These comments are in response to post#36 and #39 by Muhammad Ahsan Khan in particular and FOTH in general.

Ahsan,
I went through your post#36 and #39, where you have questioned the logical reasoning presented in another post and have claimed that "The writer38 has failed to refute any of the points which lead to the statement (6), hence the statement stands as it is".
Well, I intend to challenge it, though I agree with your conclusion.

You wrote: We will consider "most Muslim countries" as a single ensemble.

Why? If you believe that topic of the seminar provides you with the 'facility' to discard democratic Muslim states then it would be logically dishonest to use 'presence of Islam' as 'the' factor working against democracy in a sub-set of Islamic countries.
More specifically,
If condition A holds true for set B.
AND If C is a subset of B.
AND If condition D holds true for C.
Then A CANNOT be the reason for D.

You wrote: We can find many factors among these Muslim countries which may explain the absence of democracy in some of them but not for all of them.
The foremost single factor is "Islam".

This is a big umbrella statement. The onus is on the claimant to show us that he has considered a reasonable sample of other possible factors and none amongst those were present in all of the 'most Muslim countries'. To give you a small list, what you are suggesting is that you have done research on, say, demographic patterns, cultural heritage, GDP, GNP, unemployment rates, per capita income, access to free information, effects of globalization, education level, health facilities, foreign influence, internal stresses, territorial disputes, ethnic tensions etc. in this whole
set of countries and have not found a 'single' factor common to all these countries. If yes, please tell us, and I'll be happy to either agree with you or provide you with data to the contrary.

Even if I agree that Islam is the 'only' common factor in all these
countries, you have not answered the 'how' question. In a subsequent post you have mentioned:
'The rational process, based on solid arguments of obtaining the above statement has been laid down in the post #36.....'
Where are the solid arguments? You have not written a single word about 'how' presence/interference of Islam has resulted in a democratic failure.
The only thing I see is a simple statement of a presumed fact. Lets change it a little and unearth another mystery by the same technique (originals in square brackets). Suppose the topic of the seminar was:

Why has democracy not taken root in most [Muslim] South American  countries?

And following the rational process, based on solid arguments I reached the following conclusion:

We will consider "most [Muslim] South American countries" as a single ensemble. We can find many factors among these [Muslim] South American countries which may explain the absence of democracy in some of them but not for all of them. The foremost single factor is ["Islam"] geography. They are all in South America. The answer to the above question is straightforward:
"The reason that democracy has not taken root in most [Muslim] South American countries is [Islam] because they are too far south. Well, if they can move a little to the north things may get better for them."
How does that go for rational process, based on solid arguments!

Even if I were to accept this new form of solid arguments, your logic is self contradictory even to an uninitiated eye like myself:
You considered Islam to be 'the' factor for the lack of democracy in 'most Islamic countries'.
I presume you do not consider 'Islam' to be the necessary condition for the lack of democracy. We have many countries without democracy and Islam.
Right?
This implies that, perhaps, you consider Islam to be a sufficient condition for the lack of democracy. But you go on and contradict this implicitly by agreeing that you are talking about 'most' and not 'all' of the Muslim countries.
So if Islam is neither necessary nor sufficient to bring the downfall of democracy in a society then why all this Islam bashing. It would have been more appropriate for you to have stated Islam as one-of-the-many factors.

Ironically, I do agree with your conclusion. State and religion should not mix together.

On a side note: I am surprised where are all those rational logicians who would readily tear apart any weakness in logic posted by someone claiming to be a believer on this forum. And believe me, this forum has quite a few of such hawks. I wonder if we are all happy in our own comfort zones and would target only those who try to present a case against our predefined notions
of truth. Objectivity, doesn't seem to be a hallmark of this forum.


regards,
inaam