I began today’s endeavors in exercise of Philosophy in engagement in direct messaging (DM) with someone who made a friend request, and replied to my polite inquiry as to why with an intention to “revert” me to Islam, though I have never been Muslim. I speculate that she has a prejudice that anyone who can analyze the passages in a translation of the Qur’an, and criticize them, must have been Muslim. If so, her evaluation of me is shallow, and I do not expect her to have any success in this effort.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, it might be an opportunity to help her free her mind from the dogmatic and superstitious shackles of Islam, and of Islamic culture, so, I am drawing boundaries -no hate speech, no dehumanizing- and requiring a commitment to honest and open dialog. It’s not going well so far, however, in that she objected to my no-dehumanizing rule. I predict that she will not accede to my requirements, and I’ll post the interchange for exposure (not personal: I don’t even know if her account name and display name are genuine), and delete her friend request. If she becomes abusive, I’ll even block her.<\/p>\n
Following that, I had occasion<\/a> to deny committing Argumentum ad Populum,<\/a> and, in a separate reply, object to a Category Error<\/a>, as well caution against a Fallacy of Composition<\/a>, though I did not specify that.<\/p>\n Update<\/span> on that DM dialog: she became deflecting and, then, abusive, so I discontinued, blocking her.\u00a0 I saved the conversation, and I’m deciding whether and how to post it.<\/p>\n Later, I engaged a correspondent on his counter-definition,<\/a> giving some falsification, then showing why the etymology to which he referred was consistent with my definition of religion.<\/p>\n