Comment

Comment by Murtad Fitri on July 24, 2010 at 2:29pm

LOL. No worries. I just thought it would be a cool pseudonym to use. Very loud and proud. :)

Comment by H.Q. on July 24, 2010 at 1:31pm

aww.thanks murtad! i'll just have to call you that .

Comment by Prog Rock Girl on July 23, 2010 at 6:59pm

I can see why atheists are critical of her advocating Christianity. Of course that was going to piss people off. Otherwise the criticisms you have made of Ali are also true of many other famous atheists. In fact they remind me of theist arguments about atheists having faith in science, etc. The question of "what makes her more rational?" is one that can be asked equally of any person and it sounds like "who are we to say who is right?" relativism. If she's only a teaspoon more rational than people who kill over cartoons and execute rape victims, what would you say is a tablespoon? If you really think Muslims of today are rational, have fun with that. So a person is inspired by people from the 17th century. That doesn't mean they have to accept the prejudices that existed at the time (racial, sexist, etc) and there are many examples of people who are admired even we have moved beyond the values from that person's time period. Also it is not conclusively decided that those responsible for Auschwitz were atheists--they did not endorse state atheism and while Christians argue they were atheists, atheists argue they were Christian. Both give different quotes from Hitler which lead me to believe he was just an opportunist and said whatever would keep him in power.

Comment by Murtad Fitri on July 23, 2010 at 5:51pm

Welcome to the group, Hind Abdulla. :-)

Comment by Chaudhury Skeptical Sextus on July 1, 2010 at 12:32am

@prog rock girl
What about Hirsi Ali is faith-driven?
1. Her faith in self-evident Reason. This has been an obsession and delusion that had its high-moment in the Enlightenment. She draws on 17th and 18th century notions of self-evident reason to attack Islam as being irrational (and full of hate, which astonishingly she believes is the reason muslims should become christian and 'love'--she's obviously ignoring the history of enmity between Enlightenment thinkers and Christians)
2. from what pre-supposition-less knowledge is she assuming that she can both draw conclusions that make her rational and muslim world irrational? there's no such thing. if she got beyond the debates from two to three hundred years ago, the idea might have dawned on her. so she only seems to be a teaspoon more rational than the muslims she believes are all medieval; meaning she's in the 17th century, while the muslims are anywhere from the 6th to the 12th.
3. her faith-based premises are evident in the unusual judgement that a world of muslims turned christian is a better world. i'm not sure how that is evident, can she tell me? are muslims killers? but what about the west made up of its christian culture in addition to its opposing faction of the atheistic materialists who were responsible for auschwitz?
4. but her family and fellow somalis claim islam as a justification for many of the horrible things that happened to her? i would say let's go to her favorite enlightenment thinkers who might attribute it to her 'race' and not her 'semitic' religion. both seem unacceptable not to mention unpleasant explanations. but hirsi ali is still dreaming in the 17th century to fight what she believes is a muslim world caught in the 6th century.
5. but the enlightenment is about tolerance and reason...yes it is, which is why i am secular. but there are degrees according to the quality of its use. her Reason is one of low quality.

Comment by david hartley on June 30, 2010 at 4:53pm

@ Sufian Ahmed We too were ruled by a Bible written in a Latin language that even Italy where it came from no longer spoke so very few people understood it. Same again with translation, the Christian Bible was supposedly written in Hebrew translated to Armaic then to Greek then to Latin then to whatever your own country's language was.

Comment by david hartley on June 30, 2010 at 4:09pm

@Mohamed Zaki the thing to understand about imagary and the Imperialistic nature of all three Middle Eastern faiths. One thing none of them can do is give a definitive image otherwise their objective of getting people to ascribe to an alien belief would be hampered from the outset.
There is no definitive image of this Jesus tosser they all talk about because he was from th Middle East so they had to Westernise the image.
One of the cornerstones of any church is the eradication of self image and free will. If you eradicate someones free will all well and good can be easy to do after all 'God is on the side of the big battallions'. However if you destroy someones self image you need something to replace it with hence no image of the 'personality' they wish to replace yours with.
Another aspect with my rough assed Western way is that Mo was a 55 year old guy with four front teeth missing, flaming orange hair and beard from henna with pale inner thighs because his boyfriends tell us so, not only married to an infant but wearing her dresses. Would you want your image reproduced. You'll have to check the Haddiths i got that from an Egyptian ex-muslim but have'nt found an English translation yet.
All derogatory remarkls aside it's about self-image.

Comment by Prog Rock Girl on June 30, 2010 at 2:20pm

I don't see what about Ali is faith-based.

Comment by Murtad Fitri on June 30, 2010 at 1:39pm

@Chaudhury Skeptical Sextus:
I second what you say. If you are have not yet joined the forum at the Council of Ex-Muslims, you might want to check it out. There are lots of very reasonable ex-Muslims there.

Comment by Chaudhury Skeptical Sextus on June 30, 2010 at 12:24pm

here's the message on pankaj mishra's review of hirsi ali's latest book...since I don't believe that I can paste the link, I would ask people to read Mishra's review of her book "Nomad" in the New Yorker. Mishra is very sophisticated unlike Ali. Hirsi Ali may satisfy the anger of the irreligious, but she definitely does not satisfy the intellectual. I can sympathize with her pain, but I cannot ignore her role as a tool for right wing groups in the US. She needs to perhaps realize that her opposition to Islam maybe the opposing PYSCHOLOGICAL DISPOSITION to that of faith in some god. At least many of us are honest enough to understand that and not assume that a different set of premises that are faith-based are that much better than a religious person's. The test is in the action, in the experience, in the concrete results, not in assertion.

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