Why react so strongly to Dr. Daniel C. Peterson?

[_Pumplehoober]

Kevin, do you think citing another source, other than your plagiarism of the anti-Islamic website, somehow changes things? You never fail to surprise me. You are trying to treat a symptom while ignoring the disease.

Dr. Peterson rightly saw the heart of the matter, which is your intractable prejudice and bigotry. You are a poor scholar, which the plagiarism shows, but this was not the problem with your citations. The problem was that you knew nothing about them, knew nothing about the history and context, knew nothing about the time and period which they referenced, knew really nothing of worth about the subject, but that was irrelevant to your goal. Your shoddy scholarship is just a symptom of the disease. Addressing the symptom does nothing other than point out that there was an abysmal lack of scholarship initially. The disease is your bigotry. Swapping to legitimate sources will not help you, since your aim has never been to understand or learn, but just reinforce prejudice.

What is so sad is what you have sacrificed for your prejudices. You have left your faith, become the antithesis of what you once were, simply because Mormons would not accept your opinions and beliefs. How much are you willing to sacrifice? Friends? Faith? Family?

In the end, your problem is not Mormons, Mormon critics, or anything of the sort, but the fact that once you started showing your true colors (racism and prejudice) Mormons actually turned on you. Oddly enough Mormon apologetics is somewhat well educated about Islamic scholarship, and they rejected you. Luckily there were Mormon critics who were more than willing to lick your wounds and stroke your ego, so you naturally drifted that way. It is rather sad, but oddly enough I predicted this many months ago.

[_truth dancer]

I have repeatedly supported those in my aquaintance who are Muslim. I am not an expert in Islam. I am not invested in an argument between DCP and Kevin. I have disagreed with Kevin on various issues regarding Islam.

So... Tradd/Pumplehoober... could you please answer the question: Was it Muhammad's general policy to allow his underlings to rape women before their husbands' own eyes, or wasn't it? Y/N

Thank-you,

~dancer~

[_Pumplehoober]

I have repeatedly supported those in my aquaintance who are Muslim. I am not an expert in Islam. I am not invested in an argument between DCP and Kevin. I have disagreed with Kevin on various issues regarding Islam.

So... Tradd/Pumplehoober... could you please answer the question: Was it Muhammad's general policy to allow his underlings to rape women before their husbands' own eyes, or wasn't it? Y/N

Thank-you,

~dancer~

I would recommend the following...

http://www.submission.org/women/rape.html

[_dartagnan]

Kevin, do you think citing another source, other than your plagiarism of the anti-Islamic website, somehow changes things?

It proves the point I initially intended to make. The information I provided was accurate. You cannot challenge its accuracy so you have to whine about irrelevancies such as where I immediately obtained it.

You never fail to surprise me. You are trying to treat a symptom while ignoring the disease.

I’m not trying to treat anything, and you have never demonstrated a disease exists (aside from your infatuation with me over the years).

Dr. Peterson rightly saw the heart of the matter, which is your intractable prejudice and bigotry.

Tradd, I have been in contact with Dan on numerous occasions since this incident and he has never expressed anything remotely similar to what you’re now declaring to be what he “saw.”

You are a poor scholar, which the plagiarism shows, but this was not the problem with your citations.

Thanks for calling me a scholar, but I never claimed to be one. I claim to present truth, which is, unfortunately for you, something you can never refute.

The problem was that you knew nothing about them, knew nothing about the history and context, knew nothing about the time and period which they referenced, knew really nothing of worth about the subject, but that was irrelevant to your goal.

There is definitely some truth to this since this was posted during the advent of my delving interest into things Islamic. However, my ability as a novice to cause an Islamic scholar to abandon the discussion, really says more about Dan’s goal and intentions than it does mine. Again, I don’t think anyone here is under the delusion that Dan left because of anything else beside his inability to reconcile the evidence with his claims. This is a problem many Islam scholars have today, you included.

Your shoddy scholarship is just a symptom of the disease.

Ah yes, the disease is bigotry and education is the cure right? Then how do you explain the fact that Pipes (Ph.D Harvard) Kramer (Ph.D Princeton) and Cook (Ph.D University of Chicago) agree with me and disagree with Peterson on specific claims he has made regarding Islam? You once offered a cop-out statement like “credentialed bigots,” but this doesn’t explain your theory that education cures bigotry. You think that since you are educated, and you believe a certain way, then everyone else who is educated must also believe the same way; otherwise they’re bad scholars, bigots or both.

There is nothing scholarly about this elitist attitude. You sound very much like John Gee in his latest email challenge on the MAD board.

Addressing the symptom does nothing other than point out that there was an abysmal lack of scholarship initially.

Again, we were chatting on an informal forum and there was no indication I was in the presence of scholars. Neither you nor Free Thinker provided anything remotely resembling “scholarship.” I simply supplied what he requested.

Swapping to legitimate sources will not help you, since your aim has never been to understand or learn, but just reinforce prejudice.

I never “swapped” anything since the source was and always has been Muslim hadith. Dan knows this, but like other BYU apologists for Islam, he is placed in an awkward position where he has to denounce hadith as folklore on one hand, while on the other use certain hadith to paint a rosy picture of Muhammad.

You have left your faith, become the antithesis of what you once were, simply because Mormons would not accept your opinions and beliefs. How much are you willing to sacrifice? Friends? Faith? Family?

Very dramatic Tradd, but apparently your year long absence from my online activity is making you look like a bad scholar who speaks of that which he does not know. The fact is I have not left my faith, and I have not lost one single friend over this fiasco. There are a couple of apologists online who express resentment towards me but I have never met them nor have I ever considered them friends. The group I would communicate with via email or telephone five years ago, are still friends in every sense of the term.

Another important fact is that I was “rejected” by an apologetic web forum which is run by a couple of people who have had clashed with me in the past. They do not represent the Church. There is plenty of history there which you know nothing about. The fact is, and as everyone here already knows, my problems with the FAIR moderating team have to do with my rejection of Book of Abraham apologetics. I was banned in August of last year during a discussion with Brian Hauglid. The topic was not Islam. In fact, I think it had been many months since we had even brought up anything relating to Islam.

In the end, your problem is not Mormons, Mormon critics, or anything of the sort, but the fact that once you started showing your true colors (racism and prejudice)

If I were a racist then that would be a problem, I agree. Unfortunately for you, I am smart enough to know Islam is not a race. To refer to me as a racist is just the usual Tradd protocol that makes sense only in your own mind. Dan Peterson has never called me a racist. I can’t think of anyone with a meaningful voice who has. And which race do I supposedly “hate,” anyway?

Mormons actually turned on you.

True. Some have but not all, and no one of consequence as far as I’m concerned. All you have to do is wander over to my forum to see some of the FAIR posters who also wandered over to support me on the Islam stuff. In fact, the majority of the FAIR posters actually agree with me on the Islam stuff.

Oddly enough Mormon apologetics is somewhat well educated about Islamic scholarship, and they rejected you

Uh, excuse me, but I rejected them. I rejected Toronto and Hauglid on a number of points before they ever knew who I was or what I was up to.

Luckily there were Mormon critics who were more than willing to lick your wounds and stroke your ego, so you naturally drifted that way. It is rather sad, but oddly enough I predicted this many months ago.

You predicted that I had already converted to Catholicism.

In any event, I’m not worried about your version of recent history because you’re just now popping in after being absent for more than a year. We’re now in a forum where most people have kept tabs on my online activity the past while, and can see that you’re in error. The fact is I have been a FAIR outcast only because of my rejection of Book of Abraham apologetics and I embarrassed their scholars on too many occasions – not about Islam. The occasional debate over Islamic topics was not what led to me being banned. That was what led them to ban you actually, since you annoyed the hell out of the moderators with your incessant emails complaining about bigotry and racism on every Islam related thread.

Incidentally, Dan finds your presence and method just as distasteful as he does mine. Or so he says anyway… Wait a minute, does that mean you’ve got a disease and need a cure? Think about it. The same people who rejected me are the same who rejected you for, well, for being you. I was rejected for “switching teams” (their words) which makes their rejection of me every bit my decision.

Now Truth Dancer asked you a question. Where is the “scholarship” in your response? Hey, I’m no scholar of Islam, so what is your excuse for tossing her a silly website? Were you trying to be ironical? This is a notoriously apologetic website that plays on the ignorance of the masses. In this case, let’s reject sharia and hope nobody notices we’re talking about a completely different religion from traditional Islam. Islamic law mandates the heinous prejudices against women in Muslim countries – the website calls these “man-made” laws without admitting it is Islamic law. The website you linked to focuses strictly on what the Quran says, citing partial verses with ellipses; as if Islam can be summed up in a few partial verses from one book. According to one UCLA scholar of Islam, Islam and sharia law cannot be divorced from one another. Without Islamic law you’d have something entirely different, which is essentially what the apologists unwittingly argue for. Maybe he also needs more education to cure his bigotry towards Muslims? Oh wait, he is a Muslim. Drat! Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Those pesky facts tend to ruin a hyped up apologetic.

If you want to start your own "Quran-only" version of Islam, then great for you. But let's at least be honest and disclose the fact that what you're describing is not traditional Islam. Go ahead and toss out the Sunnah... who needs it anyway, right?

What most people should know is that without the ahadith, generally speaking, the Quran has no context. This is not a statement based in prejudice, it is a statement based in fact. Even Dan Peterson agreed with this in his debate with Robert Spencer recently.

[_truth dancer]

Hi Tradd...

I totally admit right up front I am not a scholar of Islam... I have discussed Islam with several Muslims however and at minimum have a sense of their lives and beliefs. The information I read on the website does not completely match some of what Muslim women have shared with me. How anyone can state Islam is a religion of equality is beyond me.

The website you provided reminds me of some LDS apologists... :-)

Something like... "no, we don't teach that.... we don't believe in polygamy.... we don't know much about that.... women have equality... that doctrine was really just an opinion/practice/tradition/belief....it doesn't mean what you think it means.... you just do not understand...etc. etc. etc."

Which is actually my issue with Kevin regarding Islam... seems LDS apologists use the same tactics as do other religions in removing/revising/reinterpreting their less-than-wonderful teachings.

But this is beside the point...

So, back to the question... yes or no?

:-)

~dancer~

[_dartagnan]

TD, the Quran is allusive, which often gives us hints, bits and pieces, fragments, suggestions but not the full context. For this reason it is typically very hard to piece together a coherent narrative when reading it alone. It isn’t a narrative text like the Bible so one shouldn't expect to be able to interpret it accordingly. The Quran is a monologue; Allah’s words to Muhammad. And he refers to various incidents to Muhammad’s life, and so it’s rather like if you walked up to two people you don’t know, and they’re talking about incidents in which you were not involved, and if they don’t bother to fill it in for you then you have no clear understanding of what on earth they are talking about.

The hadiths are stories about what Muhammad said, did, didn’t do etc. They contain a lot of biographical information and are used by Muslims to fill in the context of the Quran for proper interpretation.

So the problem with the Quran-only group is that they have no authority by which to interpret the text. They’re essentially interpreting a context free book which, to make matters even worse, is not organized in chronological order. And with no context, one can pretty much make the book say whatever they want to say.

I just get a kick out of it when they insist the radical Muslims misinterpret the Quran because they take militant verses "out of context." The Quran itself generally has no context.

[_dartagnan]

For the sake of argument let’s say Tradd is correct.

Perhaps I am just a man diseased with prejudice, hate, bigotry, (fill in your favorite hitleresque attribute), etc, whose only hope for a cure is education.

Both Dan Peterson and Tradd have had that opportunity to educate me, yet they deny me treatment each and every time. (Well, that isn’t entirely correct, since, as I noted, Dan often engages the subject with me and then backs down only when I present him with an unfeasible complication; let’s ignore this for a moment and entertain Tradd’s disease/cure scenario)

Please doctors, help me! Why do you keep denying me treatment of this horrible disease? I have approached the two of you with my concerns on too many occasions to list, yet you deny me a cure every single time. Even worse, my audience is in danger of buying into my hate and bigotry; diseases spread, after all. You could put a stop to this epidemic if you would just educate us; you now have several people asking questions. Please, answer our concerns, and do so with “scholarship,” not assertions.

Backing away every time you come across a tough question is just too frequent an occurrence for you to keep excusing yourselves from your duties because you sense “spiritual” discontent in my soul. Well, that is the whole point isn’t it? It should be taken for granted that I am stupid, emotionally whack, and spiritually dead. I need help! I need a cure and only you can provide. According to your own logic, you’re a couple of doctors mocking a dying man while he is suffering in agony on an operating table. Treatment via education would require that someone with the proper “knowledge” respond to questions with valid answers; otherwise you are part of the problem, not a cure.

[_Doctor Steuss]

[...]
Please doctors, help me! Why do you keep denying me treatment of this horrible disease? [...]

Your old policy lapsed. Unfortunately, your new policy does not cover pre-existing conditions.