Is Islam in accordance with rationality and science?

[bob x]

My sources clearly said the elite was ONLY administrating

Wouldn't everybody rather be the "administrator"? How do you imagine the administrators were chosen: by meritocratic competitive examinations? Oh, that's right: they didn't even have writing yet. YOUR SOURCES explain how the administrators held their positions: by monopolizing weaponry. I don't understand why you can't see that. Isn't that how bosses always maintain their power to push people around, via the threat of force in the last resort? (Sorry, I have to watch that video again: "Moistened bints handing out blades is not a rational basis for a system of government!" OK, I'm done now.)

They did need some "priests" devoted entirely to thinking. As it would be dangerous to let such positions be hereditary, the priests had their penises cut off.

the Ubaidis lived in an era which was "peacefully expansionist".

One more time, you do not understand what they are talking about. They are talking about the issue of how the idea of agriculture expanded into new territories, which was not by Ubaidis getting expansionist, peacefully or otherwise, but through neighboring peoples hearing about it and adopting the idea in their own way. This does refute the idea that "Ubaid" times were like "Uruk" times when just about every town was sacked at least once with genocidal slaughters; but it does not mean there was zero violence, just that they were fighting about 10% of the time, like usual, not 90% of the time like the Urukis.

Hmmm.... "shot down" ... like YOUR 10 year old source ??

Nothing whatsoever has shot down Keegan; on the contrary, his book has gained a reputation as an authoritative source.

and let me know when my source gets "shot down"...

One more time, you do not even understand what your sources are telling you. There is no need to "shoot down" anything in your sources, all of which I understand and accept.

The technical term is "New Stone Age" and the Ubaid's lived right at the border of the Bronze age.

"Stone" Age meaning their cutters were stone only (copper was discovered, but not yet understood, toward the end); "New" Stone Age meaning they had grain and meat, in ample supply (at least for the elite)-- but still not a healthy variety, and as they could do little or nothing when they got ill, they died young. STONE-ONLY tools mean terrible, terrible limitations on what they could have: no clothing, no furniture, no transportation, no communication, no possessions beyond mud-hovels (roomy for the elite but still unhealthily exposed) and pottery-- well, except that the elite also had volcanic-glass blades, whose only purpose, one more time, was to kill people.

80% of the people in the world nowadays eat, getting a variety of foods; wear clothing and sleep under a roof; can move around and hear about the wider world; and own a few things. This is much better than Ubaidis lived; only parts of Papua and Amazonia are still like Ubaid, and there, even the chieftains would rather be Third World poor. For God's sake, what is hard to understand here?

Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? Considering that EVERYONE knows Israel is the only thing that kept pan-Arab nationalism in check?

It seems to me that Israel is the only thing keeping it alive. Arab fratricidal quarreling is what has kept it in check.

LBJ broke the trend of American impartiality that Eisenhower had adopted in the region during the 6 day war

America only shifted in 1968 (with the F-4 fighter jet sale) after LBJ had been politically neutered. In 1967 during the war, LBJ was semi-secretly on Egypt's side.

What about the "despicable" actions of Israel? What about its attack on the USS Liberty?

We sent a spy ship into a war zone, to feed intelligence to the side most Americans thought was in the wrong. It was infuriating that LBJ would put our boys in harm's way like that, but he was doing so much worse in Vietnam that this particular throwing away of lives did not attract overmuch attention.

What about Sabra and Shtilla?

I found that despicable: this was when I was a prophet, and considered Begin under my jurisdiction because of his messianic claims. I wrote Begin in the name of Elijah, in antique Hebrew script in blood-red paint on a strip of red cloth, denouncing all his violations of Torah and concluding chayYHWH im napol mattar pen k-divriy "By God there shall not fall a drop save by my word", Elijah's curse on the murdering king Ahab. Having gotten this out of my system, I forgot about it until the next summer when I read that there had been no rain at all in Israel all year. I wrote Begin again, this time in English in black ink on plain paper, but still signing myself Elijah, demanding his resignation by Yom Kippur. He did resign, although his majority in the Knesset was secure, and refused for the rest of his life to answer any questions about why he had resigned; I wrote him for the last time, in a stylized Hebrew square-hand in blue artist's pencil (Israeli flag color) on cardboard, L-shanah tovah tiktav.

What about EVERYTHING it has done in the occupied territories for the past half century??

The Israeli Defense Force has only one purpose, to minimize the number of Israeli deaths from the pointlessly murderous attacks the Palestinians keep launching. They do not care much how many Palestinian bystanders are killed, hurt, humiliated, or inconvenienced as long as Israeli casualties are avoided, and they have been rather successful in bringing the death-toll on their own side way down. The occupation can end when the Palestinians choose leaders who are concerned with doing good for them, rather than just doing harm to others.

The fact that all your sources are listed as "protestant" or "christian" authors isn't what really bothers me.

Those who do not believe the Qur'an is true are by definition not Muslim. Those who are not interested in religion do not write about such subjects as the Qur'an. By default, authors writing about errors in the Qur'an are from non-Muslim religions.

But the fact that there is nothing "original"

What's new to say? "Sister of Harun" looks like a stupid blunder, as has been pointed out for fourteen centuries. The principal explanation for it that has been offered requires a substantiating example (of "sister" used for a non-contemporary), and none has been forthcoming for fourteen centuries. So a second explanation was invented (the "two Haruns"), which looks even more bogus and not too many have bought it. Those who presuppose that the Qur'an must be right somehow some way will continue to believe that no matter what anybody says, and those with no such presupposition will continue to find the Qur'an unpersuasive. Anything to add?

Just pretend like the only reason there isn't much there is because people are afraid to publish Nothing is hard to publish these days.

It is very difficult to get ANYTHING published these days. Publishing houses are going under, ever since the Internet cut the legs out from under the book business, and agents do not take new authors. I have tried to publish some stuff; it's not easy. Publishing something which is guaranteed to draw death threats would be particularly difficult.

 

[Abdullah]

Excellent! I presume this means you don't have a problem with evolution?

well I wouldn't have if it was according to science! ; see link:

EVOLUTION DECEIT :: HARUN YAHYA ::

Here's a good article that explains Islams stance on the evolution theory:

Other Species

As for other cases [non-humans], change from one sort of thing to another does not seem to contradict revelation, for Allah says,

"O people: Fear your Lord, who created you from one soul [Adam, upon whom be peace] and created from it its mate [his wife Hawa], and spread forth from them many men and women" (Qur'an 4:1),​

and also says, concerning the metamorphosis of a disobedient group of Bani Isra'il into apes,

"When they were too arrogant to [desist from] what they had been forbidden, We said to them, 'Be you apes, humiliated'" (Qur'an 7:166).​

and in a hadith, "There shall be groups of people from my community who shall consider fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful: groups shall camp beside a high mountain, whom a shepherd returning to in the evening with one of their herds shall approach for something he needs, and they shall tell him, 'Come back tomorrow.' Allah shall destroy them in the night, bringing down the mountain upon them, and transforming others into apes and swine until the Day of Judgement." (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 7.138: 5590).

Most Islamic scholars have understood these transformations literally, which shows that Allah's changing one thing into another (again, in other than the origin of man) has not been traditionally considered to be contrary to the teachings of Islam. Indeed, the daily miracle of nutrition, the sustenance Allah provides for His creatures, in which one creature is transformed into another by being eaten, may be seen in the food chains that make up the economy of our natural world, as well as our own plates.

If, as in the theory of evolution, we conjoin with this possibility the factors of causality, gradualism, mutation, and adaptation, it does not seem to me to add anything radically different to these other forms of change. For Islamic tenets of faith do not deny causal relations as such, but rather that causes have effects in and of themselves, for to believe this is to ascribe a co-sharer to Allah in His actions. Whoever believes in this latter causality (as virtually all evolutionists do) is an unbeliever (kafir) without any doubt, as "whoever denies the existence of ordinary causes has made the Wisdom of Allah Most High inoperative, while whoever attributes effects to them has associated co-sharers (shirk) to Allah Most High" (al-Hashimi: Miftah al-janna fi sharh 'aqida Ahl al-Sunna. Damascus: Matba'a al-taraqi, 1379/1960, 33). As for Muslims, they believe that Allah alone creates causes, Allah alone creates effects, and Allah alone conjoins the two. In the words of the Qur'an, "Allah is the Creator of everything" (Qur'an 13:16).

As for claim that man has evolved from a non-human species, this is unbelief (kufr) no matter if we ascribe the process to Allah or to "nature," because it negates the truth of Adam's special creation that Allah has revealed in the Qur'an. Man is of special origin, attested to not only by revelation, but also by the divine secret within him, the capacity for ma'rifa or knowledge of the Divine that he alone of all things possesses. By his God-given nature, man stands before a door opening onto infinitude that no other creature in the universe can aspire to. Man is something else.

Evolution and Islam

 

[c0de]

.


@ Abdullah....

You need to shut up...

just shut up... and walk away.









@ Bob


You are a piece of work, u know that?

& ^^ is not a compliment

Wouldn't everybody rather be the "administrator"? How do you imagine the administrators were chosen: by meritocratic competitive examinations? Oh, that's right: they didn't even have writing yet.

They weren't "chosen" at all. They were born into privellege.

"Morton Fried and Elman Service have hypothesised that Ubaid culture saw the rise of an elite class of hereditary chieftains,"

YOUR SOURCES explain how the administrators held their positions: by monopolizing weaponry.

Yes, NOT to fight with, but to TRADE with. They were NOT a warrior class. They werent the ones doing ANY of the fighting! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL !

One more time, you do not understand what they are talking about.

--

This does refute the idea that "Ubaid" times were like "Uruk" times when just about every town was sacked at least once with genocidal slaughters; but it does not mean there was zero violence, just that they were fighting about 10% of the time, like usual, not 90% of the time like the Urukis.
Quote:

WoW.... I think you are going senile dude...

I never said ANY era was 100% peaceful, did I?
I never projected a utopian image of ANY era.

I have made that clear MULTIPLE times,
and the fact that you cant seem to understand that,
says to me that either you are going senile, or you
have always been a little crazy...

The fact that you have done things like this in your
past, makes me think you actually are insane...

this was when I was a prophet, and considered Begin under my jurisdiction because of his messianic claims. I wrote Begin in the name of Elijah, in antique Hebrew script in blood-red paint on a strip of red cloth, denouncing all his violations of Torah and concluding chayYHWH im napol mattar pen k-divriy "By God there shall not fall a drop save by my word", Elijah's curse on the murdering king Ahab. Having gotten this out of my system, I forgot about it until the next summer when I read that there had been no rain at all in Israel all year. I wrote Begin again, this time in English in black ink on plain paper, but still signing myself Elijah, demanding his resignation by Yom Kippur. He did resign, although his majority in the Knesset was secure, and refused for the rest of his life to answer any questions about why he had resigned; I wrote him for the last time, in a stylized Hebrew square-hand in blue artist's pencil (Israeli flag color) on cardboard, L-shanah tovah tiktav.

holy.. crap.........

what the hell, am i doing.... talking to you ??

It seems to me that Israel is the only thing keeping it alive. Arab fratricidal quarreling is what has kept it in check.

It doesn't matter how the world "seems" to YOU!

You are NOT a PROPHET !!!!

FACTS ARE FACTS !

And Pan-Arab Nationalism is NOT ALIVE!

Israel DESTROYED it UTTERLY!

(and in impressively efficient fashion!
as somewhat of a military historian myself,
I gotta give credit where credit's due. That
was one of the best haymakers ever, period.)

America only shifted in 1968 (with the F-4 fighter jet sale) after LBJ had been politically neutered. In 1967 during the war, LBJ was semi-secretly on Egypt's side.

Oh (false) prophet of God.

Here's a REVELATION, HEED IT!


"During Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, U.S. policy shifted to a whole-hearted, but not unquestioning, support for Israel. Prior to the Six-Day War of 1967"

George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, Duke University Press, 1990, p.105-115


The US wanted to see how Israel would handle its task of serving US interests and Israel did not disappoint. Israel ATTACKED and destroyed its neighbors hopes of a "United Arab Republic" which the Americans thought would align with the Soviets. After all, it had to EARN its place in the US camp.

The ONLY reason Israel was bold enough to launch the Pre-emptive strike was because it knew LBJ wouldn't mind too much. Sure, there would be some superficial "disappointments" but if the Americans were really disappointed, how do you explain the fact that American AID to Israel began after 1967 and continues to this day? The only explanation is that its actions in 67 pleased the Americans and SERVED their interests.

Incidentally, the same reason why the Americans are starting to question the aid to Israel these days is because Israel no longer plays a crucial role as it did in the last century. It has NOTHING to do with "sympathy" and everything to do with interests. In the past it was allowed to get away with USS Liberty, now it cant even disrespect Biden without getting a boot in the ass in the US media.

Your claim that LBJ was secretly on Egypt's side during the war is so ridiculous it doesn't even deserve a response.

The Israeli Defense Force has only one purpose, to minimize the number of Israeli deaths from the pointlessly murderous attacks the Palestinians keep launching. They do not care much how many Palestinian bystanders are killed, hurt, humiliated, or inconvenienced as long as Israeli casualties are avoided, and they have been rather successful in bringing the death-toll on their own side way down.

And you're, of course, fine with that, im sure.

Why wouldn't you be?

as long as the ends justify the means, right?

Those who do not believe the Qur'an is true are by definition not Muslim. Those who are not interested in religion do not write about such subjects as the Qur'an. By default, authors writing about errors in the Qur'an are from non-Muslim religions.

They are not just non-Muslim, they are usually working from WITHIN the perspective of another religion, usually Christianity, which has a vested missionary interest in the issue. The webpage that you gave me with all those sources, all but one of those sources were listed as "Christian". The only exeption being Karen Armstrong, who I always thought was a joke to begin with.

But like I said, that doesn't really bother me (cuz their attacks have never been effective).

What's new to say? "Sister of Harun" looks like a stupid blunder,

key words there: "looks like"

In other words, neither you, nor anyone else has ever proven a contradiction. (ping! ping! ping!)

as has been pointed out for fourteen centuries.

... mostly by Christian missionaries.

Publishing something which is guaranteed to draw death threats would be particularly difficult.

"Standard talking point", repeated yet again ?

give it a rest buddy...

just let me know when you have

something worth my time, k?

 

[bob x]

They weren't "chosen" at all. They were born into privellege.

"Morton Fried and Elman Service have hypothesised that Ubaid culture saw the rise of an elite class of hereditary chieftains,"

And why do you imagine that the commoners allowed the children of the people who snatched food from their mouths to continue to snatch food from their mouths? Did the parents give the children something (hint, hint) that would compel the commoners to keep giving in?

As far as the "priests" go, early societies did not permit the positions to be hereditary. In Syria, even after we start to get writing, the only religion was the cult of the goddess of agriculture, under various names, whose priests were mandatorily castrated. In Uruk-period Mesopotamia there are already a variety of deities, and we do not know if all, most, or only some of these cults castrated their priests, but my impression, as I said, is that the practice was originally universal.

Yes, NOT to fight with, but to TRADE with.

And why would you trade anything of value for the obsidian, unless the obsidian was USED for something. Used for what?

They were NOT a warrior class. They werent the ones doing ANY of the fighting! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL !

They WERE a warrior class. If anyone else had had the weapons, those others would have been the ones taking the FOOD! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULL!

I never said ANY era was 100% peaceful, did I?

Huh??? You have been absolutely VEHEMENT about how "peaceful" the Ubaidis were. Every time I say, "Just because it didn't have the constant genocide of the Uruk period doesn't mean the Ubaid period didn't have as much war as any typical time: Ubaidis did fortify their towns, and their elites amassed weaponry," you're all "No, no, my sources proved otherwise."

And Pan-Arab Nationalism is NOT ALIVE!

Israel DESTROYED it UTTERLY!

It doesn't have a national government on its side, since Nasser, that's true. But we do still see all this feckless agitation for re-uniting the Caliphate, and Israel's existence is its main recruiting point.

"During Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, U.S. policy shifted to a whole-hearted, but not unquestioning, support for Israel. Prior to the Six-Day War of 1967"

Prior to the Six-Day War... what? Publicly, LBJ proclaimed neutrality; secretly, he sent a spy ship that the Israelis took to be on Egypt's side. Not until the following year, with LBJ crippled, did the US start selling arms to Israel.

The US wanted to see how Israel would handle its task of serving US interests

Israel was serving ISRAEL'S interests. Israel always serves Israel's interests.

Israel ATTACKED and destroyed its neighbors hopes of a "United Arab Republic"

The United Arab Republic had already broken apart in 1961 when Syria seceded; earlier attempts to incorporate Yemen and Iraq never got off the ground.

how do you explain the fact that American AID to Israel began after 1967 and continues to this day? The only explanation is that its actions in 67 pleased the Americans

The American PUBLIC was strongly on Israel's side and against the Arabs. You do not think public sentiment matters because you do not live in a country where elections are the sole source of political power.

Incidentally, the same reason why the Americans are starting to question the aid to Israel these days is because...

...because Israelis are no longer taking very many casualties from Palestinian terrorism, while the Palestinians are suffering a lot.

In the past it was allowed to get away with USS Liberty... Your claim that LBJ was secretly on Egypt's side during the war is so ridiculous it doesn't even deserve a response.

Wait a minute. You KNOW about the USS Liberty, so what is it that you think was happening? It was a spy ship, that's not even secret any more; obviously it wasn't working for the Israelis; the Israelis thought it was on the Egyptian side, probably for good reason. That's the story as I know it. What's the story as you know it: the Israelis attacked the ship... just because Israelis are bad people who like to attack things? There wasn't any self-interest of the Israelis that was being served? That's the "motiveless malignancy" plot-failure I mentioned in connection with Chomsky's rants.

And you're, of course, fine with that, im sure.

Where are you getting that from? Just because I've only overthrown the government of Israel once? That's once more than you have, I bet!

I thought I was being quite critical of Israel there, but I did want to stress the point that they act in their own self-interests, so that the only way to change their actions is to change what their self-interest consists of. This is what the Palestinians don't seem to get. If you think that Obama or any other American President is going to overthrow Israel or watch it destroyed, you are mistaken. The American public won't stand for that. There are few Jew-haters left in America, but there are tons who hate the Arabs, have been ever since the Sixties, and will continue to be as long as anyone who remembers 9/11/01 is still alive.

They are not just non-Muslim, they are usually working from WITHIN the perspective of another religion, usually Christianity

Yes, of course. As I said, those who are not interested in religion at all are unlikely to write anything about a topic like the Qur'an. So criticism of the Qur'an comes from believers in other religions. If you're tired of talking to Christians who criticize the Qur'an, would you rather talk to a semi-Buddhist? Well, here I am. Otherwise I don't know of too many non-Christians who even give a damn what's wrong with the Qur'an.

key words there: "looks like"
In other words, neither you, nor anyone else has ever proven a contradiction. (ping! ping! ping!)

Your default assumption is that the Qur'an is right, and so you demand a high burden of proof before you would see it otherwise. To a non-Muslim, there is no default assumption that it is right, and we demand that YOU meet the burden of proof that what looks like a stupid error really isn't one. Nobody but you needs a contradiction to be "proven": if the Qur'an looks wrong on first impression, we will stick with that impression until you show otherwise.

 

[c0de]

rite ...

my patience with you, is officially over.

have a nice life bob

 

[bob x]

Changing your black flag to a white one?

 

[bananabrain]

i would like to say that i've been following this discussion with interest and although i don't have a "dog in the fight", so to speak, it has been an enlightening one. the question is, are you two going to be laurel and hardy, or riggs and murtaugh? and which is which?

*ducks very very fast*

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[Saltmeister]

*ducks very very fast*

Afraid that someone is going to throw bananas at you?

 

[bob x]

i would like to say that i've been following this discussion with interest and although i don't have a "dog in the fight", so to speak, it has been an enlightening one.

Well, I'm not sure which parts you found "enlightening". On the Qur'an we've really just gone in circles. He is not going to renounce his Islamic faith unless it is proven very definitively that the Qur'an contains errors, and that's fine: I'm not sure that I would want to make him lose his faith even if I thought I had much of a chance of doing so. But I don't think he appreciates that non-Muslims are not going to abandon the simplest explanation for conundrums in the Qur'an, that Muhammad tends to garble things, absent some demonstration that this is not so.

On our lengthy political/historical tangent, my positions are:

Hereditary political power, from the Stone Age through medieval times, was always maintained one way and one way only, by force of arms. What his alternative picture of how things worked is, I cannot fathom.

Democratic political power, in First World countries with functional electoral systems, is often maintained by pandering to emotional prejudices of the population. His alternative picture is that things are decided behind closed doors to further hidden agendas; there is certainly a lot of that going on, but I think he underestimates the extent to which popular sentiment, even irrational sentiment, can overwhelm cold calculations of national interest.

In Israel in particular, the principal emotion is an obsession with defending themselves, which cannot be considered "irrational" in view of the history, but does often lead to inexcusable disregard of harm to others.

And (the original dispute): material conditions even for most people in the Third World (I do not deny there are some who are starving) are superior to what anybody in the Stone Age could aspire to.

the question is, are you two going to be laurel and hardy, or riggs and murtaugh? and which is which?

Well, I'm afraid it may have turned into Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, where one of the mismatched buddies decided he just couldn't stand the other any more. (Hmmm, did I just portray myself as Jerry Lewis?)

Whether or not c0de recovers from his pique at me, I would like to pump your brain about what you remember, or have heard, about 1967. What I remember could of course be distorted since I am seeing it through the lens of all that has happened since; and while I was an unusual kid, who started reading the New York Times at five, I was after all just a kid, and may not have understood very well what was going on even at the time. But this is how it appeared to me:

Nasser was shouting all the time about his wish to "Push every last Jew into the sea!" He had always been talking that way, but in 1967 it became a constant frightening drum-beat. When he demanded that the UN peacekeepers get out, and then said he would blockade the Straits, Israel said it would regard a blockade as an act of war (which it is). Israel already regarded itself as being at war with Syria, since Syria had let Saiqa (now an insignificant faction, but then a rival to Fatah and Habash for Palestinian leadership) set up missile batteries on the Golan Heights to rain down death on the Galilean kibbutzim, and earlier in the spring full-scale war had almost broken out when Syria built a dam to divert the Jordan headwaters and Israel had bombed it.

We had moved to rural Indiana, where the preachers on the radio (not on TV back then, as there were few channels: we got NBC and CBS well, ABC and PBS fuzzily, and if we set the loop-antenna just right could get one-and-a-half UHF channels playing old movies over and over) told us the war in Israel was an unmistakable sign of the Apocalypse. When Egypt forcibly turned back Iranian oil tankers in the Straits (under the Shah, Iran was a firm ally of Israel, odd though it is to recall that now), I worriedly asked my mother, "Does this mean there will be a war?" and she replied, "It means there already is a war." Nobody was expecting the war to last a week, rather it was more common to expect that this was the start of World War III; Israel's famous pre-emptive strike on the Arab air forces and rapid advances were a relief to everyone's mind.

I don't remember when I heard the version that LBJ had sent the USS Liberty into the war zone to help Egypt: c0de thinks it absurd (I would still like to hear his alternate version of how that murky incident happened), so maybe I have been taken in by one more instance of the absolutely poisonous hatred against LBJ (the Vietnam debacle was getting terrible, body-counts announced on the news everyday, along with sick video of our soldiers burning villages and whatnot) which marked the period. In January, LBJ dropped out of the race for re-election, not because he didn't still have a good chance of winning, but because the chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" at his every public appearance were wearying him. Bobby Kennedy was LBJ's fiercest critic for failing to take Israel's side (as he was on many other issues) until in the spring of 1968, a Palestinian murdered him. This was a severe trauma to the US coming so soon after Martin Luther King was gunned down too, and with memories of his brother's assassination still fresh; there were lots of rumors (as in the JFK case) that elements within the government connived in the RFK assassination, but most of the blame fell squarely on the Palestinians. Under JFK, we had only gone so far as to sell arms to Israel and the Arabs in equal amounts (breaking the embargo against Israel, but still maintaining equality) but now there was a successful push to sell arms to Israel only.

Some jokes from the period:

How can the Israelis tell their old tanks from the tanks they captured from the Egyptians? The Egyptian tanks have three reverse gears.

An Israeli soldier was captured, who was renowned for having taken out an Egyptian platoon single-handed. His interrogators said, "We have to know your trick. How did you do that?"
"Simple, really. I just shouted 'Muhammad's mother was a whore!' and all the Egyptians jumped up, so I could shoot them down."
So the Egyptians tried that trick: next battle, they all shouted "Muhammad's mother was a whore!"

LBJ to Golda Meir: "We are really impressed by your General Dayan. With things going so badly in Vietnam, we would like to borrow him for a while. You can have any two of our generals in exchange, OK?"
Golda: "Fine. We'll take General Motors and General Electric."

This just in, Israel has decided "buffer zones" aren't enough; Africa and Asia would make good "buffer continents"!

 

[xcvbxcvb]

All you get in the Qur'an is that he was a miracle and told people to believe in God. Did Muhammad even know what Jesus taught?

I think Mohamed was probably Jesus' number one fan.


And, if I dare, I would actually direct that very same question towards Saint Paul.

No disrespect. But it's not really like the earliest Christianity.

And it's usually the very same people who quote Paul on his words to the Galatians about the seed of Abraham, here in 2010, that are the very same ones telling you that to wear head garb in Church is a thing of the past.

People twist it to mean whatever they want it to mean.
This isn't about God. This is about securing ports in the Mediterranean and elsewheres...
and we're expected to follow blindly along, with "God" as our carpet to sweep it all under.

The original teachers, like Jesus & Mohamed, were opposing just this sort of idolatry in their ...what? Campaigns?

Peace be upon them both.
Please.. for real.

And all the rest.


Christ, it's the same damned Opium War, only these pricks have deluded us so deep into entrusting our health and sanctity to a bunch of sparkly, shiny-suit thugs that we think it's all just a part of good religion.


And every smoking, theological debate among the so-called "elders" is geared towards protecting their interests. On all sides.

 

[menj]

]This site gives the following list of academicians (more or less ordered from most to least respectable) who think "sister of Harun" is just a blunder (along with the Islamic reply):
H.A. R. Gibb, J.H. Kramers, Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, Cornell University Press: New York, 1953, p. 328 [back]
S. Vernon McCarland, Religious of the World, Random House: New York, 1969, p. 321 [back]
D.S. Margoliouth, Muhammad and the Rise of Islam, (London 1905), Voice of India: New Delhi, 1985, p. 61 [back]
N.A. Newman, Muhammad, The Qur’an and Islam, I.D.B.I.: Pasadena, 1996, p. 371 [back]
William Montgomery Watt, Muslim-Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions, Routledge: London, 1991, p. 17 [back]
C.C. Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam, Scribners: N.Y, 1933, p. 108 [back]
Karen Armstrong, Muhammad, Victor Gollanez: London, 1995, p. 131 [back]
Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim, Prometheus Books: New York, 1995, p. 63 [back]

Wow, you referred directly to an article entitled "Mary, the Sister of Aaron?" (which was meant as a defense of the Islamic position) and used it to attack the Qur'anic reference to Mary (peace be upon her) by citing the negative remarks of the Orientalists in that article? Gosh, its so very obvious that YOU DID NOT READ the whole piece. Otherwise, you would have easily seen that the article concludes, in total contradiction to your position, as follows:

The Qur’an does not call Mary as the sister of Aaron, but merely cites a Jewish usage that was prevalent at that time in history. The House of Imran comprises Moses and Aaron, whose father was Amram and Aaron’s descendents, the priestly caste among the Israelites, thus including Jesus and John the Baptist. The ancient Semitic custom of linking a person’s or a people’s name with that of an illustrious forefather, is in operation here (Qur’an, 3:33). The reference to the house of Imran (Amram of the Bible) serves as an introduction to the stories of Zechariah(P), John the Baptist(P) and Jesus(P).

I think only a person who has a deficiency of comprehension in the English language would think that the article can be used as an attack on the Qur'an!

 

[c0de]

Changing your black flag to a white one?

---

Well, I'm afraid it may have turned into Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, where one of the mismatched buddies decided he just couldn't stand the other any more. (Hmmm, did I just portray myself as Jerry Lewis?)

WoW... after all of that, you actually think you "won" ???

You know, a year ago, I wouldn't rest until I had humiliated you utterly... but now, I just don't care what people like you (who argue for the sake of arguing) think. Since they don't even bother 2 understand the opposition's point before trying to argue against it (as you clearly demonstrated in your last post).

anyways... i had a nice time fishing and exploring the country side this may day... you on the other hand, were still here, typing up your self admitted "long winded" essays, trying to convince yourself of just how brilliant you are (FYI, no one else cares dude)

so i'll let you get back to it then.... elijah

 

[Abdullah]

What possible meaning could a "test" have, if God is all-knowing?

Now you are depicting a God who is flat-out evil, making things confusing so that people will be confused. A "responsibility of believing"? What a horrible concept!.

; whats wrong with responsibilty? ; surely the garden of Paradise will take some effort to earn, and what will be the meaning of a 'test' without responsibilty?

If you want some argument about "contradictions in the Qur'an", then give me your excuses for this famous one:
Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were the children of Amran. In the Qur'an, their father is called "Imran" but that is just a minor spelling change between Hebrew and Arabic (no more serious than Hebrew "Aharon", Arabic "Harun"); the terrible mistake in the Qur'an is to think that this Miriam ("Maryam") is the same person as the mother of Jesus ("Isa"), confusing people who lived over a thousand years apart. Not only is the mother of Jesus described as a daughter of Imran (her father was actually named "Joachim"), but she is addressed as "sister of Harun" to make it absolutely clear she is identified as the sister of Moses and Aaron.

well which is likey to be correct; a book embedded with divine signs and without contradictions, or a bible or christian history embedded with contradictions and distortions? ; take your pick!

The embryology in the Qur'an reflects the medical knowledge found in the works of Galen, which was impressive for its day but is now known to be inaccurate in several respects. Nowhere does the Qur'an display any knowledge which was not already known before.

; that word 'galen 'again ; show me where galen described the microscopic details of the embryo in it's initial stages as does the Quran, such as 'leech like' clot and mudghah [chewed lump of flesh [it has been seen that this part/stage of the embryo looks like a morsel of flesh with what seems like bite/teeth marks on it] and a 'suspended' part of the embryo?

 

[menj]

Nothing that "bob x" mentions above regarding the so-called "contradictions of the Qur'an" is new....he's just lifting material from anti-Islamic sites such as Faithfreedom International and Answering Islam, the two main sources of these type of diatribe. Other similar websites simply copied and pasted these "contradictions", so they get spread all over the web. But this is the year 2010, and there is something known as Google. There are many sites which explains all these so-called "problems", if one bothers to actually look for it.

 

[Saltmeister]

well which is likey to be correct; a book embedded with divine signs and without contradictions, or a bible or christian history embedded with contradictions and distortions? ; take your pick!

There's a number of gripes I have with the above statement. The thought that is foremost in my mind is why a Muslim would want to claim Jewish and Christian texts as containing contradictions. Claims of contradictions have most often been used by Muslims as a way of promoting their tradition and demoting that of others. The claim reeks of bias. It's where you're trying to make one tradition seem better than others.

Secondly, the statements contained in any sacred text will always vary in importance. The purpose of a sacred text is to communicate valuable, meaningful or important teachings. The point that the text intends to make in isolation with two statements X and Y is more important than whether or not statements X and Y appear to contradict each other. If the text succeeds in communicating an important insight then statements X and Y have fulfilled their purpose.

Religious texts tend not to have been intended as technical documents. Human existence is an intuitive, not a mechanical process. Human beings do not require precise specifications for life processes. We don't need engineering schematics. Why should it matter if two statements X and Y are "contradictory?" It is more important that humans receive the proper guidance in critical situations and aspects of life than for two statements to "logically make sense."

If someone wants to claim that a text contains contradictions, I would ask him why contradictions would prevent a religious text from fulfilling an agenda God may have.

I assert that a religious text can perform its function even with statements that "contradict" each other because humans have the ability to intuitively perceive God's wishes from them despite them not making sense logically, technically or linguistically. I think it is just silly for people to obsess over something that doesn't prevent a religious text from performing its function.

The point of this thread is to discuss whether or not Islam is rational. I cannot be sure if all Muslims think this way or if this is actually taught as "orthodoxy" or "truth" in Islam -- that Jewish and Christian texts are inherently corrupt -- but to me it is simply irrational to obsess over technical and linguistic correctness. The least I can say is that many Muslims are irrational for obsessing over errors and contradictions.

While others may praise God for presenting a religious text that does not contain technical or linguistic errors, I would praise God for giving humans the ability to compensate when a religious text isn't technically or linguistically perfect. It is a sign that we can think for ourselves.

Thirdly, whether a text is technically or linguistically correct/perfect contain often be a matter of opinion. You might think there is an "error" or "contradiction" somewhere simply because it doesn't conform to your "logic." There is subjectivity and bias involved in determining what is right and wrong.

Fourthly, Muslims claim that the Quran "confirms" Jewish and Christian tradition. How can that be so if it doesn't state or mention important Jewish and Christian teachings? The problem is not so much what it does say, but what it doesn't say.

I don't think it's good enough to say that the Quran confirms the earlier traditions and contains corrections. That isn't sufficient. To say that the present Judaism and Christianity are distortions and that Islam was the true original doesn't satisfy me either. It is easy to say that if you are Muslim and are proud of your tradition and that makes it a very biased argument.

The reason why I can't accept that argument is that I have seen the beauty in Judaism and Christianity. For a Jew or Christian to accept Islam as the "true original," they would have to discard important, meaningful and valuable teachings in Judaism and Christianity. These teachings either don't exist in Islam or aren't expressed in the same ways. From that perspective, for a Jew or Christian to discard their tradition, they would be discarding something "better" for something "worse."

It's important to recognise that for a Jew or Christian to accept Islam as "the true original," he must adopt what a Muslim sees as a requirement for the one true, original religion. The premise is that "God's teachings" will always be better than "man-made teachings." It follows that the one true, original religion must be superior to anything humans could ever invent. This isn't necessarily the view of the Jew or Christian, but it definitely does seem to be the view of the Muslim.

The trouble with the Quran is that it doesn't even state or mention the most important Jewish and Christian teachings. If it did, it might be able to show that they were "inferior" by presenting a comparison.

It's rare for Muslims to show understanding of how Judaism and Christianity actually work, which is more than just the dogma. A tradition is more than just the dogma. There is the question of what one thinks are the most important teachings, whether you think you are being too judgmental and legalistic and how the teachings are to be enforced or applied. The text may not explain that. You have to use your own judgment. There is then the question of how God wants people to execute and apply those teachings and directives. There's a whole philosophy behind it and that is what makes Jews and Christians proud of their traditions. Islam seems to ignore that.

If Judaism and Christianity are distortions then one must first make the effort to fully understand these two traditions and show that the completely understood tradition is not what God ideally taught. If this cannot be done, then the idea that Judaism and Christianity are distortions is irrational.

If Islam's sole purpose was to replace the two earlier traditions then this would invalidate its purpose. A successive tradition that fails to legitimately replace an earlier tradition is an invalid tradition. If God intended for Islam to simply co-exist, then it can be valid as an additional tradition. The stronger the claim Muslims make for Islam, the greater the burden of proof.

The House of Imran comprises Moses and Aaron, whose father was Amram and Aaron’s descendents, the priestly caste among the Israelites, thus including Jesus and John the Baptist.

The priestly caste were the Levites, but wasn't Jesus descended from Judah?

 

[menj]

The priestly caste were the Levites, but wasn't Jesus descended from Judah?

The "House of Imraan" which the Qur'an refers to is to Mary (peace be upon her) and her ancestors, which is from Amram, the father of Moses (P) The Qur'an does not trace any "lineage" from Jesus (P), as Jesus (P) does not have a father and was miraculously born of a virgin. This is an important tenet in Islamic belief regarding Jesus (P).

 

[bob x]

I think Mohamed was probably Jesus' number one fan.

He shows no knowledge of anything Jesus said or did.

And, if I dare, I would actually direct that very same question towards Saint Paul.

I do have my reservations about how well Paul understood Jesus either.

Wow, you referred directly to an article entitled "Mary, the Sister of Aaron?" (which was meant as a defense of the Islamic position) and used it to attack the Qur'anic reference to Mary

c0de was insisting upon "academic sources" so I showed him some.

its so very obvious that YOU DID NOT READ the whole piece. Otherwise, you would have easily seen that the article concludes, in total contradiction to your position

OF COURSE I READ IT. The fact that I consider its conclusions totally bogus does not mean that I did not read them. This, for example:

The Qur’an does not call Mary as the sister of Aaron, but merely cites a Jewish usage that was prevalent at that time in history.

is a flat-out lie. No such usage was "prevalent" among Jews, or any other people in the world, at that time in history, or any other time: if it were prevalent, then it should be possible to cite an example of anybody using the word for "sister" in such a way, but no Muslim has cited any such example although people have been asking for at least twelve centuries (since the composition of the hadith).

The House of Imran comprises Moses and Aaron, whose father was Amram and Aaron’s descendents, the priestly caste among the Israelites, thus including Jesus and John the Baptist.

Jesus was of the house of David, and it was his claim to be the rightful heir to the kingship which made it possible for him to be accused to the governor of treason against Rome.

The ancient Semitic custom of linking a person’s or a people’s name with that of an illustrious forefather, is in operation here (Qur’an, 3:33).

The ancient Semitic custom (also found among many non-Semitic peoples) is to use "son" or "daughter", not "brother" or "sister", when referring back to an illustrious "forefather" (the authors here are ironically confirming this: they do not say "forebrother"!)

WoW... after all of that, you actually think you "won" ???

No, "white flag" just means that you have given up fighting (as you more or less confirm). Not everyone who stops fighting is necessarily conceding that the other side "won"; I am aware that you, for some inexplicable reason, think your arguments were persuasive.

I just don't care what people like you (who argue for the sake of arguing) think. Since they don't even bother 2 understand the opposition's point before trying to argue against it (as you clearly demonstrated in your last post).

If you were not able to convey what you were trying to say, have you considered that there may have been some problems on the transmission side rather than the receiving side? I have been TRYING to understand your position on some things where you stubbornly refuse to explain: how do you think the children of "elites" become "elite" themselves when the family has no force on its side, for example? I have asked you that one a few times. Concerning 1967, obviously it appeared much differently in Pakistan than in America, but you take it for granted that I already know what the story is that you have been told-- when actually, as I have been trying to tell you, it is extraordinarily difficult to make heads or tails of what you think was going on back then; I have explained how the story appeared over here, but I am baffled about how it is that you think things came down.

(FYI, no one else cares dude)

You are mistaken: you can see that there are others on this board who take an interest in what I (and you) have to say, even if they did not post while we were going at it one-on-one.

; whats wrong with responsibilty?

A responsibility to BELIEVE? Why would it be "responsible" behavior to believe something that does not have any appearance of truth? I cannot by effort of will force myself to believe something that is not at all convincing, nor do I think it would be a good thing to try even if I could. If God wants us to believe something, then it is up to Him to make it appear to be true; it is not our "responsibility" to believe otherwise than what God shows us.

; surely the garden of Paradise will take some effort to earn, and what will be the meaning of a 'test' without responsibilty?

I asked you right at the start how there could possibly be any meaning whatsoever to a "test" if God already knows everything. The only reason WE "test" things is because we are ignorant.

well which is likey to be correct; a book embedded with divine signs and without contradictions, or a bible or christian history embedded with contradictions and distortions? ; take your pick!

I see no divine signs or freedom from contradiction in the Qur'an. It just looks like a book written by someone who knows a little bit about the Bible but is seriously confused about much of its content.

Nothing that "bob x" mentions above regarding the so-called "contradictions of the Qur'an" is new....he's just lifting material from anti-Islamic sites such as Faithfreedom International and Answering Islam

If you had paid any attention to the thread, you would know that I had never heard of any of these websites until this discussion started (I had never heard of "Faithfreedom International" until just now). I had heard of "sister of Harun" and "the clot" before the Internet itself existed; you are quite right that neither of those is "new", since the embryology conundrum has been known for decades and the "sister" conundrum is said to go back to Muhammad's own time.

There are many sites which explains all these so-called "problems", if one bothers to actually look for it.

I find nothing convincing in those explanations.

The "House of Imraan" which the Qur'an refers to is to Mary (peace be upon her) and her ancestors, which is from Amram, the father of Moses (P) The Qur'an does not trace any "lineage" from Jesus (P), as Jesus (P) does not have a father and was miraculously born of a virgin. This is an important tenet in Islamic belief regarding Jesus (P).

This is just another example of Muhammad not knowing very basic facts, that Jesus was called "Messiah" (anointed one) because he was the heir to the royal line (not the priestly one). Muhammad preserves the title as "Masih" but does not know what it means.

 

[c0de]

You are mistaken: you can see that there are others on this board who take an interest in what I (and you) have to say, even if they did not post while we were going at it one-on-one.

LoLz!

you really want to believe you have an audience don't you?

Well, here's a newsflash: for most, this was mere amusement. As for the rest, they already have convictions strong enough to be unaffected by anything you or I have to say.

They don't care, I don't care, and neither should you (but I know this is very important to you...)

No, "white flag" just means that you have given up fighting (as you more or less confirm).

Okay, first of all, I wasn't "fighting" with you. You haven't seen my bad side (some on this forum have). If this was a "fight" I would actually be taking time out of my day to deal with you. Right now, I have more interesting things on my plate than you.

Secondly, my primary objectives on this thread were accomplished long ago (as soon as it was made clear you have no way of actually proving a contradiction).

I was just hanging around discussing Ubaid and Israel out of courtesy, since you took the time to explain the details of Superdeterminism to me on the other thread. I wanted to return the favor.

Unlike me though, you are unwilling to accept the facts and modify your position. Once I realized there is no hope of a productive dialogue, I left.

If you were not able to convey what you were trying to say, have you considered that there may have been some problems on the transmission side rather than the receiving side? I have been TRYING to understand your position on some things where you stubbornly refuse to explain:

excuse me? I "refused" to "explain" ???

r u serious ?? !!!

WoW...

just blame me for your blind ineptitude.

whatever works for you dude

how do you think the children of "elites" become "elite" themselves when the family has no force on its side, for example? I have asked you that one a few times.

that has absolutely nothing to do with the point that I made OVER AND OVER AGAIN. In fact, what you just said actually works in my favor as it is exactly the situation that prevails today, further proving my point that fundamentally, nothing has changed. The elites are still a non-warrior class, who (obviously) hold on to their status through force (economic and militarily).

Also, to correct you on another misconception. I don't believe the elites are all that important, who control the world secretly and according to their own plans. I used to believe such stuff, but I talked about the "endless feedback loop" for a reason. Ultimately, the elites are just like the masses... short sighted and stupid.

Concerning 1967, obviously it appeared much differently in Pakistan than in America, but you take it for granted that I already know what the story is that you have been told--

err... actually, I didn't learn about '67 while I was in Pakistan. I learned about it in Canada, mostly on the history channel and books about the Middle East, written mostly by AMERICANS. I already told you that nothing I said is all that controversial. Some of the points I made aren't pointed out in documentaries, granted, but even they are a well-known geopolitical reality.

Like I said already, I am not a big fan of Chomsky as far as his ideology is concerned (and the big picture), but on these issues, he knows much more then the likes of you and is just one of my sources.

The fact of the matter is this: you are completely out of touch with reality. Just as you were trying to tout your decade old sources on the subject and refusing to accept my more recent sources which contradicted yours directly, there is no point in discussing this subject with you because you will simply duck your head in the sand.

 

[Abdullah]

There's a number of gripes I have with the above statement. The thought that is foremost in my mind is why a Muslim would want to claim Jewish and Christian texts as containing contradictions. Claims of contradictions have most often been used by Muslims as a way of promoting their tradition and demoting that of others. The claim reeks of bias. It's where you're trying to make one tradition seem better than others.

bias ; well are the biblical scholars that have exposed such contradictions biased too? ; see link my dear friend and then tell me wether it's biased:

http://www.interfaith.org/forum/216296-post15.html

Secondly, the statements contained in any sacred text will always vary in importance. The purpose of a sacred text is to communicate valuable, meaningful or important teachings. The point that the text intends to make in isolation with two statements X and Y is more important than whether or not statements X and Y appear to contradict each other. If the text succeeds in communicating an important insight then statements X and Y have fulfilled their purpose.

ah, but it's more than just 'appearing' as contradictions my dear friend; see above link

Religious texts tend not to have been intended as technical documents. Human existence is an intuitive, not a mechanical process. Human beings do not require precise specifications for life processes. We don't need engineering schematics. Why should it matter if two statements X and Y are "contradictory?" It is more important that humans receive the proper guidance in critical situations and aspects of life than for two statements to "logically make sense."

If it is from God, the most perfect of all, then it has to be without contradictions:

"Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found therein much incongruity." --The Qur'an, Sura 4:82​

If someone wants to claim that a text contains contradictions, I would ask him why contradictions would prevent a religious text from fulfilling an agenda God may have.

I think my dear friend, we should take a step back and first consider before we assume something is from God, as to what the criteria of such a scripture will be?; could God reveal a contradictory text?; does God contradict himself; contradiction basically means 'mistake' or 'error' or 'ha ha you've been caught out that this is all nonsense!' ; this is how a criminal slips up when in court and under interrogation my friend, my contradicting himself, as falsehood gets caught out like this and truth and perfection will not have this massive error of 'contradiction' in the first place, hence contradictions should spell out for us in capital letters, HELLO, EXCUSE ME, BUT THIS IS NOT FROM GOD, BUT IT'S FROM A FALLIBLE HUMAN WHO'S ONLY CLAIMING SO', and wether or not God could fullfill a agenda with a contradictory text should not even occur to us at all, for the former consideration should basically put the text out the window!

 

[bob x]

you really want to believe you have an audience don't you?

We do, in case you haven't noticed.

Well, here's a newsflash: for most, this was mere amusement. As for the rest, they already have convictions strong enough to be unaffected by anything you or I have to say.

They don't care, I don't care, and neither should you (but I know this is very important to you...)

I do not expect to change anyone's convictions, least of all yours. But exchange of ideas is a little more than just amusement, although for me it is amusing (not that "important" really; if I had a job right now I wouldn't be spending so much time here you know).

Okay, first of all, I wasn't "fighting" with you.

"I wouldn't rest until I had humiliated you utterly..."

If this was a "fight" I would actually be taking time out of my day to deal with you. Right now, I have more interesting things on my plate than you.

As I say, you've turned your black flag to a white one.

Secondly, my primary objectives on this thread were accomplished long ago (as soon as it was made clear you have no way of actually proving a contradiction).

To someone like you, who thinks the infallibility of the Qur'an should be the default assumption, even if it means re-translating words to meanings those words have never ever been used for before, nothing can ever be "proven". But to anyone else, it is not "in accordance with rationality" to disregard the simpler explanation (that it represents the imperfect knowledge we would, by default, expect a book by an ill-educated man of a backward period to exhibit) for what looks like a concocted excuse. You haven't really been much of a spokesman for your religion, failing to advance any defense once you are persuaded that you yourself will not be forced to change your mind.

For example, you wouldn't accept that nobody before the late 20th century ever thought of alaqa with any other meaning than:

show me where galen described the microscopic details of the embryo in it's initial stages as does the Quran, such as 'leech like' clot

until we got an Arabic-speaker. Well, there you have one (unfortunately, one who does not realize that the theory of the sperm "clotting" the menstrual blood into a little creature, much as little vermin like leeches were purported to spontaneously generate by clotting, is Galen's theory).

I was just hanging around discussing Ubaid and Israel out of courtesy

Well, you haven't come across as even the least bit "courteous". This in particular is a laugh:

Unlike me though, you are unwilling to accept the facts and modify your position.

You have never conceded an factual error on anything, instead resorting to "I don't want to talk about it anymore" when your position becomes untenable. I have been the one willing to concede when the facts prove to be otherwise than I thought: I admitted I was flat-out wrong to assume the violence level in Ubaid times was as chronic as in Uruk times; I admitted that my unwillingness to ascribe much economic benefit to slavery derived from my personal biases (I do, however, still think that some of the more outlandish conclusions you drew went well beyond what your sources would contend for or could support).

excuse me? I "refused" to "explain" ???

It has been an exercise in teeth-pulling to get any picture from you of how you think Ubaidi elites maintained their positions. You have still not given a single clue as to what you think the USS Liberty episode was about. Your whole position about the 1967 war may seem clear to you, but I cannot figure out what you think was happening, and you have not been at all responsive to requests for clarification.

that has absolutely nothing to do with the point that I made OVER AND OVER AGAIN. In fact, what you just said actually works in my favor as it is exactly the situation that prevails today, further proving my point that fundamentally, nothing has changed. The elites are still a non-warrior class, who (obviously) hold on to their status through force (economic and militarily).

The situation was NOTHING like the situation that prevails today. There could be no possibility of hiring anyone to fight for you, or in your place, until there was such a thing as money, or other stored value; and all the way through classical and medieval times, the elites were still the warrior class, who hired lightly-armed infantry in addition to, not instead of, fighting themselves, as the best-equipped forces. Not just "knights" (the bottom end of the elite class) but actual heads of state (emperors and kings) commonly died or were captured in battle, all the way into the earlier parts of the "gunpowder" era of warfare.

In deeper antiquity, when weapons were rarer, there were no hirelings at all: in Homer's Iliad the kings of the city-states and other major lords were the entirety of the armed forces. In Ubaidi times, of course, there was nothing to pay warriors with except extra food, larger housing, and somewhat better pottery (I remind you again: there weren't any other kinds of goods, at all). The people who got this are what your sources are calling "the elite" and yes (I remind you again) your sources confirm that they monopolized all the weapons and were indeed the ones doing all the fighting (if anyone else acquired weapons, they would demand, and could not be prevented from taking, better food and housing, so they would BE the elite). You are thoughtlessly back-projecting modern conditions on to the Stone Age, a time which was profoundly alien to the world we know.

There was of course another kind of "elite" besides warriors: the priests, since the societies did need some people to think, as well as to fight. This "First Estate" (as they were called in continental Europe; the "Brahman" caste in India, or "Lords spiritual" in England) tended to outrank the "Second Estate" (the warrior "Kshatriya" caste in India, or "Lords temporal" in England) who outranked the "Third Estate" (craftsmen, able to accumulate some property; "Vaisya" in India, or "Commons" in England) who outranked the unfree (not represented in government as a "Fourth Estate"; "Sudra" in India, "villeins" in England). Ubaidi society prevented the priests from rising to the top rank by physically forbidding them a hereditary status.

err... actually, I didn't learn about '67 while I was in Pakistan. I learned about it in Canada, mostly on the history channel and books about the Middle East, written mostly by AMERICANS. I already told you that nothing I said is all that controversial. Some of the points I made aren't pointed out in documentaries, granted, but even they are a well-known geopolitical reality.

Well I don't know how you managed to miss hearing about Egypt and Syria threatening to kill all the Jews, and taking actions to destroy Israel; the Israeli obsession with defending themselves, at whatever cost, is a rather large elephant in the room to miss. You gave the impression that Israel attacked Egypt and Syria just out of the blue, motivated only because the US assigned as their mission, as a precondition to becoming a US client, the prevention of Egypt and Syria forming a United Arab Republic. Now, actually the UAR was formed in 1958 (Yemen also joining but more loosely; Iraq trying to join but coup d'etats intervening), without Israel doing anything about it (the US did send troops to Lebanon, and the UK to Jordan, to deter Nasserites from trying to take over those countries as well), and it broke up in 1961 (due to internal Arab quarreling which I am sure Israel welcomed, but did not have the power to bring about). You acknowledge the Liberty incident, without explaining how that fits with your theory that the US and Israel were already tentative allies, for which you started to quote a book but broke off in mid-sentence "Prior to the Six-Day War---" just before getting to the part which might explain how you think things were working.

Like I said already, I am not a big fan of Chomsky as far as his ideology is concerned (and the big picture), but on these issues, he knows much more then the likes of you and is just one of my sources.

On the general issue of "what motivates people to do what they do", Chomsky knows nothing whatsoever: he is pathologically incapable of understanding the behavior of others, so all the historical information which he painstakingly gathers he puts incoherent interpretations on.

The fact of the matter is this: you are completely out of touch with reality. Just as you were trying to tout your decade old sources on the subject and refusing to accept my more recent sources which contradicted yours directly, there is no point in discussing this subject with you because you will simply duck your head in the sand.

Your sources did not contradict mine in any way. You were simply not reading them correctly, as I have repeatedly tried to explain. They did teach me that I was in error to assume that Uruki violence was a continuation of the Ubaidi pattern, as I have frequently acknowledged.
I understand your sources because I understand the profound difference in material culture between the Stone Age and the present day, something you are ideologically unwilling even to think about.

If it is from God, the most perfect of all, then it has to be without contradictions:

"Will they not then ponder on the Qur'an? If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found therein much incongruity." --The Qur'an, Sura 4:82​

... HELLO, EXCUSE ME, BUT THIS IS NOT FROM GOD, BUT IT'S FROM A FALLIBLE HUMAN WHO'S ONLY CLAIMING SO

My point exactly. All books come from humans, who make mistakes and show their ignorance. The Qur'an does not "correct" the Bible: where it differs from the Bible, it appears that Muhammad simply did not know the Bible very well.