Debating a Leftist Who Refuses to Acknowledge the Obvious
A leftist responded to my comments here. Due to comment section limitations I’m responding in this posting.
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Your invokation [sic] of the war powers granted the president during war suggests that the War on Terror is, in fact, and actual war, fought in an acutal [sic] place against actual people. The war on terror is only an idea.
The war on Muslim terrorists is very real as is self-evident to most of humanity. Simply examine the many declarations of war they have made against us.
The enemy we’re dealing with is not going to be satisfied until we convert to Islam and repent for our “wicked” way of life.
What follows is a sampling of the enemy’s perspective…
From page 51 of the 9/11 commission report:
Bin Ladin’s grievance with the United States may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies but it quickly became far deeper. To the second question, what America could do, al Qaeda’s answer was that America should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture: “It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind.” If the United States did not comply, it would be at war with the Islamic nation, a nation that al Qaeda’s leaders said “desires death more than you desire life.”
I’m guessing the last part of the quote is a reference to the practice of abortion.
Here is a snippet of bin Laden’s letter to America:
(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s, and trading with interest.
…
(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.
I do not understand why so many leftists refuse to take the word of the enemy at face value when the enemy is so serious about their ideology that they are willing to die for it.
More Muslim Deception
Here, with the aptly titled posting “Kill Jews, But not Here”, is another example of takiyya and kitman, the religiously-sanctioned deception to protect or promote Islam:
As an indicator of how out-of-control the jihad incitement has gotten in the Middle East over the Lebanon War, the sheikhs of the Al-Azhar Mosque, considered among the world’s highest authorities on Sunni Islam, had to issue a special fatwa forbidding the random murder of Jews: Egypt’s Muslim authorities disown fatwas on killing Jews.
Jews in Egypt, anyway. Jews elsewhere, well, they don’t really specify.
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They justify this counter-fatwa under Islamic law, by saying that Israelis who’ve been granted visas by Egypt are protected as dhimmis.
The Corruption of the Media
I have covered this topic here (don’t forget to scroll down). Now EU Referendum has completed the report which provides conclusive evidence that many of the scenes presented by the MSM were in fact fake:
For whole sections of the international media, the “Qana massacre” at Khuraybah was a godsend. It provided tangible support for the narrative they had been running ever since the re-opening of hostilities in Lebanon – and before – that Israel was the pitiless aggressor which would stop at nothing to get its way, including “murdering” innocent women and children…
The only problem for it, and the hundreds if not thousands of newspapers and TV channels that reproduced this and many other images, was that they were fake. Not fake in the sense that they had been doctored – as in the infamous photographs taken by Reuters’ Adnan Hajj – but in the very real sense that the scenes has been staged. They were artificial, devised entirely to create shots that the media would lap up - a grisly exercise in propaganda by a terrorist organisation which had its own agenda. And the media lapped it up.
Here is the damning conclusion:
Thus, at last, we offer our conclusions. In so doing, we pose the questions that pervade this report, and answer them. Firstly, were many of the scenes during the rescue/recovery effort at Khuraybah on 30 July 2006, staged? The answer has to be yes.
Secondly, were journalists (with or without cameras) aware of the staging and complicit in it? Again, the answer has to be yes.
Third, did the media (the western media in particular) accept the images uncritically, without in any way inquiring as to their authenticity – even though there were good grounds for suspicion? Here, the answer almost certainly has to be yes.
Finally, has there since been a cover-up by the agencies and other media organisations which produced or used the material, and a sustained campaign by them either to ignore the issue or neutralise criticism? Once again, the answer has to be yes.
In defence of the media, if it can be considered thus, one can only postulate that staging scenes such as these is so common a practice, and so deeply embedded in the whole fabric of photo-journalism, that no one at the incident saw anything wrong with what transpired or, so familiar were they with the techniques used that they simply did not register what was happening. And for others, in their air-conditioned offices, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the action, did they care one way or the other? After all, or so one media representative implied, the greater truth was being served. “Is the child dead?”, he asked. “Was the child killed by Israeli bombs?” Thus, did he say:
If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we’re not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.
That is the nearest to an admission we have that it is acceptable to stage photographs.But, by their actions and inactions are the rest condemned. Meanwhile, “Green Helmet” has entered the political vocabularly and the name “Qana” is now associated in the minds of perhaps millions of people with a media that seems to have lost its moral base and has forgotten entirely the purpose for which it exists.
Before preparing this report, we offered a challenge to the news agencies at the centre of this affair, calling for them to admit the wrongdoings carried out in their names, and to clean up their acts. Their response to that has been silence. This is our response. It stands as testimony to their failures which, if they are not addressed, will come back to haunt them.
We will be waiting, and watching.
Robert Spencer on C-Span – There are Moderate Muslims there is no Moderate Islam
Rober Spencer, author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades and founder of JihadWatch and DhimmiWatch, was interviewed by Brian Lamb from the show Q&A a couple of weeks ago and the interview was televised this evening.
Spencer answers were thoroughly enlightening and presented the true nature of Islam, the nature the MSM and politicians refuse to face.
Here are a few highlights:
LAMB: Is he comparing Mein Kempf with the Koran?
SPENCER: I think he is.
LAMB: Is that fair?
SPENCER: Well, I think that both can be and have been used as mandates for and blueprints for violent activity. And certainly the Koran differs from Mein Kempf in the respect that it has also been revered as a holy book by people who have not been engaged in violence against their neighbors, particularly in West Africa, and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia over various periods.
And up into the modern period in some of those places we find that Muslims lived peacefully with non-Muslims neighbors and they did not pursue these doctrines of jihad. But because these doctrines of jihad are rooted in the Koran they are – these populations are vulnerable today to recruitment by jihadists from Saudi Arabia, from Iran, from elsewhere who come and say look, we’re representing the fullness and the truth, the purity of Islam. Here is what the Koran actually says, here is what the hadeeth say and so if you want to be a true Muslim you have to wage this violent warfare.
And here is the variation of the famous “there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam” statement:
The problem that the world faces and the problem that the Muslim communities of the West face as well as the Muslim communities in the Islamic world face is that the terrorists are taking the teachings of the Koran and the teachings of Islamic theology and law that mandate violence and are running with them. And it is very difficult to formulate a case on – solely on Muslim ground to say that that’s illegitimate.
And so while there are moderate Muslims, the fact that Islam is not moderate makes it very difficult for those moderates to establish any kind of large scale anti-terror effort.
You can watch or read the transcript of the show here.
Response to Tariqnelson
Tariqnelson responded to my post about urging Muslim leaders to issue fatwas against Osama bin Laden (OBL). Given the length of my response I’m posting it on the front page.
The previous Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz Ibn Baz, who died before 9/11, and other scholars condemned him by name and condemned the Hamas suicide murders on civilians (Muslim and non-Muslim) and the spreading of chaos years before 9/11
I am looking for fatwas that leave no room for taqiyya or kitman. Rather than take your word on it I would like to read the contents of their statements. Can you send me links to them?
Saudi Arabia has long been opposed to Bin Laden
Can you provide evidence that “Saudi hate literature being distributed from American mosques, and the Saudi madrasa-building in Asia has completely stopped (hat tip jihadwatch)?
And remember in Saudi Arabia, as in other places, passages in the Koran such as the notorious “Verse of the Sword” in sura 9:5 (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush”) is used for jihadi recruitment.
Not fans of the above people
By “people” you mean Wahhabis/Salafis, the Sunni fundamentalist Islamic movement that OBL adheres to.
but the point here is to illustrate that this was done BEFORE 9/11
I scanned the document for all OBL references and I did not see a fatwa issued against him. Where is the unequivocal condemnation of OBL’s jihad?
I did not see a single fatwa against OBL for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The closest I saw was a single instance by Spanish Muslim leaders for the Spanish terrorist attack, but not for the 9/11 attacks. Furthermore and disappointingly they did not refute OBL’s interpretation of the Koran and Hadith. As Robert Spencer points out “until there is a REFUTATION of their arguments, their arguments will continue to be effective. Your sources have not refuted them, but ignored them”.
By the way the top link at the link you provided was written by the terrorist front group CAIR so its credibility is in serious question.
Your link does not provide evidence that a fatwa against OBL occurred.
I hate Bin Laden, Hamas, “Hizbullah” and other groups and their evil actions,
I applaud what you’ve said, but can you refute OBL’s arguments on Islamic grounds?
and other Muslims have stated as much (again, long before 9/11).
Are the other Muslims following mainstream Islamic interpretations? What are these other Muslims doing to stop the worldwide abominable terrorist acts that are continuing to be justified on Islamic grounds?
While I feel that we as Muslims have not come out strongly enough against the likes of Hamas and “Hizbullah
Indeed, and what you’ve said is a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately your feelings have not dissuaded the Muslim terrorists from continuing their jihad against the West.
UPDATE: 8/22/06 12:37am
Tariqnelson has responded in the comments section of this post. What follows is my response to him.
First off, thanks for responding.
First it seems that you do not understand the meaning of ‘fatwa’. It seems (and correct me if I am wrong) that you think that ‘fatwa’ is a death decree.
I do know what fatwa means. Here is a backgrounder for my readers. Please keep in mind that vacuous fatwas which do not condemn the Islamic extremism ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism do not count.
[josephnadir] it is absolutely shocking that American Muslim leaders have not yet issued one [fatwa] against the enemy.
[tariqnelson] There have been several anti-Bin Laden fatwas/statements issued since long BEFORE 9/11
It appears that you are conflating fatwas with mere statements of condemnation which do not carry the weight of a religious edict.
What I’ve been looking for is a fatwa clearly and unequivocally condemning OBL for the 9/11 attacks, not a statement which does not carry the weight of an Islamic legal pronouncement. I’m willing to settle for a fatwa against OBL’s jihad against America, so feel free to find an example of that as well.
They all condemned terror attacks
A condemnation does not carry the legal weight of a fatwa. I did not find a fatwa in the link you provided.
After 9/11, many have condemned the 9/11 attacks and other attacks, including the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who not only condemned the 9/11 attacks, but also the London bombings and every other attack. Also see this
Where are the fatwas? Recall condemnation ≠ fatwa
And likewise, for you to say that Muslims have not said anything condemning terrorism is a gross distortion
It looks like you are trying to build a straw man argument. I never said what you claim I have said.
but if you are amongst those who think genocide should be commited
Of course I am not one of those people and I would never advocate any of the evil things you mentioned.
I simply come from a perspective that while there are moderate Muslims I do not see the evidence to support that there is a moderate Islam.
You and I both know that we could similarly take verses of the Bible
First off, the sheer scale of the monstrous acts of barbarism committed in the name of Islam dwarfs that which is committed illogically in the name of Christianity. Just look at all of the cases of Muslims committing acts of terrorism around the world and the support they receive in the Muslim community. Look at the non-response the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represent 56 Muslim states, gave when challenged to condemn all of those who kill or call upon others to kill in the name of God or religion:
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The next morning (Friday, 18 August), Pakistan’s Ambassador Masood Khan – speaking for the OIC countries – addressed the Sub-Commission. He did not refer to our appeal that the OIC condemn: “all those who kill or call upon others to kill in the name of God or religion,” as well as an “an unambiguous condemnation of those who are defaming Islam by their calls to kill in the name of Allah.” Rather, he spoke about “the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) caricatures in a Danish paper last year,” and stated: “In the recent past, terrorist attacks, or even terrorist plots, have been used as a pretext to demonize Islam and Muslims… Muslims are being dehumanized as Jews were during the inter-war years in the last century. The spectre of Islamophobia is haunting Europe.” He also stated: “The OIC believes that the existing gaps in the international law – soft or hard – to combat defamation of religions and to promote respect for each others beliefs should be stepped up.” He concluded: “In the Islamic world, endeavours are being made to wage political and ideological struggles against the forces of obscurantism and extremism. Last year in Makkah, the OIC announced its 10-year programme for the promotion and protection of human rights. It will also elaborate [an] OIC Charter on Human Rights.” There can be little doubt that any such a Charter will be conditional on Shariah law (see the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, articles 24 and 25), in total contradiction to the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
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and use it [verses of the Bible] out of context
There is a very important distinction to be made between interpreting verses in a logical way versus an illogical way. There is no verse in the Bible which can taken in context logically be interpreted to commit anything remotely similar to the Muslim terrorist acts. From all appearances, from the worldwide terrorist acts committed in the name of Islam to the lack of fatwas which condemn on Islamic grounds the ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism, the Koran’s verse of the sword in context together with the Islamic jurisprudence are being logically interpreted.
Many from the Aryan Nation and “Christian Identity use the Bible to recruit as well.
Your implicit contention that racist groups using the Bible to recruit and Muslim terrorist using Islam to recruit are akin to each other is simply not true for multiple reasons:
- There is no logical Biblical interpretation for racism
- Racist organizations are universally condemned by the Christian community
- Aryan Nation and Christian Identity is a fringe group whose number of racist acts or membership numbers do not even begin to compare to either the number Muslim terrorist acts or the number of terrorist supporters
I don’t expect you to answer for them
Thank you 
I don’t expect you to answer for Muslim terrorists either, but I wish peaceful Muslims were more successful at challenging terrorists on Islamic grounds and preventing Muslims from becoming terrorists.
[josephnadir] I scanned the document for all OBL references and I did not see a fatwa issued against him. Where is the unequivocal condemnation of OBL’s jihad?
[tariqnelson] Seems that you must have overlooked it. Here are a few
I have to ask because it seems you are now being deliberately misleading are you practicing taqiyya?
I was responding to this link which you provided as evidence of a fatwa against OBL and I still don’t see any fatwa.
The three new links you’ve provided have no fatwas whatsoever.
See above.
None of the links you’ve provided contain a fatwa. Prove me wrong if you believe otherwise. You definitely appear to be practicing taqiyya and if so it is not going to work.
There was a blizzard of condemnations, fatwas and other statements against OBL and the 9/11 attacks.
I found a single instance here of a fatwa against OBL for the Spanish terrorist attack. This is a far cry from your claim.
To say there was no comdemnation at all
I never said that. Stop building a straw man.
Most refutations are done in the Arabic language (and yes I know Arabic) and there are many entire books written refuting the Khawarij (terrorist) methodology that OBL believes in.
Please don’t take it the wrong way, but I’m not going to take your word for it. American Muslims and Muslims living in the West have a HUGE motivation to clean up their image and I would find it stunning that there are so few translations if there were so many arguments in existence. In light of this what you say is hard to swallow.
this is a translation of one small refutation of their arguments. This one was written before 9/11
You did not dispute my claim that the fatwa issued against OBL for the Spanish terrorist attack did not contain a refutation of OBL’s interpretation of the Koran or Hadith.
In these two links I see no refutation of OBL’s interpretation either.
we soundly refute them on Islamic grounds
Really? I’m very interested in these arguments. Can you point me to them?
While people such as yourself talked about last week’s plot to bomb several airplanes, one thing lost in the entire affair is that it was a Muslim who helped unravel the plot.
That is wonderful. It would be even better if other Muslims stopped issuing veiled threats in response to this Muslim terrorist plot.
Muslims are integral parts in stopping terrorist attacks from happening
I wholeheartedly agree. Furthermore, I think Muslims arguing on Islamic grounds against OBL and the rest of those who support a jihad against the West would do much to combat Muslim terrorism. In many respects the spiritual and ideological battle against these individuals is more important than the physical one.
If we declare all Muslims to be the enemy, then we will lose many allies in this fight against those that are truely evil.
I agree.
Secondly, others are refuting the arguments of the terrorists on Islamic grounds. These things need to be spread amongst the Muslims
Again I wholeheartedly agree with you brother.
It would be a huge mistake to commit complete genocide against all the Muslims
Absolutely true.
The terrorists use people like her and her statements as fodder for recruitment
That may be true, but the moral culpability lies squarely on the Muslim terrorist, not the one who used words that they disliked.
If American goes to the genocide strategy that some are calling for
This is not a real concern. No one in our government is advocating that. Furthermore, I don’t believe it will ever happen.
The Fatwa Against Osama bin Laden
Too often after a terrorist plot occurs or is foiled Muslim organizations rush to warn us of the dangers of Islamophobia or issue vague and/or misleading condemnations of the use of violence against “innocent lives” instead of clearly and unequivocally stating their alliance with the United States in its war on Muslim terrorists.
In light of the murderous atrocity committed in the name of Islam by terrorists on 9/11 Muslim leaders left and right should have done what was the morally self-evident thing to do: issue a fatwa (i.e., religious edict) against the perpetrators and their supporters. In light of the events that have triggered other fatwas, such as the call for the assassination of Salman Rushdie for publishing a book, it is absolutely shocking that American Muslim leaders have not yet issued one against the enemy.
The time has come to doggedly ask Muslim leaders to issue a fatwa condemning prominent Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden and his right hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri. This is exactly what the the United American Committee (UAC) is doing.
The UAC’s next move is to ask the leadership of the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, CA to push for a fatwa condemning bin Laden and other terrorists by name. I encourage all freedom loving people to support the UAC’s efforts.
Flight Passengers conduct their own Profiling
Hat tip to Instapundit:
Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it…
It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands – effectively conducting their own ‘passenger profiles’
Arm Yourself for Intellectual Battle
I just finished reading JihadWatch’s tips for visiting a mosque. Westerner’s need to arm themselves with this information presented there so that they do not succumb to taqiyya and tu-quoque.
Why Young Middle Eastern Males Should be Profiled
Not performing this type of profiling is putting us at a higher risk of being attacked by the enemy: Muslim terrorists. Robert Spencer’s thoroughly convincing argument in favor of profiling is a timely must-read.
Here is a snippet of the article to whet your appetite:
All the September 11 hijackers were Muslims. So were the July 7 London bombers. And the Madrid train bombers of March 2004. And on and on. All the plotters in the recent international airplane hijacking attempt are Muslims. All were working on the basis of Islamic theology. Why must officials continue not to notice this? To ignore this is to give up voluntarily the one thing that may make it possible to spot the perpetrators of a terror attack before it happens, and head it off. In other words, it is suicidal.
Spineless C-Span?
I watched the C-Span program mentioned here and found myself flabbergasted by the lopsided format of the show reminiscent of an affirmative action policy for Islamic apologists.
The ever informative Robert Spencer describes the format here and here.
I strongly suspect that C-Span went out of its way to show the pro-Islamic position without giving Spencer a chance to respond since they were afraid of being labled as Islamophobic. I very much hope that I am wrong and that C-Span invites both of them to debate each other.
Debating a Moral Relativist about Profiling
I’m currently engaged in a debate with a moral relativist here and here. Due to the comments section size limitation at their blog I’ve decided to reply here.
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By your reasoning you would have police ignore a murder suspect’s race, sex, and other characteristics just because innocent people happen to share those characteristics. In the case of Muslim terrorists, the thing that they all share in common is their religion and this is the one thing you would have the police ignore.
> When I pointed out that Muslims don’t universally support terrorism any more than Christians support killing doctors
Surely you realize there is a difference between justifying an action via logical steps from a set of premises versus justifying an action where there are no logical steps to substantiate it from a different set of premises.
Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists that we are fighting in the war on terror (Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc) are Muslims. Furthermore, Muslims who commit murder to spread their religion are logically using Islam’s founding documents to do so:
Nor are these jihadists misrepresenting, twisting, or hijacking what the Qur’an says. Indeed, they are fiercely literalistic, taking the book’s many martial verses at face value. There are over a hundred verses in the Qur’an that exhort believers to wage jihad against unbelievers. “O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, an evil refuge indeed” (Sura 9:73). “Strive hard” in Arabic is jahidi, a verbal form of the noun jihad. This striving was to be on the battlefield: “When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly” (Qur’an 47:4). This is emphasized repeatedly: “O ye who believe! Fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him” (Qur’an 9:123).
This warfare was to be directed against both those who rejected Islam and those who professed to be Muslims but did not hold to the fullness of the faith: “Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate” (Qur’an 9:73). This warfare was only part of the larger spiritual conflict between Allah and Satan: “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil: so fight ye against the friends of Satan” (Qur’an 4:76). “Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful” (Qur’an 9:5). The “poor-due” in this verse is zakat, which is a central obligation for Muslims. Thus the verse is saying that if the “idolaters” become Muslims, leave them alone.
Jews and Christians were to be fought along with “idolaters”: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).
Jihad is the highest duty of Muslims: “Do ye make the giving of drink to pilgrims, or the maintenance of the Sacred Mosque, equal to the pious service of those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and strive with might and main in the cause of Allah [jihad fi sabil Allah]? They are not comparable in the sight of Allah: and Allah guides not those who do wrong. Those who believe, and suffer exile and strive with might and main, in Allah’s cause [jihad fi sabil Allah], with their goods and their persons, have the highest rank in the sight of Allah: they are the people who will achieve salvation” (Qur’an 9:19-20). In Islamic theology, jihad fi sabil Allah refers specifically to taking up arms for Islam.
> You have simply said we should assume they are terrorists until they prove they’re not
I have said no such thing. I’ll spell it out for you since you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying. You should focus your policing efforts on those who fit the profile. For example, if a murder suspect is a young black male I would have the police focus their attention searching for young black males, despite the fact that the majority of young black males are innocent, for the simple fact that the suspect is a young black male. You seem to be advocating a position that would purposefully discard the profile of the suspect.
> his position is demonstrably racist.
Muslims are not a race, your statement is by definition false.
> I have repeatedly asked him to justify his position morally
As I pointed out earlier your position would have police ignore a murder suspect’s race, sex, and other characteristics just because innocent people happen to share those characteristics. I think that position is immoral for it puts innocents at more risk of peril.
Given the government’s limited amount of policing resources we should prioritize those resources in the areas that are likely to yield more leads. Ignoring this rational and self-preserving principle puts us at a higher risk of peril.
Debating a Moral Relativist about Moral Relativism
I’m currently engaged in a debate with a moral relativist. Due to the comments section size limitation at their blog I’ve decided to reply here.
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You pointed out here that you are a moral relativist (i.e., you believe there is no objective morality). Moral relativism is a self-refuting belief system and therefore it is not reasonable to adhere to it. Furthermore, an insurmountable problem moral relativists have when they start talking about rights is that they have no objective grounds on which to define or even defend anyone’s rights. In fact, the moral relativist can’t argue on objective grounds that rights even exist.
This reminds me of the book “Moral Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air” by Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl. In it they shed light on another fundamental dilemma the moral relativist is faced with:
“For to deny the existence of universally objective moral distinctions, one must admit that
[fundamentally]Mother Teresa was no more or less moral than Adolf Hitler, that torturing three-year-olds for fun is netither good nor evil, that giving 10 % of one’s financial surplus to an invalid is neither praiseworthy nor wrong, and that providing food and shelter for one’s spouse and child is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.” (p. 13)
A conclusion Koukl arrives at is that moral relativists can’t objectively:
1. accuse others of wrongdoing
2. complain about the problem of evil
3. place blame or accept praise
4. make charges of unfairness or injustice
5. improve their morality
6. hold meaningful moral discussions
7. promote the obligation of tolerance
If you are still not convinced that moral relativism is self-refuting/untenable here is a simple argument.
Let statement A == absolute moral truths do not exist
Moral relativists believe that ‘A’ is true.
The problem with people who believe ‘A’ is true is that they are stuck between the horns of the following dilemma:
‘A’ is itself is a moral statement (i.e., a statement about morality) and it is either true or false. If you believe that ‘A’ is true in absolute terms then you are refuting
your own position that absolute moral truths do not exist. On the other
hand, if you believe that ‘A’ is true in relative terms then you have no
logical grounds on which to refute people who adhere to the position that
‘A’ is false.
Q.E.D
UPDATE: 8/17/06 10:32 pm
The debate has continued here. Here are some highlights.
> moral relativist: my claim that everyone’s view of reality is subjective
josephnadir: You are digging yourself into a larger hole. Do you realize what you just said is self-refuting? Let me demonstrate…
Let statement A == “my claim that everyone’s view of reality is subjective”
If A is true then its meaning applies to itself and therefore anyone can reasonably consider A to be false.
I don’t think it is reasonable to adhere to self-refuting positions.
But wait it gets worse for those who hold that A is true; for anyone who does so has no way of objectively defending against those who believes A is false. That is a very weak position to be in.
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> moral relativist: If anything, this assumption [that a being has perfect knowledge of “the good”] creates a moral quandary, for we have no position to tell which understanding of supreme being(s) we ought to follow.
josephnadir: The quandary is no different than the quandary you face when selecting (knowingly or unknowingly) the worldview to believe in. Despite our limited knowledge we have logic and the scientific method to help us choose the worldview which most closely correponds to reality.
Here is an example of the use of logic (i.e., the law of non-contradiction) to shed light on an issue that is so often muddled by moral relativists…
All religions can not be true since Christianity makes an exclusivity claim that it is the only true religion. Hence the only logical possibilities are the following:
1. Christianity is true and all other religions are false
OR
2. Christianity and a subset of other religions are false and another subset of religions are true
OR
3. all religions are falseIt simply cannot be the case that more than one of these options is true at once.
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josephnadir: In closing, think about the following for a minute. No matter how sophisticated and nuanced an argument a moral relativist makes in favor or against something (e.g., the war on Muslim terrorists, abortion, conservatism, gay marriage, prayer in school, socialism, affirmative action, etc.) the argument is ultimately built on quicksand since the moral relativist has no absolute moral truth to appeal to.
UPDATE: 5/24/06
Removed reference to “fundamentally” in an effort to provide clarity.
Had Enough?
Ace of Spades HQ has a timely piece that the West is reaching a tipping point in the War on Muslim Terrorists and their supporters:
There is too much equivocation about terrorism. There is too much protection of hate-preachers and actual terrorists. There is too much coordination with the terrorists’ message of the day. There is too much support, active support or the sorter sort of moral support, for the terrorists in Muslim communities.
You guys had better get your shit under control, pronto. Because the American Street is growing very angry indeed.
You wouldn’t like the American Street when it’s angry.
Do you not realize that, due to our compassion, openness, and commitment to tolerance, we have lost more than 3000 lives, spent billions on security measures and unprecendentedly humane military interventions, seen hell wreaked on our economy, and have seen our lives disrupted and inconvenienced and just made generally poorer overall?
At what point do you think the limits of compassion, openness, and commitment to tolerance are reached? Do you imagine our virture — or weakness, as you would have it — in this regard is infinite?
The Enemy Within
Thanks to Allahpundit for pointing out the must-read editorials of the day:
Young Muslim Men at the Center of Another Terrorist Plot
HotAir has another vent episode describing the common trait among terrorists.
