.@islam_et_media Why do you assume anyone who doesn’t share your beliefs has closed their mind? Again, this is an assumption on your part.
— Reason on Faith (@ReasonOnFaith)
In critiquing scripture, Islam, the claims of Ahmadiyyat, etc., I’ve noticed a trend with some Ahmadi Muslims on Twitter, resorting to generalizations, including the making of assumptions about me, not even knowing me.
While Twitter can often make religious apologetics and rebuttals sound harsher than intended (due to tweet-size constraints), I do sense a growing frustration among Ahmadi Muslims. They are often shifting from belief concepts, philosophy and defense of religious scripture and ideas, in favor of victim mentality type defenses (e.g. Qur’an 2:217 expressing the sentiment that the “disbelievers” are out to get you; don’t let them reach your minds or your hearts!).
This is how you know that they have begun to exhaust rational reasoning. It’s as if they want to goad me into lashing out with ad hominem words in response, so that they can point others to a tweet or statement of mine somewhere, so as to say, “See, he’s being mean. He’s being irrational and emotional. You cannot trust what he says.”
If you look through this thread, you will see more angst, generalization and assumptions from the Ahmadi Muslims engaging with me, than from me back at them.
One of the reasons I engage online in these conversations, is because for those questioning their beliefs, I would like for them to see how people of faith in religion are responding, and what arguments are being presented in return. They can then reflect on what seems more likely to be true.
I don’t expect to convert Ahmadi Muslims or for other Muslims to abandon Islam; at least not right away. They may after months and years of reflection based on points raised that they’ve then investigated on their own.
Just like in formal debates, the benefit is often for the audience, the observers, who don’t lose face considering new ideas.
As you can read in my brief About page, my goal is to vociferously challenge what I see to be poor ideas and false ideologies, while loving all of humanity.
I will endeavor to do my best to keep my cool. I may not always succeed, as others critiquing me may also cross the line. If and when they do, I will endeavor to forgive them and return to civil dialog, as I would hope they will too.
Since I’ve always been a person that’s in control of my emotions and almost never gets angry, this is my natural state of being.