Religions have succeeded

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Seems like that to me - and a rather tedious and discourteous one at that.

I find your constant claims of being a professor and therefore that your opinion should carry more weight on any specific issue that you claim to teach, quite tedious as well. But it's a free country - you carry on claiming to be a professor if you want to.

You seem to have a rather odd view about what knowledge and expertise entails - it isn't just about posting interesting links - frankly anyone can do that. It is about having a level of knowledge and expertise that can be directly imparted, rather than via a third party link. I think you'd be pretty unimpressed if your cancer doctor didn't actual allow you directly to benefit from their knowledge of cancer and treatment options, but sent you off to do your own homework without providing their knowledge directly.

I think I would be pretty unimpressed with my cancer doctor if he just expected me to take his word for it that he was a cancer doctor and whined about me looking for proof of his credentials.

Of course when you are a specialist within a field you tend to work within the realm of specialist professional literature which can be pretty off putting to the lay person.

So I could directly you to Medical Law by Kennedy & Grubb which remains one of the most respected and comprehensive texts that covers legal issues of consent. It is, however over 2000 pages long with tiny dense text that gets tinier when reporting case law - a veritable cube of a book. However I suspect that most people would find it completely impenetrable.

You could. I actually meant that when you express your opinions on here that you do more than just post assertions.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Your evidence that your usage is correct is to refer to a dictionary definition of 'conception' as though that's going to accommodate the poetic use of the term in a fairy story...

O.

The reference to the dictionary is to show that one meaning of the word "conception" is to become pregnant. You objected to the use of the word "conceived" in the translation of the Bible and to me using the word when referring to the story about Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus.

If I looked up the word "carpet" in the dictionary it also would not mention magic in its definition, but stories can still accommodate the idea of carpets being magic. Or are you going to start telling me Terry Pratchett was wrong to use the word "carpet" and I should not refer to magic carpets when discussing Discworld stories?

Don't you have something better to contribute to this discussion than nit-picking about the use of the word "conceived"? Though having said that, it is a stupid discussion initiated by PD about consent in supernatural pregnancies in a Bible story.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

No it isn't - you are beginning to sound like Gove 'we've had enough of experts'.

I meant to go back and correct you on this PD.

What Gove actually said in 2016 was:

"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."

If experts keep getting it wrong, their opinions will not carry much weight. Even if they continue to call themselves experts and can actually prove they have academic credentials. Which you have not done on here.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

So you'd clearly be better off trusting your ongoing medical care to Jim, the landlord of your local or perhaps the woman who works on the tills in Tesco.

That sometimes highly qualified people make mistakes doesn't mean that you should give equal credence to experts practicing within their field of expertise and some chap down the road with neither training nor experience. You really are Michael Gove.

Sorry PD - also missed responding to this post from you to me from earlier. Are you going to respond to some of the questions I asked you?

Try not to quote-mine this response, as it would be dishonest.

Given I never said I am better off trusting my ongoing care to Jim, the landlord or that I give equal credence etc etc this is a bizarre misrepresentation of my post and further evidence of your basic inability to argue a point made to you or evidence of your dishonesty or both.

Which, given the number of times you get things wrong on here, it would not be surprising if you have "got it wrong" about being a professor. Maybe you are a plonker with 2 GCEs.

Over to you Dicky U for your customary rant....

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Weird - there was me thinking this was an opportunity to discuss valid consent, a topic I have a strong professional interest and experience in.

Just not enough experience to realise that lack of information in the story means you can't come to any definitive conclusions by trying to apply legal tests about consent to a Bible story about supernatural pregnancies.

Who are you to say who is, and who is not, invited to participate in a discussion. This is a forum, not a private conversation (you can do that via other routes) and therefore everyone is invited to join the conversation.

Sure, everyone is invited to participate. I am not commenting on whether people have a right to participate, my comment was about how stupid they look whining about having to read posts on a forum as though they were forced to participate or anyone requested their participation. DU could just scroll past the posts where you bring up your credentials and me questioning your credentials if he finds these comments by you and me tedious.

Actually when I asked about whether certain opinions were popular or not, in a rather light touch manner, I was specifically opening up to others to voice their own opinions about firstly whether I tend to base my opinions on evidence, and secondly whether others doubt that I am a professor.

Oh good for you that your little friend DU popped up to support you then. Pity he did not cite any evidence for why he thought you were a real professor.

[ProfessorDavey]

I meant to go back and correct you on this PD.

What Gove actually said in 2016 was:

"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."

If experts keep getting it wrong, their opinions will not carry much weight. Even if they continue to call themselves experts and can actually prove they have academic credentials. Which you have not done on here.

Thanks for reminding us of this infamous quote from Gove - but you need to place this in context.

Gove made this point in the run up to the Brexit referendum in an attempt to discredit the expert opinion of many economists that Brexit would be damaging to the UK economy. This was part of the so-called project fear agenda.

The problem for Gove is that rather than the experts from organisations with acronyms getting it consistently wrong they actually got it broadly right. We can now look back over 6 years and it is incontrovertible that Brexit has had a detrimental effect on the UK economy, and that effect is largely as predicted by the experts.

So guess what - experts actually know stuff within their field of expertise and typically get things right.

And how hollow Gove's words sound now when we critically relied on experts to get us through covid - the expert evidence-based voices of Vallance, Whitty, Van Tam and others. The experts who developed and rolled out the vaccines.

What we have learned over the past 3 years is that we need to listen to experts more and the likes of Gove less.

[ProfessorDavey]

So justify it. Where in the Quran does it say: 'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.'

I have emphasised the bit I emphasised in the original post as this was the bit I wanted to focus on - the guff about child birth isn't what I was talking about but the credibility of major religions in gender equality.

Do these exact words appear in the Quran - nope I don't believe they do, although they appear in the Torah which is recognised and specifically mentioned within the Quran. However these words do appear in the Quran.

'Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allâh has made one of them to excel the other'

Now, no doubt you'll claim that I don't understand this verse and frankly I'm not interested in a sterile debate over interpretation of verses in religious text when considering gender equality. Nor am I interested in whether religions claim gender equality in principle - nope I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and  support gender equality.

So here is some evidence. The World Economic Forum produces their Gender Equality Index to compare countries across the globe on the basis of gender equality - it covers among four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. So is pretty broad:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gender-equality-by-country

Scroll down and you'll see the full list top to bottom. Notice anything VG. Perhaps I can help

The top 30 countries (working from top down) - notice anything missing:
Iceland
Finland
Norway
New Zealand
Sweden
Namibia
Rwanda
Lithuania
Ireland
Switzerland
Germany
Nicaragua
Belgium
Spain
Costa Rica
Philippines
France
South Africa
Serbia
Latvia
Austria
United Kingdom
Portugal
Canada
Albania
Burundi
Barbados
Denmark
Moldova
United States

The bottom 30 countries (working from bottom up) - anything jump out at you VG:
Tunisia
Gambia
Maldives
Egypt
Bhutan
Turkey
Jordan
Lebanon
Ivory Coast
Papua New Guinea
Algeria
Bahrain
Niger
Nigeria
India
Vanuatu
Qatar
Kuwait
Morocco
Oman
Mauritania
Saudi Arabia
Chad
Mali
Iran
Dr Congo
Syria
Pakistan
Iraq
Yemen
Afghanistan

There are 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - not a single one is in the top 50 for gender equality, and just six are in the top half. By contrast 30 of the bottom 35 are Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries.

[ProfessorDavey]

Which, given the number of times you get things wrong on here, it would not be surprising if you have "got it wrong" about being a professor. Maybe you are a plonker with 2 GCEs.

Hmm - beyond you rather tedious and rants claims that I'm not a professor you do seem to focus on two matters in your attacks on me.

Firstly that don't base my conclusions on evidence.

Secondly that I cannot be a professor because I keep getting stuff wrong.

Yet, hypocritically you never actually provide evidence to support your claim that I keep getting things wrong. All we ever get is unevidenced assertion. Now in the context of being a professor the 'getting things wrong' stuff would need to apply to my areas of expertise.

So over to you VG - let's have all these examples where I have 'got stuff wrong' in the discussion of the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent (one of my areas of professional expertise). And remember that having an opinion that you don't like isn't 'getting it wrong'. Let's have the VG - all those examples where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent.

I could point out a numbers of examples where you have made rookie errors, clearly getting stuff wrong on valid consent. But you are an armchair googler on the matter, you have no professional expertise so that's to be expected. But in you mind you and I are somehow equivalent in terms of our understanding, knowledge and professional experience of the topic.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

Disagree with your opinion. Whether the authors intended the story to be about consent and whether, therefore, they gave sufficient detail to make an assessment, is one of the main points of this discussion.

Your disagreement is neither here nor there (as my “opinion” is neither here nor there). The story concerns an all-powerful god impregnating a (likely by modern standards) underage servant girl, who’s unfailingly told in advance that it will happen. That’s it. What the authors intended, or whether consent was even a meaningful concept at the time is a red herring – what this is about is whether by contemporary standards about consent the god of the story could be deemed to have acted morally well.

If we take the analogous example you keep ignoring of a headmaster impregnating one of his (say) 14-year old pupils, there is no possible further detail that would mitigate his guilt (other perhaps than mental incapacity, which is not a defence of “God” many Christians would want to attempt I suppose). Valid consent could not have been possible in either case no matter what "detail" is added, and that's the end of it. 

I can see why you’d want to keep disappearing down the rabbit hole of the authors’ silence about consent, but it’s still a rabbit hole nonetheless.     
   

That is one interpretation. Others are available. "Will" could indicate that it's a future event and not that there is no choice.

“It’s a future event” means there is no choice (especially when said by a god whose word cannot fail). “It could be a future event”, “would you agree to it being a future event?” etc might introduce some uncertainty, but “it will happen” from an unfailing god is a statement of certainty. Again – Mary was told, not asked.

Mary's response could indicate that she confirmed her willingness to go along with it and therefore she perceived a choice.

It’s as if you haven’t read a word that’s been said to you. By contemporary standards, “Mary’s response” is neither here nor there. The 14-year-old schoolgirl’s word would be neither here nor there too, even if she was deeply in love with the headmaster and desperately wanted his child. Try to grasp this: on the “facts” of the story as set out, by contemporary standards Mary’s valid consent was impossible no matter what she said or did.   

You can form an opinion. Others are available.

Wrong again. It’s not my opinion that matters here; it’s the “opinion” of contemporary Western standards about valid consent. 

If you are forming an opinion based on the words the authors chose to include in their narrative, and they chose not put in much detail about consent, then the intention of the authors re consent is not irrelevant.

Dealt with – see above. What the authors did or did not choose to say about consent has absolutely no relevance to the point that, on the “facts” of the story, by contemporary standards a god we’re told is morally perfect behaved morally badly. Why? Because on the “facts” of the story valid consent could not have been possible no matter what the authors thought or said about consent.   

[ProfessorDavey]

... supernatural pregnancies ...

So are they a thing VG?

Do you accept or do you not accept supernatural pregnancies are a thing?

Another day, another day without an answer to what should surely be a simple question for you as you seem to be clear that the law in the UK isn't really addressing this important topic.

[ProfessorDavey]

Oh good for you that your little friend DU popped up to support you then.

That's rather a patronising comment. I'm sure that DU is perfectly capable of thinking for himself - if he supports me that would be because he likely agrees with my points. I think he does at times, other times he doesn't.

Pity he did not cite any evidence for why he thought you were a real professor.

Actually I'm not sure that DU has ever expressed an opinion on the matter - indeed it seems to be only you who has ever commented on the matter - but I guess your obsession with it makes up for everyone else's - 'sure, whatever' approach to the matter.

[ProfessorDavey]

ETA - where do you get that the idea that Islam recognises Genesis in the Torah in its current form as the word of God?

What I actual said VG was that Islam recognises the Torah to have been revealed by god.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_in_Islam

From the wiki page:

The Tawrat (Arabic: توراة‎), also romanized as Tawrah or Taurat, is the Arabic-language name for the Torah within its context as an Islamic holy book believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel.

And from the Quran

Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to God] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of God, and they were witnesses thereto.

and

But how do they come to you for decision while they have the Tawrat (Torah), in which is the (plain) Decision of Allah

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Thanks for reminding us of this infamous quote from Gove - but you need to place this in context.

Gove made this point in the run up to the Brexit referendum in an attempt to discredit the expert opinion of many economists that Brexit would be damaging to the UK economy. This was part of the so-called project fear agenda.

The problem for Gove is that rather than the experts from organisations with acronyms getting it consistently wrong they actually got it broadly right. We can now look back over 6 years and it is incontrovertible that Brexit has had a detrimental effect on the UK economy, and that effect is largely as predicted by the experts.

So guess what - experts actually know stuff within their field of expertise and typically get things right.

And how hollow Gove's words sound now when we critically relied on experts to get us through covid - the expert evidence-based voices of Vallance, Whitty, Van Tam and others. The experts who developed and rolled out the vaccines.

What we have learned over the past 3 years is that we need to listen to experts more and the likes of Gove less.

Yes, let's place it in context. Gove was saying that the voters should not blindly trust experts that have already been wrong in the past in their predictions or opinions as the experts he was referring to wanted Britain to join the single currency and they also did not predict the 2008 financial crisis.

If an expert has been wrong in their opinions or predictions in the past, then it makes sense to find out where they went wrong and be cautious about whether they are now making predictions that can be justified by the available information, or if their opinions or predictions could be inaccurate because they do not take into account currently unknowable factors,  or they are influenced by bias and preferences that may not be shared by voters.

Are you suggesting that even when experts have made incorrect predictions or been wrong in their opinions in the past, we should not exercise caution and investigate the opinions and predictions they are making now?

As for Covid, experts were disagreeing with each other on the predicted outcomes. I think it's worrying that you see experts as some kind of united voice all saying the same thing. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/04/i-didnt-think-vaccines-would-work-scientists-admit-their-covid-mistakes

Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College: I honestly didn’t think vaccines were going to work. There had been no example of a vaccine for a human coronavirus and the vaccines for animal coronavirus were not that good. We mentioned vaccines in our first report on Covid from Academy of Medical Sciences and said it was unlikely that anything would be available in the near future. So I was completely bowled over when those first trials came through in the run-up to Christmas 2020 and we got this wonderful gift. They were so much more effective than I’d hoped. As a person who has been studying immunity to viruses for 30 years, I should have been able to predict that, if anyone could. Hats off the to the Oxford team, they’re fantastic people and came up trumps.

 

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes, let's place it in context. Gove was saying that the voters should not blindly trust experts that have already been wrong in the past in their predictions or opinions as the experts he was referring to wanted Britain to join the single currency and they also did not predict the 2008 financial crisis.

What Gove was doing was to use disinformation to try to create a cake and eat it narrative that we could leave the EU and there would be no economic impacts. He was effectively saying - 'Don't listen to them, they know nothing, it's just project fear'. But guess what, those experts were right - as is so often the case.

And sure you may find the odd dissenting voice, which is why we don't just rely on a single expert, but we engage with a range of experts and work towards a consensus expert view. And of course we expect those experts to base their views on evidence.

And most recently Truss proposed economic policies that the vast consensus of economic experts said would crash the economy. She and her chancellor carried on regardless and guess what happened - they crashed the economy. As tends to be the case, the experts got it right.

[ProfessorDavey]

i]Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College: I honestly didn’t think vaccines were going to work. There had been no example of a vaccine for a human coronavirus and the vaccines for animal coronavirus were not that good. We mentioned vaccines in our first report on Covid from Academy of Medical Sciences and said it was unlikely that anything would be available in the near future. So I was completely bowled over when those first trials came through in the run-up to Christmas 2020 and we got this wonderful gift. They were so much more effective than I’d hoped. As a person who has been studying immunity to viruses for 30 years, I should have been able to predict that, if anyone could. Hats off the to the Oxford team, they’re fantastic people and came up trumps.
[/i]

Lovely bit of quote mining - he is actually making the specific point that experts rely on evidence and when the evidence supports a different conclusion they will change their mind. They aren't chained to dogma. So here is the key bit you selectively chopped from the quote as it doesn't support your assertions:

As a scientist you relish having your view changed by the facts. That’s different from politics where you’ve occupied a citadel, where it’s viewed as a failure if you concede ground.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I have emphasised the bit I emphasised in the original post as this was the bit I wanted to focus on - the guff about child birth isn't what I was talking about but the credibility of major religions in gender equality.

Do these exact words appear in the Quran - nope I don't believe they do, although they appear in the Torah which is recognised and specifically mentioned within the Quran.

Quran Chapter 2 has a lot to say about the Torah, including that bits if it has been changed by people in the intervening years since it was revealed to the Jews and the Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohamed (verses 62 -75). So your claim  that Islam has the Torah as it's starting point is incorrect. And making simplistic statements about religions hasn't worked out for you before so why do you keep doing it?

However these words do appear in the Quran.

'Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allâh has made one of them to excel the other'

Now, no doubt you'll claim that I don't understand this verse and frankly I'm not interested in a sterile debate over interpretation of verses in religious text when considering gender equality. Nor am I interested in whether religions claim gender equality in principle - nope I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and  support gender equality.

Yes I could say a lot about a cherry-picked verse and I am not an expert. Off the top of my head I could say the following:

Presumably you saw there are various translations of that verse e.g.
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because of what Allah has preferred one with over the other and because of what they spend to support them from their wealth.” [Sűrah an-Nisâ’: 34]

Any further reading into what this means is based on the discretion, understanding and perspective of the individual.

It does not say that men rule over women - so not sure what point you are making about gender equality. It is fairly uncontroversial that equality does not mean men and women are exactly the same. The trans debate has made it clear that men and women are not the same and that women should be accorded certain protections that are different from men.

It's a translation of Quranic Arabic, and Arabic words have multiple meanings that may not necessarily correspond to the meaning used in English, and the translator has picked a meaning in English they prefer.

Therefore the translation does not say men excel over women, it has also been translated as "preferred", which could mean women are preferred over men in certain aspects and men are preferred over women in certain aspects. It does not specify the areas they are preferred in - for example men are on average taller and stronger than women so it makes sense that men would have a responsibility to protect women on that basis. Women are being protected by men so women's safety is being preferred over men's feelings of not wanting to put themselves at risk or disadvantage or hardship in order to protect women. The saying "women and children first" or the idea of men being protective and chivalrous towards women is not against Western sentiments of gender equality is it?

You could look into the grammar of the Arabic words for "protect" and "maintain" to see that the grammar is for repetitive action done repeatedly and that the word for "maintain" has also been translated as "repeatedly stand up for"   

I could keep going but why bother - you have already made up your mind about your beliefs and are not about to let information that does not support your pre-conceived notions on religion influence your thinking. 

So here is some evidence. The World Economic Forum produces their Gender Equality Index to compare countries across the globe on the basis of gender equality - it covers among four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. So is pretty broad:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gender-equality-by-country

Scroll down and you'll see the full list top to bottom. Notice anything VG. Perhaps I can help

The top 30 countries (working from top down) - notice anything missing:
Iceland
Finland
Norway
New Zealand
Sweden
Namibia
Rwanda
Lithuania
Ireland
Switzerland
Germany
Nicaragua
Belgium
Spain
Costa Rica
Philippines
France
South Africa
Serbia
Latvia
Austria
United Kingdom
Portugal
Canada
Albania
Burundi
Barbados
Denmark
Moldova
United States

The bottom 30 countries (working from bottom up) - anything jump out at you VG:
Tunisia
Gambia
Maldives
Egypt
Bhutan
Turkey
Jordan
Lebanon
Ivory Coast
Papua New Guinea
Algeria
Bahrain
Niger
Nigeria
India
Vanuatu
Qatar
Kuwait
Morocco
Oman
Mauritania
Saudi Arabia
Chad
Mali
Iran
Dr Congo
Syria
Pakistan
Iraq
Yemen
Afghanistan

There are 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - not a single one is in the top 50 for gender equality, and just six are in the top half. By contrast 30 of the bottom 35 are Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries.

You said the quote from Genesis was the starting point of Islam. I am still waiting for you to provide evidence to justify that statement. Giving me a list of Muslim societies is not evidence. There is a difference between the principles in a religion or religious text and the societies that practise religions. Are you trying to argue that there are no other factors that affect how a society develops than the principles in religious texts?

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

You said the quote from Genesis was the starting point of Islam. I am still waiting for you to provide evidence to justify that statement. Giving me a list of Muslim societies is not evidence. There is a difference between the principles in a religion or religious text and the societies that practise religions. Are you trying to argue that there are no other factors that affect how a society develops than the principles in religious texts?

So to be clear, of the global 35 worst performing countries across a range of gender equality measures (economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment) 30 of them are Islamic states to varying degrees, yet Islam mandates no such inequalities so for societal reasons all 30 practise their religion not according to its principles but contrary to them.

Is that really what you want to claim?

Really though?   

[ProfessorDavey]

You said the quote from Genesis was the starting point of Islam.

Stop misrepresenting what I said. I've already addressed this in reply422.

You might not like my response - but frankly that is your issue VG.

[ProfessorDavey]

There is a difference between the principles in a religion or religious text and the societies that practise religions. Are you trying to argue that there are no other factors that affect how a society develops than the principles in religious texts?

Which is exactly why I said: 'I'm not interested in a sterile debate over interpretation of verses in religious text when considering gender equality. Nor am I interested in whether religions claim gender equality in principle - nope I'm interested in whether religions, and in this case Islamic societies nurture and  support gender equality.'

So perhaps you'd like to address why Islamic societies are so woeful at supporting gender equality in practice. To such an extent that 30 out of 35 of the worst performing countries for gender equality as Islamic countries.

[ProfessorDavey]

VG,

So to be clear, of the global 35 worst performing countries across a range of gender equality measures (economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment) 30 of them are Islamic states to varying degrees, yet Islam mandates no such inequalities so for societal reasons all 30 practise their religion not according to its principles but contrary to them.

Is that really what you want to claim?

Really though?

Islam may claim that they think men and women are equal, but when we look at this in practice, in countries run along Islamic lines, the evidence is very clear. Islamic societies are absolutely woeful at embedding gender equality.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Hmm - beyond you rather tedious and rants claims that I'm not a professor you do seem to focus on two matters in your attacks on me.

Firstly that don't base my conclusions on evidence.

Secondly that I cannot be a professor because I keep getting stuff wrong.

Yet, hypocritically you never actually provide evidence to support your claim that I keep getting things wrong. All we ever get is unevidenced assertion. Now in the context of being a professor the 'getting things wrong' stuff would need to apply to my areas of expertise.

So over to you VG - let's have all these examples where I have 'got stuff wrong' in the discussion of the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent (one of my areas of professional expertise). And remember that having an opinion that you don't like isn't 'getting it wrong'. Let's have the VG - all those examples where I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent.

I could point out a numbers of examples where you have made rookie errors, clearly getting stuff wrong on valid consent. But you are an armchair googler on the matter, you have no professional expertise so that's to be expected. But in you mind you and I are somehow equivalent in terms of our understanding, knowledge and professional experience of the topic.

I am sure I have made errors all over this forum. I'm here to learn, not to try to present myself as an expert and an authority on anything. I have learned an incredible amount about Islam just by being part of this forum.

Examples of where you were wrong, just on this thread alone:

You were wrong to conclude that it was clear there was no consent based on limited information in a Bible story for multiple reasons.

You were wrong to try to argue that your field of expertise is ethics around consent so your opinion on the matter carries any more weight than anyone else's, and then introduce a line from CPS guidance that I could not even find in the link, and which might have been taken out of context, to support your argument. Given you could not back it up with any examples of actual court cases with similar evidence, where a jury decided consent was absent.

It's a stupid argument to try to shoehorn consent as a legal term into a Bible story about a supernatural being. Try bringing a case against a supernatural being and you may find that legal experts will tell you that the law only applies to human beings.

It is not a story about sexual acts, nor is it a story about acts taking place between 2 people, so legal concepts that govern consent to sexual relationships between people are irrelevant to a story with a supernatural being in it.

Even if you are trying to argue that legal rules about consent can be applied to supernatural entities, the Bible story was not written for the purposes of demonstrating the existence of consent so concluding there was no consent from the lack of detail about consent in the story is illogical.

The story is hearsay and we have no idea if it is authentic.

There is no evidence to determine Mary's age. So you can't argue that she was a minor for the time period in which she supposedly lived.

If you are arguing that the consent is not in relation to a sexual act but is consent to pregnancy without sex ie a medical procedure, there is not sufficient evidence in the story to conclude that Mary could not have refused to go along with God's plan of pregnancy. Calling herself a servant of God is not sufficient evidence to conclude that she was coerced. Submission to God is a voluntary act based on belief and can be revoked at every decision a theist makes. If parental input into a child's decision to be circumcised does not automatically invalidate the child's informed consent to circumcision, then it can be argued that someone calling themselves a servant of someone or something does not automatically invalidate their consent if there it is not proved that the someone or something had undue influence or coerced them.

If you are arguing that the word "will" is proof that Mary had no choice - again it's not possible to conclude that given the different possible interpretations of the word "will" in the context of the story, and that Mary had said "Let it happen", which could be interpreted as Mary agreeing or consenting to God's plan.

So it is not possible based simply on the words of the text to prove that consent was given or not given as the text is ambiguous.   

[ProfessorDavey]

You were wrong to conclude that it was clear there was no consent based on limited information in a Bible story for multiple reasons.

I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. 

You were wrong to try to argue that your field of expertise is ethics around consent so your opinion on the matter carries any more weight than anyone else's,

I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. 

and then introduce a line from CPS guidance that I could not even find in the link, and which might have been taken out of context, to support your argument.

Perhaps you didn't look hard enough - but again this isn't being wrong in fact - indeed it is correct in fact because that line is most definitely in the CPS guidance.

Given you could not back it up with any examples of actual court cases with similar evidence, where a jury decided consent was absent.

I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.   

It's a stupid argument to try to shoehorn consent as a legal term into a Bible story about a supernatural being. Try bringing a case against a supernatural being and you may find that legal experts will tell you that the law only applies to human beings.

I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. And it may be your opinion that my argument is stupid (hardly the best debating position) - other opinions are available.

It is not a story about sexual acts, nor is it a story about acts taking place between 2 people, so legal concepts that govern consent to sexual relationships between people are irrelevant to a story with a supernatural being in it.

Even if you are trying to argue that legal rules about consent can be applied to supernatural entities, the Bible story was not written for the purposes of demonstrating the existence of consent so concluding there was no consent from the lack of detail about consent in the story is illogical.

The story is hearsay and we have no idea if it is authentic.

There is no evidence to determine Mary's age. So you can't argue that she was a minor for the time period in which she supposedly lived.

If you are arguing that the consent is not in relation to a sexual act but is consent to pregnancy without sex ie a medical procedure, there is not sufficient evidence in the story to conclude that Mary could not have refused to go along with God's plan of pregnancy. Calling herself a servant of God is not sufficient evidence to conclude that she was coerced. Submission to God is a voluntary act based on belief and can be revoked at every decision a theist makes. If parental input into a child's decision to be circumcised does not automatically invalidate the child's informed consent to circumcision, then it can be argued that someone calling themselves a servant of someone or something does not automatically invalidate their consent if there it is not proved that the someone or something had undue influence or coerced them.

If you are arguing that the word "will" is proof that Mary had no choice - again it's not possible to conclude that given the different possible interpretations of the word "will" in the context of the story, and that Mary had said "Let it happen", which could be interpreted as Mary agreeing or consenting to God's plan.

So it is not possible based simply on the words of the text to prove that consent was given or not given as the text is ambiguous.

Now you are back into rant mode.

So to conclude you haven't provided a single example where  I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent, the topic where I have considerable professional expertise and experience.

And of course while we are on 'opinions' which seems to be the only thing you focus on - whose opinions are likely to carry greater weight - a person with a quarter of a century of professional training, expertise and practical experience in the assessment of valid consent or ... err ... an armchair googler.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

So to be clear, of the global 35 worst performing countries across a range of gender equality measures (economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment) 30 of them are Islamic states to varying degrees, yet Islam mandates no such inequalities so for societal reasons all 30 practise their religion not according to its principles but contrary to them.

Is that really what you want to claim?

Really though?

This just goes back to the original discussion you had with NS, which I have already contributed to.

Muslims define and determine theological interpretation and how Islam is practised, so tribal culture and patriarchal attitudes, economic factors, geography etc all has influence on how Islam is interpreted and practised. The evidence shows there are widely different interpretations of Islam and rules and that the practices of the religion vary from sect to sect, community to community, country to country.

Bit like what is currently going on in Holyrood with different interpretations of the Equality Act 2010 and the word "woman".

The countries listed at the bottom of the Gender Equality Index have been affected by colonialism, wars, poverty, weapons sold to civilians, violence, breakdown in law and order, resource stripping, corruption, tribal culture, lack of teachers and doctors and health facilities in remote rural areas due to lack of funds for transport and infrastructure. All of these will have an impact on how people interpret and practise moral values and rules derived from philosophy, ethics, religion.

If you present an actual argument I will respond with more detail - I suggest you do it on the Muslim Board if you want to focus specifically on Muslims.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. 
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. 
Perhaps you didn't look hard enough - but again this isn't being wrong in fact - indeed it is correct in fact because that line is most definitely in the CPS guidance.
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion.   
I asked for errors in fact - not disagreement on opinion. And it may be your opinion that my argument is stupid (hardly the best debating position) - other opinions are available.
Now you are back into rant mode.

So to conclude you haven't provided a single example where  I have been factually wrong in the points I've made about the ethical and legal aspects of valid consent, the topic where I have considerable professional expertise and experience.

And of course while we are on 'opinions' which seems to be the only thing you focus on - whose opinions are likely to carry greater weight - a person with a quarter of a century of professional training, expertise and practical experience in the assessment of valid consent or ... err ... an armchair googler.

I am not really interested in what you asked for, given that I have repeatedly stated on here that I doubted your credentials based on your arguments, not based on errors of fact about ethics.

My position on here was that I doubt your credentials based on your tendency sometimes when making arguments on here, to jump to conclusions and make assumptions supported by very little evidence. Followed by you stating that conclusions you jump to are clear. I would assume that someone who really was in the research field or an academic would, just through basic experience and competency, be a lot more cautious about jumping to conclusions. Maybe that's just a sign of your arrogance rather than a lack of credentials.

I also doubt your credentials based on your argument that we should blindly give more weight to the opinions of someone who claims to be an expert on an anonymous internet forum. Not sure why a scientist is surprised that a complete stranger would be sceptical of claims about credentials on an anonymous forum, in the absence of evidence of your credentials.

Even if there was evidence of your credentials, it still does not prevent you using some proven facts to make a bad argument based on your biases or lack of knowledge of areas connected to those facts.

It is not a rant to present a series of arguments or points. However, you calling it a rant is a way for you to avoid addressing the points raised. Not really seeing why you think your opinions would be considered to carry any more weight than anyone else's opinions if you refuse to engage with the points raised. 

[ProfessorDavey]

I am not really interested in what you asked for, given that I have repeatedly stated on here that I doubted your credentials based on your arguments, not based on errors of fact about ethics.

You kept saying I got stuff wrong - that must be based on something beyond an opinion. You might think my opinion is wrong, I might think your opinion is wrong, but they are just opinions - they aren't something that is a matter of right/wrong.

If you make a claim that I say things that are wrong that needs to be substantiated. But you have demonstrated that you can't.

And you claim I make assertions without evidence to back them up - pot/kettle.