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 Topic: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi

 (Read 3638 times)
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  • Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     OP - January 26, 2012, 01:13 AM

    Ok so the first debate is up, lemme know your thoughts guys!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Jz3s8eyqs

    Peace,

    Farhan

    youtube.com/user/orthodox786
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #1 - January 26, 2012, 04:33 AM

    Interesting, just watched a few minutes and will watch the rest tomorrow.

    One of the top comments on YouTube: "1:51:00 -1:52:00 ...i seriously lost briancells listening to Qureshi. i summarise his arguement. once upon a time i was an ahmadi then i became muslims i studied psychology and wanted to became a great muslim debater but the muslims didnt take me seriously. so now ive joined the apostate bandwagon" --  Roll Eyes
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #2 - January 26, 2012, 04:35 AM

    Very interesting video !

    Here are some of my thoughts, obviously I didn't put down every single one of them and I obviously directed them more towards Abdullah's comments than Farhan's.

    0:41:53 - 0:41: "Everlasting is not infinite. Hell is not infinite, it is finite.. but it is everlasting!  Something different!"   Huh? Huh? Huh?
    0:44:40 "Why should he not punish those who associate partners with him forever" I say, "why should he not" *facepalm*
    0:45:50 How the heck can you reject God "without end" if you only have a finite time on earth. Huh?
    0:46:30- 0:46:40 Complete nonsense. Typical "Quran says so, so it is true. Nevermind if it doesn't make sense, it's in the Quran!!"
    0:47:00 - 0:47:20  Kuffar want to burn in hell for millions of years, to be able to drink one glass of wine on earth, therefore eternal torture is fair? This is comical
    0:47:28 "I have demonstrated rationally with the support of Islamic sources" Cheesy
    0:47:49 Complete copout. "Hell is just because Allah said so" finmad
    1:04:30 That's exactly the kind of advice religious people need to follow.
    1:05:30 1:06:50 - Torture is digusting, unless God does it... Come on! finmad
    1:08:00 Allah is a huge baby. If you insult him he is very justified in torturing you eternally finmad Cheesy
    1:08:45 "Why would burning off someone's skin and replacing it to start the process over be cruel?" *facepalm*
    1:10:00 "It's bad to make your earthly experience enjoyable" but it's good to want to get to heaven for eternal enjoyment? whistling2
    1:10:33  "Within the framework of Islam it isn't cruel" And that is the whole problem of religion, denial and rejection of the real world.
    1:12:58 "It's worse to burn someone at the stake for murder and rape than it is for God to torture someone eternally for not believing in him" Roll Eyes

    1:41:50 "If you get punished Islamically on earth, you don't get punished in the afterlife" Is this true? I've never heard anything of the short.
    1:57:50 "Being judged by intention rather than action doesn't cause any problems" Come on, Hitler only wanted what was good for his German people, his intentions were good, but horribly misguided and deluded.
    1:49:20 "You only think hell is bad because of your caring for human beings" I like how he presents that as something bad! wacko


    Near the end, was it uncomfortable for you to publicly clearly declare yourself an apostate in a room full of Muslims?

    Overall I must say good job. Having never been religious I always fail to understand how a good person who is fully against suffering and torture rationalizes and approves God doing the WORST torture, I just don't get the mental and emotional gymnastics people intentionally put themselves through.
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #3 - January 26, 2012, 05:22 AM

    An excellent analysis Walshark, unfortunately in real time its hard to deal with every single comment he made, but you did a wonderful breakdown on some of his points .

    I agree with you that it is an act of desperation on the part of the Muslim to try and squeeze in some justification for Hell. As far as saying I'm an apostate in front of Muslims, meh ... I didn't feel uncomfortable because I really believed in everything I was saying and am quite passionate about it.

    TMP, I know haters are so typical ...

    youtube.com/user/orthodox786
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #4 - January 26, 2012, 01:48 PM

    I think, at least from an outsider's perspective, that no matter how much sense you can make, no matter how horrible hell seems and unjustified it seems, no matter all these rational, mental, emotional, logical reasons to not believe in hell.. if you still believe that 1) there is a God 2) Allah is that God 3) the Quran is his perfect word..  what puts you in the position to question Allah's plan and will?
    Most of what he said, IMO, can basically be wrapped up as "God exists, God knows best, therefore we can't truly determine if hell is bad"
    It would seem that unless there also exists something that has cast doubt over either God/Allah being God/the Quran, they refuse to question Allah's plan and will; it can best be summarized by one thing he said along the lines of " No matter what Allah does, he is justified in doing it. He is the creator and we are the creation."
    I think it was Hassan who said something like "If our human intellect is insufficient to judge Allah by, then by what other standard are we supposed to?"

    This just seems to be what I'm noticing, maybe there's more to it.


  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #5 - January 26, 2012, 01:55 PM

    Hey Farhan, just had a brief skim through it and looks great. Good work you are doing. Will try and take a longer look at it later.

    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #6 - January 26, 2012, 03:15 PM

    Muslims do have a point. Hell does not seem like a bad place if you are the one being saved from it.

    Food for thought.

    Grouchy  what is the  good reason for picking up an innocent girl  as Osama  bin Laden?    

  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #7 - January 26, 2012, 03:25 PM


    Its a good point in the same way that saying a torture chamber in which you'll be skinned alive doesn't seem like that bad a place, as long as you're being saved from it.

    Its a sadistic psychological method of control and hatefulness.


    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #8 - January 26, 2012, 04:19 PM

    Its a good point in the same way that saying a torture chamber in which you'll be skinned alive doesn't seem like that bad a place, as long as you're being saved from it.

    Its a sadistic psychological method of control and hatefulness.


    Muslims do have a point. Hell does not seem like a bad place if you are the one being saved from it.


    ^+1
    This never gets less depressing.

  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #9 - January 26, 2012, 05:18 PM

    most of the debate seemed to revolve around psychology, if we have free will or not. even if we agreed that we do have total free will over our actions abdullah made the point where somone goes to hell for abusing the wrights of Allah of not being worshiped like a person goes to jail for murdering somone but Allah does not need our worship...somone goes to jail for rape etc because they have a negative impact on the other person whilst it does not make a differance to Allah if we worship him or not so why send people to hellfire?
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #10 - January 26, 2012, 05:26 PM

    i mean would you burn somones skin off for being un-grateful lol?
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #11 - January 26, 2012, 06:27 PM

    Very interesting! I'm amazed that this might be the first debate on hell in the Islamic context.

    One of the most interesting things for me was what you said on consequential vs retribution punishment. I thought you had a strong argument with the stuff about conditioning, confirmation bias, where we are born etc.  I was amazed at the incredibly weak arguments Abdullah tried to address that with. First saying that good deeds are weighed much more than sins. The latter would benefit everybody, and has nothing to do with the former which is about unequal disadvantages between people. Even if he'd had a verse or hadith saying that Allah will take account of disadvantages, someone either has faith or they don't when it comes to determining whether they go to hell according to Islam, so that doesn't help.

    The 2nd time he addressed it at the end of his rebuttal, he said he became Muslim despite his disadvantage. That did not address the point at all. Later in the Q&A he said Allah would give isolated people leeway about specifically Islamic beliefs, but they must accept one god. Even accepting one god can be disadvantaged (raised Hindu etc.). He was never able to really address this issue.

    It was bizarre when he said we should acknowledge Allah's infinite characteristics, so not doing so is an infinite sin that somehow merits an infinitely lasting punishment. He also fails to explain how this would be a moral issue, deserving of retribution rather than a morally neutral mistake. Also we cannot comprehend infinite things, so how can a finite mind acknowledge something that is meaningless to it? He talks about the role of intention in justice, so how are we intending harm if we don't believe in the existance of the one harmed (Allah), and moreover, how can Allah be harmed or upset by our nonbelief? Retribution without even an intended victim makes no sense to me.

    Abdullah's one interesting argument was at the end of his 20 mins that hell should go on forever rather than destroying its inhabitants eventually because they will remain unrepentant forever. It seems far from intuitive that it is just to torture someone forever (even just for retribution) for an unrepented sin that in itself harmed no other party (rejection of Allah). Why not anihilate them so they can't carry on their non-repentance and incur more punishment?

    Rebuttals & discussion rounds
    I thought your point about where does pride etc. come from was good. In the discussion, I think the cruelty part could have gone better, but no doubt it is hard in real time. Maybe would have been better to focus more on the creative array of punishments. That makes it seem like it is for hatred and his enjoyment (or rather Muhammad's hatred of his doubters and need to scare people). Another interesting question is whether all physical punishment is cruel/wrong.

    I thought Abdullah was at his strongest in the debate when questioning the consensus on and truth of determinism and interpretation of experiments with respect to freewill. I noticed he ignored what you said about even a veto of a subconcious urge itself coming from the subconcious. He didn't seem to have any evidence for saying the subconcious was just for calculating things that are nothing to do with morality, to leave room for a dualistic mind. He totally straw-manned determinism with the genes stuff, ignoring the causal effects of environment.

    Right at the end of the Q&A it was great that you pointed out that determinism was implied by Abdullah's Qur'an quote saying those in hell would do the same again if sent back to earth. So he creates people he knows will go to hell. The Quran has loads of stuff showing determinism, even places where Allah makes people sin. How could we be expected to genuinely worship such a sadist?

    Anyway, well done on a good and interesting debate!
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #12 - January 26, 2012, 06:34 PM

    Given your background in psychology, I'd also be interested in your thoughts on the following (you said you didn't have time to cover intention at the end of the debate).

    It seems like the whole basis for perfectly just punishments (similarly rewards) is based on simplistic human abstractions about the clarity of thought. It seems to break down when you look in detail at how we think. For example, if I lie about someone because I dislike them, it seems to me there are at least 3 or 4 sources of vagueness. My negative intention about the other person is vague - is it definable the degree of ill-will I felt towards them? Next, the intended impact of my action on the other person cannot be perfectly modelled by my brain - it is a vague imagining of the present and resulting situation. Also, the degree to which I am misrepresenting the other person in my lie is vague as I cannot perfectly model the truth of the situation, nor the misrepresentation I wish to create. All of these things would need to be precisely defined, quantified on some sort of sin scale, and somehow converted into a fixed amount of retribution if there's such a possibility as perfect retribution.

    I know determinism undermines the entire idea of retribution, but I'm more interested in your thoughts about the vagueness issues, regardless of whether or not determinism is true.
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #13 - January 26, 2012, 10:51 PM

    "I don't see any problem with God's foreknowledge and your free-will"... wtf?!, by definition, God's omniscience precludes free-will, all you're left with is an illusion of free-will from our perspective, but from God's perspective, your fate was already sealed before your birth, our ignorance of our future doesn't equal free-will.  God either has to be crazy or a sadist to punish you for something that was beyond your control.

    The authors of the Quran didn't really think this one through properly, on the one hand it claims that people are responsible for their own actions, on the other, it claims that nothing happens without the will of Allah, and that Allah is all-knowing, so you either accept that God creates people just to burn them, and hence crazy, or, there is a contradiction in the Quran.
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #14 - January 27, 2012, 12:02 AM

    "I don't see any problem with God's foreknowledge and your free-will"... wtf?!, by definition, God's omniscience precludes free-will, all you're left with is an illusion of free-will from our perspective, but from God's perspective, your fate was already sealed before your birth, our ignorance of our future doesn't equal free-will.  God either has to be crazy or a sadist to punish you for something that was beyond your control.

    The authors of the Quran didn't really think this one through properly, on the one hand it claims that people are responsible for their own actions, on the other, it claims that nothing happens without the will of Allah, and that Allah is all-knowing, so you either accept that God creates people just to burn them, and hence crazy, or, there is a contradiction in the Quran.


    I too, find the issue of "free will" in a religious context to be one of the most difficult ones to wrap my head around. I do not think there is enough (good) material out there exposing there exposing the contradictions of the doctrine of al qadr. There is a lot of stuff floating around, but most is rather simplistic and only addressing the issue superficially. The apologists are easily able to respond to those simplistic attacks by giving the impression that since God doesn't physically come down and beat our asses into submitting to whatever his will may be, that we are therefore not "trapped" into anything and have the full power of free will/choice. Anyone who doesn't listen carefully also get caught up in bad analogies.
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #15 - January 29, 2012, 02:27 PM

    this was an excellent debate topic. i am sure it got many people thinking and that shaitan whispered many evil thoughts in their ears, causing them to have doubts. farhan you did a wonderful job. but unfortunately it seems the people you were debating with were victims of extreme confirmation bias.
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #16 - January 30, 2012, 11:14 AM

    I too, find the issue of "free will" in a religious context to be one of the most difficult ones to wrap my head around. I do not think there is enough (good) material out there exposing there exposing the contradictions of the doctrine of al qadr. There is a lot of stuff floating around, but most is rather simplistic and only addressing the issue superficially. The apologists are easily able to respond to those simplistic attacks by giving the impression that since God doesn't physically come down and beat our asses into submitting to whatever his will may be, that we are therefore not "trapped" into anything and have the full power of free will/choice. Anyone who doesn't listen carefully also get caught up in bad analogies.


    God did not come down to kick some ass but he did destroy many people and caused suffering if u read the Quran so yes he has kicked ass.

    Plus he doesn't need to come down and kick ass, if u acknowledge that the Quran is the word of God and that God does exist with those very specific characteristics the Quran describes it then it means that god is serious about it and taking into account that he has the potential of doing that and he is also able of doing it.

  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #17 - January 30, 2012, 12:48 PM

    An excellent analysis Walshark, unfortunately in real time its hard to deal with every single comment he made, but you did a wonderful breakdown on some of his points .

    I agree with you that it is an act of desperation on the part of the Muslim to try and squeeze in some justification for Hell. As far as saying I'm an apostate in front of Muslims, meh ... I didn't feel uncomfortable because I really believed in everything I was saying and am quite passionate about it.

    TMP, I know haters are so typical ...

    This is  a very serious  problem in a live debate specially with Muslim guys  dear Farhan., what would be useful is  to convert that debate in to text  and present in a written form to discuss., In fact the subject you are discussing is very little to do with Islam but more to do with general Psychosocial behavior of human species..   You are Lucky,  Abdullah al-Andalusi is  nice guy and the group of audience are nice guys ., you can not try that with guys like Zakir naik of India..

    I wonder whether any of those voice recolonization Programs could convert some of these debates and put them in to text form..

    with best wishes
    yeezevee

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #18 - February 18, 2012, 10:50 AM

    All props to you Farhan, this was an awesome debate and I admire and respect your bravery for being able to debate such a controversial topic infront of a Muslim majority audience.

    "Nobody who lived through the '50s thought the '60s could've existed. So there's always hope."-Tuli Kupferberg

    What apple stores are like.....

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8QmZWv-eBI
  • Re: Is Hell Just Debate. Farhan Qureshi vs. Abdullah al-Andalusi
     Reply #19 - February 18, 2012, 12:01 PM

    you should have asked abdullah if he thought the idea of him going to hell according to christian dogmas was just ? or whether things are only just when they are in islamic dogmas  Roll Eyes ?

    he would have obviously said NO, therefore debunking himself and exposing him for having his cake and eating it too.

    btw what is abdullahs academic background?
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