Bill Maher and Sam Harris arguing with Ben Affleck about Islam

I'm glad you honestly believe that the Quran does not explicitly state any violent or misogynistic verses. The actual problem with Islam is that it preaches objective morality but in reality all it does is flash freeze subjective morality of 600-700AD Middle East. There is NO GOING AROUND the fact that the Quran condones men to capture women in times of war and turn them into sex slaves(" what your right hand possess "). The most credible source of hadith, Bukhari, has Muhammad marrying a 6 year old child. That's only THREE YEARS REMOVED FROM A ****ING INFANT! The most credible source of hadith also explicitly states that apostates should be killed. There ain't no tap dancing around this stuff. Islam has explicit commands that are not compatible with modern secular morality.

 

It's really simple but he doesn't want to state it. The most credible sources of hadith explicitly states that apostates should be killed. Thus why a large portion of Muslims believe in corporal punishment for apostasy.

 

No, the most credible hadith source is from Muhammad al-Bukhari.

Volume 9, Book 83, Number 17:
Narrated 'Abdullah:

Allah's Apostle said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims."

 

I'm not denying that the Qur'an has verses about taking up arms and fighting in times of war and persecution, yeah theres definitely verses in there. What many critics of Islam fail to realize is that the majority of the verses on fighting are situational and within a specific context. Anyone that reads up on the backstory of the verses and the volumes and volumes of interpretations that have been written by scholars old and modern will make that abundantly clear.

Oh yes, the popular "slaying the infidel verse" that has been beaten like a dead horse a gazillion times over. On the surface, and just going by that verse alone you'd think that its confirmation that Islam is intolerant of other religions, wants non-Muslims dead and yadda yadda. But when applied to the background and context: Muhammad was basically doing peaceful missionary work in his town and was VIOLENTLY opposed by the Pagan tribes of the area when he started gaining followers of his message. They grew increasingly hostile and wanted Muhammad and anyone who followed him dead.

That verse was revealed and ones like it was in the context of a hostile environment and warlike situation where whenever Pagans saw Muslims gathered somewhere they attacked and killed them for no other reason than they weren't following the religion of their ancestors. So that verse was meant only for a time of war when the Muslims were backed into a corner. It was a call to pick up arms and fight back, kill or be wiped out. It doesn't apply to any other time, it doesn't mean kill anyone and everyone you see that's not Muslim and be an intolerant prick. Critics and haters of Islam fail to realize that and the Extremist jack-offs fail to realize that.

I'm not going to go on and on dissecting every "violent" verse that critics throw a red flag at but you can go ahead and read this article if you want. http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/2002/08/What-The-Quran-Really-Says-About-Violence.aspx

And you are grossly misinformed about the verse on prisoners of war. Islam didn't start slavery or prisoners of war, these were common in society 1400 plus years ago. Islam gradually abolished slavery. Heck one of the best good deeds a Muslim can do according to Quran and Hadith is to "free a slave." Can't really do that good deed now in 2014,can we? No cause it was only time-based and situational!

The same with prisoners of war. The Qur'an does not state that you can take a woman as a prisoner of war and make them sex slaves. That's a terrible misinterpretation. Yes, it says you can marry woman that become prisoners of war and have intercourse with them but that was an international custom of the time, it didn't start with Islam. And it was more noble to emancipate the prisoners of war, NOT make them slaves, educate and even marry them.

And as for the Prophet Muhammad marrying a 6 year old can of worms that is opened up again and again. Again keeping in mind that this was not today in 2014 but 1400 years ago. MANY MANY generations ago. The age of puberty and sexuality change over time in societies and are different in different parts of the world. Puberty means adulthood. Being 6 or 9 today was not the same as being 6 or 9 in those times. There were young marriages in every society regardless of ethnicity, culture and religion.

People grew up faster, became adults faster. No one at the time of the Prophet objected to him marrying Aisha. The worst enemies of the Prophet and opposers of Islam at the time, that wanted Muhammad assassinated and such made it an issue. You'd think then at the time if they hated Islam and the Prophet so much they would've made a big hubbub about it but they didnt. It wasnt made an issue until the 1900s when western critics of Islam used it to smear Muhammad as a pedophile, Islam sucks and is terrible and horrible and yucky blabbity blabbity blah.

On the apostasy thing. Nowhere. Not one single verse of the Qur'an states that a person who leaves or abandons Islam as their religion is to be put to death. Not one order. The hadiths on killing apostates was a temporary law during a time of warfare again...1400 years ago. The backstory on this was during the early years of Islam when Muslims were weak and few in number the opposers of Islam, whether Jew, Pagan or Christian made strategies to try to weaken or destroy Islam by faux-converting and adopting Islam and joining the movement but then abandoned the faith and ridiculed it to create the impression that Islam was not worth adopting. The Qur'an refers to these folks as "hypocrites" and the Prophet ordered such apostates to be killed because all they were doing were stirring crap up. And the order was so harsh because it was during a time of war: Muhammad and the Muslims vs. Arab Pagans/Jewish Tribes. Apostasy meant treason. IT DOESNT APPLY to today. If a Muslim decides to stop being Muslim, let them be. Any Muslim person that believes it applies to today, or that a law should be in place, it's absolutely ridiculous, it's erroneous and it's flat-out against the religion and wrong.

 

Fixed the above error.

 

The ones who interpret it differently, I question their sources, their reading material and their teachers. The majority of Muslims aren't experts on the Qur'an, they aren't experts on the science of Hadith, they aren't experts on the Arabic language. They didn't go to universities and devote a chunk of their life deeply learning the scriptures and their scholarly interpretations.

I'm none of the above either. So it's a big responsibility for those who are to propagate the religion correctly and accurately and make it easily digestible for the common folk and back up their claims soundly. Like I mentioned in my earlier post about the questionable qualifications of those unqualified, unaccredited religious authorities and figures in overseas Muslim dominant countries who spout garbage and their own custom views and call it Islam being a major problem in spreading erroneous ideas. They are the kind of folks who have sermons bashing 13 year olds for wearing basketball shorts to the Mosque, those kind of folks. Or your going to burn in hell for watching TV. These are the kind of out-of-touch folks with no solid background in Islamic studies. Stubborn, rigid, impractical. Yet somehow they have influence because somehow they were gifted with having the loudest voice in the room.

Lack of proper education creates intolerant radical backward extremists and lack of proper education creates Islamophobes.

 

This is so messed up. First off, because a movement is "new and fragile" means that if any members of that movement have a change in thought they deserve the death penalty? Secondly, Islam proffeses objective morality. The Quran is the perfect book and the prophet is the perfect example of a Muslim. A 6 year old girl is a 6 year old girl (BTW it's a myth that girls in 600AD middle east "grew up faster".) According to objective morality if it was fine back then to marry a 6 year old girl then it is fine then. An omnipotent all knowing diety should have known during the time of the prophet that marrying a 6 year old girl is objectively a **** idea. Convenient how Allah didn't mention this to the prophet.
"Out of context" and "You don't understand the Quran" are the two most used excuses used by apolgists.

 

In a way you are right. There is a structural problem. Islam doesn't have a clergy or an ultimate authority like a Muslim Pope or someone who speaks for the entire religion and can say stuff and everyone falls in line and listens to him like:

"Hey everybody, I'm the Muslim Pope and I declare ISIS and Extremists like them to be ignorant jack-offs, please obliterate them so they won't tarnish our religion further."

"Hey Ya'll, Muslim Pope here with another message. Pakistan, you better cut that crap out getting butthurt over people talking **** about the Prophet and stuff. Muslim citizens of Pakistan, please vote for better members of parliament there or overthrow the government there cause it kinda sucks."

"Muslim Pope here with another quick message. Hey Saudi Arabia. Let the women drive, you guys make a big fuss over nothing with no sources to back you up."

In a way the above would sound awesome, but then the trouble would be determining who would be. The only one with true authority to do so today would be a Prophet but Islam states Muhammad was the last and final prophet and all you need for guidance from now til the end of time is the Qur'an and the Prophet's sayings and examples (Hadith).

So in a way the ones with the closest authority today are scholars who interpret the Qur'an and Hadith for modern times. People disregard or discredit some scholars and follow others and it becomes a bit messy. It's an internal problem the Islam and Muslims have that it's trying to work on. Unity. More unity rather than breaking apart into a bunch of different denominations like Christianity with Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Presbyterians etc. etc.

So reformation is needed in the religion not when it comes to scripture but when it comes to scholarship and who is qualified to interpret laws and principles the religion has and trimming the fat and silencing the fringe who take the scripture and twist it around wrongly for their own agendas.

 

This couldn't be farther from the truth.

"O Prophet, indeed We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have given their due compensation and those your right hand possesses from what Allah has returned to you [of captives] and the daughters of your paternal uncles and the daughters of your paternal aunts and the daughters of your maternal uncles and the daughters of your maternal aunts who emigrated with you and a believing woman if she gives herself to the Prophet [and] if the Prophet wishes to marry her, [this is] only for you, excluding the [other] believers. We certainly know what We have made obligatory upon them concerning their wives and those their right hands possess, [but this is for you] in order that there will be upon you no discomfort. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.". - Quran 33:50.

The Quran makes a clear distinction between married women and " whom your right hand possesses ".

And please stop with the " custom of the time" bull****. The prophet was supposed to be an example for all mankind for the rest if time until the day of judgment.

 

"Hey yall, Muslim pope here!"

My new favorite thing ever.

 

Again, since you missed out what I was saying that killing of apostates was applied to the hypocrites who had devious motives for adopting and pretending to be Muslim then abandoning the religion. They were in the middle of a knock-down drag-out war.

If a Crip joins the Bloods and swears allegiance to them, and he's really doing it to wait for a moment to stab some Bloods in the back or to do undercover intel for the Crips and try to recruit folks to abandon the Bloods and join the Crips, when the leader of the group finds out, wouldn't he order the faker to be killed? That was the situation at that time.

An apostate wasn't someone who was like "Meh, not for me, I'm going back to worshiping statues." it was someone that was looking to wipe out Islam or weaken it. So it was temporarily put in place. It wasn't an end all, be all, apply it ALL THE TIME even in 2014 to scare Americans and everyone not Muslim order.

And back to the age thing. There is plenty of research and anthropological studies done that will prove otherwise that a 6 year old then wasn't a 6 year old now. And they married at 6 and consummated at nine. Aisha has plenty of her own accounts in Hadiths. Why the heck didn't she object or was like, "I think I was too young for marriage"? She didn't have a problem with it. The enemies of Islam at the time didn't bash it to hell that he's marrying a young girl. In old times there were young Kings and Queens that became heirs to thrones like Cleopatra and them.

We can go back and forth on this for centuries but neither one of us will budge so to each his own.

 

If you honestly believe a 6 year old has the cognitive ability to responsibly choose who her fully grown adult mate is you are beyond lost and a sick human.

And can you post evidence that girls back then sexually maturerd eariler. I've heard the contrary at least when it comes to girls in the past 200 years. Evidence points to girls maturing younger with newer generations. Obviously this doesn't really matter because just because a girl is physically capable of sex does not mean she is mentally capable of sex with a adult male.

Again... Stop with the " back then... was acceptable" argument. Islam preaches objective morality and the prophet is supposed to be the perfect example of a Muslim for the rest of time till the day of judgment.

 

Oh well that seems fine then.

 

Yes, you are such an expert on the religion. Read this if you have the time http://www.onislam.net/english/ask-about-islam/society-and-family/social-life/168787-what-is-a-captive-that-your-right-hands-possess.html That should suffice for your gripe.

It's not bull****. He is an example and role model for us to follow in terms of character and manners. But saying that everything the Prophet can be applied to today and everything he didn't do we couldnt do then I couldn't have a cell phone or watch TV or play video games because he didn't do it.

Just because the prophet wore a Thobe in the deserts or Arabia doesn't mean thats the ONLY thing we can wear, that was the garb of the time. Like I said again, a noble deed for a Muslim to do was free a slave. Can we free slaves right now? NO. Slavery is done. When somehow it came to be again then a good deed would be to free a slave and abolish slavery.

But again whatever man. Agree to disagree. I've had my fill of D&D for the day. Argue with Mathloom or Sweet Lou.

 

He is the best example and role model yet he personally kept sex slaves and married a 6 year old girl. I don't give a **** what he wore but when one usually judges "character" marrying a 6 year old is a pretty large factor in judging character.

 

Ya, that last question really exemplifies the state of mind he is coming from. The answer to that bolded question is "Because she was ****ing 6 years old!".
Honestly, had he ever been around a 6 year old child and realized how easy it is to manipulate them? Children are easy to manipulate and if an adult uses that easiness for sexual purposes than that person is obviously lacking in moral character.