Hypocrite Extraordinaire Part 1: REASON INFUSION and his Tacit Approval of Slavery

Today I had the unfortunate displeasure of having to sit through watching almost a half hour of illogical nonsense spouted once again by the Muslim Youtuber, REASON INFUSION, in response to a previous post of mine.

In his videos, he rambles on and on, jumping incoherently from one unrelated issue to another and doesn't really, or at least convincingly, answer the question he asks himself, i.e. how he can be a black person and embrace Islam.

I have little time to spare and cannot see much benefit in discussing anything with someone who is so devoid of common sense and logic, and someone who is not above puerile attempts at insulting his opponent's mothers and sisters (In this case his opponent's mother turned out to be a Muslim, so shame on him for going against Islam and questioning an innocent Muslimah's chastity). His arguments are weak and full of obvious fallacies that even a child could spot, making replying to them a total waste of my time, time which could be better spent on something more productive.

However, before ceasing our correspondence, I will reply to his current batch of videos directed towards me. There are three of them titled, “REASON INFUSION:HOW I CAN BE MUSLIM AND BLACK”. This is in reply to the first one, and I will reply to the other two when I have the time. Unfortunately, I cannot embed them into this post because REASON INFUSION has disallowed this function since the last time I tried.

I could be wrong, and his videos may actually be great. Maybe my negativity towards his videos stem from the fact that REASON INFUSION is an “intellectual” (a fact he loves to constantly remind us of) whilst I'm merely your average Bangladeshi ex-Muslim who is now agnostic about it all. I highly doubt this, but I'll leave it up to the readers and viewers to decide.

Hypocrisy 1: Refusal to Condemn All forms of Slavery & Slavers Past & Present

REASON INFUSION is fond of accusing others of being hypocrites who are inconsistent in their moral ethics. Wrongly assuming that every critic of Islam must be a white American fundie (or at least someone who wouldn't want to run the risk of offending his/her white American fundie "allies"), his stock arguments in defense of Islam, from his long arsenal of logical fallacies, include attacking critics and daring them to denounce the founding fathers of America, Christians, and America's role in the slavery of innocent Africans. 

His incompetence really shines through when you witness his refusal to stop, even after he is made aware that the critic is neither a Christian nor an American. I'm not even white, yet he attempted this with me by saying,

"IslamoCriticism, how about spreading your criticism? How about some Dutch criticism and some American criticism and some white criticism and some Christian criticism?"

I responded with:

"REASONINFUSION clearly has not read anything on my blog, otherwise he would be aware that I often  criticize white racism, especially that of the racist BNP.

If that isn't clear enough for REASONINFUSION, let me make it a little clearer; racism and slavery are both disgusting things. I condemn anyone who is racist or has ever owned, bought or sold another human being. Someone who is capable of doing such a thing is not worthy of being classed as a human. In my eyes, they are sub-humans worse than pigs.

F--k all the Americans, Dutch, Europeans, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and anyone else who has ever owned, bought or sold another human being, or has discriminated against anyone for their race or caste. F--k the slaving and raping founding fathers of America, and f--k the white fat slaving bastard known as Muhammad.

Now can REASONINFUSION condemn racism and the owning of human beings in the clear-cut, jargon-free fashion that I have? Of course he can't, because that would mean he'd have to condemn that fat, white, slaving bastard known as Muhammad, someone who actually bought more slaves once Allah "empowered him" with his message. Obviously that message did not include erasing the abhorrent institution of slavery. Allah was too busy outright banning comparatively harmless activities such as gambling, alcohol, and even noble practices such as adoption, in order to accommodate situations in Muhammad's life as they arose."

I've never been particularly interested in American history or politics, so my knowledge on the subject is sketchy at best. However, following REASON INFUSION's denunciation of America's founding fathers, I was motivated into reading up on some of them.

After doing so, I can safely say that I stick to my original statement. The founding fathers were thoroughly disgusting and racist individuals, hypocrites who selectively supported blacks for political purposes whilst hypocritically owning and even raping them.

In response to my above quoted comments, where I hypothetically ask and challenge him to "condemn racism and the owning of human beings in the clear-cut, jargon-free fashion that I have ", REASON INFUSION proclaims in his new video:

"I condemn any oppression whatsoever of any human beings, anywhere. I see no need for any human being to own any other human being, at this date, at this time"

Note the convenient qualifier added to the claim that he condemns the owning of humans by fellow humans, "at this time." What, so according to REASON INFUSION, that great condemner of white slavers, owning another human being is sometimes okay, depending on what time they were enslaved? This is what is known as tacit approval. Owning another human being is immoral to the core, and, to someone with a consistent moral ethic, it can never be justified, regardless of when it took place. The definition of  tacit approval:

"Tacit approval is a benign form of approval that is not expressed clearly, in words. It is silent approval. It is approval that is implied by other statements, actions or by a failure to clearly express disapproval with the situation, performance, idea, plan or request. Tacit approval may be expressed by body language such as smiling, a nod of the head, a pat on the back or a shrug of the shoulders. It can be a friendly form of encouragement and support. On the other hand it is approval that can be easily and conveniently denied as/if a situation deteriorates."

As I predicted, REASON INFUSION, the "intellectual" hypocrite, simply cannot outright condemn slavery because Muhammad had absolutely no animosity with the slave trade. As I explained in my previous response to him:

"Muhammad regulated the practice of slavery and allowed for the manumission of a slave, but this is by no means an obligation. In Islam the freeing of a slave is like an "indulgence". Therefore, it is seen as a punishment and as a way to atone for previous "sins" and score some brownie points with Allah.

Muhammad's actions perpetuated the existence of slavery by institutionalizing it within Islam. Muhammad was a slave-trader. He not only owned many male and female slaves, but also captured, sold, and, in the case of his many concubines, had sex with them. At times, he actually discouraged the freeing of slaves. He encouraged racism by exchanging two black slaves for one Arab, and even Bilal, the famed "black Muslim", was bought in exchange for a black non-Muslim slave."

In addition to the above, if Muhammad was truly against slavery,  like how he did with gambling and the consumption  of alcohol, he would have outright forbidden it. If apologist respond to this with claims that he was a political leader and us expecting him to have banned slavery is not realistic or was not feasible at the time, then I say he could have easily lead by example and freed all his own slaves.

He married his own step-son's wife allegedly to demonstrate by example that adoption is wrong (or, if you listen to apologists, to show that adopting a child does not make him/her biologically yours):

"Allah prohibited adoption in Islam and annulled all the judgements pertaining to adoption. The most important one of which was the prohibition of the wife of the adopted son to the fostering father as though he is the natural father. So Allah commanded his prophet to marry Zainab Bint Jahsh in order to abolish pagan custom." - Muhammad Rushed Ridha,  Fatawa al-Imam

So setting all his slaves free, thereby making it the Sunnah of the Prophet,  rather than  purchasing more slaves once Allah "empowered him" with his message, most certainly would have eventually led to the abolition of slavery, rather than the situation Islam finds itself in today with its most respected scholars accepting slavery as a legitimate part of Islam and its Shari'ah laws.

REASON INFUSION hypocritically expects Americans to denounce their founding fathers for being slave owners, yet refuses to denounce Muhammad who is guilty of the same actions. Additionally, whilst Americans may love the, admittedly repulsive, founding fathers, they generally do not hold them as perfect humans, paragons of virtue who are worthy of imitation. On the other hand, Muslims with Muhammad...

Hypocrisy 2:  Fallacious Arguments using my South Asian/Bangladeshi Ethnicity/Nationality 

As I predicted but did not seriously expect in my previous response, now that REASON INFUSION is aware that I am not white, and now that he is unable to use his stock tu quoque arguments against me, he has moved onto my South Asian/Bangladeshi ethnicity/nationality. He proceeds to roll out statistics on child abuse etc. in my overwhelming Muslim country of Bangladesh, and (in his second video) notes issues such as bride-burning which are prevalent in some areas of South Asia. He then begs the question, why have I not condemned such things or have not linked to sites which address those issues?

In essence, he is saying critics of Islam and their websites should be ignored if they do not also have a billion other links denouncing every incident of oppression and injustice that has ever taken place. Sorry to disappoint, but reality just doesn't work like that. Even if you tried, it would be an impossible feat.

Would you criticize a British children's charity or claim that they are morally inconsistent and insincere for not discussing British slavery, imperialism, war, oppression and so forth? Of course you would not. To do so would be ridiculous. And assuming that these children's charities do not equally condemn those other things because they, to your knowledge, have not discussed them would be equally ridiculous.  

This blog is only a tiny part of my life, and, as its name suggests, it focuses on Islam and issues related to it. REASON INFUSION has no idea of what I do elsewhere or the issues I have spoken out against. Indeed, I have spoken of child labor, abuse, and other issues related to Bangladesh and South Asia in general, and I didn't need a pompous, vulgar hypocrite like REASON INFUSION to goad me into doing so. It goes without saying that I condemn barbaric and backward practices such as bride-burning.

As I pointed out previously to REASON INFUSION, there is a time and place for everything. Unless he is viewing a website that is specifically designed to be a source of information on completely unrelated topics, i.e. an Encyclopaedia of general knowledge, it is completely moronic of him or anyone else to expect them to stray very far from their subject matter. But this is something that he fails to understand. Or at least fails to acknowledge when trying to silence critics of Islam. I say this because his constant tu quoque diversions onto other unrelated topics only reveal his own hypocrisy.  

I am a Bangladeshi. On this particular blog I discuss issues concerning Islam and have always condemned racism and the use of Islam as a leverage for so-called critics to push their racist views. Yet REASON INFUSION quotes statistics on abuse in Bangladesh (which btw is a Muslim majority country) and mentions bride-burnings (presumably because, as with bride-burnings, Hinduism is the religion most associated with South Asians) and then ignorantly begs the questions, why have I not condemned any of those things?  

Let us now turn the tables and apply REASON INFUSION's odd moral standards and requirements to himself. REASON INFUSION is an African-American Muslim. He discusses issues concerning blacks and condemns white barbarity. But.... 

Why hasn't he, up until now, discussed/condemned the fact that 4 out of 5 Middle-Eastern women (Islam being their predominant religion) are sexually abused between the ages of 3 and 6 by family members? 

Why hasn't he discussed/condemned the fact that 94% of Yemeni children (2-14 yrs) are subjected to violence from a parent or guardian, and more than half of all Yemeni girls are married before reaching puberty?

He tells us of the many innocent Africans who were enslaved by the Europeans, but why hasn't he specifically discussed/condemned the fact that 1.25 million innocent white Europeans were also enslaved and raped by African Muslims? 

He repeatedly tells us of innocent blacks who were lynched by racist white monsters, but why hasn't he discussed/condemned the fact that (as of March 2011) more than 30 people accused of Blasphemy under Pakistani law have been killed by Muslim lynch mobs?

Why hasn't he discussed/condemned the fact that 1 out of 3 British Muslims aged 16 to 24 believe that Muslim apostates like myself should be executed?

With REASON INFUSION being a Muslim and an African-American, I could also point out similar, yet probably less alarming, statistics on the United States and sub-Saharan Africa, so why has he failed to condemn any of these statistics on Muslims, Americans, and Africans in his videos?

As a Muslim, as an American, and as a black man, the fact that he has not singled out each specific issue and its related statistic and then publicly condemned them, does not in anyway mean he condones any of it, but according to REASON INFUSION's own twisted “logic” he does support all of this and therefore has no right to criticize whites for their slavery of Africans. According to his own logic, it is he who is a “hypocrite”, and it is he who is “slick in his condemnation”.

Hypocrisy 3: Falsely Accusing Others of Employing Logical Fallacies that are Actually used by Himself

Definition of the tu quoque logical fallacy:

"Tu Quoque is a very common fallacy in which one attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. This is a classic Red Herring since whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge. However, as a diversionary tactic, Tu Quoque can be very effective, since the accuser is put on the defensive, and frequently feels compelled to defend against the accusation."

REASON INFUSION finishes off his video by attempting to lecture me on the tu quoque logical fallacy. He states,

"'They did it too' is not a defense. To justify the European slave trade on the basis that the Arab slave trade come before. It's poor logic and it is irrational ....."

This is hilarious when we consider the fact that the subject in question has always been slavery in Islam, therefore it is REASON INFUSION who is employing the use of the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy by constantly changing the subject and bringing the founding fathers of America, European slavery, the Jim Crow laws, Christianity, the Dutch, Bangladeshis, bride-burning, child labor, child abuse, and even our own fathers, mothers and sisters into the equation, all simply to justify and defend Islam, its racist slaving white founder, and the resulting Islamic slave trade.