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Sacredpony (20)
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Well, if the content is not entertaining, people make their own entertainment. Making memes or discussing tropes, disecting the things.
I miss those 100 things I learned from wathing a movie threads.
"Pointing out that mutants and other super beings appear on a daily basis also doesn't help your case. It helps mine."
Haaahaha. You did not get it. Not in the slightest. It was an argument that struggles are not shown or can be assumed to be non struggles in that world. They did show struggles in the aftermath of thanos finger snip. But all the other exestential crisises are either not happening or happening different.
That is a world were "magic" exists and is real, touchable and you can assume that their whole world is different. Maybe even their islam is different, as it had to deal with that stuff since forever. In our real world, magic is not real. It is unscientific, not repeatable and hearsay makebelieve. In their world, it is repeatable, proveable and fact.
"I don't know why you would claim that Thor's powers derive from technology."
Uhm. Because he said so? Like, literally. In his first movie. He tells that earth scientist, that magic and technology are one and the same in asgard.
As a speculation, maybe they, the asgard people, found a way with technology to harness the inherent "magic" of the universe and changed their genectic code to be able to do "magic". Or they created a mighty powerful entity, that observes all asgardians and what they do and reacts to their commands. Much like you can tell your smart home assistant to turn on the lights or order food. Thors weapon had biometic protection, of some sorts. Like character assesment. Did not Captain America wield it later?
"my appeal to purity isn't really a fallacy"
It sure is. If you make a purity argument, you can only claim things about the purity status. Did you do that? No, you did not.
You argue that she is not a real muslim. Being a real muslim has NOTHING to do with being a pure muslim. And purity in regards to religion is described with words like devout, pious and so on. But not with real.
You try to strawman this argument into arguing that all muslims are "pure" or they are not muslims and argue your way around this point. But this is not arguing your point, but the points of fundamentalist extremist muslims.
You should understand that a fallacy is a formal error in arguing. Doing a purity argument for a non purity thing is always a fallacy. You need to have the purity being the actual defining quality of a thing. I get that you try to argue that being all these things would be the defining quality. They are not. They are only defining devout and pious and even there the actual real world muslms have differences of opinions and internal struggles who is right in their righteousness of being a muslim.
"She's shown going to mosque and engaging in religious rituals."
She is also shown as not covering her face. Your point was what exactly? Are you cherry picking? Yes, you are.
"because it's a lot easier to ignore the pronouncements of scientists than to ignore a god of thunder whose power you see with your own eyes"
They have mutants and other super beings appearing on a daily basis. Some of them claiming to be "a god" is just added flavor to the stuff happening there. Also while maybe not known to the general public, but he did say it is technology. Tech so advanced, that it is magic to us.
I would be more worried about that Dr. Strange doing actual magic without tech. Or all those alien attacks. At least the god person looks like a human, even if he says he is an alien wizard of lightning that visited earth a while ago and impressed the locals.
Also, it is a bit cherry picking to demand to see such struggles shown from Kamala, but not from everyone else, be it hero, supernatural hero or normal person. We see lots of struggles in the mcu when half the population disappeared.
You can expect something like that in deconstructions of the superhero tropes, but ordinary superhero stories, and they are around for like hundred years, just do not do this. It is like demanding to see people go to the toilet or deal with any other mundane thing. And this particular thing would be the life shattering, existential crisis, suicide rate increasing, the end is nigh (several times actually inuniverse) and so on, because of all the things happening in that world.
"just a label"
Probably. Just like any other. If you want to show a thing/person has an attribute, you show a trait people associate with it.
"For the reasons I already explained, my claim is not a fallacy because Muslims are defined by their religious beliefs."
You make an argument of purity, and that is a fallacy.
"So how can a "Muslim" who doesn't actually follow the religious beliefs of Islam really be a Muslim? What does it even mean for Kamala Khan to be "Muslim" if she has no faith?"
Your premise is wrong, resulting in fallacious conclusions. You can look in the real world for countless examples of Muslims that would no longer be real Muslims according to "logic". She would still be as real as actual Muslims in the real world.
"So Thor's mere existence poses a problem for Islam even if Muslims don’t worship him."
No more or less than for all the other people. And muslims already have their dogma about other gods not really being gods. So it would be easier for them, not harder.
What would be a real problem for all the abrahamic religions, if those asgards came with proof, that the god of abraham were just some other asgardian or another alien.
"her choice to fangirl Thor would necessarily lead to some sort of spiritual struggle if she were a real Muslim"
Why would you have to be a muslim, real or not, to have a spiritual struggle. You think atheists could not have one? And if she has NO spiritual struggle, why would that indicate that she has NO faith?
"show us how she...deals with the inconvenient facts of the world"
Like aliens, near apocalypses, magic, superpowers, mutants? For them it is normal. Like it is for us to have wars happening. Life goes on. It is boring to show. There is drama shows for that.
I liked how the superheros in Watchmen were involved in a war. Because wars would be a thing superhereos would be involved somehow. As supersoldiers or to end them, because they are heroes.
Since it is fiction, all this has to be speculation. But we humans are very good at arranging with inconvenient facts. It can be assumed that the fictional population has made such arrangements. It is not only muslims that would be shaken in their beliefs. Even atheists would.
And you do not even need a superhero "god" for that. The very fact of Aliens visiting the earth should do the trick. After all, there was no mention of them in the religious texts, was there? If we were made in gods image, who made those aliens. And if they have space travel, how can we be the pinacle of creation.
As for the fictional muslims, I guess it would be already be sufficient that Thor does not claim to be Allah. They do use that word, instead of "God", if you have not noticed. They do not say God is great, they say Allah is great. And if you are a fictional christian, well, that commandment read, you shall not have other gods beside/before me and distinctly not: other gods do not exist. Also, acknowledgement that gods exist is not the same as worshipping them. That would be the sin of idolatry. And while this surely lost in translation, in English, not having other gods before (God) would leave the loophole of having God first and worshipping minor gods secondary.
Edit: Oh, and just look at real world creationists or christian fundamentalists, that claim to believe that the earth is only like 6000 years old. And that with the fanatism of a flatearther. So if in the real world there are people actively ignoring historical facts, you can bet that you could shove a living god under the nose of a devout fictional religous person and they would find ways to rationalize their religious views. Like explaining away, that it is an alien. For that matter, you could shove actual God under their nose. Just look at what people did back then according to the real world bible with someone claming to be the son of God. Some followed him, some denied him, some nailed him to a cross.
You could have used pious muslim. Fanatical, fundamental, bigoted, honest, faithful, devoted or other words, hypocritical. Using real makes it a fallacy.
1. No muslim girl would fangirl over Thor.
2. That girl over there fangirls over Thor, and I know she's a muslim.
3a. No real muslim girl would fangirl over Thor.
3b. No pious muslim girl would fangirl over Thor.
4a. That is a fallacy!
4b. That is just your opinion. I bet even grown up muslim women and several man will fangirl over Thor.
Though I am not sure, if it is strictly a true scotsman if you start by claiming 3a. Remember, fallacies are formal errors. You would have to prove that being a muslim would depend on the condition you provide. Only, the condition for being a real muslim is to be one. As trivial as it sounds. And that is because the word real has no information value in this context. We are not talking about real meat and substitute meat.
You might see it as an enhancement, like you could say, look, that is a real man, and point to a firefighter. But this does not mean that you have to be a firefighter to be a real man. Basically you are idolizing.
Just look at it from the opposite. What would a fake muslim be? Someone pretending to be one. And what would be the actual way of no longer being considered a "real" muslim? Fangirling over Thor? What you argue is her supposed strength in faith, her devotion and basically purity - and NOT her status as a real muslim. True scotsman is also called appeal to purity.
So you can argue all you want, that her fangirling would be a sin, but no matter how sound or unsound your arguments are, you are barking up the wrong tree. It does heal the fallacious nature of your premise.
But interesting how you think the existence of Thor would or rather should shake up the world. In one of the DC movies that was glimpsed at a little bit. It was one of the more recent Superman movies, where they shown tidbits that hinted at the religous implications.
<blockquote>My argument is not a fallacy</blockquote>
It is a true scotsman.
Oh, and yes, I disagree with their interpretation about gods, but this can be remedied with simple word play. Just as they already do and what I called weaseling out. They made the word god have a specific meaning and call other beings that are called gods by other people demons, djin or whatever supernatural words. A replacement to have a discussion about god and thor can be to call god: true god, God with capital letter, and so on. I like the creator. The the is important to show that it is a singular entity/concept. Insisting to call god god and other one false god is rather pointless and childish. Also, thor in this fictional setting can claim to be a historical god. There is no denying that those asgardians were worshipped and being worshipped as gods is a rather strong proof that you can call yourself god. This does not even discuss the matter of divine, just the facts. Muslims cannot deny that there were and are concepts and even people/kings worshipped and called gods.
Anyways, so Thor would be god of thunder, but no claim was made that he is the creator and religious existential crisis can be avoided. This is in the end a language problem. It gets funny if you translate it into other languages.
Maybe there is not even an issue if you translate it into arabic. So the true god would be allah and thor would be a word-that-means-fake-god. I would bet that the do not say thor, the allah of thunder. It would be nonsensical to muslims.
No. I am trying to tell you, that it is a fallacy.
If you are asking, if she is a muslim, the answer is clear. Are her parents muslims and did she convert? Yes and then no? She is a muslim.
By asking if she is a true muslim you shift the question into a fallacy. You try to make the defining quality of being a muslim to whatever your interpretation of what you think a muslim should do about the existence of people like Thor in a fictional setting like such a super hero infested place.
You reduce islam to that central belief about no other gods.That is the central belief of christianity and judaism as well. It is the actual defining quality of monotheistic religions. And the commandment does not read, there are no other gods, but not to worship them.
If islam expands this to denial, they try to weasel out of this, by calling them by other super natural names. So it seems to be a discussion about words and their meaning. Hence I suggest using the term true god.
"They believe that there is only the one real god and any other gods can't possibly exist."
Do you see the fault in your argument? You are saying there is only big Y, therefore small y cannot exist. The conclusion does not follow from that premise.
Whatever you say for muslims would hold true for christians/jews. It is a trivial statement for a monotheistic religion. Female christians fangirling over Thor would not be true christians either, according to your fundamentalist logic!
Oh, and real life muslims do ban movies or try to censor them, according to their interpretation of islam. Mostly because of lgbt stuff. Having other gods seems not as bad as this stuff, to be a true muslim to them. Thor Love and Thunder was banned in Malaysia. Not because of thor being a god and teaching muslim children that there are other gods, but because there is same sex stuff in it. I believe that illustrates quite well, what "true" muslims would do about a real life Thor: fangirling about him, as long as he is not gay.
That begs the question, what makes a muslim a muslim.
You argue the point, as if she has to be a true pious literally believing every word of the scriptures type of muslim, to be a "real" muslim. You cannot even infer her disposition by seeing her doing any religous stuff. There is peer pressure and tradition. You do this, even if you are not a religious person. And even if she is "a believer", this does not mean, she would agree with every interpretation of things written, so people living 1600 years ago would understand it.
For this character, it is enough that her parents are muslims and she did not convert to another religion. People lacking in their religous zeal are not automatically unbelievers.
As of the "real" aspect, this is pure true scotsman fallacy. Are the so called cultural muslims or non-practicing muslims unreal muslims? Or do you lose your muslim status, if you do not activly deny the god-hood of some god-presenting entities? This would go for fictional gods as well, would it not? So actual real world muslims would lose their muslim status according to your logic, if they would not campain in front of theatres denouncing the gods depicted in those stories as false gods. (Actually some religous people do things like that)
It is rather simple. Exchange god for real god, wherever needed. So, the muslim god (wich actually is the abrahamic god, but this is another discussion) would be real god, and real muslims can call thor a god. And the definition for real god would entail no detectible interaction, because any entity doing that would be just a god, and not real god.
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