Wonder whatever happened to him?
Maybe he will be back. Maybe he got what he needed.
Haha, appreciate the concern. I'm alive, been spending a fair bit of time lurking the forum and acquainting myself with things that have already been discussed before I carry on posting. To give you an update (a bit haphazard and disorganised, sorry):
- Been looking at the rebuttals to apologist's put forward by CEMB's Arabic speakers (Hassan, Toona, HappyMurhad, etc.) which also point out a lot of the flaws and arguments against the Qur'an (not interested in the hadiths as I just can't take them seriously).
- Now entirely convinced that the "scientific miracles" craze is a joke. Why isn't Harun Yahya being seriously rebuked for this sort of thing? Doesn't he realise what he is doing?
- A lot of said 'miracles' have actually backfired (the 'ostrich egg' being one example, off the top of my head).
- Human evolution aside, I can't objectively prove that the Qur'an directly clashes with science since I don't speak Arabic and the apologists always seem to have a way of wiggling out of it using semantics, but there are some big, big question marks over the claims of those who argue that this isn't the case and that the whole thing is free of contradiction.
- Very skeptical of apologists now (answering-islam included, though I never really bothered looking at their pro-Christianity claims), which is probably a bad thing as it's made it harder to separate the wheat from the chaff (though I use the term 'chaff' lightly)
- Realised that the "Miracle of the Pharoah" is a joke.
- Answering-islam and wikiislam are poor resources and the former are apologists themselves, but answering-christianity are pants on head delusional. They have pages devoted to refuting the crucifixion (an historic event) and stringing together 9/11 conspiracy theories against the Joos.
- Still looking into the other alleged "historical miracles" and "prophecies" (not that convinced by either at this stage. The amount of semantic acrobatics and and dissemination of disinformation apologists seem to put themselves through to string these together is baffling)
- Starting to suspect Mo genuinely preached about a flat earth.
- No mention of dinosaurs anywhere in the Qur'an. Not really an argument against it, but c'mon...
- No real mention of the world outside of Arabia or the known cosmos of the time either.
- Lots of other things in the Quran that don't add up (Gog and Magog, lots of things that seem confined to Arabia, Muhammad and the privileges bestowed upon him, 'animals are Muslims', borrowing from Biblical mythology, Alexander the Great being Muslim, to name but a few)
- The only explanation apologists seem to have for human evolution is the 'can't know nuffin'' theory of knowledge approach and relentless strawman attacks.
- Why do so many Muslims online seem intent on spreading disinformation and censoring anyone who disagrees with them? This is completely at odds with the behaviour of Muslims I know and interact with on a personal basis (majority of whom are modest, friendly and seem to fit in well with the rest of society)
- I still have some nagging doubts with regards to the "linguistic miracles" (such as the
palindromes) and some other strange stuff (the whole "
number 19" craze), but these are things that I have to take on at face value since I don't speak Arabic and can't assess them myself. Furthermore, these things have secular explanations, but there's always this nagging "what if..." at the back of mind.
- I'd like to see a thorough rebuttal of Hamza Tzortzis' arguments regarding the linguistic/inimitability side of things, but I appreciate this would be a lot harder than dealing with his embryology paper as it's in the realm of subjectivity (I've seen some threads parodying these claims though which raised some good points)
I don't really feel comfortable throwing my opinion around on the forum so much as I have never been a Muslim, and my knowledge of Arabic, Islamic history, philosophy, etc. really isn't up to scratch. I really appreciate the work you guys have all put into making this site what it is, and so I don't want to dilute the content with shitposting and speaking decisively on matters I don't know much about. I also appreciate this place is a shelter for ex-Muslims who (have) struggle(d) with the consequences of apostasy, as well as a resource for debunking apologists, and therefore rambling about things in the main forum that are beyond my subjective understanding isn't really my place. But if I ever have doubts or stumble upon something that I think merits discussion, then CEMB will be the first to know
Topic: Non-Muslim in need of guidance