My Debate Rebuttal #3: @PeterTownsend7 claims that he is right (and won our debate) based on the premise that he is right. BRILLIANT!
In reply to @PeterTownsend Rebuttal #3: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1skkbo6
Dear Peter, Thanks for conceding that this debate is now over. You have clearly failed to rebut even one of my refutations or to cite even one relevant fact from Islam on our debate topic in your last response, so that confirms it. So let’s recap a bit, address your latest logical fallacies, and then move on to the vote. YOU NOW HAVE ZERO FACTS FROM PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS DEFENDING YOUR POSITION As of your last rebuttal, you loosely claimed that two facts from Islamic sources might actually be in your favor instead of mine: 1) one Sira story, which you completely bungled up in your failed attempt to get even the most basic details correct; and 2) one hadith, which you flat out lied that I was “disregarding”. After I totally eviscerated BOTH of these final fact-based arguments in my latest refutation, you failed to counter-rebut either one. Of course you didn’t, because no rational counter-rebuttal is even possible, and you know it. You now have absolutely ZERO facts from ALL THREE potential “Islamic” sources – the Quran, hadiths and Sira – supporting your position in this debate. So, in effect, as you implicitly confirm in your latest reply, you have totally conceded the debate on what you call the “Insider” (i.e., Muslim) perspective with respect to what Islam actually teaches per ALL original (primary) source facts. What is so ironic, of course, is that ALL of your internet memes (pumped out every 10 minutes on Twitter) cite Quran, hadiths and Sira. This proves that you base nearly all of your claims on citations from the Quran, hadiths and Sira as the core component of every propaganda message. So why do you now dismiss ALL of these sources in your debate on this topic? The sheer hypocrisy of your position could not possibly be more embarrassing. In fact, it is frankly humiliating to behold based on any objective measure of this debate – and you know it, in spite of your transparent ad hominem against me for pointing out your miserable failure. YOUR CIRCULAR ARGUMENT OF “OUTSIDER” PREJUDICE ‘PROVING’ FACT-FREE CLAIMS Now, hilariously, after conceding the only debate that really matters per the FACTS of Islam, you then go peacocking about how you have won the debate based on the criterion that all that really matters is how non-Muslims (“Outsiders”) “observe Islam”! You do so by defining “Islam” only as “Outsiders” (i.e., you) see it, which is essentially independent of ALL possible original Islamic source doctrine. This appeal to the blind authority of “Outsiders” is most ironic indeed, not to mention bizarre, considering verse 4:34 can only apply to Muslims, never non-Muslims. Not only is your argument a personification fallacy, it is also a wild equivocation fallacy, extending into the realm of a bizarre hate propaganda fantasy. You are treating Islam as some sort of animate, observable entity independent of all doctrinal sources (including the Quran, hadiths and Sira) that could 1 Author: Chameleon_X
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possibly define it. You even double down on your equivocation fallacy claim, quoted here, which no reputable Muslim scholar would ever agree with that I am aware of: What the Qur’an says’ and ‘What Islam says’ can be two radically different things. Of course, you are also invoking an appeal to authority fallacy, since your only recourse after trashing the Quran as being relevant to defining Islam is to invoke your cherrypicked medieval and Middle East mullahs on politicians’ payrolls as your falsely legitimized definition of “Islam”. The ironic depths to which Islamophobe propagandists like you will go to protect their hate narrative and book royalties never ceases to amaze me. In effect, what you’re arguing here is that the demonstrably uninformed prejudice of privileged “Outsiders” like you should somehow be granted the legitimacy to redefine Islam “as you see it” – i.e., according to your “personal Islam” stripped of all connection to original source doctrine. These “Outsiders”, in turn, base their “observation of Islam” on cherrypicked “Insiders” making bald claims, and on juvenile guilt by association fallacies invoking the behavior of media-spotlighted criminals identifying as “Muslims”. These criminals and tyrant-funded scholars then get granted, in your fantasy world, the unquestioned authority to define the identity of all 1.6 Billion “Insiders” even when these criminals demonstrably violate Islam, and even when these cherrypicked, tyrant-funded “Insiders” have demonstrably ZERO facts to back up their false legitimization of crime. Wow, Peter, it sounds like you have a real winning argument here! So how is this false attribution to Islam argument of yours different from falsely legitimizing “Outsider” views on blacks, Jews, native Americans, etc., all of whom were labelled by “Outsiders” as animals, savages, a threat to society, etc., to be exterminated based upon the perceived actions (or blowback) of a criminal few being generalized via an association fallacy onto the whole group? Do you have any idea what a slippery slope of willful ignorance and self-justifying prejudice & hatred you have hopped onto? I love this next quote of yours, which confirms your outrageous circular argument fallacy based on blind, fact-free prejudice. So, according to you, you can now claim to have ‘won’ the debate because your prejudiced view is the only perspective that matters in defining “Islam”. BRILLIANT, Peter! I write an entire piece stating very clearly that I represent an outsider view and that this is the only perspective that concerns me. Yes, Peter, you MUST be right based on the premise that your subjective view is right (and all objective, fact-driven views are wrong). According to this idiotic circular logic, you automatically “win” every debate that you will ever engage in before it even starts, regardless of ANY facts and logic presented against your position. Who could then argue with such a debating stalwart like you? You literally become invincible, like a debating demi-god! MORE FANATIC APPEALS TO AUTHORITY: UNNAMED “GATEKEEPERS” AND UNCITED “RULES” You also make this silly claim about “observing rules” (2 separate quotes): We do not make the rules we simply observe how they are applied. Outsiders do not make the rules of a religion. They simply observe the rules that are being followed and make judgement calls accordingly. 2 Author: Chameleon_X
Last Updated: February 15, 2015
What "rules", Peter? The only “rules” of Islam are in the Quran, per the Quran itself. At most, some Muslims also add hadiths and Sira as sources of Law (“rules”) to supplement those Quran “rules”, but I covered ALL of these potential sources as well in our debate. All the remaining “rules” are purely manmade and subject to change and error, and Muslims across the world acknowledge this obvious fact. Moreover, there are no religious “rulers” over anyone except in theocratic (i.e., anti-Islamic) states, and even then they cannot rule over private personal opinion, which is all that really matters in measuring any majority opinion. Finally, theocrats and other self-proclaimed “professional Muslims” unequivocally have no more legitimate authority than the Quran (or even hadiths and Sira), on which theocrats claim to base ALL of their fatwas. Sorry, Peter, THOSE are the “rules” that even theocrats claim to abide by, so those are the ONLY legitimate sources that can possibly define “Islam”. You also ask this bizarre rhetorical question: Do you campaign for law reform in the Muslim world? Do you go all out to engage the gatekeepers of your faith to change their views? Nope, from the evidence on Twitter you ignore what needs to be done and go with all guns blazing after non-Muslims accurately observing a link between Islam and domestic violence in an attempt to safeguard the reputation of your faith. Charming. What are you smoking, Peter? There are no “gatekeepers” in my faith. There are only political tyrants and their patsy mullahs who have no religious authority beyond their petty theocratic states. Even more relevant, WHERE are all these “gatekeepers of the faith” on Twitter, Peter? As you already acknowledged, Islam has no “Vatican” equivalent, even remotely so. I would love to meet your imaginary “gatekeeper” friends someday. Please point me to their Twitter IDs – and no, I’m not referring to clowns like that MI5 honeypot hatepreacher, @AnjemChoudary, despised by Muslims everywhere. If by “gatekeepers” you only mean the various respected local leaders that have essentially no gatekeeping authority at all, you are again lying about my motive and actions. The Appendix to my book proves this, which is how I intend to “Name and Shame” all those local Muslim leaders who refuse to rebut my analysis while being on the record supporting ANY beat interpretation. And, no, not one will be spared once I confirm their response or deliberate lack thereof, no matter how well respected he or she is. This too I made clear, which you blithely ignored so that you could lie about me instead. With your Jerome and Valla case study and other quotes, you continue to make fanatical appeals to unnamed “gatekeepers” and “schools of Islam” with authority to police against so-called “dissenting” views. However, the reality is that there are no gatekeepers, and many high profile Muslim organizations have already discarded ALL affiliation to any particular school of thought. The most prominent is perhaps The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has publicly stated this lack of affiliation as their official position. Interestingly, even the President of ISNA has publicly endorsed my interpretation on verse 4:34. She did so not because she read my analysis yet, of course,, but because it is the also the same interpretation that Laleh Bahktiar came to independently by using the exact same gold standard of tafsir that I did, which is translating the Quran with the Quran. Laleh Bahktiar has a PhD in Arabic linguistics, so clearly she is quite qualified. A third researcher (Dr. Abdul Hamid Abu Sulayman, Rector of the International Islamic University of Malaysia) also came to the same independent conclusion as well in 2003 using this same gold standard 3 Author: Chameleon_X
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of tafsir. Oddly, as I keep emphasizing, NOT ONE translator who concluded that “beat” is the correct translation employed this obvious gold standard of tafsir. Other doctoral researchers have endorsed this “separate (from)” or “go away from” interpretation as well. Even HRH Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad, Chief Advisor for Religious and Cultural Affairs to H. M. King Abdullah II has wholeheartedly endorsed it! MORE BAD STATISTICS You make this attempted rebuttal to my demand for data showing Muslims are more likely to commit domestic violence than non-Muslims: …there is one solid and accurate predictor of non-existent or inadequate legal protection against domestic violence in a country’s legal code. Can you guess what it is? Yep, a majority Muslim population. So far from being a minority opinion the reading of this text by Muslims around the world is causing governments to look the other way when acts of domestic violence is committed. Why? Simply because they believe that the Qur’an gives the green light for the practice. You have still not provided ANY data to support the implied claim that domestic violence amongst Muslims is greater than amongst non-Muslims, all else equal. For example, recent research shows that people in Muslim majority countries are dramatically less likely to commit violence in the form of murder (2.4/100k per yr.) vs. other countries (7.5/100k per yr.): http://thedebateinitiative.com/2015/02/08/study-shows-muslims-are-not-more-violent-than-others-inmany-cases-less-violent/ So where is your equivalent for domestic violence? Or don’t the numbers work in your favor? Instead, you move the goalposts to man-made law as the proxy for measuring domestic violence. As you well know, laws against domestic violence were effectively non-existent in “Western” countries before the 20th century, so what was the catalyst for these laws protecting women suddenly popping up everywhere in recent history? Clearly, it wasn’t a shift away from a Muslim majority! As other research has shown, the rapid growth of women’s rights in the “West” was more due to industrialization in the 19th century and then the subsequent mass participation of women in the workforce, which is largely still absent in Muslim-majority countries. The bottom line is that economic power has a very predictable way of fueling political and legal power. For crying out loud, women couldn’t even vote in the United States less than 100 years ago! In other words, what you are attempting to argue is almost certainly nothing but a classic fallacy of causation: confusing correlation with causation. In short, you might want to buy some glasses next time before you claim, “I’m simply calling things as I see it.” YOUR FANATICALLY ASSERTED AD POPULUM FALLACY In spite of my repeated debunking of your ad populum fallacies, you make yet more unsubstantiated claims here:
4 Author: Chameleon_X
Last Updated: February 15, 2015
The vast majority of Muslims encounter the Qur’an in ways that legitimizes domestic violence. All Islamic legal schools therefore allow the practice. This is not changed by what is happening in a small corner of Cyber Islam. Wrong. If anything, the vast majority of Muslims either ignore verse 4:34 or perfunctorily cite the “miswak”/”hankie” symbolic “beating”, which, as you know, I thoroughly debunked. They DO NOT legitimize domestic violence, which, by definition, involves actual “violence”. This applies equally to ALL “schools of thought” amongst Muslims that I am aware of. None of them openly permit or advocate domestic violence, and none of them that I am aware of even have an “official” clear cut position on this issue. Generally only individual scholars have addressed this issue. And when such scholars do so, they usually try to bypass the issue entirely by burying this verse under a meaningless symbolic “beating” that would be quite laughable to behold in real life (even by the woman receiving this so-called “beating” for demonstration purposes). Proof of this overwhelming majority Muslim view is easy to see, as I stated, simply by doing extensive searches on Twitter for who is desperately trying to legitimize domestic violence with the Quran (nonMuslims) and who is repeatedly repudiating this position (Muslims). You are living in a hate fantasy world if you believe even close to a majority of Muslims truly advocate domestic violence as a solution, regardless of what they may see in their Quran translation. This brings me to your claim based on a truncated quote of mine implying that I acknowledge some relevant truth in your ad populum fallacy. Wrong. Not only does your fallacy still have zero relevance, you are not even getting my observation of “popularity” right. As the context of my quote shows, I was referring to popularity as measured by number of Quran translations, not Muslims. As I highlighted, 40 translations could support some sort of “beat” interpretation, whereas 10 contradict this translation. And of that 40, most translators again support a symbolic “beating” only. Instead of pointing out the obvious fact that you are attributing a completely different and wrong measure of popularity to my words – along with the other obvious fact that your “unanimity” in translation claim on this verse is 100% wrong –you of course skip this context to my quote altogether. That said, congratulations on your VERY FIRST attempted reference to (and quote of) my arguments in all of your debate posts, even though you totally misrepresented my position once again. You also state this bizarre ad populum type claim in your last response: You spend 95% of your time on Twitter debating with outsiders (i.e. Non-Muslims) and now you suddenly want to ignore your core audience and preference the votes of Muslims who happen to agree with you by assigning them a special status. You again lie by calling non-Muslims my "core audience". Wrong. If that were the case, I would be spending my free time in anti-Islam echo chambers instead of on Twitter; also, the vast majority of my followers (i.e., my REAL audience) would be non-Muslims opposing my views, but they aren’t. As I already explained, ONLY non-Muslims on Twitter have challenged me on my arguments, and ONLY nonMuslims like you are fanatically promoting the false legitimization of domestic violence, which is why I challenge them. How can I debate your imaginary Muslims on Twitter that either don’t exist or are simply too apathetic or embarrassed to promote their secret views favoring violence against women? If I missed any, then 5 Author: Chameleon_X
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please show them to me now so that I can challenge them! Moreover, as the Appendix to my main arguments proves once again, my ultimate target audience is clearly Muslims and, secondarily, anyone else who actively promotes or supports the “beat” interpretation of verse 4:34 (like you do). As for my strong preference to know what Muslims vs. non-Muslims believe with respect to verse 4:34, do you have any idea how schizophrenic you sound in objecting to this additional information? You are constantly emphasizing how only the opinions of Muslims matter on this issue, yet you fanatically resist the idea of an extra question being added to the vote/survey to ask whether the voter is a Muslim. This question is critical in order to find out what their opinions truly are and how successful my arguments really were. And the most bizarre part is that you argue these schizophrenic positions on the importance of Muslim opinion in the very same paragraph! Just to drive home this point more, here is another quote from you: Therefore, if the majority of adherents of a religion follow a certain interpretation (e.g. that Qur’an 4:34 says to beat your wife) this is what outsiders will evaluate this religion on. Sorry, Peter, given how you have hung almost your entire case on what amounts to nothing but an ad populum fallacy (based on what you think Muslims overwhelmingly believe vs. my arguments), we are now going to find out whether that is true. And we are going to do so whether you like it or not. This question WILL be included in a Twitter poll, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop it. The fact that you are so scared of this added information, which doesn’t affect who can (and cannot vote) at all makes me that much more determined to include it. Moreover, if you are wrong, then logically you must change your “Outsider” view, since I can then throw your quote back at you like so: Therefore, if the majority of adherents of a religion follow a certain interpretation (e.g. that Qur’an 4:34 does NOT permit beating your wife) this is what outsiders will evaluate this religion on. In addition, I also plan to ask whether the voters are male or female (or anonymous) to provide more information on whether Muslim views on verse 4:34 are primarily driven by misogyny amongst Muslim men in general, or simply by misogynistic male scholarship impacting both male and female views in similar ways. I would also like to ask a couple of other relevant questions. My tentative survey questions (and answer options) are listed below. Any feedback from you or other readers would be appreciated: 1. Who won the debate on “Is beating women permitted in Islam?” based on the debate documents linked here: [URL link]? Answer options: Peter Townsend / Chameleon X 2. After reading all of the debate arguments and rebuttals, what is your personal opinion and answer to the question up for debate: “Is beating women permitted in Islam?” Answer options: Yes / No / Undecided. 3. After reading the Smoking Gun chapter and section showing how hadiths actually refute, not support, the “miswak” “light beating”(URL link here), do you support the view that Muslim men are permitted to “beat” their wives even “lightly” or symbolically with the equivalent of a “miswak”? Answer options: Yes / No / Undecided.
6 Author: Chameleon_X
Last Updated: February 15, 2015
4. How confident are you AFTER the debate, on a scale of 1-10 (where 10 is 100% confident), that your CURRENT opinion on “beating women in Islam” is now correct? Answer options: 1-10 range. 5. How confident were you BEFORE the debate, on a scale of 1-10 (where 10 is 100% confident), that your PRIOR opinion on “beating women in Islam” was correct? Answer options: 1-10 range. 6. Are you Muslim, Non-Muslim or Anonymous? Answer options: Muslim / Non-Muslim / Anonymous 7. Are you Male, Female or Anonymous? Answer options: Male / Female / Anonymous THE VOTERS AND YOUR NEW VOTING CHALLENGE I find it hilarious how you try to project some sort of voting advantage onto me with two quotes like this: You will have 80% of the airtime. What are you afraid of? This will leave you with at least 155 pages against my 39 (80% to 20%), even more if you add extra material. If you cannot win a debate with such odds in your favor without resorting to devaluing the votes of those who disagree with you, you must begin to realize just how hopeless your position is. This assumes, as a starting point, that your followers have actually read all those pages! As I proved in subsequent attempted debates in the past few weeks to stress test my arguments, this is definitively NOT true. In literally every case, all of your drone devotees have refused even to read my arguments (even the condensed Conclusion), deeming them completely irrelevant based on pure willful ignorance. But this is not even the hilarious part of your quotes. You claim that I have some mythical 4:1 “airtime” advantage based on these numbers, yet the only real advantage is in how many votes you likely have by default vs. me before the debate even started, all else equal. Given that you have 20,000+ Twitter followers vs. my paltry 870, this amounts to a 23:1 advantage right out of the gate! If you are going to rebut by asserting that these are not really biased voters, but rather “independent”, then you just contradicted your titular point per your last rebuttal: “Suggest a vote in which only your supporters are counted!” In effect, you have already openly acknowledged (ironically again) that Twitter followers (as voters) will overwhelmingly parrot the view of the person that they follow. Whoops. The irony gets worse, of course. According to your ad populum fallacy claim, the overwhelming majority of Muslims supposedly support beating women. Since I only very recently published my views on this topic, the number of Muslims following me because of my views on this topic is extremely minimal at best. You, by contrast, have been spewing pro-misogynistic legitimization claims based on Islam since essentially day #1, which is arguably what your followers love to feed on given how you pump out this zombie propaganda literally every 10 minutes. Therefore, the amount of bias in your follower pool of 20,000+ is far greater than any bias in my follower pool even on a percentage basis. In fact, according to your ad populum fallacy claim, the overwhelming majority of my Muslim followers (most of my followers are likely not even Muslim, by the way) should have been predisposed to your debating position before the debate. So let’s see if you kept them in your camp, shall we? Here is another quote from you that I love: 7 Author: Chameleon_X
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Your reliance on ‘debating by numbers’ through quoting ‘logical fallacies’ is just hilarious (helpfully rendered in bold this time I see). If you really believe that the cod-Latin you swing around (a new holy language to replace Arabic?) is convincing anyone I would challenge you to try this debating approach in a grown-up debating society (or perhaps in a scholarly article). I would pay good money to see the utter hilarity that will ensue. Again I urge you, submit our pieces to a free vote so that you can get an accurate gauge of just how convincing your flailing attempts to sound like a trained rhetorician are. And then there is this quote too, restating your challenge once again: If you are so cocky and sure of yourself let’s conduct a free vote through a third party site without creating special categories of voters and accurately determine whether your chest beating can survive public scrutiny. I hereby accept your challenge. Let’s now submit our debate posts to www.Debate.org and have the existing members there vote and comment on our debate as well (that’s how the site works). I am not a member there, nor have I ever posted there, and I assume that you haven’t either. Also, they don’t appear to have any particular a priori bias for or against Islam. Therefore, this makes it a great level playing field for both of us. From what I can tell, these folks are very particular and knowledgeable about logical fallacies used in debates, so how about we get them to comment on who is right or wrong with respect to your logical fallacies, and ask them who won the debate while we are at it? You said you “would pay good money to see the utter hilarity that will ensue”. Well, Peter, you’ll get an opportunity to see all of that simply by becoming a free member and posting our debate submissions there. None of your money – good or bad – will be required. So unless you were just blowing hot air out of your ass again, I will be expecting your confirmation on this additional vote shortly. As for the Twitter votes, these can still be done independently of, and in addition to, the www.debate.org vote. Since you don’t appear willing to have a third party moderate the Twitter vote, as @Salsahavok volunteered (he’s an ex-Muslim, by the way, who should be a very fair moderator), and since we probably won’t agree on the questions anyway, I suggest that we both set up our own Twitter polls. After exchanging the voting URLs between us, we can then forward both voting URLs to our followers at the same time. Let me know if you agree, and we can then proceed. I will leave you with your own words as my final words too: What is your response? Are you going to run?
Sincerely,
Chameleon X
8 Author: Chameleon_X
Last Updated: February 15, 2015