Still wrong. You can be agnostic within atheism. Atheism also does not require a positive claim that there is no god(s). A lack of a claim will suffice. "I don't know for sure that no god(s) exist, but for the time being I'm unconvinced and will live my life accordingly."
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Real Time with Bill Maher : Maajid Nawaz Interview
- Thread starter SirRattleBalls
- Start date
Still wrong. You can be agnostic within atheism. Atheism also does not require a positive claim that there is no god(s). A lack of a claim will suffice. "I don't know for sure that no god(s) exist, but for the time being I'm unconvinced and will live my life accordingly."
excelsiorlef
Member
Other option being don't know if you're Bill Gates
Well, the question was of belief not of knowledge. They're not mutually exclusive.
excelsiorlef
Member
Sure but some people just don't know and don't believe in a god (s) or the nonexistant of god(s)
So, when will Maher Invite a Jewish Religious leader (NOT HIMSELF! Since he would be self important enough to do that) to tell us what to think of JDL? The Jewish Defence League is a blemish on Secular Jews anywhere, and the crap they pulled is extreme. They also follow an ideology that is close to NAZIsm in how they see gentiles and what they wish for Jewish people that they consider "traitors" due to not being "hardcore enough". When Bill? As frankly as the son of a Jewish Mother, I kind of would love some of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Defense_League#2000-current
But nope, as always Maher is cheap and cashes in on fears of late. Rather than to be supportive of the women that recently have been abused for wearing a headscarf, one that was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat.
Sorry, just don't like Maher anymore. Not after the shit he pulled and now the "Both sides are equally evil!" arguments he does. Oh and being buddies with Ted "Ride My Machine Gun/Assaulted PETA members" Nugent. Really that guy assaulted people, and he calls for "kinder discord". Fuck it Nugent.
Even if you were anti theist by the definition given here, those people would still call themselves atheists. In my 30+ years of life I've never heard anyone use the term anti theist to describe their position.
In fact, usually people have called themselves agnostic when they proclaim they don't know but would be happy to be proven either way. Because what would you call a person that currently believes in god, but would be happy to be proven wrong?
In fact, usually people have called themselves agnostic when they proclaim they don't know but would be happy to be proven either way. Because what would you call a person that currently believes in god, but would be happy to be proven wrong?
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
Listen to this dude. He did a series on the israel/palestine conflict before this one but his methods are derived from Campbell and this one on the Aztecs is a really cool way of looking at a barbaric society, explaining why cultures can be so extreme and how their mythology influences their ideology.
http://www.martyrmade.com/7-approaching-the-aztecs-a-drunken-introduction/
So in order to speak out about one problem, you must speak out on every problem in existence
Adam_Vania
Banned
religion is as much as choice as who your parents are and what physiology you have when born.
glad to see the idiot on page 1 saying otherwise got banned.
glad to see the idiot on page 1 saying otherwise got banned.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
Actually it's much more like what language you speak than any of the other things you've mentioned. Nobody is born a christian or a muslim, you're raised as one.
That's a good comparison. Although in places like Saudi Arabia it is the law to be Muslim if you are a citizen, so the "choice" of it is a bit wrong to imply
AcademicSaucer
Member
What has she said or done that makes her a bigot?
Adam_Vania
Banned
yeah, it's more of a cultural thing. it is baked into the culture. for that matter if you are born in a culture, you will probably be raised in it.
the problem with atheism is it requires you to define what you are against in the first place. for a variety of reasons, the sake of convenience foremost, this tends to be the most evangelical and fundamentalist form of the religions. thus you do not believe in the God or religion you are defining.
this is why a lot of atheists, when confronted by an argument that uses a more mystical or esoteric description of God/religion, revert to calling it a fringe or cult element, that it isn't "the real Christianity" or whatever. the atheist may inadvertently turn into fundamentalists themselves in order to win their own argument.
imo what only matters is Works. what we do. if you kill somebody, what matters is that you killed them, not what books you read before doing it. everyone is responsible for their own actions. this is even a message compatible with religion (the whole Garden of Eden episode is a giant nod towards Free Will).
we need to stop being Brain Police. there are no magical words that will turn someone from a normal and loving human into a killer. Bill Maher makes money promoting the opposite, and it is a hateful and suspicious way to view your fellow humans.
Adam_Vania
Banned
phys·i·ol·o·gy
ˌfizēˈäləjē/Submit
noun
the branch of biology that deals with the normal functions of living organisms and their parts.
the way in which a living organism or bodily part functions
the way your body functions. when you are born, you do not have choice for what body you get and how it performs 'normal' functions. are you disputing this?
Kadayi
Banned
Only if you foist it upon them. I've known a few religious types, some more devout than others, but none I've know hold fast to creationist beliefs tbh.
I just don't find the concept of God(s) holds up to any level of intellectual scrutiny.
You're supposing that belief in a Godhead is a necessary condition for man throughout time, rather than a choice.
DorkLord54
Member
Don't see why some of you guys are giving Ayaan Hirsi Ali a pass, lady's the definition of an Islamophobic bigot. This isn't even going into her lying about her past, and being a massive hypocrite who is also the definition of "fuck you, got mine".
And no, being an atheist doesn't mean being an anti-theist, it just means you disbelieve in a god. In fact, it's completely possible to be a religious atheist (as in they adhere to a religion, not that they're zealously anti-theistic).
And no, being an atheist doesn't mean being an anti-theist, it just means you disbelieve in a god. In fact, it's completely possible to be a religious atheist (as in they adhere to a religion, not that they're zealously anti-theistic).
This view (the bolded) only works if you are not interested in prevention.
Further, Mahers views are not all about fearing terrorism and killing, but also about human rights violations performed under the guise of a belief system. His complaint is that people gloss over those points while prioritizing the right to believe, even if there are facts that show those beliefs lead to violations of tenants progressives stand for
That section used to hilariously contain information about Nawaz having gone to a strip club for a bachelor party as if that has any relevance to his supposed anti-Muslim extremism.
Sadly, many people will take this type of list as gospel as you can see from this very thread. Nawaz is going to be thoughtlessly smeared by regressive types any time his name comes up on forums such as this one which is why I hope his lawsuit is successful. That won't stop people who can only argue using ad hominem attacks, of course, but it could at least slow them down.
To anyone interested, Sarah Haider had a good write-up about the list in general at the time.
https://www.theexmuslim.com/2016/10/27/southern_poverty_law_center_loses_the_plot/
The type of conflating she describes is something you see time and time again.
excelsiorlef
Member
Maher has only spoken out about THIS problem. Only once or twice did he speak about Jewish extremism and then it was mostly about "Silly Sabbath rules". ANd that was in Ridiculous. It would suit him if he also dared to go after JDL, but he doesn't dare and knows he can't score with his ALt Right fanbase with that.
but you can't change your body if you one day realize you are too short to play basketball.
Snowybreak
Member
Wait... You can't really change your body. You can have plastic surgery and various treatments to cure diseases, but other than that your body is pretty static in terms of existence. If you're born black, you're probably going to grow up black. You can't really change that. But when you're born, you aren't born believing in God, that's something that needs to be taught. So no, religion is not the same as physiology.
Dude Abides
Banned
Darryl Cooper? His martyrmade podcast is passable as far as very amateur history podcasts go but he's basically a white nationalist.
His decline of the west podcast is embarrassing.
excelsiorlef
Member
Well on second thought
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
Dude Abides
Banned
Nah, his Israel Palestine series was ok (haven't listened to the Aztec one) but when he talks about contemporary politics in other media it gets loony.
Ridiculous comparison, and completely untrue.
Chuckie
Member
While it is not always a choice with what religion you are raised with, it is in no way the same as physiology. First of all you have a lot of parents who do not force a religion on their kids and let them chose their religion (can parents have their kids chose to not be blind?) and furthermore later in life you can leave a religion (can you later chose not to be blind?)
Religion is really not like physiology.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
How is Daryl Cooper a white nationalist? Jesus christ, this place
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
The two names i provided (Yasir Qadhi and Hamza Yusuf) think the same. I asked you about the views of Maajid and you're not able to tell me what those are.
I think most people calling for "Islamic reform" don't know what is Islam to begin with and don't have a clear idea of in what would consist this reform. They just see a wide array of thing they dislike which they associate to the islamic faith and think that reformism will erase them.
Also there is the problem of the definition of extremism. Who take the right to define extremism will win the discussion.
The idea that we need to strive to honor Islam in his truest form against his perversion by culture and our own defaults is widespread and shared by everybody. The form and the extent of this reform is highly debated, so saying "reformist" don't mean much. Al-Ghazali was a reformist as Hassan al-Banna or Seyyed Hussein Fadhlallah were reformists. Yet they don't share much. It's why you need to be precise in what you're asking.
People calling for a reform in the christian sense don't have any clue of the religious structure of Islam.
So, the question of "the need of islamic reformation" is currently totally void.
excelsiorlef
Member
Looking it up he did make an appearance on and admitting to listening to and liking: Rebel Yell – a Southern Nationalist podcast of the Alt-Right
This is Rebel Yell's own description and segment list of that episode:
Not exactly a great look
And yeah he gave a sympathetic interview to Greg Johnson a literal self identified White Nationalist.
David H Wong
Banned
I thought you were being sarcastic here, but maybe not?
Your issue isn't with religion, your issue is with fundamentalism - a belief system based around hatred and disdain for other belief systems. Fundamentalists are the ones who want to change the laws or use other social pressure to force everyone else's belief system to conform to theirs - they are not happy to simply lead by example, or be satisfied that their belief system works for their own life. The god or gods they worship are utterly irrelevant - their danger is in their insistence that all other belief systems be eradicated.
So when you talk about how society won't really be fixed until we "eradicate" religion, well, at least I can say you have a detailed understanding of the fundamentalist mindset, because you are one.
Dude Abides
Banned
Did you hear his sympathetic interview with Greg Johnson?
Or his appearance on the Right Stuff podcast?
Or look at his twitter like, ever?
He likes ethnic nationalism of all stripes, especially white.
Jesus Christ, Billy Pilgrim, don't you do any research into the wackos you promote?
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Jeez, Maher was going non stop about Christianity for how many years?
Fundamentalism is only a variable threshold depending on who you are speaking to. So no, religion IS the problem, because we know there is NOTHING spouted by religion that would be true as a result of being religiously founded. Religion is fundamentally false or lies, it is an innate characteristic or it. It is a problem, especially in this day and age of "post-truth" world and its impacts. Just telling a child that the world was created by a god a few thousand years ago is detrimental to them and to the world, but you'd probably not label that as fundamentalism.
Religion is fundamentalism, since it can only be a deviation of reality, or our understanding of what is true or not, and it does not seek to correct itself, it imposes its falsehoods and seeks to maintain them irregardless of facts.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
I completely missed all of his twitter drama and have been basing my opinions of him on his Martyrmade podcasts, which are nuanced and non-biased.
However having seem some of the controversy over it I'm going to admit that it makes me uncomfortable.
The aztec podcast is still ace though.
tearsintherain
Member
Just watched the episode on HBO Go, really great interview with Nawaz. Two things stood out for me from that interview: his stat of how many British Muslims want to ban homosexuality (54%), which is crazy if true. Second his point that in a single generation how much has changed. It always feels like radical Islam is a problem that could take hundreds of years to tackle, but it is entirely true that within a generation Islam around the world could be reformed to be more moderate.
All this ISIS and Al Queda stuff isn't hundreds of years old, and while it repeats some of the stuff from the middle ages, when you look at Islam in the 50s and 60s in Afghanistan and Iran its so monumentally different from what it is in those countries today.
That last professor guest was weird as hell though. The anchor from Yahoo News (is that a thing?) was fantastic, hope she comes on to the show a lot more.
All this ISIS and Al Queda stuff isn't hundreds of years old, and while it repeats some of the stuff from the middle ages, when you look at Islam in the 50s and 60s in Afghanistan and Iran its so monumentally different from what it is in those countries today.
That last professor guest was weird as hell though. The anchor from Yahoo News (is that a thing?) was fantastic, hope she comes on to the show a lot more.
He goes hard on like every single religion. I don't know about Jewish extremism but to pretend like he's only hard on Islam isn't just an exaggeration, its a lie.
I'm not a Bill Mahar fan anymore, but what you are saying is an outright lie.
Mighty Chin
Banned
This was my take watching it.
are you sure? I mean, you've got me completely convinced of the opposite at this point.
purpleblastoise
Banned
I'm not a big fan of religion(Islam or otherwise) but it's obvious people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bill Maher, Sam Harris etc. are way too extreme with their views about Islam and muslims. I don't think Maajid Nawaz is like that given a lot of the times I've heard him speak. He associates with extreme people, but he has been able to tone down Sam Harris' rhetoric from their exchanges. He asks this this question to a lot of moderate Muslims: In an ideal Islamic state, if all the sharia conditions were in order would you allow/condemn the stoning of adulterers?. Many of the people respond to him with wishy-washy answers to try and dismiss it and I like that he emphatically says it's wrong and still calls himself a Muslim. I'm never going to believe in religion, but I always want to champion people pushing more progressive and inclusive interpretations of religions
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I think that you found the main issue with him. If he is indeed a reformist, why call out muslim about those issues like if they are guilty of something in the first place?
Most muslims are confused about this precise issue of stoning. I think that i am yet to meet one single muslim who was comfortable with this practice. The only thing that may make them accept it unwillingly it's the guilt that it's a part of our religion, or that it's in the Quran (it's not).
So the role of a reformist is not to call out muslims to show to the West there is a problem with them, it's to refute intellectually with sound theological argument that stoning have no place in Islam (even under the right condition etc..). It's what people like Hamza Yusuf, Yasir Qadhi, Mufti Abu Layth or Tariq Ramadan (all are very different kind of "reformists") are doing.
The same goes for domestic violence. A reformist approach is not to show to the Western medias that muslims accept it or practice it, it's to struggle against it from and within the muslim community.
RustyNails
Member
Even under the "right conditions", adultery is nearly impossible to prove. It's burden of proof is so incredibly high that the Judges simply dismissed the cases, and instead the law was used as a deterrence. Even if you saw a man laying on top of a woman (or vice versa), it's not considered evidence. Even if you see a woman get pregnant while her husband is away for years, it's not considered evidence. It's so difficult to prove that records indicate that Ottoman Empire in it's nearly 500 year rule carried out only one instance of stoning, and that too had a checkered history to it. The Shariah principle is to maximize leniency when it comes to Hadd punishments (hand cutting for major theft, stoning for adultery, etc).
Either way, many scholars have argued, using Islamic guidance itself, that Hadd punishments are no longer needed in society. The reasoning is completely within Islamic thought, and completely legitimate.
Read this article on Islamic jurispudence regarding Hadd punishments, and a brief history of how it was actually practiced in history by Islamic Caliphates.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
It's pretty obviously sarcasm.
purpleblastoise
Banned
I dislike that sentiment. It's wrong regardless of whether it's hard to prove or rarely practiced. It's wrong despite the fact some say it's 'no longer needed'. The fact that it was ever needed is a problem
purpleblastoise
Banned
Granted I haven't listened to a lot of those people's talks, but some of them don't go far enough. Pretty sure they think gay people shouldn't be harmed, but they wouldn't support a muslim being gay and continuing to have sex. I would rather support people like Maajd who says that it's acceptable to be gay and Muslim, calls himself a feminist and clearly talks against these practices.
I know how he play's into the Right's hands but I feel these opinions need to be pushed without ambiguity.
If people are confused about whether stoning adulterers and gay people is okay then that's a problem. That confusion will definitely a play a factor in how they perceive gay people, gay marriage or if they have children who are gay.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
So it's not about being moderate. I think it's highly detrimental for the discussion at hand to mix in the same pot "accept islamic gay marriage" and "ISIS". To say that a muslim/christian/jew wedding is between a man and a woman is not an extremist view. You can call it conservative or traditional but i don't think it's amount to hate speech.
Take somebody like Yasir Qadhi, he actively call US muslims to support gay marriage, but he still hold conservative views. It's like progressives with hijabs. I don't care if somebody don't like hijab, the most important point for me is that they agree to fight for every right of hijabi women to be recognized and respected in our societies. It's what make us political ally, not that they adhere to my creed or moral conceptions. The same goes for interfaith dialogue. I don't have to say that Judaism or Christianity is true as Islam to respect them and have a fruitful relationship with them. The sames goes for atheists. I don't need to say "maybe you're right, maybe there is no God" to respect them and treat them as equals.
One thing is to teach to respect everybody and not harming anyone in anyways, another thing is to change to religion to whatever modern progressist want it to become. The most important thing is that you want me to have my rights and i want you to have yours.
However, to show you that i'm not attacking Maajid because of his positions, i can add that some muslim thinker like Khaled Abu Fadl is supporting muslim gay marriage and i have nothing to say but praise about him, even if may disagree with him on several issue. I think he is sincere and academically sound.
I agree with the last part. There should be no confusion. The role of the muslim "reformist" is to clear the confusion on those issues. However , the vast majority of western muslim reject them instinctively, for being contradictory with God's Mercy.
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