I agree with you entirely, and understand your frustrations. I have long given up trying to reason with dogmatic people - be they religious or atheists.
Agreed.
If it helps I can share my outlook on these type of discussions. I simply separate the Muslim masses into those who want to argue from "faith" and those that want to argue from "reason". Generally - and this is a huge generalisation - those that argue from faith will not have much, if any, knowledge of philosophy. With these people it is no point trying to reason, much less discuss the cosmological/teleological arguments. They simply have faith, and want to share/impose that faith upon you. They are usually incredibly sincere in wanting to share this faith with you. After all, they are concerned about your soul, and want to save you from hellfire. I take that as a compliment, humble myself to them, and simply ask them to pray that Allah also grants me hidayat, so I too can enjoy the level of faith they have.
Hmm... I have found that this kind of faith is a sign of credulity on the part of the believer, why? Because it says nothing about the truth of the claim. Simply having faith in certain assumptions doesn't make it valid. It is ones willingness to believe and not any so-called gift from God. The reason I say this is because if it is left to faith, then on what basis does the claim of Islam satnd out? After all people have faith in accepting Christ as their saviour.
An example is one of my sister-in-law who recently came from Pakistan. She asked about my atheism but didn't argue with me. She asked me about my reasons and agreed with them! However, she said that she still had faith and logic and reasoning didn't move her one bit. This is the type of justification that really perplexes me.
I also find this group of people less concerned about whether you believe or not. I have many members of my family who simply don't try to justify their faith through reason. Most of them have not even heard of the classic medieval arguments. Once i've told them about my apostacy, they take it on the chin and leave me alone.
On the other hand, those Muslims that try and "reason" are a little more difficult. Although most may not be able to differentiate between cosmo/teleo/ontological, they have sufficient knowledge to loosely base their reasoning around one of the three (usually teleological). I ask the Muslim who is trying to reason with me a few basic questions to gain some reference of background knowledge, and then comment on the fact that some truly great classical Muslim Philosophers argued amongst each other about the validity of each of these schools of thought. After quoting Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sinna, Al Ghazali, Al Kindi etc - I ask them to help me understand each of their philosophies - because I am struggling. This way, if the Muslim is knowledgeable, I would rather they teach me how the classical scholars disagreed within themselves. My final comment is always along the lines of ---well if Al Ghazali differed from Ibn Rushd, what hope is there for me to understand....Pray for me, and I will go read some more.
Now this is a funny bunch. They are the ones who won't get off your case. They have to try and prove to you that the Quran is the revealed word of God. You see the underlying assumption? They forget the first hurdle because they think it's self-evident. What they should be doing is demonstrating the existence of God, then showing that the Quran is his word, which most of them fail to do. Some form of the teleological argument is thrown at you and maybe the cosmological argument. I don't think many muslims are aware of the ontological argument. A lot of them try to reason why the old "scientific miracles" in the Quran theory. But even after you have debunked those theories and shown them that those ideas were around long before the Quran pinched them, they still try to find a way to justify their belief. It's at this point that I think there is something else at play other than the reasoning they are inflicting upon you. I have often heard these muslims use the argument from authority logical fallacy as well, where they will say that if people like Al-Ghazali or Ibn Rushd believed then who the heck am I to dispute? I have found this a weak argument and have pointed it out many times to them.
Ultimately it really depends upon what you are trying to gain. I do not think that faith is about logic. People could cling onto faith for numerous reasons - fear, hope, culture, upbringing, comfort, friendship etc. Those Muslims that try and use logic do so from the baseline that Islam is correct, now let me see which logical strain fits my model. It is ultimately futile to try and discuss faith or logic with those that are dogmatic in belief.
Yeah, I came to the realisation that faith really is a leap. That leap must be made first, before one reads into aqeeda and the mantiq that is used to build it.
Topic: How many of you were religious, practicing muslims before your apostasy?