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The Four Horseman hold forth! Dawkins, Hitchen et al.

Gmarthews said:
And the original quote does NOT imply that these slaves are released, in fact it is suggested that these slave girls are used in the future, implying no such release!
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mmm... hints to self-declared scholar:
a) Once married to a Muslim, slave girl is no longer slave, needs to be emancipated before marriage (among others: to be able to give her free conscent to the marriage).
b) Read Al Qur'an. The whole of it.

salaam.
 
Gmarthews said:
Because you refuse to see the video which this thread is about!
Click to expand...

I cannot imagine anything more dull.

A three page thread with people using bullshit opinions to get it wrong over and over again comes pretty close though.
 
Dillinger4 said:
I don't see Dawkins dealing with any of the difficult questions. Just creating the worst possible picture of Religion as possible.
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Have you ever read his work?. If you just rely on soundbites from the media that's what you'll get. I haven't seen him dodge anything.
 
Aldebaran said:
It was most certainly good when put in its correct context.
Do you think non Muslims at the time had any incentive to set free their slaves, or buy slaves to set them free?

salaam.
Click to expand...

Anything can be good in the right context though.

Are you saying that at that time Muslims were the only nice people?

I reckon Muslims didn't just pop down to the market and buy a load of slaves and send them on their way, I'd guess that they took them home for some hard work.

Would you buy small children that worked in sweat-shops, get 'em to work around the house for a few years and then set them free? I'm not sure how cool I am with that.

Anyway, wasn't this thread meant to be about how atheists should shut up and not mention religion?
 
sleaterkinney said:
Have you ever read his work?. If you just rely on soundbites from the media that's what you'll get. I haven't seen him dodge anything.
Click to expand...

I' most certain that would I have a debate with that person, he would leave the room crying of misery.

salaam.
 
Yu_Gi_Oh said:
Anything can be good in the right context though.
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You are clearly an optimist but sadly, that is not true.

Are you saying that at that time Muslims were the only nice people?
Click to expand...

I'm saying that for an Arab used to have slaves the teachings of Islam on that issue where quite a shocking novelty.

I reckon Muslims didn't just pop down to the market and buy a load of slaves and send them on their way, I'd guess that they took them home for some hard work.
Click to expand...

Slaves needed to be paid or otherwise rewarded for their services and treated as family.

Would you buy small children that worked in sweat-shops, get 'em to work around the house for a few years and then set them free? I'm not sure how cool I am with that.
Click to expand...

I guess you don't know it so here is a novelty: slavery is abolished since quite a while. (not to mention the human traffic that goes on to this day, everwhere, involving children, women and men and various forms of abuse).

salaam.
 
Aldebaran said:
Mostly because I do know what I talk about.

salaam.
Click to expand...

You can wriggle all you like, but that quote from the Koran quite evidently is OK with the idea of owning slaves.

Now you might say that marrying slaves you own is a good thing, but that still means that you had to own them before you marry them, and the implication is that you won't marry them all.

Don't get me wrong, the Koran is as full of shit as the Bible or the Torah. All of them justify violence and have despicable ideas from the modern point of view. You don't feel that it is necessary to distance yourself from the literal interpretation, and have been trying to explain that the text doesn't really mean what it says, etc. Shame!

Like all the religious texts it is open to interpretation, and it should be evident that personal interpretation should be supported or else what would stop literalists turning around and legalising slavery based on sharia law!!???
 
Sorry to interrupt, but has anybody seen this video? Is there anything interesting in it or is it just the same stuff I've heard elsewhere?
 
Depends on what you've heard elsewhere! If that was amazingly great then it might be more difficult to top than if you have dedicated your life to the audio tapes of John Major, then your lucks in!!!

Just watched it in full, I thought it was interesting, bringing up a good range of topics. Hitchens commanded a bit whilst his consumption of whisky and cigs was admirable...
 
Yu_Gi_Oh said:
Fundamentalist? In a 'Kill them all!' kind of way? In a suicide bombing way? In a way that damns groups of people to a life of torment?

Or in a much more measured way that isn't really fundamentalist at all?
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Fundamentalist as in "I'm right, you're wrong, I'll brook no argument".

Enough of a definition for you?
 
I watched this and found it very interesting. I don't agree with everything they say, nor do I see it as being facilitative of any real debate, since they mostly agree with each other. But it was still good viewing.

Hitchens reflections that he essentially needs religious people to argue with and define himself and refine his own arguments (in a dialectical sense) was unexpected. Dawkins et al didn't really seem to get what he was getting at though, the need for the other and other-ness to define the self, and the psychological necessity of this.
 
frogwoman said:
lol sounds fun.

"religion is crap"
"I agree"
"I agree"
"I agree...especially those muslims"
"you are absolutely right"
"so are you!"
"I agree with all of you"
"how are we gonna fill up three hours? Oh, I know...i dont believe in god."
"nor do i!"
"Wow, thats amazing! I dont either!"
"nor do i!"

yeah sounds like something nobody should miss ..!!
Click to expand...
lol
 
Gmarthews said:
You can wriggle all you like, but that quote from the Koran quite evidently is OK with the idea of owning slaves.
Click to expand...

Correction: In AQ you can read that slavery exists and encouragements to Muslims to set them free.

Now you might say that marrying slaves you own is a good thing, but that still means that you had to own them before you marry them, and the implication is that you won't marry them all.
Click to expand...

Sorry... Can't follow.
a) I want to marry a woman.
b) She wants to marry me.
c) Implies that I do not want to marry her??

Don't get me wrong, the Koran is as full of shit as the Bible or the Torah. All of them justify violence and have despicable ideas from the modern point of view. You don't feel that it is necessary to distance yourself from the literal interpretation, and have been trying to explain that the text doesn't really mean what it says, etc. Shame!
Click to expand...

Sure. (Whatever the child wants in his imagination shall be given to keep him calm and the parents happy.)

Like all the religious texts it is open to interpretation, and it should be evident that personal interpretation should be supported or else what would stop literalists turning around and legalising slavery based on sharia
law!!???
Click to expand...

You couldn't bring yourself to admit you have no clue about Islam, about Al Qur'an and now you act as if you are a scholar in Shari'a Law.
Amazing progress. Keep up the good work.

salaam.
 
sleaterkinney said:
And you accuse him of being ego-centric.
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There is a world of difference between being ego-centric and having self-confidence.
It isn't difficult to knock out adversors who have no clue, are too full of themselves to even consider the idea they have no clue and on top of that think they know it all better than I do.
A recipe for a funny game, would it not be so boring.

salaam.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Fundamentalist as in "I'm right, you're wrong, I'll brook no argument".
Click to expand...

So all those books and videos simply repeat "there is no god" for hundreds of pages and don't contain any actual arguments?

The fact that Dawkins' opponents on this thread either:
a) use pure ad-hominems
b) use completely wrong claims about his arguments and expertise
or
c) very, very poor attempts at religious-poetic mystification (albedaran)

shows that he's got a very good argument that is very, very hard to argue against on its own, logical, level.
 
gurrier said:
So all those books and videos simply repeat "there is no god" for hundreds of pages and don't contain any actual arguments?

The fact that Dawkins' opponents on this thread either:
a) use pure ad-hominems
b) use completely wrong claims about his arguments and expertise
or
c) very, very poor attempts at religious-poetic mystification (albedaran)

shows that he's got a very good argument that is very, very hard to argue against on its own, logical, level.
Click to expand...

What a load of bullshit tbh.

The arguments are cheap and cynical, and they do not convince me. There are other people arguing for atheism who have a point. Dawkins, nor any of the other professional atheists on that video, have not.
 
Dillinger4 said:
What a load of bullshit tbh.

The arguments are cheap and cynical, and they do not convince me. There are other people arguing for atheism who have a point. Dawkins, nor any of the other professional atheists on that video, have not.
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Well you're obviously somebody who knows how to build a rigorous evidence-based argument. Your argument above is constructed from two dismissive adjectives, your own intellect as a universal yardstick for measuring the merit of arguments and a reference to some unspecified others with unspecified arguments (who I will wager do not exist).

Perhaps you might advance your case by outlining which others have a point and what their point is?
 
Wow, a sky pixie worshipper vs a Randist.

It's like watching 2 people hitting each other with soft rubber hammers in a dark room...
 
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