grateful,

I went cycling. Then I went out for dinner with friends. I came back. I logged on to see whether grateful was able to substantiate his claim that I wrote “...most Muslims abuse children”.

And what do I find?

Nothing!

De nada!

Zilch!

grateful,

I think you owe me ANOTHER APOLOGY – this time for your false accusation.

LOL

Dear Steven...(and...amazingly...Pericles) you blokes have done a wonderful job of trying to deal with poor Grateful.

At least Pericles (to my shock, wonder and amazement) has attempted to understand something of those 'ancient obscure holy books'

//What this does tell us however is that these random writings in the Qur'an that you have selected for us are, and can only be, pure metaphor. They were never intended to be taken literally - which you would need to do, if you were to give them any Einsteinian attributes.//(Pericles)

Pericles.. on the particular passages Grateful cites..I tend to agree.
But for legitimate hermeneutic reasons...not mere desire for them to be a certain way from my (Christian)theological perspective.

The Quran also says in surah 18:86 the following:

"Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water":

This is where you will find Grateful ducking and weaving, squirming and fidgiting..... because if this is NOT "Metaphore" it is hopelessly silly.

But for Steven's sake..on the issue of "Muslims are child abusers" as accused by Grateful...no...most are not. The Quran however does permit what we would call 'child abuse'.
Surah 65:4 permits a prebupescent child to be 'married, consummated and divorced" So..it is correct to say "Islam" permits.....etc.

You can also observe just how much the human mind can be irrationally effected by conversion to Islam.....Grateful is a perfect example. Sad but true.

Hence..while your energy and efforts are laudable, they are also pretty much a waste of your limited time on this earth..the damage has been done and only divine intervention will save Grateful.

Still waiting grateful.

Where did I write “...most Muslims abuse children”?

Now it becomes clearer.

>>I am a social researcher so perhaps that explains why i apply the same methods to my faith.<<

But that still doesn't make it excusable.

>>You're so focused on judging others intention you cannot sit back and simply say, OK wheres the argument, is it rational?, is there evidence?<<

That is where you and I will never agree. To me, if your intention is to highlight this or that aspect of your religion, the question itself is automatically freighted with deceit. For the simple reason that it is based not upon a normal, abstract, unbiased sense of enquiry, but on the desire to proselytise. As proof of this, the history here shows that any and every attempt to inject rational argument has always been met with a retreat, by you, into rationale-by-dogma and answers-by-faith.

>>A scientic approach would be to rely on reason and evidence. Resorting to mockery and derision and passing judgement over people's intention is a sign of weakness and failure<<

A scientific approach does not permit the asking of questions that are so loaded with presuppositions that they cannot stand on their own two feet.

And it is only in your imagination that I resort to mockery and derision. What you get from me is what you deserve - the unmasking of your intentions, in order to provide context to what are otherwise pointless, and meaningless, questions.

It looks once again as though you are in apology deficit, too.

All very sad, really.

Uh oh. Boaz is shocked.

>>Pericles (to my shock, wonder and amazement) has attempted to understand something of those 'ancient obscure holy books'<<

Claiming that this-is-metaphor while that-is-gospel-true has been one of the tricks you have played on this forum for many, many years. It should therefore come as absolutely no surprise to you whatsoever that I point out this argumentation-flaw consistently, regardless of which particular evangelist is performing the pea-and-thimble antics.

But what is this I hear?

>>You can also observe just how much the human mind can be irrationally effected by conversion to Islam.....Grateful is a perfect example. Sad but true<<

It is the discordant croaking of the Christian-evangelist pot calling the Islamic-convert kettle a subtle shade of jet.

Behind the mental barriers that your religion has built for you, you are completely unable to see how completely the exact same irrationality guides your own posts.

Sad.

But true.

ALGOREisRICH

It should not surprise you that Pericles knows a thing or two about ancients texts. It turns out that atheists and agnostics outscore Christians when it comes to bible knowledge.

See:

http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/spirited_atheist/2010/10/atheists_know_more_about_religion_than_the_religious.html

>>Why is anyone surprised at the findings of a new survey of American religious knowledge, released last week by the Pew Forum, which demonstrate that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than the religious do? The only religious groups comparable to atheists in general religious knowledge are Jews and Mormons. Atheists even know more about Christianity than American Christians.

I find this totally predictable, because most atheists today (this may not be true a generation from now) were raised in some religious tradition and found it wanting. What do you do when you are unsatisfied with the religious answers you are getting? You start reading about religion. You start investigating other religions. And eventually, if you read enough, you may find yourself agreeing with Thomas Paine, who declared in The Age of Reason (1793), "My own mind is my own church." But, by the time you are through reading a lot of those supposedly sacred books that contradict one another while proclaiming that they possess absolute truth, you tend to have learned a lot about various religious beliefs.

Atheists and agnostics, like Jews, are much more highly educated than the general American public, and the survey found a strong correlation between level of education and religious knowledge (among the religious as well as the nonreligious). >>

See also:

http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx

I have little doubt that atheists and agnostics know more about the koran and ahadith than most Muslims.