Allah Made Me Funny.

Allah Made Me Funny is an excellent effort made by emerging stand-up Muslim comedians in America. They challenge the stereotypes, laugh at themselves, and help others laugh and create a tension-free environment. A great video. A must watch.



Watch the entire one hour length on google videos, or click here.

Yesterday, in fact, I was at this inter-religious debate between a Muslim and Jewish-Christian theologist - Shabir Ally and Ben Kok respectively - at the Islamic University of Rotterdam. Shabir is Canadian, and is currently doing his Ph.D in Quranic Exegesis and you can know more about him here. Ben is a Dutch pastor and an activist who doesn't like Islam very much, and you can find out more about him on his website here; unfortunately the site is in Dutch only.
I was really looking forward to this event, as I'd only seen the sort on TV. Unfortunately, and with no surprise, I experienced a repeat-pattern: almost no Christians or Jews, and a confused/incompetent non-Muslim speaker. This, I feel, is also unfair to the speaker, to be mobbed by the others and have a lack of general support.
The debate was about Peace and Violence in the Quran and the Bible. Ben started off by talking about his Jewish background, and how religion came across as a fairytale that made no sense, and then he found Jesus in his 20s. He explained violent events in the Bible comparable to a sincere father who punishes his children to make them better. Trinity, I don't know why he believes it and why he made a failed attempt to explain it, when throughout his lecture he encouraged going back to the original texts and letting go of dogmas. Then he made some TV and internet-inspired attacks on Islam, also of course, quoting the infamous verse 9:5, which he got the answer to as well. But to round it up, at the end I felt that he is still living in his fairytale of how lovely God and life is, and everything is pretty and beautiful and then prince charming comes on his white horse. I understand that as a Dutch it was not easy for him to speak in English, but overall his talk lacked historical and logical proof.
Shabir, on the other hand, gave a very concrete talk based on several logical statements, and he definitely captivated the audience at large with his wide knowledge of all three religions in questions. Something I expected.
To conclude this. Why are non-Muslims today trying to become experts of Islam and not their own religion so they can give a better debate on such occasions? Why is this information so vastly based on media? Why don't non-Muslim scholars/theologians ever answer logically and get out of the concept of "God can do everything!", and likewise, learn from logically given answers of the Muslim scholars?
I heard Hans Jansen was initially invited for this talk, but he refused because he was out of country. Perhaps he only finds it convenient to talk about his Islam-bashing ideas with "little pal" (makkertje) on Pauw&Witteman.