Here is a pic of Mary Jo Sharp, MA and Tabasum Hussain, PhD. immediately following the debate. The nearly 3 hour debate took place in Scarborough, Ontario with nearly 300 people in attendance. Most of the attendees (about 90%) were Muslim. The others were Christians and Atheists. Some of the Christians drove from Quebec City (about 5 hours)! Mary Jo met them while in Michigan in June. The atheists (possible agnostic 🙂 are friends from Facebook who drove about 2 hours simply to ‘check out the debate.’ The scope of the debate topic, “Women: The Bible and The Qu’ran,” brought with it a wide-range of considerations for both debaters. Each debater was well-versed in both sides of the argument offering eloquent and succinct assessments. This being Dr. Hussain’s first debate, I believe she will do well in the future with other debates. Mary Jo entered having only one other debate behind her. She too excelled and brought sound arguments with a persuasive style.
We travel back to Houston tomorrow. I hope to be able to provide at least a sound byte of the video for you…….I did not bring my fire wire with me! Hopefully a picture will do for now. For those of you on Facebook, check out the Fan Page “Confident Christianity” for more pics.
More to come!
Roger Sharp
*UPDATE* May 20th, 2010 – The NORTH AMERICAN MUSLIM FOUNDATION offers a Review of the Debate.
Praying that the people who attended may not just go about their days as usual today. Praying that their minds may be constantly replaying the debate, being confronted with the reality of "women's rights" in Islam truly not being women's "rights." Praying that the reality of the facts will spark an interest in them to seek after truth and that cultural barriers will not cover their hunger for real truth.
Thanks Negeen! You are a blessing 🙂
A FEW DEBATE CRITIQUES can be found at: http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2010/02/debate-saturday-women-in-bible-and.html
They are in the Comments section.
Roger
I wish I had known about the debate sooner (I read the answeringmuslims.com website). I seriously would've made an attempt to go if I had. It's refreshing to see Muslim women joining the debate circuit. That said, I'm quite excited getting the audio/video.
I was one of the Facebook friends who attended. And let me start by saying one would not know that it was only MJ's second debate or Dr. Hussain's first! Kudos to both. I'm not a huge fan of the debate as way of getting at truth but I recognize there needs to be format and stucture otherwise bullies would rule.
From my front row seat I saw two religious apologists battling over whose faith (or religious scripture) was less misogynist. Rather like two children bragging that their father beats them less than the other. A beating is a beating nonetheless. Neither owned up to the tragedy that underlies the nature of paternalistic monotheistic religion. Both tried to slide around the ugly parts of their scripture using modern soft interpretations (Hussain) or dispensationalism to ignore the teachings of the OT (Sharp). The night might have been fully easier on MJ had the debate been between Jesus and Mohammad. Then it would only be debate between sins of omission vs commission. And since omission always beats commission MJ would have had the upper hand. Ironically, Jesus taught these sins were equal but most of us aren’t up to his standard. But MJ had to work with Deut, Lev, and Numbers, sheesh….
Personally I learn a great deal and from all accounts the evening was a huge success. The Mosque leaders were very thrilled to have MJ debate and in the end when they solicited written questions from audience there had to be three or four dozen – proving how engaging both speakers were. And considering 80% of the audience was Muslim, MJ’s points clearly challenged them to discussion. No one brushed her off as mere Infidel. Not even as a mere woman. 😉
You did well with what you had to work with MJ.
A father who disciplines us (a la Christianity) is to be preferred to a "father" who beats us (a la Islam) or is not there at all (a la atheism).
The complete Muslim recording of the debate is up at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLcbMkzqtx8
I just went to check out the posting of the debate by the Mulism poster above. The video first shows a short segment with some quotes from my appearance on ABN in an attempt to discredit me before showing the debate (there are some false written quotes about me at the start). Wow. And to think I was trying to be ethical and just post the debate without any commentary on the debaters. You will notice that I did not attempt to slander my fellow debater or discredit her integrity with a video promo of any kind. That is unethical.
The video says it is a Muslim Debate Initiative production, so I can only assume it has their approval. Disappointing. I hope this is not representative of their organization in general or of my debate opponent, Tabasum Hussain, or of the North American Muslim Foundation that hosted the event. That would really be too bad. It was a great debate and this post really discourages further engagement.
MJ
That was hilarious, I love the stutter effect near the end! If I were you I'd toss the link to the leader of the NAMF and get his reaction. He seemed like a sensible person. See if he disavows the beginning tactics.
This goes against his wish to move away from the "clash of civilizations".
Semper, your comment was silly tripe. My point was that 'Neither owned up to the tragedy that underlies the nature of paternalistic monotheistic religion.'
What did you think of the debate?
The video has been removed by the poster. I appreciate that it has been removed for it really presented the Muslim organizations involved with the debate in such a bad light. And I did not get this sort of feel from talking with Dr. Hussain, who was very respectful and engaging. I hope that the posting of the video on Muslim Debate Initiative's site will be a marked improvement, allowing each debater to be critiqued on their arguments.
Kevin – I read your review. Thanks for the comments.
I think I got your point, Kevin. Apparently you didn't get mine. That's okay, arbitrarily dismissing it as tripe is illustrative of the tragedy that underlies the nature of anti-theism.