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Sacredpony (23)
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"It doesn't accept the existence of "untrue" gods and can't accept it"
Uhm. Why? This would be only about the meaning of the term god. And they already do not really use it, they use Allah, which bascially means *the* god.
I just do not see the problem here. Or the problem with a muslim girl fangirling over some super hero that happens to be *a* god from history class. It would not invalidate *the* god. Just as the other real religions never did. Thor was worshippd before and after the beginning of islam. If the muslims of 800 ac could arrange themselves with the existence of other religions, why should it be a problem for 2000 ac mcu muslims? And how did they do it? By calling them untrue gods or something to that effect.
What would indeed be a crisis inducing problem for the religions, if those alien humanoid people proving they are the gods of norse history, would claim they were best buddies with that storm god from thousands of years ago to the south, and that he was an alien similar to them. Which is kinda funny if you think about it. *The* god of abrahamic tradition was a storm god in the early days before monotheism was invented. There is a reason why the commandment reads, you shall not have other gods beside me, and decidedly not, there are no other gods.
And now we have a discussion about a fictional girl fangirling over a fictional version of another storm god.
If you would change your statement from "real" to "realistically" or to "devout", it would not be a fallacy anymore, but your valid opinion on the matter. It is only a fallacy, because the word real has no meaning in this context. You can remove the word and the meaning would not change. You are disputing that she is a muslim. She might be a "bad" muslim in your eyes. But even "bad" muslims are still muslims.
But fret not, arguments of purity have a long tradition in religion. There are always groups telling the other group, they are doing it wrong. Within the same religion, mind you.
"If the MCU's "Islam" is different from the real world's Islam then it's not really Islam"
With that you can claim that the humans in that world are not humans either. Of course Kamala is not a real muslim, she can't be, she ain't real to begin with!
Is she depicted as a "real" muslim? Of course! Is she depicted as a pure muslim? No. And this is your purity fallacy.
A true scotsman is: you claim x cannot be y, but when presented with evidence, you paddle back to claim a true x cannot by y. Your fallacy is similar. Change your claim from "real" muslim to devout/pious muslim and it is no longer a fallacy.
"With religion, realness is defined by purity."
This is not true. Having a denomination is not defined by purity.
"Islam has its own clear definition of what a Muslim is. Kamala Khan does not meet that definition."
This is not true on both accounts.
"You have absolutely no basis for concluding that Muslims in the MCU went through any kind of spiritual struggle"
Deduction. Events happened. People were there. They did arrange their world view with those events happening. I claim the religion "grew" up with those things happening.
"as creating lightning which, according to Islam, only Allah can do. So Thor's very existence still presents an unavoidable challenge to Islam's beliefs. Even if Thor and his powers can be completely explained by science and technology then that would still be a challenge to Islam's beliefs. If everything supernatural is just technology then that would make Allah and his powers nothing more than technology"
A perfect opportunity for mcu muslims to apply some true scotsmans. "Only god can create lightning". Along comes Thor. "Only god can create *divine* lightning". Thor: oh, and I am a god, if you think otherwise, discuss this with the business end of my hammer. "There is only one *true* god".
With such simple back paddeling they could have arranged themselves with the touchable "godly" powers of beings like Thor.
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.
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