley bold italic words. Is it a rant?

Actually, there is already ample criticism for Islam within its own book, and these so-called non-Muslim books often are just a collection of these same things. In fact, here's a Chick Tract where they extensively quote the Quran, and we'll see how much of these check out.

https://www.chick.com/images/tracts/1058/1058_06.gif

So basically, you have system that no only allows but requires as duty to beat their wife.

https://www.chick.com/images/tracts/1058/1058_10.gif

And you have a deity who is arbitrary and capricious, who takes pleasure in deceiving people and guides others (apparently at a whim). And yet who holds Muslims accountable for their actions (the second line). In other words, you're getting promised paradise for wrongdoing by an insane deity who enjoys leading you down the wrong path. Then you get punished while Allah apparently laughs.

https://www.chick.com/images/tracts/1058/1058_12.gif

You also get punished with death if you try to leave Islam, and they command the striking off of fingertips of anyone deemed an enemy of Islam. So basically, anyone despite being converted to Islam who gets accused as not being a "true" believer gets treated exactly as these unbelievers.

https://www.chick.com/images/tracts/1058/1058_14.gif

Allah supposedly could have saved everyone but instead decided to fill Hell with unbelievers. Nice guy. And supposedly the Quran is the infallible word of Allah, but Allah himself is allowed to abrograte and change his mind. It claims not to force people to believe, but tries to fight and kill if they don't.

All of this is in the Quran.

I imagine no atheist or Muslims has ever used sources other than the Bible to criticize the Bible.

The Quran also says that the Quran should be judged by the Gospel, so yes, we can actually use the Bible to judge the Quran. When we do, we find that there are some... issues.

Galatians 1:8

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!

 

[GreenpeaceRECo-operative]

The Quran also says that the Quran should be judged by the Gospel, so yes, we can actually use the Bible to judge the Quran. When we do, we find that there are some... issues.

Galatians 1:8

Interesting point, that the Quran/Koran should be judged by the Gospel in Sura 5:46. Uh oh. Fortunately, the Gospel teaches not judgment, but mercy and forgiveness through repentance. And modernized Christianity goes a long way into all kinds of options for that. Of course, reining in the abuses of profiteering corporate executives misusing the fruits of Christianity´s good points is on that agenda in considering some of the essential points around, say, unsustainable lifestyles and sustainability.

Still, even with things as they are, some Muslims have already begun preaching a kinder, gentler Islam. Not without risk to themselves. Overall, I believe most of the ones I have read about have visited the US. And on it goes.