Questions, but no answers

Yesterday, in his misleadingly titled Answers to Questions, Sardar addressed the vexed problem of rude atheists. They are motivated not by any notion of rationality - although they mistakenly think they are great rationalists - but by the irrational force of hatred and their own arrogance. They are convinced that their ideology has all the answers and everything else in the universe is utter nonsense.

As is usual with this kind of sweeping statement, he apparently feels no need to back his accusations up with any kind of evidence. For instance, he cites no arrogant statements, and offers no explanation why arguments offered here by atheists deviate from the standards of rational argument.

It's also a strange argument to hear from someone engaged in a detailed analysis of Sura 2 of the Qur'an, the very first line of which reads This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt. How that's more rational than a school of thought which emphasises the role of evidence is a mystery to me. But that's by the by.

It's not the first time he's done this.

But I have another problem with your analysis: I think you assume, as many atheists do, that your own position is rational and objective while those who believe in God are by definition irrational and subjective. Moreover, even if they are "intelligent and educated", there must be something wrong if they believe in nonsensical things as "sacred texts, divine beings, heaven and hell". I think this position is more than slightly arrogant.

Whatever that may be, it clearly isn't an argument. This is because it simply describes a position and then acribes a negative personality trait to it, without trying to refute it in any way. Unless, to the religious mind, ascribing a negative personality trait to an argument is refuting it.

However, given that these people are part of the diverse landscape of human opinion and folly, I think, Heather, we have to learn to endure them!

The Heather in question is Heather Plant, who I wrote about before (Unhappy). They seem resolved to tolerate us, which from a historical perspective comes as a relief.

Tolerate us, but not apparently debate us. Many of us have submitted detailed arguments, which are simply brushed off or ignored. David Pavett's thorough (and entirely courteous) demolition of the blog before last has received no answer. My own experience annoyed me so much it made me start this blog.

The brush off goes like this. You're taking verses out of context (in what context exactly is it OK to murder lewd women or calf worshippers?). This from a man who builds an entire philosophy from the word middle.

You're taking it literally, when it's just a metaphor (again, for what? What is burning the skins off unbelievers a metaphor for? Fairy dust?) .

You can't just focus on the horror, you have to read it in the context of the Qur'an as a whole. Yes, except that every time he tries to establish a context, the verses he himself quotes are chock full of horrors. There are so many horrors that by his own argument horror becomes a crucial part of the context. In other words, you have to read any statements about religious diversity in the context of the judicial murder of the calf worshipping religiously diverse. You have to read the references to God's mercy in the context of the many, many posthumous human bonfires. When you find positive references to the role of women, you have to remember that's not including the lewd ones, who have all been locked up and left to die by now.

And my personal favourite brush off, a direct quote against my argument, If that were so, it would have been refuted by now - not least by great Muslim thinkers and rationalists themselves. The simple fact that they claim things somehow becomes evidence in favour of the claim.

David Pavett, in the comments, is annoyed. This post by Ziauddin Sarder seems to reveal an approach to discussion that is unhelpful, he says, later adding, I sincerely hope that this Qur'an Blog can move away from this sort of ad hominem stuff and try to stick to the real issue which is to consider ways of understanding the Qur'an.

I sympathise with his annoyance, as he's always put his argument in an entirely reasonable way, but personally I don't really care about the ad hominem stuff as such. If you spend time arguing with the religious on the Internet, it often goes that way. He hasn't suggested that we should be killed and our bodies stripped down for transplantable body parts, so as far as I'm concerned he'll always be among our milder critics.

No, what I mind about the ad hominem stuff is that it's offered, on its own, as the argument. He's dismissed us without feeling the need to address our arguments in detail. If you refer back to my original debate with him, a crucial part of my case was that because the claim of perfection is an extraordinary claim, therefore it requires extraordinary evidence, and that every verse has to be defendable in detail, to the point where it cannot be said of any verse that a minor tweak would have made it obviously better. I am still waiting (though not with bated breath) for a proper response to that. All I got was the usual stuff about metaphor, and some remarks (also ad hominem) about my failure to engage with the Qur'an properly.

Since then, I've taken great pleasure in analysing his remarks about the Qur'an in as detailed a way as I can possibly make the time for. When they've really annoyed you, don't get personal, get analytical.

Not that I've entirely avoided the ad hominem myself. I've always done it positively, though, trying to differentiate between the positive qualities of the man himself and the mediaeval horrors of the book he defends. I also back such remarks up with detailed argument, rather than throwing them out in the world on their own.

And there's another important difference. I'm talking about one man, he's talking about an entire group. I would never generalise in that way about Muslims.

Still, we should take pleasure in small mercies. At least he seems to have given up on metaphors borrowed from chaos theory and quantum physics. He may not argue properly on his own turf, but at least he's stopped mangling other people's.