islam

Teenager sent to jail in Turkey for the crime of calling for secularism

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You may have heard about the story of a teenager in Turkey who was sent to jail for apparently insulting the president. Now the words “teen” and “insult” might conjure up in your mind some rebellious kid yelling unprintable abuse at a well-respected politician, but that is not what went down here, this is something … Read more

Islamic sense of humour failure

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Citizen Khan (pictured above) is a family-based British sitcom produced by the BBC and created by Adil Ray. It is set in Sparkhill, Birmingham, described by its lead character a Pakistani Muslim Mr Khan (Adil Ray) as “the capital of British Pakistan.” Citizen Khan follows the trials and tribulations of Mr Khan, a loud-mouthed, patriarchal, self-appointed community leader, and his long suffering wife (played by Shobu Kapoor) … Read more

The Quote Mining of Sam Harris

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If you have ever debated a Creationist then the concept of Quote Mining will be familiar. This is where a specific quote is lifted out of its original context and then presented in isolation in order to verify the quote miner’s view. For example, Darwin wrote the following in the Origin of the species … To suppose … Read more

Fallacy of the week: “They” (ISIS) are not “True” Muslims

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The “No true Scotsman” ploy is an informal fallacy that is commonly deployed in order to maintain a specific position. For example … Person A – Islam is a religion of peace Person B – But what about ISIS? Person A – Ah but they are not “true” Muslims. Who first pointed out that “no true scotsman” was … Read more

The promotion of fake pictures to establish an Islamic conspiracy claim

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The above picture is doing the rounds. If in fact you google the image, you will discover that it is all over the place as “evidence” that ISIS are really being run secretly by the US army. As an example, here is a posting of the above on Facebook, that comes with the following text … … Read more

British man and Saudi wife attacked by religious police

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Gulf News reports the horrendous story about how the religious police hounded a British Man and his Saudi Wife and then attacked them. The story is that the Brit, Peter Haworth, and his Saudi wife were out shopping in a supermarket, and after collecting the goods they wanted, proceeded to a checkout that was reserved for … Read more