5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam (Cracked.com)

Knew all of that except the 45% statement.

knew most of that, but I still think fundamentalist Islamists are more dangerous than any other religious extremists.

5) True the mandate of the burqa is something that is not directly stated in the quran. however, the quran is extremely misogynistic with verses like these

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/women/long.html

4) I have yet to hear any secular critics that cite the founding fathers when discussing the topic of islam. straw man much? or do you just get all your examples of criticism from tea-partiers?

3) once again, this is a straw man. only rednecks and 12 year old trolls make this equation

2) not even Pat Condell (who I do actually admire, despite his extreme nature) has made such a statement. No one has said that in the past, western culture has proven to be more humane than Islamic culture. Those were barbaric times for pretty much every culture. The point that people make is that Islamic countries today are far more violent and suppressive than western (and most oriental) cultures today. Good job, once again, attacking an argument that doesnt exist. so far we have 3 straw men and one half truth.

And this section is especially absurd considering that Muhammad killed countless non-combatants and conquered the entire Arabic peninsula during his own life-time. The key word there is Conquered. one does not conquer in defense. There is plenty of evidence to show that Muhammad and his men killed many, many noncombatants.

And whether or not the people he killed were combatants is irrelevant here. the combatants who he killed were simply defending their homeland, family, and property from plundering, rapacious invaders. these were brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, who were simply defending their home from outside invaders. The mass pillaging, raping, and murdering that Muhammadcommitted was not acceptable simply because he mostly killed people who fought back (in defense I might add). The fact that this article brushesaside the horrific violence that the very founder of Islam committed, shows a stunning amount of intellectual dishonesty.

1) for a time, the Islamic world was the capital of scientific advancement. that was until Muslim "scholars" such as Hamid Ghazahli came along (around 1000-1100) and flung the islamic world into a scientific dark age from where it has yet to emerge. the scientific contributions from the Islamic world since the eleventh century have been abysmal.

Again, this is a sort of straw man. not many people claim that the middle east has never produced a single contribution to science. The point people make is that these theocratic hell holes produce next to nothing today (and that this pattern has been consistent for the past 8 centuries).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnEeTBuPQuo

Regardless, one must ask themself "should islam be credited with the scientific discoveries of the time?" well, should the accomplishments of every scientific endeavour of the western world be attributed to Christianity? I think that would be an unreasonable assumption. especially how both books are rife with scientific inaccuracy

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/SKM/contradictions.htm

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_errors_in_the_bible

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this article is disingenuous, apologetic nonsense and it has more straw men than Iowa.

arbitor365

Whenever I try to tell people that modern math and chemistry wouldn't exist without Islam they never believe me.

Were modern math and science developed because of Islam, or because of Muslims? i.e. the people or the religion?

"I ain't trustin no pinko communist website about Islam! All lies!!"

Its quite sad that some people have the mentallity of the above statement.

I knew all of that already.

Ive never known of anyone who has believed the #4 and #1 points. Also the arguement of #2 is the same as saying "Jesus preaches peace therefore a Christian has never done anthing violent"

I actually did think that all muslim women wore the headdress thing, until I met a muslim girl in one of my classes that does not.

@arbitor: You really should get your sources from, you know, the Qur'An itself, not "Skeptics annotated Bible" or "rationalwiki" or any other atheist-leaning website. Theokhoth

if you doubt the validity of these sites, feel free to point out how they are misquoting the quran. if you cant, than your assertion of bias simply doesnt hold water.

The quran is filled with verses that are, I would imagine, quite embarrassing for Muslims and apologists for Islam. simply because the opposing side is pointing them out and displaying them all in one place, that doesn't take away from the fact that these verses exist.

"I ain't trustin no pinko communist website about Islam! All lies!!"

Its quite sad that some people have the mentallity of the above statement.

I knew all of that already.

carrot-cake

Were modern math and science developed because of Islam, or because of Muslims? i.e. the people or the religion?

DigitalExile

the people.

the religion at least in the Hadith's strongly support seeking knowledge. and it doesn't put a tag on it saying "but if this stuff makes you question totally burn this stuff up!"

That doesn't change the fact that we got Hariesmo running around saying we destroyed the great libraries of knowledge as though its a *%!@#$ badge of honor. (i await you to call me by takfir)

It just goes to show just how far some Muslim minds have regressed into a literal mental dark ages.

As far Arbitor's comments are concerned, not a bit surprised by his point of view and i expected as much. Don't worry though fellow Christian friends, stay silent now, but he'll aim at your when the topic shows up as well.

I'll agree that a lot of modern-day Muslim world has not done well in regards of women's, religious rights. That doesn't mean that cannot be eventually reversed.

Now i'm admittadly gonna put words in people's mouths but i'm gonna go with it. I'd imagine if the Muslim world adopted liberal democracy (look up the difference between a liberal and illeberal democracy). Harisemo would be terrified because he would fear it's some zionist CIA plot to overthrow Islam. and Arbitor would be overjoyed thinking it's gonna revolutionize people towards Athiesim. when the reality is gonna be it' gonna still be a Muslim country, where it's citizenry have a role and voice in their own future, and have a constitution which protects the intrinsic universal human rights.

As far as what the article's stated. no new.

Well I learned something today. And TC, I kow that's Alex Mercer in your sig, but what power is that? I have the game, and he does'n have a powr thatlooks anything like that.-Big_Red-

I pretty much knew this and I'm not Muslim.

[QUOTE="-Big_Red-"]Well I learned something today. And TC, I kow that's Alex Mercer in your sig, but what power is that? I have the game, and he does'n have a powr thatlooks anything like that.svenus97

I knew alot of that already, but I suppose a few americans don't lol. Gamespot is, obviously, full of gamers, and gamers are smarter than normal ppl 8)

It is quite a shame that the people who actually believe these things would never read a Cracked article. And #1 and #2 are quite widespread among the general populace. I do find it interesting how people actually try to label all Muslims with the #1/2 brush.

I knew about all of those things, and anyone who bases his knowledge of islam on more than what they see on the news does too. Going by the title, the writer seems to project his own ignorance on people who actually possess basic knowledge.

By the bye, the fifth argument needs a pretty big sidenote: more so than the Bible, the Quran was written as a very specific book of rules to live by. In Islamic doctrine, it's actually very difficult to speculate on its content with different interpretations. This would be possible if it was more of a collection of moral stories such as the Bible, but it is not. What 45% of the American muslims say in a survey isn't very interesting. I'd like to see that question answered in actual islamic countries.

In short, a pretty lame article that states what most of us already knew.

misleading article is misleading. lol

they claim that islam isn't stuck in the dark ages, and to support this they poll american muslims on weather they accept evolution. they didn't poll all muslims.

...

first of all, even if every single muslim accepted evolution, that doesn't mean what the religion itself says agrees.

the article should be called "5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Muslims"

if it were about islam, they would be quoting from the Qur'an.

muslims who believe in evolution are muslims by name and atheists by heart. another reason this article phails

Why doesn't the article mention anything about the wars and killing Muhammad did in the name of defending Islam?

I think this is the single most reason why jihadists today do what they do, because they can read their holy book and see Muhammad doing the same things.

muslims who believe in evolution are muslims by name and atheists by heart. another reason this article phails

Harisemo

So to summarize, Christianity sucks and Islam is awesome. Got it.

Why doesn't the article mention anything about the wars and killing Muhammad did in the name of defending Islam?

I think this is the single most reason why jihadists today do what they do, because they can read their holy book and see Muhammad doing the same things.

GTA_fan999

yes quran even gives instructions on how to make suicide vests

The funny thing is, i knew all of this for a couple years already. I even mentioned the population bit in adebate a year ago. The only exception that i may not have known was Morocco recognizing the US as a sovereign state (and the bit about theAmerican founding fathers, i despise North and South american history, its soooo boring).

So to summarize, Christianity sucks and Islam is awesome. Got it.

KH-mixerX

Why doesn't the article mention anything about the wars and killing Muhammad did in the name of defending Islam?

I think this is the single most reason why jihadists today do what they do, because they can read their holy book and see Muhammad doing the same things.

GTA_fan999

[QUOTE="Theokhoth"]

[QUOTE="GTA_fan999"]

Why doesn't the article mention anything about the wars and killing Muhammad did in the name of defending Islam?

I think this is the single most reason why jihadists today do what they do, because they can read their holy book and see Muhammad doing the same things.

ball_bag

[QUOTE="ball_bag"][QUOTE="Theokhoth"] Because the wars in which Muhammad participated were in self-defense. The Qur'An has explicit instructions not to fight unless necessary, to treat enemy combatants fairly if they don't surrender, not to attack innocents or noncombatants, etc. As I've said before, the first Muslims were not liked by their society at all and were constantly under attack by Christians, Jews and Arabs.

Theokhoth

[QUOTE="Theokhoth"][QUOTE="ball_bag"]Sahih Muslim (1:33) The Messenger of Allah said: "I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah..." I think that sums up the Muslim attitude towards other people quite nicely.lordreaven

[QUOTE="lordreaven"]

That isn't the Qur'An. . .Theokhoth

[QUOTE="lordreaven"] OH! Snap! :P I don't know if Theokhoth is right or not, but we should ask Gaza, as he is a Muslim.

[QUOTE="lordreaven"][QUOTE="Theokhoth"] The Sahih Muslim is part of the Hadith (narrations on the words and actions of Muhammad) in Sunni Islam.:P It would only be held in the same spirit as the Qur'An if it was a Hadith Qudsi, which are (according to Muslims) direct words of God (which it isn't; it's a Hadith Sahih, which means authentic).

Theokhoth