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. 

— 

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.  

—

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.

—

> 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 false

It simply cannot be the case that more than one of these options is true at once.

—

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.