This happened a piece back, so some folks may have already seen this, but
PEEP THIS AMAZING VIDEO OF ARAB-AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIST WAFA SULTAN ON AL-JAZEERA.
(ANOTHER LINK.)
She really tells it like it is!
And has a ton of chutzpah!
CHT to the reader who e-mailed.
Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."
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The problem is, she’s an atheist. That’s where she lost me: American atheists make the same argument against Christianity, and we rightly scorn them for preaching to us about what’s wrong with our faith.
Now of course she’s right about Islam, but outside this issue, Catholics may have more in common with muslims than with Ms. Sultan.
I mean, I guess we should take what support we should get, but would everyone make such a big deal if she were, for example, a professed Satanist with the same message for Islam?
Just an opinion.
I agree.
Sifu,
If we expect atheists to respect our beliefs we must respect atheists beliefs. Her arguments wern’t based on ‘there is no God’ rather in order to get respect you must earn respect.
Just because someone is a theist doesn’t mean they have a complete monopoly on common sense. Nobody has the ability to think everything out clearly.
Atheists have the same type of brain we all do. They’re capable as theists of making just as truthful statements about some things.
Both wrong. Look at what was said, not who said it. If she is right, she’s right. Golly, why do so many people ignore this cardinal principle of discussion: do not argue ad hominem?
Ah, “both” being SJ and S, obviously. anon was right on.
“If the Devil were on one hand, and my son on the other, with the Devil being right, I would give him judgment.” Thomas More, Chancellor & Judge.
I don’t like her whole “Middle-Ages” vs. “21st century” thing, and making that the equivalent of “civilization and backwardness” and “the civilized and the primitive” and “barbary and rationality”. I don’t know how it works out in Arabic, but in Engish those who use the words “primitive” “barbary” and, in this sense of the word, “civilization” are discretited in my mind and many others. These terms have current anthropological meaning, it is the old “we’re better than you” and “humanity: on and upward” attitudes from the European past. It’s sort of right regarding attitudes toward religious freedom but, but it comes from an attitude that is way too modernist/triumphalist to me.
I am a little supprised to hear what appears to be a big-time liberal making such comments, though again it may largely be the language/translation issue. Also liberals are not always consistent in their attitudes, changing from tolerant to intolerant depending whether the actually like the thing or not.
Still, it is interesting that those of more liberal persuasion are usually the ones that recognize that “progress” in the material and technological sense is a very flawed idea, or at least should be redefined (no one will deny some great improvements in the last centuries of course) but continue the old progressive modernist attitude toward religion and morality. At the same time, those of “conservative” disposition tend to reject religious progressivism but buy into the material progressivism of the 19th and early 20th centuries hook line and sinker. I guess it comes from the alliance between modern conservativism and industry, and the tendency to reject anything that gets associated with liberalism, and to look to the past but not far enough.
I think we could learn some things from the Midde-Ages, and in general pre-industrial revolution culture. Not everything that has gone on in the last two or three centuries is bad by any means, I just don’t think we can or should keep buying into the “onward and upward into the glorious future” idea.
And again, Ms. Sultan is way too modernist for my liking. I guess you have to take support where you can get it, but I could see her attitude turning to bight traditional Christians next. (Not on terrorism of course, but “women’s rights” etc.)
I should have said the words “primitive” “barbary” and “civilized” (together with “civilization,” “savage,” “uncivilized,”) have NO current anthropological meaning. (typo)
Ed and anon,
In my second paragraph I clearly agreed with her about Islam. I’m not questioning the obvious fact that good ideas can come from evil people, or at least people with evil ideas. She obviously makes sense in this case.
I’m not guilty of ad hominim here; I am not denegrating her argument by attacking her, only saying that we should not forget the source, as it gives us a clearer picture of where her motivations to speak come from. She’s not saying what she says out of love for Jesus or conservative American values, she is not some kind anti-terrorist hero, and she is not our champion, as some people seem to think. At best, we can look at her the way Christian Europe looked at the Mongol hordes conquering Islam in the middle ages: it’s nice to see good coming from evil, but let’s not forget evil is still bad.
My point is that the generally conservative American positive response to this woman should be more guarded, or at least better stated. We would be better off to say “look, even the atheists are getting this one right!”, rather than acting like this woman is our American voice in the muslim world.
I think the Muslim cleric guy’s attitude was interesting too. “If you are a heretic there is no point in rebuking you.” I wonder if that is a common attitude among Muslims, and how much that dismissal of any opinion not comming from one of their own can help explain why medieval attitudes toward other religions and religious violence and politics are still so strong in that part of the world.
I thought this woman was very articulate and got her point across without any help from anyone else. She basically confronted behavioral evidence and presented her findings. She does that for a living. She has analytical skill and wasn’t afraid to use it. She was so accurate that the men involved had no viable defense. She was overwhelmingly correct. They had shabby responses to her presentation of what was true.
I didn’t care that she was secular. She simply said that she didn’t believe in the supernatural. OK. But there’s still a ways to go in the journey. I wouldn’t count her out just yet. And anyway, that’s God’s business. The Hound of Heaven, right?
Lastly, I would score that exchange a knockout. Those guys need to be peeled off the mat with a spatula.