Women deficient in intelligence?

[malone]

So you have left Islam because you do not like what it says? How logically fallacious that decision is. If Islam is proven to be true, then everything that comes with it is true regardless of how you feel about it. An alcoholic cannot reject Islam on the basis that Islam prohibits alcohol (just because he himself is addicted to it and cannot understand the idea why prohibition of alcohol would be commanded by God). He must submit his will to God.

It's like someone refusing to believe that they failed their Maths test just because they don't like the idea of failing their maths test. You do not like the idea or the words of this hadith and so you reject Islam totally because of it, rather than realising that since Islam is from God (and we can prove this), the hadith MUST be true and you MUST accept the words of the Messenger of God because they MUST be true

And it is ironic that you apostate based on emotions and not reason and yet you dislike a hadith that talks about such a deficiency of women... you just proved our point

I don't think I am quite an apostate yet. I don't know where I stand at the moment, but reading hadith like this does not help.

Also - when I dislike something, I dislike it on the basis of intellect too, not just emotion, this is the basis on which most people dislike most things, a mixture. I do not like that hadith, I but I do not like it because it is unjust and is demeaning to women. I personally thinks that women should not be belittled like this. I don't think i am being unreasonable in thinking this.

And it is funny that you think you are being so logical and making fun of my 'deficiency in intellegence' just like a good Muslim man should believe I guess, but then you make the nonsensical claim that a metaphysical truth such as that of a religion can be proven to be 'objectively' true. You cannot seriously believe this? This is why some people leave Islam, and many many others will never EVER convert and others actively hate the religion. It does not mean these people are illogical because they happen to disagree with you, it means they do not buy your metaphysical ideas, they are not objectively totally proveable and people use complicated systems to decide which ideas they want to keep and which they do not.

[malone]

Your Questioning the Hadith and Doubting what Nabi sallahu alahi wasallam said displays your Deficiency in Intelligence.
Thanks for proving it.

Now this is unbelieveable. Questioning something and disagreeing means a lack of intellect?! So as a good muslim you always just shut up, just believe, believe believe, never question and if you question be always satisfied with the answer (even if it is no satisfactory), a good muslim closes his eyes and ears to doubt and questions. So a muslim intellectual is basicaly a robot who believes what he is told and always accepts the answer he is given. It's not my intelligence that's deficient here...

[malone]

Not all Muslim societies are like that. Those are not the kinds of women I have "chosen" to surround myself with. The women I know are educated, have good careers, and yet, many if not most of them behave the way I described. There happens to be a growing body of evidence for a physiological basis to my observation as well. Just look up the research on estrogen and its effects on cognitive function and memory. The menstrual cycle may affect cognition in women. Estrogens play an interesting role in human cognition.

In any case, I stated more than once I was making a lighthearted generalization of my own experience, which happened to be confirmed by both men and women responding in this thread. I did not once use the word "emotional" when referring to women. "Emotional blackmail" is a real tactic. "Women's wiles" is also a concept found in many cultures. In my experience, women love to play mind games and can be highly manipulative.

E.g. (not serious)

Wife: [Referring to attractive woman standing nearby] Do you think she's prettier than I am?
Husband: What? No, of course not.
Wife: So you were looking at her!
Husband: No...ah...I...uh-oh.

Again, all you are doing is presenting your personal experience as if it was facts and then you searched for some scientific papers that backed up what you already believe. In my family in pakistan this conversation would be:

Wife: [Referring to attractive woman standing nearby] Do you think she's prettier than I am?
Husband: What? No, of course not.
Wife: So you were looking at her!
Husband: SHUT UP I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

But like i says before, i don't take my personal experience and pretend it applies to over 3 billion people. further more, because you already have a bias in this direction, it means you will notice females behaving like this than men. subconsciosly you will ignore mens behaviour like this because it doesn't fit your preconceived notions. more than hormone and sex differences society is the big modulator of personality, and muslim women are bought up to buy into all this stuff about being emotional and feminine.

[ahmad12]

I don't think I am quite an apostate yet. I don't know where I stand at the moment, but reading hadith like this does not help.

Also - when I dislike something, I dislike it on the basis of intellect too, not just emotion, this is the basis on which most people dislike most things, a mixture. I do not like that hadith, I but I do not like it because it is unjust and is demeaning to women. I personally thinks that women should not be belittled like this. I don't think i am being unreasonable in thinking this.

And it is funny that you think you are being so logical and making fun of my 'deficiency in intellegence' just like a good Muslim man should believe I guess, but then you make the nonsensical claim that a metaphysical truth such as that of a religion can be proven to be 'objectively' true. You cannot seriously believe this? This is why some people leave Islam, and many many others will never EVER convert and others actively hate the religion. It does not mean these people are illogical because they happen to disagree with you, it means they do not buy your metaphysical ideas, they are not objectively totally proveable and people use complicated systems to decide which ideas they want to keep and which they do not.

You say you dislike this on the basis of intellect but to then follow it up by saying 'it is unjust' without pointing out in what way it is unjust and to call it 'demeaniong' meaning you don't like the way it talks about women is emotional in itself, NOT an intellectual argument.

To think that any religion cannot be objectively proven to be true is itself unreasonable to assume. You could have just asked for the proofs and they would have been given to you yet you spout objections to even the IDEA that objective proofs could exist.


And I didn't make fun of you, I pointed out the irony in your post. Such a shame that you do not know the difference

[ahmad12]

Now this is unbelieveable. Questioning something and disagreeing means a lack of intellect?! So as a good muslim you always just shut up, just believe, believe believe, never question and if you question be always satisfied with the answer (even if it is no satisfactory), a good muslim closes his eyes and ears to doubt and questions. So a muslim intellectual is basicaly a robot who believes what he is told and always accepts the answer he is given. It's not my intelligence that's deficient here...

It obviously is. If God or His Messenger tell us something, it is foolish to disagree as if you somehow know more than the Creator. Of course, the kuffar then argue 'how do you know God or His Messenger said that in the first place? Maybe there is no God or you are following the wrong book, etc' at which point we show them the many proofs that God exists and that the Quran is His Book and that Rasoolullah is His Messenger

So to dismiss what God and His Messenger say, even after the proofs are made clear and no objection to them can be raised, is the epitome of irrationality

[NNoor]

Again, all you are doing is presenting your personal experience as if it was facts and then you searched for some scientific papers that backed up what you already believe. In my family in pakistan this conversation would be:

Wife: [Referring to attractive woman standing nearby] Do you think she's prettier than I am?
Husband: What? No, of course not.
Wife: So you were looking at her!
Husband: SHUT UP I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

But like i says before, i don't take my personal experience and pretend it applies to over 3 billion people. further more, because you already have a bias in this direction, it means you will notice females behaving like this than men. subconsciosly you will ignore mens behaviour like this because it doesn't fit your preconceived notions. more than hormone and sex differences society is the big modulator of personality, and muslim women are bought up to buy into all this stuff about being emotional and feminine.

wow, you really need to lighten up. You also need to stop accusing me of presenting my personal experiences as facts. How many times to I have to disclaim that I'm only sharing my personal experiences? did you even read my post? And no, I did not search for papers after the fact just to back up what I already believe; it just happen to know about it because that's my field. Why second guess people like that for no reason?

[malone]

You say you dislike this on the basis of intellect but to then follow it up by saying 'it is unjust' without pointing out in what way it is unjust and to call it 'demeaniong' meaning you don't like the way it talks about women is emotional in itself, NOT an intellectual argument.

See. This proves my point. intellect often has a part to play in deciding what is or is not unjust but some of it is emotional too no one operates fully on intellect alone. Here is my problem with the above. To call any one deficient in intellect and religion is an insult, would you not agree? but especially when these are qualities (allegedly) given to all women by GOD how can then we be penalised for it? Simply, god made us this way. And if god made us this way then he has created the majority of us to be destined for hell fire as per the hadith. This is unjust. In islam, circular reasoning is used: if god is just then nothing He does is unjust, therefore even the above is Just to a muslim. But If you think about it as a chain, not a circle, you can see that god is penalising women for the very traits he created them with, and it's islamic law that limits women (needing two witnesses) and not being allowed to pray when shes on her menses.

To think that any religion cannot be objectively proven to be true is itself unreasonable to assume. You could have just asked for the proofs and they would have been given to you yet you spout objections to even the IDEA that objective proofs could exist.

And I noted the irony of being called deficient in intellect by someone who believes that a spiritual truth is objectively provable as if it's some kind of scientific fact. OK. I will ask you for these proofs - what are they? All you (and any other religious believer has) is evidence, but nothing conclusive.

[malone]

It obviously is. If God or His Messenger tell us something, it is foolish to disagree as if you somehow know more than the Creator. Of course, the kuffar then argue 'how do you know God or His Messenger said that in the first place? Maybe there is no God or you are following the wrong book, etc' at which point we show them the many proofs that God exists and that the Quran is His Book and that Rasoolullah is His Messenger

So to dismiss what God and His Messenger say, even after the proofs are made clear and no objection to them can be raised, is the epitome of irrationality

This is like reading something from another planet, and again it fills in the idea of a good muslim as being like a blind robot who is happy with the answers he is fed and that it is the questioners who are irrational! This approach is ok if you like your life and your thought processes simple. If this attitude is ok for your belief, then it much be ok for christians right? How many christian pastors stop their students from reading the quran 'because it will play tricks with their mind' or that 'a good christian understands that god is beyond understanding, so it's ok for him to have a son, have him crucified and then resurrected?' and 'it doesn't have to make sense, god is a mystery'. Amazing to think that muslims want everyone to question and criticise their religion, leave it for islam, but as soon as you are muslim you don't need those questioning skills anymore!

You can show many people the 'proofs' of gods existance, but until you can show someone god himself there is no proof, only evidence that one can choose to believe or not as he likes. This is why you will never believe a christian's 'proof' but you expect him to believe yours!

[abdulwahhab]

malone:

Women are physiologically different from men. You seem to envision a utopia where men and women are indistinguishable. Physiologic differences lead to differences in other areas, including intellect. A woman may be more intellectual than a man but when everything but the physiology is equal, women are more emotional than they are intellectual and thus a woman would be less intellectual and more emotional than a man when everything else is equal except physiology. The physiology of a woman has a higher effect on her judgement than the physiology of a man since a healthy man does not undergo hormonal changes nor alterations in mood as frequently as women do - and this is a scientific fact. Even in so-called liberated Western countries, men continue to dominate the fields of science because more men enter these fields than women. Women tend to enter fields that are more akin to liberal arts. Are we supposed to force women to enter the same fields as men in the exact same quantities or is this not an appreciation of the fact that women and men are wired differently?

Allah created men and women to be different. Why do you not see men raising any issue when Islam raises the rank of the mother higher than that of the father? Because a woman is more motherly and more nurturing than a man on average. Of course, there are exceptions where a woman is more cruel than a man towards their children but again, these are exceptions to the norm and we see this even in nature.

[alharith]

See. This proves my point. intellect often has a part to play in deciding what is or is not unjust but some of it is emotional too no one operates fully on intellect alone. True, only to a degree. However the degree it reaches is not obtrusive enough to make it impossible. It is possible to think on pure intellect alone.Here is my problem with the above. To call any one deficient in intellect and religion is an insult, would you not agree? I do not concur. There is a difference in saying a derogatory term against one and simply stating what is known. If someone calls me stupid, I feel that the word "stupid" is a demeaning word as it denotes lack of intelligence and *is used in a derogatory manner*. If someone uses euphemisms to try to prevent any derogatory message from leaving the mouth, I'll understand that that person did not intend to denote that I am lower in rank or any of the sort, but that he or she was simply stating what was known.

This is like reading something from another planet, and again it fills in the idea of a good muslim as being like a blind robot who is happy with the answers he is fed and that it is the questioners who are irrational! This approach is ok if you like your life and your thought processes simple. If this attitude is ok for your belief, then it much be ok for christians right? How many christian pastors stop their students from reading the quran 'because it will play tricks with their mind' or that 'a good christian understands that god is beyond understanding, so it's ok for him to have a son, have him crucified and then resurrected?' and 'it doesn't have to make sense, god is a mystery'. Amazing to think that muslims want everyone to question and criticise their religion, leave it for islam, but as soon as you are muslim you don't need those questioning skills anymore! Thing is here, I as an 18-year-old realize the hikmah in Allah's decree and shariah. I am personally comfortable with following His rules without question. This is because so many unnatural goods and benefits have been learned and known through the sunnah and shariah, like the benefits of miswak, or wudhu, or harms of zina, the superficiality of dating, etc. Frankly, I've realized that Allah ta'ala's rules are perfectly fine to not question, anyways, as they ARE from Allah, and it can be proved as another sunniforumer may do so. As well, how do you think the early followers felt about not questioning the shariah? It's not like they learned of the scientific harms of pork products, benefits of miswak, how Zakaat could possibly alleviate poverty in complete from judging the current state of world today (I learned in a lecture by Sh. Hamza Yusuf that apparently if 2% of everyone's wealth went towards poverty, poverty would be eliminated, and so zakaat's 2.5% would create a surplus, surprisingly).

You can show many people the 'proofs' of gods existance, but until you can show someone god himself there is no proof, only evidence that one can choose to believe or not as he likes. This is why you will never believe a christian's 'proof' but you expect him to believe yours!Difference here is, we use logic to judge proof. That is the common ground. Using the common ground of logic, Islam can be proven correct. Just in case no one links you to a site logically listing the proof, I'll give this one; http://sunnianswers.wordpress.com/20...-the-religion/. I noticed that people like to give the Deoband's Clearest Rational Argument link, but I'm more comfortable with this one

Bold is my response, couldn't respond to everything as I still have to finish my homework, responded to whatever I could...

Not a scholar, any truth and benefit is from Allah, any wrong from my own. That remark you made about how Allah creates us with full knowledge of where we will end up is interesting, and I might have a somewhat decent answer, but gotta finish my tasks at hand, and another more knowledgeable person may do better, insha'Allah.