RustyNails
Member
What is? That Muhammad drove out the Meccans? I would like you to tell me when that happened.
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Cenk Uygur (The Young Turks) interviews Sam Harris for 3 hours (Religion & Islam)
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Son of Sam
Banned
No, i meant the last verse in that passage i quoted. And by driving out the Meccans i mean those that would not adhere to Islam and the one true god. The paganism that was once there was eradicated in Mecca and it was turned into Islams holy place. Was it not? Obviously he couldn't drive everyone out.
Lets move on from this for now. How do you feel about what has transpired in Canada this week? Do you still not believe radicalism is taking over the image of your version of Islam around the world?
m_shortpants
Member
No. I think nutjobs are taking over the image of Islam. Seriously. ISIS are nutjobs. The guy in Ottawa was a mental case. ISIS is like a light to flies to people with psychopathic tendencies.
Son of Sam
Banned
What about the guy that ran over the soldiers with his car? Also just a maniac?
is this worth listening to? I love Sam Harris but i'm afraid this is going to be the same old shit
I would really to hear Reza Aslan and Sam Harris discuss this topic - guy seems really competent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzusSqcotDw
I would really to hear Reza Aslan and Sam Harris discuss this topic - guy seems really competent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzusSqcotDw
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Not that I'm defending what he's saying, but passages on justifying warfare and killing under defensive circumstances are not what I'd expect from an interventionist, benevolent, omnipotent god whose absolute morality pervades the cosmos, no. It's 100% what I'd expect from a human religious leader in 5th/6th century Arabia, though.
If you're making a comparison to other religions, it's certainly plausible to see pacifism married to self sacrifice. Buddhist theology doesn't give us just war theory, and Jesus was all about martyrdom. Old testament Christianity is iffy as usual, and seems to be a completely unrelated god to the Gospel peacenik god.
I personally think that the Old Testament God, and the version of him in the Qur'an, are more thematically similar than God in the Gospel. It almost seems like Jesus was the one off when it comes to the Abrahamic faiths.
This week was the first time in the history of Canada that we've been attacked by terrorists tied to radical Islam. All of our other terrorists have either been of other religions, anti-government psychopaths, or Quebec separatists (Trudeau put the entire province of Quebec under martial law because of the FLQ). Why are people acting as if we're under siege?
Kenshin001
Member
Is stoning to death adulterers a psychopathic tendency? How about death for apostates?
Any person with an iota of reason would tell you that those behaviours have no place in any modern society. Aren't these practices limited to certain parts of the Muslim world, or is it endemic everywhere?
I see that a recent Gallup poll found that 28% of American's believe the Bible is the "Literal Word of God", which is a 3% decline on 2007. The fact that almost 1/3 believe this is not that surprising given that 75% identify as Christian. Here's an interesting graph from the Huff Post article:
I couldn't find a poll on Islam, but saw one page mention that 9 out of 10 Muslims believe the Quran is the "Literal Word of God", but as I eluded to in my last point, even though some Christians and most Muslims believe this, I don't believe in general, they apply it strictly to their lives.
HalfBakedProphet
Member
Big Sam Harris fan, thanks for the link. About 15 mins in.
My only exposure to C.J. Werleman was from the Joe Rogan Experience and he seemed like a rational dude even if I didn't agree with him on all topics. After reading some of his articles, he writes a lot of sensationalist shit. And a plagiarist too?
My only exposure to C.J. Werleman was from the Joe Rogan Experience and he seemed like a rational dude even if I didn't agree with him on all topics. After reading some of his articles, he writes a lot of sensationalist shit. And a plagiarist too?
Son of Sam
Banned
The point is there's a direct line from those actions to the writings of Islam. It's not inconceivable to connect the two, is it?
So, did you doubt the reason for the Quebec separatists doing what they did? (harris asked something like this in his interview)
curlyfriski
Banned
Harris is such a clown. This passage illustrates the shortcomings of his analysis:
No, Israel/Palestine would not stop being an issue if religion disappeared. Culture, ethnicity, history, racial divisions matter. Zionism began as a secular movement. The PLO wasn't islamist, and neither was Nasser. I can't believe Sullivan went along with this bit of nonsense. Harris obviously knows nothing about the Middle East outside of religion, so he has to make everything in the region the result of religion.
RustyNails
Member
I answered the verse you pulled out of context, where you excluded the preceeding verse which beings with "Permission is given to fight those that fight you". You tried to pry about my beliefs when you didn't have an answer.
Trying to backpedal wont help you. Muhammad did not drive out the Meccans after conquering Mecca, but forgave them, including the ruling chief of Quraish who declared his pagan gods useless and converted to Islam. This wasn't the norm. There are very few, if any, instances of grand amnesty in medieval history. Conquererors that usually sack a city run the rivers red especially in a place like 6th century Arabia where blood fueds lasted 40 years. Paganism was gone, because the Kaaba which housed the idols was rededicated to monotheism as per the beliefs of Muslims.
Have fun discussing this with others, but I jumped in the thread to address your claims. But I do think radicalization is currently a problem in Muslim communities.
speculawyer
Member
Uh... the problem with the '1 state solution' is then it would no longer be a Jewish state. But if Judaism and Islam did not exist then problem solved. But the religions do exist so we have problems.
I think anyone that claims that the Israeli/Palestinan issue has nothing to do with religion are just fooling themselves.
Son of Sam
Banned
And you ignored the part where it says "and fight them until fitnah is no more, and religion is for Allah." Your beliefs matter because if you believe this is the word of god there should be no issues in interpretations and yet apparently there is amongst a good portion of the muslim population.
Gone because there was no chance of repelling it out. They were conquered and had no choice. But yah, the converts were sparred.
speculawyer
Member
The last thing 10 minutes of that discussion has an interesting point from Sam Harris. He brings up that he writes about some of these things in a very nuanced and academic manner but then when people want to bash him, they just bring up the inflammatory aspect and drop all the conditions, nuance, and reasoning that makes his arguments reasonable and interesting. And he does it with a funny example . . . The fact that "why can't we eat babies" would be an acceptable discussion in the philosophical world but sounds ridiculous to many. And someone would then say 'Sam Harris isn't sure why we can't eat babies! '
speculawyer
Member
There is a discussion between Sam and Reza that you can find and watch on the net
kurisu1974
Banned
Glad to see you still have your authority on that matter. A bit ironic that probably 90% of worldwide muslims would not even recognize your sect as an actual islam, but yeah carry on.
Also glad to see the arrogant RustyNails drive-bys.
And on the topic of your quote, I never got an answer on how the defensive muslim armies got to defending themselves all the way to Spain (711) and Austria (1683). Or were the Ottomans and Moors not "real muslims" either?
curlyfriski
Banned
You're falling into the same thinking Harris does. Jewishness, in addition to being a religion, is a culture. Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, was a Jewish atheist, who explicitly framed the movement in terms of nationalism and not religion. When he talked about a Jewish state, do you think he excluded himself from being a part of that state? Yes, religion is a large part of how both Palestine and Israel define themselves as nations, but there are a number of other parts as well (language, shared history, ancestry, etc).
speculawyer
Member
What Herzl's views were when founding Israel have no relevance to the current dispute. Perhaps you can enlighten me why the state of mind of a dead guy matter.
m_shortpants
Member
Because Harris said that if you removed religion there would be no Palestine Israeli conflict?
speculawyer
Member
No, that is not what the quote above says.
This is why Sam gets exasperated. A direct quote inches away gets distorted.
curlyfriski
Banned
The views of the founder of the ideology of which Israel is the manifestation matters greatly. I don't know why that needs to be explained. There's a long tradition of secular zionism, which would imply that "a Jewish state" means more than a state where the majority follow the Jewish religion.
This is, of course, ignoring the mention of a "one-world solution," the most clownish part.
Also, going over it again in context, I don't think "none of this would be a problem without religion" is referring solely to the one-state solution:
ReignofSparrows
Member
Your posts are interesting to me because I didn't find Harris persuasive when I first read that blog post, and I still don't ultimately agree with him. It's an area where I think Sullivan is right to say that he has the balance slightly wrong, but as to why, that's a whole other thread.
With that said, you are misrepresenting what he is saying about the role of religion as though he oversimplifies it just to call him a clown repeatedly. I genuinely don't understand the need to do this. Maybe you are genuinely reading his statement incorrectly, I don't know, but I suspect it's not that simple given how oafish you like to paint him.
curlyfriski
Banned
I find people like Harris who use a very shallow knowledge of a subject to pass judgement annoying. Where did I misinterpret him?
speculawyer
Member
Ok...apparently you've found the solution to the Israeli/Palestinan issue. I think you should call up Bibi tomorrow and explain to him and the knesset that they are not running Israel according to the founders view. With this knowledge you provide them, I'm sure they'll give all Palestinans citizenship and the right to vote thus creating a 1 state solution. I smell a Nobel Peace Prize in your future!
I don't think you understood the one-world comment.
ReignofSparrows
Member
"No, Israel/Palestine would not stop being an issue if religion disappeared."
That's not what he said or implied. Sullivan let it slide because that wasn't what Harris was arguing.
I don't want to go over the entire conversation, but you can reread it, I suppose. Sullivan advocates for a Jewish state simply out of necessity. Harris agrees. Both of them clearly indicate (which is evidenced in their own writings on this issue) this is an imperfect solution, but that a two state solution is the only practical way forward. Then Sullivan brings up how impossible it seems to partition the area, which makes this seemingly practical step toward a solution very complicated.
At this point, Harris is lamenting this fact and saying they are confronted with this apparent paradox because of the religious divide. It makes the goal of a one state solution so impractical as to force anyone analyzing the problem to accept the idea of a Jewish state - which Harris opposes in principle. That's the reason he said what he said. It does not mean "by the way, without religion the problems take care of themselves." That would make absolutely no sense, which is fine because it's not what was said.
ughhhh, first 10 minutes of this and i already want to quit watching. harris' crybaby tendency to wail about being misrepresented is so disingenuous. I urge people to actually go and read his spat with Greenwald from the other side. Or actually listen to the context in which Reza Aslan made those comments.
what is this garbage? says who? what if they believe different interpretations can exist because god wanted ~*free will*~ or whatever?
...also, even if that is the case, so what? rustynails isn't arguing that the Abrahamic god exists, he's calling you out on your shaky understanding of a specific verse in the quran. Stop deflecting.
what is this garbage? says who? what if they believe different interpretations can exist because god wanted ~*free will*~ or whatever?
...also, even if that is the case, so what? rustynails isn't arguing that the Abrahamic god exists, he's calling you out on your shaky understanding of a specific verse in the quran. Stop deflecting.
boiled goose
good with gravy
just watch the whole thing and thought it was actually pretty good.
I actually tended to agree with cenk on the bigger picture issues. I think the three Abrahamic religions do have enough good and bad that interpretation largely determines belief.I agree with Sam that perhaps some religions have more or less good and bad levers for interpretation but I disagree that Scripture is as big of an influence as he claims.
they both agreed on the war of ideas which is good. Sam did have problems seeing long-term consequences of actions and I think that was his biggest issue throughout the debate. Torture a nuclear strike racial profiling etcetera all have possibly the true mental consequences in the long run despite their possible short term benefits. in the end it was kind of a cop outto say it was a pure philosophical discussion and not about policybut he always tends to argue things connected to the real world so these long-term consequences should factor into decisions being made.
another interesting outcome from the discussion was when Sam contemplated the possibility that his views could indeed be more detrimentalor that Muslims could not identify the good guys from the bad and thuslead to more extremism despite good intentions. I think cenk was correct in pointing out that we have not been the good guys enough and thus bear some responsibility.
if we are going to claim to be the good guys we have to act like it
I actually tended to agree with cenk on the bigger picture issues. I think the three Abrahamic religions do have enough good and bad that interpretation largely determines belief.I agree with Sam that perhaps some religions have more or less good and bad levers for interpretation but I disagree that Scripture is as big of an influence as he claims.
they both agreed on the war of ideas which is good. Sam did have problems seeing long-term consequences of actions and I think that was his biggest issue throughout the debate. Torture a nuclear strike racial profiling etcetera all have possibly the true mental consequences in the long run despite their possible short term benefits. in the end it was kind of a cop outto say it was a pure philosophical discussion and not about policybut he always tends to argue things connected to the real world so these long-term consequences should factor into decisions being made.
another interesting outcome from the discussion was when Sam contemplated the possibility that his views could indeed be more detrimentalor that Muslims could not identify the good guys from the bad and thuslead to more extremism despite good intentions. I think cenk was correct in pointing out that we have not been the good guys enough and thus bear some responsibility.
if we are going to claim to be the good guys we have to act like it
curlyfriski
Banned
You can only see what I said as a solution to the conflict if you think the conflict is primarily about religion, which I don't, and which I don't think the majority of historians who study the issue believe either. And you're seeing the Jews as a solely religious group, and not also as an ethnic group. Again: Zionism, for much of its history, has been primarily a nationalist movement, not a religious one (also, Herzl founded Zionism, not Israel). The prominence of extreme religious elements in Israeli politics recently does not change that it remains a country with a strongly secular streak.
But again, is it because of the religious divide? That's what I'm taking issue with here.
ReignofSparrows
Member
That is the most dominant and salient divide, yes.
Also, keep in mind that the framing of your criticism was originally too broad. So even if you disagree with Harris and think he is oversimplifying, you are taking issue with how he and Sullivan (though Sullivan doesn't state it explicitly) arrive at the conclusion that a two state solution begrudgingly makes the most sense.
I don't fully agree with what you said here, but I think this is mostly valid criticism. It's certainly much more valid than the "he is such a whiner, the other side is right" post above yours. Harris' last ten minutes or so do highlight why so many people take issue with what he says. I do think he is both unfairly attacked for starting from a philosophical angle but also fairly open to criticism for being unable to map some of his philosophical statements onto reality in some areas.
theignoramus
Member
Actually, I remember taking you to task a few months ago for claiming that Islamic governments were uniquely repressive and murderous. (in contemporary history anyway)
From what I recall, you smartly backed out of that argument.
curlyfriski
Banned
I'd strongly disagree, the divide is more about ethnicity than religion (although religion obviously plays a part in defining an ethnic group). Keep in mind that Palestinians are not solely Muslim. A significant minority of them are Christian and Druze, and they are counted as part of the demographic "threat" to Israel.
Druz
Member
I don't know why people feel the need to spar on message boards in this way. The sparring has already been done by people infinitely more reasonable, logical, and educated than you in the form of a video posted by OP.
Your comments on Harris' opinion are not particularly insightful or meaningful. Disregard everything the two said in the interview to attempt to conduct a low-end discussion here that just retreads the topic in a way that you understand just so you can feel a semblance of victory.
They only disagreed when it got down to the fine details. Harris comes from the point of view that calculates everything as if it were a chess piece, Cenk will make a rebuttal that is more grounded in the world we have today. Different ways of handling the same thing in a lot of places. Neither person are particularly ignorant or missing the intimate knowledge that you claim to own. You should do some homework.
ReignofSparrows
Member
The reason I responded to you initially was to point out that Harris' statement you quoted doesn't play the role in his argument that you said it did. If you think he is oversimplifying, I am ok with that. I wanted to show that he wasn't saying 'if you remove religion, the conflict is resolved.' That would indeed be a gross oversimplification of the entire issue, but that's not what he is doing. It's just an issue of framing.
That you ultimately believe religion is not the most dominant factor in the divide is something that, while I disagree with it, is not something I would care to argue. I have no issue with your belief as I think there are a variety of factors and reasonable people can come to different conclusions.
curlyfriski
Banned
...I was talking about the article that was linked a page ago, not the video in the OP. And uh...this is a forum. It's kind of meant to talk about things even if you aren't an anointed expert?
OK
Don'tBeWeird
Member
Only an hour in but it's quite an interesting debate so far. And once again, Sam Harris fails to raise convincing arguments about how Islam is any worse than other Abrahamic religions.
Will continue watching.
Will continue watching.
Son of Sam
Banned
My shaky understanding of an ancient text. Who would've thought? So, whose ultimately right about them then? I'm not right, fundamentalist jihadists aren't right. Moderates aren't right. This is exactly what Sam Harris wants, an open discussion about the text. You can't have these debates in most muslims countries without violence. Again, only a current problem with Islam.
I'm glad someone else pointed this out.
Oppo
Member
This is a great post, thank you for sharing it.
I'd be interested in knowing which part you regarded as one-sided though. Sullivan agreed with many of Harris' points, if not the majority. They differed on original intents.
(Also, as a fan of both, calling Sullivan the cool detached unemotional one is fucking hilarious).
His viewpoint (maninthemirror) is certainly more inline with majority of muslims no matter how much you want to deceive yourself.
90%. Sounds like Taliban level generalising. Nice. Now answer this; Why are muslim leaders around the world condemning ISIS (Sunni and Shia) if they represent true Islam? (dont say because they're 10%)
Son of Sam
Banned
There's been instances where these leaders condemn it in the public domain only to turn around and support it behind closed doors.
kurisu1974
Banned
Do you understand why specifically call out maninthemirror on this and not, i.e. you?
Edit: I'm not saying either is true Islam, I have no clue what true Islam is, I'm glad you do though... but in short; I only find certain things... let me use the word "ironic".
Did he do that? In the post you quoted, he said Sullivan could "string two thoughts together," which does not require one to be unemotional or detached or cold.
Don'tBeWeird
Member
So the Muslim leaders who are openly condemning ISIS are secretly backing ISIS, is that what you're implying?
This is useless information. We do know leaders have been vocal to denounce them, and ISIS soldiers have killed soldiers (Iraqi) from these muslim nations.
freakzilla149
Banned
Yup, that's all it is, they're just maniacs, nothing to with Islam, nothing at all.
The people who killed Theo Van Gough, the ones bombing offices of cartoonists, the ones rioting and looting all over the world over "the satanic verses", threatening Salman Rushdie's life, maniacs like the then Ayatollah of Iran.
They were all manics, that's all.
The Pakistani Muslim men raping white British girls, the ones trying to force out head teachers in Schools and turn them in Islamic schools, the one's who killed the British Soldier Lee Rigby.
They were just maniacs.
The ones who just killed a Canadian soldier and shot up the Canadian parliament were also just maniacs.
Absolutely nothing to do with Islam at all.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
You're recalling incorrectly. I dug up the old discussion, and I never claimed that. Here's the link in case you (or anyone else) wants to revisit the discussion and verify: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=124482383#post124482383
My argument was in response to someone who blamed the violent radicalism in Muslim countries on imperialism. I cited other, non-Muslim countries that also had imperialism but didn't have the same level of violent radicalization. I didn't specify (or even mean) Islamic governments, but violent radicals, which are generally understood to NOT be established governments (although you could argue otherwise). But since I didn't explicitly exclude governments, I amended my argument to do so and admitted that my position (when including governments) was wrong.
You dropped the discussion after that, but since you seem to want to bring it up again, I'm happy to continue if you'd like to add any further points.
I don't know about China or the other places, but the aborigines in the Americas / Australia were efficiently genocided, so their low population numbers may explain a long period of non-radicalization. When their numbers came back, they were already integrated in the american societies.
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