At 06:23 AM 12/8/2012, Jojo Jaro wrote:
The pattern is obvious with this spinmiester. It's always elevating
some irrelevant aspect of the debate as if it were that important to
the discussion. A classic debate strategy I am aware of and quite
franky, being employed by lomax with great skill.
Thanks.
Indeed, we are covering "irrelevant aspects of the debate," and the
whole "debate" is irrelevant to the purpose of this list. These
topics were brought up by Jojo, not by me.
Jojo is demonstrating what I've called paranoid thinking. That is,
the paranoid thinks something is True. They have developed ten
reasons why it is true, why it must be true. If, in debate, one of
these reasons is shown, clearly, to be spurious, his opinion does not
change; after all, he has nine other reasons.
If another reason is shown to be spurious, no problem. He has, after
all, nine other reasons. The number of reasons does not decline. It
demonstrates a certain way of thinking, where the "weight of
evidence" is based on the number of arguments, and there is no
turning off of individual arguments. It doesn't matter how silly they
are. They stand.
And so when one of Jojo's tropes is exposed, he doesn't say, "oops!
that was a mistake," he holds on to all of it, they are an arsenal,
and he's not about to give up any ammunition. So, later, he brings it
up again, as if *nothing had been said.* It truly is a waste of time
to argue with him, if the purpose is to convince him of anything. The
only sane purpose would be something other than that, to juxtapose
better arguments with weaker ones, for example, for future
generations of readers.
So, here we go with the birther claim.
In the matter of Obama qualifications. Lomax throws in irrelevant
facts to confuse the matter.
Notice: no irrelevant fact is cited. It's just a trope, a standard
argument: call your opponent's arguments "irrelevant." Maybe it will
irritate him.
But one thing is clear.
Okay, let's see if he states something clear.
If Obama has a valid Birth Certificate, why doesn't he simply release it.
That is far from a clear statement. It's a "how come" argument. And
it rests on an assumption that is false.
Not a faked scanned copy on the net.
Does Jojo expect to open up a file, and the original birth
certificate falls out? What does he expect to be on the net other
than a scanned copy?
As far as anything actually possible, the original Birth Certificate
has been released. That is, original birth certificates never leave
the archive. If someone asks me for my birth certificate, I don't go
to the Registry of Births and ask for it, I ask for a "certified
copy." That is legally equivalent.
I have copies of my birth certificate (from Los Angeles in the 40s).
It was always a photocopy, and those were real photocopies. However,
what made this a legal "birth certificate" was the seal and
certification on it, testimony of the official that it was a true copy.
As to the facts about Obama's certificate, I researched all this
previously, and reported it all. That had zero impacdt on Jojo. He's
still making the same misleading claims and asking the same
misleading question, "How come?"
Originally, Obama was asked to provide a copy of his birth
certificate. So Hawaii issued him a certified copy. But Hawaii had
gone to a computer system that prints a summary certificate, it omits
some of the original information that is legally irrelevant. I think
they don't want to touch the originals. But you can, with special
permission, get a copy of the "vault" certificate. That is the
original, real paper, real ink on the signatures, etc. After the
birther drumbeat did not cease with the release of the certified copy
(and note: if that certified copy was falsified in some way, there
would be felonies being committed), Obama obtained a certified copy
of the vault certificate. Printed. But, of course, printed from a
scan. That's how copiers work nowadays. However, hopefully, that scan
was not compressed. I lose track of some details here.
However, at the press conference, the original print was viewed by
the press. And a scanned copy was released onto the internet. That
scanned copy was, *by necessity* -- or the server would have crashed
-- compressed. The compression algorithm creates certain artifacts,
which amateur "sleuths" on the internet detected and used to claim
that the document was forged. However, bottom line: this whole debate
was very public. If somehow the real copy were altered to show false
information, the officials that certified the copy would see it. Do
we think they'd keep quiet about this?
No, if they were going to participate in a conspiracy, they'd do it
in a much less detectable way: they would create an *original* that
resembled a real certificate, and they would substitute it for the
actual original, which would disappear. Difficult, but, remember, I'm
not thinking "conspiracy theory." If you put CIA-level resources to
bear on the problem, you can forge a document so well that it could
not be detected. Maybe. Risky, still.
But this would all have to be done *after* Obama was President. His
original birth certificates, shown about, would *also* have to be
falsified, in anticipation.
I can understand how the birther myth started. But the somewhat sane
birthers all dropped out, leaving paranoids like Jojo holding the
bag. Really, this one was killed, dead, as far as anyone who actually
cares about truth.
Lomax likes to argue that based on his "expertise" in computer
compression algorithm, (notice that lomax claims to be an expert in
a lot of things.) the scanned BC was not fake.
No, I haven't said that. I've said that the supposed evidence of
fakery that I've seen was simply evidence that it was a compressed
scan, which was already obvious from the file format. I did not
invent this or discover it, I read it from an actual expert; I simply
know enough about file formats and compression algorithms to
recognize it. There is no way that I could personally know that a
document copy on the internet was not fake. I can only infer this
from evidence. I do trust it the released certificate as valid,
because there is *no credible evidence* that it is fake. What I've
seen to the contrary is all weak inference, like supposed
anachronisms (that wouldn't be, for an academic like Obama's father).
It's all legally moot. If it were found that Obama were actually
technically ineligible, which would have to be proven, not merely
alleged, I'd guess that the matter would go to the Supreme Court. A
lower court does not simply remove a President, and, in fact, I doubt
that an impeachment would stand, unless Obama were shown to have
personally participated in a forgery, or knowingly used a forged
document. Then the House might impeach him, and the Senate would decide.
Ain't gonna happen.
If he is so confident about that, why doesn't he call for the
release of the vault record from Hawaii.
It was released in the only way that it will ever, legally, be
released. By a state official releasing a "true copy." This is dead
as an issue. Basically, it would take a criminal prosecution of an
involved state official to go further. Civil suit has been tried, and failed.
To go on requires presuming that state officials -- more than one --
would knowingly commit a crime, at great personal risk. And some of
this was before Obama was President, in particular, the summary birth
certificate data was prepared long ago, before Obama was an issue.
Clearly, if it exists since they proportedly made a scan of it and
presented it, they should present it since there is no other
information in there worth hiding if they did in fact scan it as they claim.
"It" is kept securely in an archive, the "vault." Because of the
demands, a certified copy of the original was prepared. That was
certainly made by a scanner, it's how they are set up. I.e., a
scanner-copier. It's how this is done in registrar's offices all
over, part of computerization. What is legally effective isn't the
copy itself, but the statement of the official, with the official
seal -- or sometimes just a stamp -- that the provided document is a
"true copy." That's a witnessing, it is perjury if knowingly false,
and if the official is making it without seeing the original, or
knowing the process by which the copy was made, it would also be perjury.
In order to make the document publically available, and back in the
mainland U.S., the certified copy was scanned. But the "original" --
i.e., the original certified copy, with the original signature of the
state official -- was shown at the press conference.
The evidence of forgery, from copied letters, came from the
internet-released scan made of the certified copy. Those differences
would not be visible by quick comparison of the real "copy" with a
same-size print of the re-scanned copy. Detailed examination, at the
pixel level, would discover those differences. I do believe I've seen
a more detailed examination of the issue on-line, but I'm not looking
that up now. I did all this research many months ago, to see if I
could confirm Jojo's claims. When I first saw the copied letter
issue, I thought, "OMG, it really was a forgery." I'll confess, I
didn't think of compression artifact at first. This was really a cool
argument, until it was exposed for what it is, artifact.
The messiah-in-chief can quickly end the birther movement with one
stroke, yet he persist on letting it linger. What kind of leader is
that? Instead of healing the nation, he continually pokes the wound
to keep it raw and sore. Some great leader eh?
Actually, Obama has no legal power to force what Jojo seems to want.
What exactly is he demanding? Does he want Obama to have the original
document from the vault mailed to himself? You do realize that it
took special permission from the Secretary of State of Hawaii, I
think it was, to even get a copy of the vault certificate. They don't
want to disturb that archive, they don't want anyone rummaging
through it, because every access to the archive increases risk that a
document will be lost. They want people to be satisfied with the
summary copy. Personally, I think that's an error, the original
copies should be available, the whole archive should be imaged. But
this is Hawaii, and that would require an expenditure of public
funds. If Jojo wants more direct access, he should get his Hawaaian
friends to demand it.
The President of the United States has zero power to order a Hawaaian
official to do something with the archive copy. And what the Hawaaian
officials already did -- provide a "true copy" -- is what was
originally demanded. The true copy has been seen by many, the
original has been seen by at least a few in Hawaii. What is Obama
going to do, send the Marines to retrieve a copy?
This is really a great example of die-hard argument.
Suppose Obama really did arrange a forgery. If so, he won. He got
away with it, so far, and it would take much more than a little
internet hot air, the barking of a black dog, so to speak, to change
this. Really want to pour your life down a rat-hole, Jojo, keep it
up. You can be the last person on earth waving a sign on the street:
The End Is Near, Demand Obama Release the Vault Copy.
In fact, if this keeps you out of other trouble, it might even be useful.
In the matter of Allah being a moon god.
Allah is Allah, that's a personal name, regardless of possible
etymology. Am I actually the God of Wine and Ecstacy, the meaning of
my birth name? Or was the Christian saint that my name comes from "the god"?
Lomax expertly and deftly attempted to deflect this true
criticism by employing irrelevant name meanings.
What true criticism, of what? There are claims extant that the origin
of the name Allah was something related in some way to a "moon god."
But we can see that even in English. Suppose we have a temple
worshipping the "Moon god." Notice: "god" is in the name. So someone
gets the idea that the god of the Moon is a tad limited. But we have
the idea of a "god" from "Moon god." So perhaps we come up with a
"god of everything." And then we call this "the god." Which we also
called the Moon god. For us, the Moon god was "the god."
I found practically no evidence for "Al-Ilyah." That seems to be
found in only some odd sources, like fiction. "Al-ilah" is what is
given in somewhat more solid sources, and that's a no-brainer. It
simply means what the Arabic, out of the box, means. The god. Now,
there is some speculation about El being a Moon god. And you can find
speculation on the internet about just about everything. Maybe. Maybe
not, and this would be very old, this was not tied to "Muhammad's
tribe." There is evidence that Muhammad's grandfather in some way was
a devotee of Hubal, who is sometimes thought to be a moon god. That's
weak, but not impossible.
And so what? It all means nothing except as a convenient brick to
toss at Muslims, by pretending that they are pagan moon-worshippers.
Hint, Jojo. We don't worship the moon, and, in fact, that is
explicitly forbidden. We do use the moon, to keep time. And the sun,
likewise. Like nearly everyone, ultimately. If we get up with the
sun, does that make us sun-worshippers?
Not a bad idea, that. I like the sun, don't you? The Moon is a bit cold for me.
The name of someone has very little to do with what that person really is.
Right. And the name of God is not God. But God does have names. Many.
But lomax expertly claims that because allah does not mean "moon
god" that he is not the mood god.
Mood god. I like that. Most of us worship our moods. Jojo is onto
something there.
Like I said, a simple study of islamic history will show that
allah was muhammed's tribe moon god that was promoted to be the universal god.
If Jojo were paying attention, he'd have noticed that I acknowledged
that worshippers of *any* god, in Arabic, would refer to their god as
"al-ilah." And we have quite the same meme in English, and the only
way we distinguish between lesser gods and God is through
capitalization and context implying unity and universality. What Jojo
has not shown -- and I found no evidence for -- is that "Al-Ilyah,"
the name Jojo tossed out, was in use as a specific name of some
specific moon god. No evidence that Jews and Christians of the time
would have recognized "Allah" as anything other than "the god," which
is linguistically obvious. No evidence that they would have, if not
moon-worshippers, thought of a moon god when the name was used.
Moon-worshippers would, but that does not make "god" a personal name
of the moon or moon god.
No, this does not show up, we can be completely sure about this, in a
"simple study of Islamic history." If that were so, we'd see
reference to it in the Wikipedia article on Allah as moon god. That
whole article was created this year. This is a very recent trope that
is exactly as it is described on Wikipedia, promoted by certain
Christian evangelists, as a brick to toss at Muslims. It's not
fooling *anyone* except naive Christians. Way to go, missionary,
confuse your own people and have zero effect except irritation, and
wonder at your stupidity, in the people you are trying to reach.
I've known Muslims who converted to Christianity, and they would have
thought you completely insane.
Lomax criticizes me for not providing references. That is deliberate
on my part.
Self-serving. It's certainly convenient. I waste a lot of time
providing references in these discussions.
I do not provide references precisely for the reason that I want
people to do their own research.
I'm a person who did do my own research. And there is nothing there.
And nobody else, here, is confirming Jojo's claims. It's time he puts
up or shuts up. Where is actual evidence? Remember, he is claiming
that this is so totally obvious to anyone who looks that I am
therefore lying, attempting to deceive. He's not claiming that there
is some obscure web site with some obscure research or fantasy, he's
claiming it is obvious from "a simple study of islamic history."
It is not, and that is totally obvious. Jojo is a proven liar. (There
is always a theoretical possibility that he believes what he's
saying, and he would not, technically, be a liar. But there is also
such a thing as culpable, willful repetition of what is false. So
even if Jojo is merely deluded, the word "lie" can be used for this
extreme disregard of truth.)
Any reference I cite will be rejected as biased anyways, so why
bother. But do your own research and you will see that I speak the
truth. Allah is the mood god of muhammed's tribe.
I found that much mishegas on the net is based on incomplete
translation. A word will be left untranslated to create an
impression. So let me translate more completely what Jojo wrote:
"The god is the mood god of muhammad's tribe."
True, in the right context. But he's done something here: he uses
"Allah," in English, and Allah in English does not at all refer to
the "mood god." It refers to God, the One God, being a name for that
God used by Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, and by others as well.
I like this "mood god." I want to remember that, next time I'm
tempted to worship my "mood god" instead of Reality.
In the matter of muhammed's "dozens of wives", lomax once again
attempts to divert the attention to what really is the crux of this
argument. When a man has intercourse with a woman, the marriage is
completed and consumated whether on not there was a cermony or not.
Okay, how many women did Muhammad have intercourse with? I did not
deny this definition. However, we don't actually know. We have some
inferences, that's all. Muhammad had at least one wife with whom he
may not have had intercourse, actually, that could be many of those
included in that long list, some, in fact, were explicitly so.
Unconsummated marriages, divorced, which is more or less equivalent
to our "annulment."
However, important point: one can be "intimate" with a wife, without
consummation. If a marriage has been declared, nobody will question
the man and woman being alone together. At least they shouldn't, by
Islamic law. The Saudis have done some weird things. Do not ever
assume that the Saudis actually practice Islam. Sometimes, and in
some ways, Yes. In others, No, they are idiosyncratic and isolated.
And have done a great deal of damage.
Clearly this was illustrated clearly in the marriage of Isaac
with Rebekkah and the marriage of Adam with Eve. None of these
involved any ceremony.
"Ceremony" is not an essential of marriage. What is an essential is
public knowledge of the relationship. An Islamic marriage, in
particular, requires only that the husband and wife acknowledge
before witnesses that they are married. I've seen this interpreted,
in fact, as applying when the silence of the woman was taken as
consent. A man was travelling with a woman. They registered at a
hotel. He stated, in her presence, that they were married, in
registering. She said nothing. He told her, when they were alone,
that this meant they were married. She accepted, and they went on to
have children....
Nobody questioned the marriage.
If the marriage had not been consummated, she could have said,
"You're crazy." Nobody would have questioned her, not really.
In fact, if you look at Jacob. Jacob had 2 wives Leah and Rachel,
but he also had 2 of what we would call concubines - Bilhah and
Zilphah. He had children with these 2 concubines and were always
considered part of his family.
And nobody thought twice about it. Good point to notice. The Qur'an
describes both categories: wives and "woman of your right hand."
I.e., slaves. Concubines. They are not in the "prohibited degrees,"
that means that intercourse can be lawful. However, it's more complex
than that. Intercourse can create obligations.
The Bible treated Bilhah and Ziphah as proper wives though no
ceremony was involved.
Jojo is equating "marriage" with a ceremony. No, a simple
acknowledgement with witnesses is adequate. Some have even called the
angels to witness, when they were in a big hurry. That is, shall we
say, disapproved. Marriage is actually a social institution, but the
key would be open acknowledgement, not merely something secret.
Even our modern laws recognize intercourse as the definition of marriage.
No, it does not, not generally. And that's obvious.
In our laws, a person is not officially marriage to another "until"
such time as the marriage is "consumated".
That's preposterous. What is "marriage," and when are we, legally,
"married." I and my ex-wives were legally married when we declared,
in front of witnesses, that we were married -- I've done this a few
times --- and then registered this fact, with signatures of
witnesses, with the state. There was ceremony, but ceremony is not
part of the legal definition. It's the witnessing that establishes
it. Now, suppose the marriage was never consummated. Are we not then
"officially married." No, we are. She could legally make certain
decisions as my wife. She would inherit (and to defeat this, another
heir would have to show, essentially, that I was under undo influence
and not in my right mind). She's my wife until and unless we
divorced. Consummation, per se, forms no part of the legal definition.
Consummation does have an effect under Islamic law. One of the
requirements of marriage in Islam is dowry, some gift to the woman
that she can give up if she desires a divorce. Otherwise, if he
divorces her, she keeps it. If a marriage is performed, which
*legitimates* cohabitation, but the marriage is not consummated, and
the husband decides to divorce her, she may keep half the dowry, she
must return half.
By the way, the Qur'an explicitly forbids manipulating the rules and
creating technicalities to harm women. And obviously women are also
enjoined not to lie about the facts, nor to conceal what God has
made, and obvious reference to pregnancy.
Similary, If a man cohabitates with a woman, they are recognized as
married even without any ceremony.
Only if they declare it and request the recognition. That is, again,
a public testimony. This is not forced on people.
We call it "common law wives".
Indeed. Basically, if people act as if married, openly, they may gain
recognition of this as a marriage "without any ceremony." But
ceremony, itself, is not a legal requirement of marriage. It is the
testimony in front of witnesses. If it could be shown that a man
treated a woman as his wife, and the relationship was open -- not
just secret trysts at night, say -- and he then tries to deny her
what would equitably be common property, she can sue. And might win.
But this is totally off-topic.
Look, I've been married six times, and I've researched the law, and
have advised others who needed to know the boundaries in the United
States. How to legally have multiple wives here, for example -- and
my involvement there was in representing the woman who was
considering it, and advocating for her. (The first wife wanted this
to happen. Complicated story.) It can be done. What it takes to do it
properly is a contract.
Now, if a man is legally married here to one woman, and has a
contract with another that protects her with regard to property,
covers the contingency of children born to her during the operation
of the contract, and suppose it is shown, somehow -- pregnancy,
perhaps -- that he had intercourse with another woman. Is he
therefore, by U.S. law, "married" to her? No, we do not recognize
intercourse as establishing marriage. He is not a bigamist, by our
definitions. However, he may have contractual obligations to her. The
contract, for rather obvious reasons, cannot be an agreement to have
intercourse. Let's say that this would have happened on the side, so
to speak. She was to have her own house, he could afford that.
It fell apart, when it became clear that the man had a terrible
temper. I helped that come out, and she was extremely grateful, she
could have been trapped into a *terrible marriage.* Under other
circumstances, it might have worked. I've known at least one man who
seemed to have handled it. Mostly, my own opinion is that one woman
is trouble enough....
The record is clear. Muhammed's appetite for women as sex toys,
even girls as young as 9 years old, is both legendary and well
documented even by muslim scholars. This is a source of great
embarassment to muslims and people like lomax always try to spin it
away with lengthy esasys to confuse the issue.
Frankly, I don't see the appeal of worshipping a second rate moon
god with a pedophile prophet as the leader. But, that's just me. LOL ....
The "Muhammad was a pedophile" trope is an old one, I must have
written hundreds of pages on this, with extensive research. Let's say
that there is zero evidence for "pedophilia." There is evidence that
he married a woman, the betrothal might have been at six, and that
the marriage was consummated when she was nine. (Some scholars argue
she was much older, and it appears that she was menstruating, but
none of this is completely clear.)
What is quite clear, though, is that the Arabs of the time thought
this perfectly normal. The traditions on which some hostile
Christians based this claim were all preserved by Muslims. So what
this boils down to is the fact that the cultural conditions of
marriage were different, over 1400 years ago, that what we, in modern
American society consider normal. We even consider marriages clearly
after the onset of puberty to be "child abuse," at ages where most
cultures, for most of time, have considered marriage desirable and good.
There is, again, zero evidence of "pedophilia," which does, after
all, have a meaning, it's a preference for children as sexual
objects. *How many* alleged children did Muhammmad marry? The other
wives were *clearly* mature women. He did not give preference to
Ayesha, his youngest wife, much to her chagrin. He gave all his
wives, with one voluntary exception, it appears, equal time.
The "sex toy" comment is pure evil speculation, honi soit qui mal y
pense. Arab society, and Muslim culture, do not, except to some
extent in modern times, have the prudish relationship with sex that
is common in the West. Muslim traditions of the Prophet, considered
the second most reliable source for religious guidance, after the
Qur'an, are very open about details of the Prophet's sex life. I saw
an amusing tradition about Muhammad on one of those Christian sites,
which acknowledged that it showed he had a sense of humor.
Apparently the Prophet spent the night with a woman, she was perhaps
a slave. The tradition does not say if they had intercourse. But
during the night, he got up and urinated into a container and put it
in the corner of the tent. The woman got up, thirsty, and drank some
of it, and didn't notice anything amiss. In the morning, he told her
to take the jar and dump it. (That one might do with a slave, not
with a wife! or maybe...). She told him she had drunk from it. He
told her she would never have stomach problems.... and she reported
that she could see his teeth from him laughing.
Something wrong with sex, Jojo? With having fun?
Something is wrong with neglecting the rights of women, and there is
zero sign that Muhammad did this. "Sex toy" implies no responsibility.
I'm *not* embarrassed. I'm amused that Jojo makes these claims,
continually. Some of them might be unresolvable -- we don't really
know exactly how many wives the Prophet had --, but some of them,
like the "vault copy" trope, were covered by detailed response, both
here and elsewhere, anyone who researches the matter can find it.
The most solid claims are that the Prophet had thirteen wives, but
not all at the same time. It seems that there may have been eleven
wives with regular conjugal relations, at the peak -- when he was
extraordinarily successful, politically -- but all this is fairly
thin. The Prophet apparently did marry a slave, Mary the Copt, given
to him by the Christian governor of Egypt. (Remember, Christians had
slaves at this time in history, as well). Whether or not he had sex
with slaves whom he did not marry is something I don't know about. It
would have been considered lawful at the time, however.
Jojo is a liar, and if he cares about that, he'll go back and check,
and correct any errors. He doesn't care, it seems, but he'd be
welcome to demonstrate otherwise.
