God Talk: Debates and Discussions with Believers

The following is from an email correspondence I had with a Muslim over the video website YouTube. Please excuse the mishaps of spelling and grammar, as this has been copied and pasted directly from the conversations, with no editing.

Women, the Big Bang, and Islam

Muslim: Do you truly believe that you, who have not learned any science of the language of arabic can give a sermon on one word of The Holy Quran?

I have learned arabic i speak it, read it, and write it. how about any questions you have ask me because if you truly seek to enlighten anyone you must first be enlightened. i dont mean ordained like a minster or such. you NEED to do research before you go about offending millions of people, and misleading the rest with this slanderous garbage.

If you would have done a little research you would have found that the ideals of islam referring to women are that they are to be honored. "Paradise lies at the foot of the mother"- 40 Gems. Also just to list a few things you CANNOT do to your wife is hit them, mistreat them, not provide for them of you means with love and care for verily she is a gift entrusted to you by God and he who breaks that will have to answer to Him.

Rebuttal: Why should you be seen as an authority on Islam? Do you not know that there are many Christians who speak Greek, yet do not really understand their bibles all that well? Your ability to speak Arabic means nothing to me. You are far from the only Muslim who has told me all this. Many others have offered to explain passages in the Qur'an, but the fact remains that women are placed below men and husbands are encouraged to scourge disobedient wives in Sura 4:34. A woman's testimony is worth half a man's, according to Sura 2:282, and a woman is compared to a tilth in Sura 2:223. Unless these verses say something completely different in Arabic, you cannot say Islam treats women with equality and respect.

You may think you have evidence that Islam honors women, but providing for and protecting women does not mean you aren't sexist. Christians can point to passages in their bibles that seem pro-woman, yet the rest of their text is full of sexist remarks. That is because the bible and the Qur'an were written at times when misogyny was acceptable and people literally believed women were inferior to men. The Qur'an is just the word of a 7th century nomad, and unfortunately for you, you have no way of disproving this.

Muslim: I feel sad for you because you are so blind that you wouldn't see the truth as it hits you in the face. If you did any research or looked in history you would see, 1500 years ago, before Islam new born girls were buried alive after birth because it was seen as a disgrace to have girls and only after the Ayah was revealed to cease this horrendous act did it stop; furthermore The Holy Quran states that women are equal to man as the teeth of a comb. Women had no rights prior to Islam, the Romans would beat their wives, forced marriages to old men that the bride didn't consent to. Now to address the statement why i should be seen as an authority on True Islam? I am no one but the Almighty has allowed me to be guided by the descendant of the last prophet Muhammad who is an authority. Without a doubt!!! His name is "Shaikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani".

The only punishment a man can give to his wife is to separate the bed, and as a last resort punish with a piece of twig the roundness of your thumb and no longer than the span of your hand that he can only rub from her inner forearm to her wrist.

Lastly The Holy Quran wasn't written by a man, which your lack of respect and knowledge allowed, you to call a nomad. During that time Muslims were persecuted by the pagans and were forced from their homes, robbed of their land and all that belonged to them rightfully, solely because they believed that their is ONE God not many and that Gods messengers came with a message of unity in belief. One God, One message, and all are one family.

Rebuttal: You don't know your own history. You talk about forced marriages to old men as if Muhammad did not marry 6-year old Aisha when he was about 50 years old. You talk of how the Romans beat their wives as if I didn't just point you to Sura 4:34, where Muslims are instructed to beat their wives (and don't think there are no Muslims who take that passage to mean exactly what I tell you). Your description of the twig "rubbing" is ridiculous too. You mean they can BEAT women with a twig as thick as their thumb. That is not a twig either, that is a rod.

Muhammad lived in peace with people of other faiths until he amassed enough power and influence to enforce Islam by the sword. He was attacked only because he oppressed "infidels" and "kuffar" who were mostly minding their own business or did not want him to invade their lands. And by the way, where is this passage in the Qur'an that says men were equal to women as teeth of a comb? Can you cite the sura?

Muslim: Since you believe that my beliefs are grossly incorrect, then what do you believe is [correct]? the earth just came to be or jesus is a man and God at the same time, and he die so you can be societies pain the ass with morals lower than the ground you stand on, lol.

Rebuttal: You're only making an ass of yourself by assuming anyone who sees Islam in less than a positive light must be a Christian. I don't even think Jesus probably existed, at least not the character in the bible. I long ago decided that I would only believe what has good evidence and support. The Qur'an and the bible are both writings of men, who are prone to make mistakes, and archaeology has proven that both have changed over time.

I believe that humanity needs to get past superstitions like Islam and Christianity. Religion is a force for great destruction in our world and our history.

Muslim: You clearly don't read well because i first said "do you believe the earth just came to be" such as the big bang theory. that tells me you're an atheist,so make sure you don't leave this world without believing that there's one creator who created everything! speaking with you is like describing colors to the blind. lol as the Prophet Muhammad Peace and Blessings be upon him said," None of you are a believer until he likes for another what he likes for himself".

I pray for you as well as myself for peace in our hearts and minds, success in this world and the hereafter, and guidance to that which will always shine "truth". have you seen "the arrivals"? its a video which has a lot of interesting info. i figured you might be interested considering like myself your thought is based on logic and proof. tell me what you think. till next time my skeptical friend.

Rebuttal: You clearly don't understand what the big bang theory is if you think it suggests that earth "just came to be". I am an atheist, but I don't believe our universe just happened by chance. The only thing any sane and honest person can say at this point is that we don't know. We can trace our origins back to the millisecond of the big bang, when time and space started to expand, but we really can't say what came before that. Maybe there was a god, maybe there wasn't. I'm content with reserving my judgment until more evidence comes in.

Where did Muhammad say that and what do you think it means? To me it means that Muslims are to diligently fight for the conversion of non-Muslims. I don't find that very respectable.

I've never heard of "The Arrivals". What is it, a Muslim propaganda film?

Muslim: I read a book on the big bang theory and the gist of what it conveyed was that how a popcorn pops from energy or pressure building in the core, that's how the earth supposedly came in to existence. i am not going into what this atom and that atom did.

You can find that in the sayings and doings of the prophet which are called Hadith. of this collection there are forty. the one i mentioned is the first which means treat others as you want be treated including animals and such. that is a series simply for everyone not Muslims it has fact about simply being a good human being ( having nothing to do with whether you choose a religion or way of life or not) like be kind to one another, show respect to your parents. give charity. be an aid to this world.

Rebuttal: Either you read a book written by an uninformed author, you misunderstood what was said, or you're not remembering what you read correctly. The big bang has little to nothing to do with the formation of the earth, first of all. Earth came into existence by gravitational forces acting on gas particles. As the gases cooled, they formed liquids at the center, and those in turn cooled to become solid crust. Over time, meteorites and other objects collided with the earth, reducing its size and honing down its shape and surface. We've seen planets form like this before.

I suspect that you meant to say "universe" instead of earth though. Even still, the analogy you mention only seems to be about how the universe rapidly expanded out of a super-condensed point with all space, matter and time packed into it, known as a singularity. It happened ultra-fast, like a popcorn kernel popping in the microwave. But this doesn't really show that you know anything about the big bang, aside from how quickly it occurred. Like I said, we don't know what came "before" the big bang. It's crazy to even talk about though, because the big bang was the expansion of space and time, so it's like asking what came before there was time. "Before" something implies that time already exists.

Anyway, the point that's most relevant here is that proposing a god as the creator of the universe, or the big bang, helps us understand nothing at all. It's also an appeal to common sense to imply that it's silly to think there was no god/creator behind the universe, and appeals to common sense are problematic, because everyone's common sense is not the same. Moreso, what matters is evidence, not intuition. Intuition can and does mislead people often. When the evidence points to a god having created our universe, you will be justified in holding that belief. Until then, we have to face the fact that we don't fully know.