Support NeoGAF

[Golden_Pigeon]

Was it not Al-Shafi'i who first systematized the usul al fiqh (quran, hadith, ijmaع and qiyas) ?

And true to the second, I find it unbeliavable that so many muslims actually believe all of them are true renditions of what the prophet said.

Like the fact that there was confusion is something known, but then its like yeah we gathered these thousands of hadiths in a sahih compilation with no mistakes at all... and its sahih because its named sahih, thats the argument now lol

Nope, he took it from the students of Abu Hanifa (he was a student of Imam Muhammad ash-Shibani if i recall well). But don't go saying that to shafi'ies

Sahih Bukhari is actually a book of fiqh, he just took every hadith that support the shafi'i positions. It's why "salafi" who claim to be hanbali actually follow the shafi'i madhab in most matters because they claim that hadiths are first and that sahih bukhari is the most authentic book.

I'm not criticizing the works of the great Imam of course, but how the book is actually understood in our days. Classical hanafis have others references.

 

[Razorback]

Huge post.

Both your posts on the last page were very thorough and I believe said everything that needed to be said on this discussion.

Too bad that the act of providing context necessarily requires a wall of text that many will probably glaze over. On the other hand, to attack someone takes almost no effort at all.

To quote Sam Harris on this:

A general point about the mechanics of defamation: It is impossible to effectively defend oneself against unethical critics. If nothing else, the law of entropy is on their side, because it will always be easier to make a mess than to clean it up. It is, for instance, easier to call a person a “racist,” a “bigot,” a “misogynist,” etc. than it is for one’s target to prove that he isn’t any of these things.

Also, I think it's shameful that some here are calling Maajid Nawaz an uncle Tom.

 

[RustyNails]

Both your posts on the last page were very thorough and I believe said everything that needed to be said on this discussion.

Too bad that the act of providing context necessarily requires a wall of text that many will probably glaze over. On the other hand, to attack someone takes almost no effort at all.

To quote Sam Harris on this:


Also, I think it's shameful that some here are calling Maajid Nawaz an uncle Tom.

On the other hand, people like Nawaaz should be held to same standard as everyone else in public domain, and should not be held to a low expectation. Nawaaz is not an Uncle Tom. He's a Muslim and practices his faith in his own way. However he has a questionable record on...everything. It's not just Muslims who question him. He's has various articles written about his truthfulness long before he appeared on Southern Poverty Law Center's Anti-Muslim extremist list.

Also, its very easy to prove Harris a bigot, and it bothers him to no end.

 

[IrishNinja]

To quote Sam Harris on this:

It is, for instance, easier to call a person a “racist,” a “bigot,” a “misogynist,” etc.

it's definitely true for actual islamaphobes like Harries, he's right there

 

[Razorback]

it's definitely true for actual islamaphobes like Harries, he's right there

Cool, how about you try and debate Audioboxers points on the previous page?
Too much work?

Edit: Here, I'll even quote it for the new page.

I'm sure there are some, but the reason people like Rogan, Rubin and Harris tend to get large audiences in the long form podcast/video interview sphere is largely because of two main reasons. Long form interviews are quite rare as it is, and often end up being podcasts or YT rather than the short interviews that you'll get on mainstream TV. A reason why I often think interviews on Maher which last 7~9 minutes are pretty useless.

Then also if you take this topic as an example the reactions to anyone in the modern world who will interview someone even slightly controversial leads to some of the worst smearing, tarring, ostrisizing and accusations you'll ever see. The internet has helped this become a thing due to retweet/reshare culture and often a complete lack of people doing homework. You say someone is an evil bigot? Maajid is a racist, Uncle Tom hate monger? Sam Harris literally wants to torture Muslims on the street and send nukes to kill the ones he cannot reach? Well, that's good enough for me, let me reshare these accusations and warn others. Therefore, many modern interviewers cower in fear of getting bombarded with insults, accusations and demands of how their shows should be run, if they ever dare bring on a controversial figure. Their Twitter feed will be ignited with harassment and accusations they are evil by association because they interviewed Maajid. Only a few posts ago we have claims Sam Harris is simply a bigot and shouldn't be allowed on any shows. That final. End of.

The lines between outright controversial figure and mildly controversial don't even exist half the time. Everyone is either some 1:1 ally or they are bigoted scum. You routinely see this when someone can say 100 reasonably grounded things but 1 more controversial, wrong or contentious point and it's "Ah hah we found the 1 point that means fuck the rest of your work, thoughts and words, you're done for now".

Anyway, before you depart Rubin I urge you to watch this interview with Maajid given the topic is about him https://youtu.be/lpit8jc3NeI Not only does he discuss the SPLC, but he tackles what I mentioned above and who it is that attempts to smear him to the high heavens as a current day tactic for chasing listeners away and attempting to get him silenced. The stories about the Gay Muslims also encapsulate everything that is wrong with some people who take their dogmatic stances to such a level they cannot seemingly differentiate right from wrong (or they do the above and completely nuke Maajid over one or two points he makes versus the grand total of everything he tries, stands up for and his experiences). Hand waving LGBT abuses will never be right no matter what religion you do it behind. Calling Maajid an Uncle Tom after listening to the above interview would make you no better than a follower of faith who targeted the gay Muslims they talk about. It's sinister, foul and unfounded character assassinations all because you cannot handle criticism of your beliefs, or I should say you cannot respond appropriately to the criticism.

Appropriately largely ranging from taking it on the chin some will think your religion isn't real to engaging in debate instead of throwing the most serious insults and accusations you can think up just to try and "ruin" someone you do not like. Or chase people away from listening to them often with tactics I mentioned above (guilt by association and how dare you listen to person x...) right up to even attempting to make it near impossible for someone to speak and be debated. If your own ideas and beliefs are that rock solid and you are confident in them then you should have no problem rolling your sleeves up and getting down to debate. Often people refuse to debate... You have to think why at times. Although, it's a refusal seen across all religious believers. Try and get a creationist to take on an evolutionary biologist. Those that are dogmatically religious often cannot handle any form of criticism so will run to rhetoric, name-calling and smearing.

Then again a decent amount of the fundamental Christians did try taking on Dawkins, Harris, Hitches, Dennett and others during the 90s/00s. There's plenty of longform interviews/debates of them on YouTube. In a minor way I think a lot of debates like these, and others before, helped our societies explore and handle Christianity and Catholicism and challenges we faced with them. Islam as a growing religion should be able to face the same criticism, debate and challenges Christianity and Catholicism has faced in tens of years gone by in Western countries. As much as I'll furiously defend and uphold freedom of religion, with that comes the ability for others to use things such as the scientific method, inquiry, debate and criticism to challenge every and any one of the religions benefiting from freedom of religion. As long as someone isn't suppressing your ability to practice your faith or threatening or putting you in harms way, your doctrine, God and faith itself will come up against criticism in the majority of Western societies. Especially when and if it attacks things such as women/feminism, the LGBT community and so on. Our societies have had years of challenge there from Christianity/Catholicism and Islam isn't going to go unchallenged on the same issues just because it's currently the minority religion (regionally, globally it's massive).

That being another tactical web that is often spun by some ~ If you criticise Islam then you are criticising a minority and it's inherently problematic for you to challenge a minority. Hence why some of those who would say something like that give zero fucks if you go after Christianity/Catholicism because they are majority religions in most Western societies (look at any topic on GAF where it's Christians threatening women's body rights or pushing against gay marriage ~ No one holds back, nor should they). You could ask, were some of the people now going after Harris going after him in the same way when he wrote a letter to a Christian nation and routinely blasted Christianity? If not, why not? Is it because Christianity isn't your faith and you don't care about it? If so, fair enough, but at least be honest that someone like Harris is equal at criticising multiple doctrines and faiths and the claims they make. Either directly from the texts, or what the followers can go around saying and doing. There's a lot of crossover from the faiths/religions around how women are treated, or views on homosexuality. If someone was to criticise one on those grounds why wouldn't they with the others?

People are best to listen to the whole podcast, or 15 minutes surrounding that either side. Unless you consider yourself an extremist or jihadi from Syria that section wasn't really aimed at you. That's another thing that plays into the whole inability to criticise. People take offence on behalf of other people even if a) the criticism isn't aimed at them and b) at times when it's aimed at extremists they still stand in and say but not all followers! We know not all followers but whether it's jihadis or people filling in polls, if there is evidence/statistics to show things that many will disagree with there will be comments. If for example 52% of Christians said homosexuality should be illegal in a poll NeoGAF and many other sites with public commentary would be laying down criticism. It's going to happen whether you like it or not. One also doesn't have to be a Muslim to comment on things within Islam. The inability for some to progress from criticising the Bible belt in their country to similar comments about the minority religion(s) is disheartening. You should not live in a society being "afraid" to stand up for women or LGBT rights from one religion, but be fine criticising and discussing another religion. This happens though, and hand-waving goes on as some would rather not be called bigoted racists and then have to spend nearly all their time defending themselves from accusations simply because they took the same tools of criticism and thought they apply to Christianity and applied them to Islam.

As for your second point, the thousands if not millions of Muslims being slaughtered around the globe under reigns of terror, oppression and abuse needing far more help are discussed routinely by many critics of the faith (Harris routinely points out how the majority of the Islamist abuse/targetting/killing and oppression happes to other Muslims!). Abuse and discrimination are also routinely criticised in Western countries by the populations at large where it isn't legal to do the things that go on abroad (honour killing/jailing for speech/stoning/adultery penalties/penalties for leaving the faith/raping without consequence and then places where ISIS/dictators exist ruling by religious law). We don't have most if any of that here, but sure, we do have racism, assaults and just there in the UK we had our first terrorist vehicle ramming aimed at Muslims. What drives people to despair about criticism of faith, stats and beliefs is the obsession by many to lift it up to the same realms as the violence/abuse just so they can say "shut down all the criticism, we don't want to hear it." Sorry, because when the Christians or Catholics try to do that they got/get pushback. Any followers of Islam who simply refuse to allow criticism of their faith will get pushback too.

You cannot truly successfully exist in most Western societies if freedom of religion isn't held up alongside the freedoms to criticise, satirise and talk honestly about problems that can come from dogmatic people, especially when they try to mix politics with religion (laws). Simply shouting discrimination every single time there is criticism may work from time to time, but many are seeing through that veneer as time goes on. When we live in a current sphere where it's nearly impossible to find a commentator who isn't now "a racist bigot Islamophobic hate monger" it begins to have people ask is it possible at all to criticise without ending up being accused of being a piece of shit??? Yes we need people from within the faith to criticise and point things out, but many of such voices end up being scared or worried to stand up, so at times they do need to see non-believers and big public figures speak openly to get the confidence and belief to know they can speak out in the West about religion/God/doctrine and not be silenced. What probably doesn't inspire much confidence in them is when the so-called moderates rain hellfire down on anyone being critical of religion so that they end up having to spend more time defending themselves from slander. The Gay Muslim(s) going up to Rubin/Maajid to say thanks/express their interest in speaking openly probably weren't too concerned about the internet claiming Rubin is a racist/far right hate figure and Maajid is an Uncle Tom self-hating extremist. As I said above many of these moderates have little to no problem with any voices attacking Christianity over it's doctrine and fundamental followers pushing back against gay marriage/abortion/etc. You do not see anyone labelled a Christianphobe/racist/extremist for criticising the Bible/followers who hold and express troubling views. I accept hate speech is a thing, and people most certainly do discriminate based upon race/ethnicity and place of being born (all tied up in their comments on religion/Islam). However, the net cast by moderates is the issue here, nearly anyone who dares speak out against Islam is labelled the same as a far-right political group. Earlier on we had Ayaan is Tommy Robinson, and we routinely get the Maajid is an Uncle Tom.

Sam's own words here in response to some of what people say about him and Islam should be read by passers-by. Selective quotations are something touched on.

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/...to-controversy

The most contentious point is probably his first, and he even notes that himself (seen below) ~ It's taking what I say above about how ALL religions operating under freedom of religion should be able to be criticised equally, but, adding that one religion may indeed have more problematic texts or dogmatic followers than another. People really do not like to hear that, as it makes them think "I'm being singled out!". That isn't necessarily true. Most religions may plagiarize from each other, but some are quite a bit different from others in their texts, or some may have had more years of reform/criticism aimed at them than others which often helps inspire change in followers. It's no surprise a lot of progress has been made with LGBT rights/gay marriage over the last 20 years in Christian/Catholic majority countries. That has largely happended DUE to the years upon years of criticism and debate about Christian values/beliefs giving followers food for thought and another way to look at human life/complexities. No matter what religions exist in the society, the same criticisms, comments, debates and thinking has to happen around issues such as LGBT/womens rights if we want to keep progressing as a caring/compassionate society. Shit like this doesn't get better unless criticism can be openly said and debated ~ https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...wa-burqa-niqab It's appalling that hate/death threats would come from this, but that's precisely a reason open commentary and dialogue is needed to slowly help people change some of their social views (whilst still being able to continue having a faith if they so please). History is littered with social progress happening through criticism/debate/vocal protest, and a lot of that has been around religions. Maybe more-so around Christianity/Catholicism in the West, but as Islam grows here it will face the same lines of debate the majority two religions have. No one sane is asking for religion to be wiped out, unless they are edgy atheists, but we most certainly do have work to do to challenge religious minds that are still living in the stone ages when it comes to their views particularly on women, but then also on LGBT groups. Children as well have faced long histories of abuse whether it be paedophilia in the Catholic Church or arranged marriages from Christianity/Islam. The main arbitrators of a lot of these abuses historically being men. That's what can happen when the doctrines are riddled with teachings that men are at the top, and everyone else is below them. Criticism of these ways of thinking is the answer for social progress. Women are not inferior to men, they are equal, both in mind and body (yes, this is a criticism partly aimed at forcing women to cover up). Children are not to be used as pawns to be sold off into marriages (neither are adults as they even face arranged marriages). Age of consent exists because children are not developed physically or mentally at some of the ages they've been abused/forced to have sex. Homosexuality is not a choice, and we have plenty of evidence from the fields of psychology and biology to back that up. And so on. Criticism and debate lead societies to come to fairer conclusions for all, and aids in protecting the vulnerable.

My criticism of faith-based religion focuses on what I consider to be bad ideas, held for bad reasons, leading to bad behavior. Because I am concerned about the logical and behavioral consequences of specific beliefs, I do not treat all religions the same. Not all religious doctrines are mistaken to the same degree, intellectually or ethically, and it is dishonest and ultimately dangerous to pretend otherwise. People in every tradition can be seen making the same errors, of course—e.g. relying on faith instead of evidence in matters of great personal and public concern—but the doctrines and authorities in which they place their faith run the gamut from the quaint to the psychopathic. For instance, a dogmatic belief in the spiritual and ethical necessity of complete nonviolence lies at the very core of Jainism, whereas an equally dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one’s faith, both from within and without, is similarly central to the doctrine of Islam. These beliefs, though held for identical reasons (faith) and in varying degrees by individual practitioners of these religions, could not be more different. And this difference has consequences in the real world. (Let that be the first barrier to entry into this conversation: If you will not concede this point, you will not understand anything I say about Islam. Unfortunately, many of my most voluble critics cannot clear this bar—and no amount of quotation from the Koran, the hadith, the ravings of modern Islamists, or from the plaints of their victims, makes a bit of difference.)

Facts of this kind demand that we make distinctions among faiths that many confused or dishonest people will interpret as a sign of bigotry. For instance, I have said on more than one occasion that Mormonism is objectively less credible than Christianity, because Mormons are committed to believing nearly all the implausible things that Christians believe plus many additional implausible things. It is mathematically true to say that whatever probability one assigns to Jesus’ returning to earth to judge the living and the dead, one must assign a lesser probability to his doing so from Jackson County, Missouri. The glare of history is likewise unkind to Mormonism, for we simply know much more about Joseph Smith than we do about the twelve Apostles, and we have very good reasons to believe that he was a gifted con man. It is not a sign of bigotry against Mormons as people to honestly discuss these things. And I believe that atheists, secularists, and humanists do the world no favors by insisting that all religions be criticised in precisely the same terms and to the same degree.

Because I consider Islam to be especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse, my views are often described as “racist” by my critics. It is said that I am suffering a terrible case of “Islamophobia.” Worse, I am spreading this disease to others and using a veneer of philosophical atheism and scientific skepticism to justify the political oppression, torture, and murder of innocent Muslims around the world. I am a “neo-con goon,” a “war monger,” and a friend to “fascists.” In other words, I have blood on my hands.

It is hard to know where to start untangling these pernicious memes, but let’s begin with the charge of racism.......

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

As for your second point, the thousands if not millions of Muslims being slaughtered around the globe under reigns of terror, oppression and abuse needing far more help are discussed routinely by many critics of the faith

Everything Audioboxers have said was already discussed, but this part is particularly sad/funny since the millions of people who were killed in the muslim world in the last two decade were the result of western policies, alimented by the islamophobia people like Harris and the like are spreading.

Theocracies like Iran, Saudi Arabia or Aceh in Indonesia are not killing hundreds of thousands of people. A regime posing as secular like Assad in Syria is killing 90+ % of the civil casualties in the Syrian war (+500.000 death since 2011). Western invasion in Iraq or Afghanistan are responsible for far more bloodshed than any jihadi group out there. I guess this is the result of series like 24 or Homeland in the western conscience.

As revolting and awful terrorists groups are, jihadi violence killed 20,000 people since the 70's. Just compare this figure with the cost in lives of the second US invasion of Iraq (110k according to some figures).

So, if anything, muslims must be saved from western invasions and military dictatorship posing as seculars, and not from themselves.

 

[IrishNinja]

Cool, how about you try and debate Audioboxers points on the previous page?
Too much work?

Edit: Here, I'll even quote it for the new page.

cool cool, super helpful of you to quote a few walls of text i read last page, thanks
ive likewise seen a number of the longform discussions he's cited with dawkins, harris, hitchens & others over the years, and like a great number of people, have found it possible to celebrate works like the selfish gene while still pointing out the problems dawkins has with misogyny, amongst other woes.

since you're so fond of the last page or two, feel free to read where i discussed with bocodragon the importance of being able to criticize religious doctrine & hiding behind interpretations of it to do morally heinous things, while not necessarily allowing one to become outright bigoted towards said faith/people. i'm far from the only person on the left to say harris crossed that line long ago & never looked back, but you can likewise take your desire to pretend otherwise up with any number of them (assuming it's not too much work, natch).

 

[Adam_Vania]

As revolting and awful terrorists groups are, jihadi violence killed 20,000 people since the 70's. Just compare this figure with the cost in lives of the second US invasion of Iraq (110k according to some figures).

So, if anything, muslims must be saved from western invasions and military dictatorship posing as seculars, and not from themselves.

important post. it is important to look at the real costs involved.

my biggest problem w warhawk and anti-religious policies promoted by Maher and his ilk is it is an empowered entity (US military might vs. an overwhelming amount of Muslim countries) supporting the use of violence while that violence is already taking place (and has been for nearly 30 years now at least US-MidEast wise).

for any conflict simply imagine the sides were swapped, and that Pakistan was droning & bombing public and private US events like weddings and hospitals on a regular basis for years on end. if you grow up in this situation you may lose family and friends to this "helpful" foreign interventionism. your life would be in constant chaos. this is what creates terrorists. violence begets violence. yet it is pointless to try and make that point when even "liberals" like Maher are joining their hated deplorable brethren in calling for more violence.

 

[Razorback]

cool cool, super helpful of you to quote a few walls of text i read last page, thanks
ive likewise seen a number of the longform discussions he's cited with dawkins, harris, hitchens & others over the years, and like a great number of people, have found it possible to celebrate works like the selfish gene while still pointing out the problems dawkins has with misogyny, amongst other woes.

since you're so fond of the last page or two, feel free to read where i discussed with bocodragon the importance of being able to criticize religious doctrine & hiding behind interpretations of it to do morally heinous things, while not necessarily allowing one to become outright bigoted towards said faith/people. i'm far from the only person on the left to say harris crossed that line long ago & never looked back, but you can likewise take your desire to pretend otherwise up with any number of them (assuming it's not too much work, natch).

I'll take that as a no then.

Sorry, I'm not interested in going around in circles when anything I could say has already been said in the wall of text you don't care to address.

 

[Aytumious]

On the other hand, people like Nawaaz should be held to same standard as everyone else in public domain, and should not be held to a low expectation. Nawaaz is not an Uncle Tom. He's a Muslim and practices his faith in his own way. However he has a questionable record on...everything. It's not just Muslims who question him. He's has various articles written about his truthfulness long before he appeared on Southern Poverty Law Center's Anti-Muslim extremist list.

Also, its very easy to prove Harris a bigot, and it bothers him to no end.

Since it is so easy to prove, could you do it here for those of us who don't see him that way? It should be simple, after all.

 

[IrishNinja]

Sorry

np, have a good summer

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

Since it is so easy to prove, could you do it here for those of us who don't see him that way? It should be simple, after all.

Pretty easy.

Revealingly, Harris sided with the worst Muslim-hating elements in American society by opposing the building of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero, milking the Us v. Them militaristic framework to justify his position:

"The erection of a mosque upon the ashes of this atrocity will also be viewed by many millions of Muslims as a victory — and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice."

About muslim profiling:

to anti-Muslim profiling ("We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it");

So double profiling: racial and religious. If you look arab, you should be profiled as a muslim. If you are suspected to be muslim, you should be profiled.

Anybody who defend Sam Harris here would say that you can support Muslim profiling without being bigoted ? If it's a bigoted view, then Sam Harris is bigoted.
If you don't think that profiling people because of their religion is bigoted, you need to accept that you are a fascist.

Don't come here complain about Trump being a fascist if you are willing to accept worst position from somebody in the name of "critic of religion". What a load of stupidity we heard on this thread about Harris being against the "idea of Islam".

 

[Audioboxer]

While I dumped some mini-essays in here, which I didn't actually intend to do as heavily as I did (bored today), I probably should say a few extra things given I noticed I've been quoted above.

I personally do not always see eye to eye with many of the names I mentioned, I just think there are times some of the accusations levied are done so to cloudy the waters and act as cheap shots. Out of all the names I mentioned, I do not see any of the people truly leading the charges as far right wing political figures or actually engaged in directly targeting and abusing individuals.

Ironically, Maajid is the one who had a genuine background of extremism, with the groups he was part of. Dawkins, unlike Harris and Hitchens, went a bit off the deep end with snark and hot takes on Twitter. I used to say he routinely came across as a try-hard Hitchens. The guy himself though has still put out lots of great work, books and more. Especially around biology/evolution where some argue that is really where he should have stayed (the religious fields often best debated by Harris/Hitchens ~ Although some of Dawkins takedowns of creationists were pretty entertaining and his mini-series on Darwin educational). That was a bit of my point about how someone does/says some stupid shit and there is thousands waiting in the wings to instantly pounce and say everything this person has ever done is now invalidated because of x (usually a retweet/dumb Tweet). I also have to say the selfish gene is one of the most misquoted/misinterpreted texts around, it's mind-boggling how people still botch discussing it and often use it to try and condone ridiculous statements.

Many of the issues someone like Harris faces is he is ripe for selective quoting and the fact most people can't be bothered spending hours reading all his books and hours watching youtube videos. He often dives in taboo subjects/content and with that comes many hard debates that some would rather never happen. Some may call this being a contrarian, but let us not pretend human beings do not delve into discussing complex matters around humanity/theology/thinking/spirituality/etc. Often we keenly look for intent and how people align morally so we can weed out who themselves may be extremists/problematic figures before simply assassinating someone's character for bringing up taboo subjects. That is to say you do not need to agree with Harris at all, but it should take a bit of tact before simply writing him off as a genocidal maniac.

Funnily enough an old, being the first Rubin Report, spent 1+ hour JUST handling Sam Harris controversy ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqxlzHJrU0 It's worth a watch if you do not think your soul will become corrupt for yet again another Rubin video being posted. Harris content is all over YT, this is just one video I remember because it almost exclusively deals with him having an hour to directly respond to many of the allegations aimed at him. If you're someone that truly believes some of the more serious claims I urge you to watch/listen.

It is a somewhat video condensed form of https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy

The ones he routinely gets hit on are selective quotations on "nuke the middle east" and Harris wants to "profile every Muslim"

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#premptive_nuclear_war
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#profiling

 

[Raven117]

I'm sure there are some, but the reason people like Rogan, Rubin and Harris tend to get large audiences in the long form podcast/video interview sphere is largely because of two main reasons. Long form interviews are quite rare as it is, and often end up being podcasts or YT rather than the short interviews that you'll get on mainstream TV. A reason why I often think interviews on Maher which last 7~9 minutes are pretty useless.

Then also if you take this topic as an example the reactions to anyone in the modern world who will interview someone even slightly controversial leads to some of the worst smearing, tarring, ostrisizing and accusations you'll ever see. The internet has helped this become a thing due to retweet/reshare culture and often a complete lack of people doing homework. You say someone is an evil bigot? Maajid is a racist, Uncle Tom hate monger? Sam Harris literally wants to torture Muslims on the street and send nukes to kill the ones he cannot reach? Well, that's good enough for me, let me reshare these accusations and warn others. Therefore, many modern interviewers cower in fear of getting bombarded with insults, accusations and demands of how their shows should be run, if they ever dare bring on a controversial figure. Their Twitter feed will be ignited with harassment and accusations they are evil by association because they interviewed Maajid. Only a few posts ago we have claims Sam Harris is simply a bigot and shouldn't be allowed on any shows. That final. End of.

The lines between outright controversial figure and mildly controversial don't even exist half the time. Everyone is either some 1:1 ally or they are bigoted scum. You routinely see this when someone can say 100 reasonably grounded things but 1 more controversial, wrong or contentious point and it's "Ah hah we found the 1 point that means fuck the rest of your work, thoughts and words, you're done for now".

Anyway, before you depart Rubin I urge you to watch this interview with Maajid given the topic is about him https://youtu.be/lpit8jc3NeI Not only does he discuss the SPLC, but he tackles what I mentioned above and who it is that attempts to smear him to the high heavens as a current day tactic for chasing listeners away and attempting to get him silenced. The stories about the Gay Muslims also encapsulate everything that is wrong with some people who take their dogmatic stances to such a level they cannot seemingly differentiate right from wrong (or they do the above and completely nuke Maajid over one or two points he makes versus the grand total of everything he tries, stands up for and his experiences). Hand waving LGBT abuses will never be right no matter what religion you do it behind. Calling Maajid an Uncle Tom after listening to the above interview would make you no better than a follower of faith who targeted the gay Muslims they talk about. It's sinister, foul and unfounded character assassinations all because you cannot handle criticism of your beliefs, or I should say you cannot respond appropriately to the criticism.

Appropriately largely ranging from taking it on the chin some will think your religion isn't real to engaging in debate instead of throwing the most serious insults and accusations you can think up just to try and "ruin" someone you do not like. Or chase people away from listening to them often with tactics I mentioned above (guilt by association and how dare you listen to person x...) right up to even attempting to make it near impossible for someone to speak and be debated. If your own ideas and beliefs are that rock solid and you are confident in them then you should have no problem rolling your sleeves up and getting down to debate. Often people refuse to debate... You have to think why at times. Although, it's a refusal seen across all religious believers. Try and get a creationist to take on an evolutionary biologist. Those that are dogmatically religious often cannot handle any form of criticism so will run to rhetoric, name-calling and smearing.

Then again a decent amount of the fundamental Christians did try taking on Dawkins, Harris, Hitches, Dennett and others during the 90s/00s. There's plenty of longform interviews/debates of them on YouTube. In a minor way I think a lot of debates like these, and others before, helped our societies explore and handle Christianity and Catholicism and challenges we faced with them. Islam as a growing religion should be able to face the same criticism, debate and challenges Christianity and Catholicism has faced in tens of years gone by in Western countries. As much as I'll furiously defend and uphold freedom of religion, with that comes the ability for others to use things such as the scientific method, inquiry, debate and criticism to challenge every and any one of the religions benefiting from freedom of religion. As long as someone isn't suppressing your ability to practice your faith or threatening or putting you in harms way, your doctrine, God and faith itself will come up against criticism in the majority of Western societies. Especially when and if it attacks things such as women/feminism, the LGBT community and so on. Our societies have had years of challenge there from Christianity/Catholicism and Islam isn't going to go unchallenged on the same issues just because it's currently the minority religion (regionally, globally it's massive).

That being another tactical web that is often spun by some ~ If you criticise Islam then you are criticising a minority and it's inherently problematic for you to challenge a minority. Hence why some of those who would say something like that give zero fucks if you go after Christianity/Catholicism because they are majority religions in most Western societies (look at any topic on GAF where it's Christians threatening women's body rights or pushing against gay marriage ~ No one holds back, nor should they). You could ask, were some of the people now going after Harris going after him in the same way when he wrote a letter to a Christian nation and routinely blasted Christianity? If not, why not? Is it because Christianity isn't your faith and you don't care about it? If so, fair enough, but at least be honest that someone like Harris is equal at criticising multiple doctrines and faiths and the claims they make. Either directly from the texts, or what the followers can go around saying and doing. There's a lot of crossover from the faiths/religions around how women are treated, or views on homosexuality. If someone was to criticise one on those grounds why wouldn't they with the others?

Amen.

A-fucking-men.

Best post I've seen on a topic here on NeoGaf in awhile.

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

While I dumped some mini-essays in here, which I didn't actually intend to do as heavily as I did (bored today), I probably should say a few extra things given I noticed I've been quoted above.

I personally do not always see eye to eye with many of the names I mentioned, I just think there are times some of the accusations levied are done so to cloudy the waters and act as cheap shots. Out of all the names I mentioned, I do not see any of the people truly leading the charges as far right wing political figures or actually engaged in directly targeting and abusing individuals.

Ironically, Maajid is the one who had a genuine background of extremism, with the groups he was part of. Dawkins, unlike Harris and Hitchens, went a bit off the deep end with snark and hot takes on Twitter. I used to say he routinely came across as a try-hard Hitchens. The guy himself though has still put out lots of great work, books and more. Especially around biology/evolution where some argue that is really where he should have stayed (the religious fields often best debated by Harris/Hitchens ~ Although some of Dawkins takedowns of creationists were pretty entertaining and his mini-series on Darwin educational). That was a bit of my point about how someone does/says some stupid shit and there is thousands waiting in the wings to instantly pounce and say everything this person has ever done is now invalidated because of x (usually a retweet/dumb Tweet). I also have to say the selfish gene is one of the most misquoted/misinterpreted texts around, it's mind-boggling how people still botch discussing it and often use it to try and condone ridiculous statements.

Many of the issues someone like Harris faces is he is ripe for selective quoting and the fact most people can't be bothered spending hours reading all his books and watching hours watching youtube videos. He often dives in taboo subjects/content and with that comes many hard debates that some would rather never happen. Some may call this being a contrarian, but let us not pretend human beings do not delve into discussing complex matters around humanity. Often we keenly look for intent and how people align morally so we can weed out who themselves may be extremists/problematic figures before simply assassinating someone's character for bringing up taboo subjects.

Funnily enough an old, being the first Rubin Report, spent 1+ hour JUST handling Sam Harris controversy ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqxlzHJrU0 It's worth a watch if you do not think your soul will become corrupt for yet again another Rubin video being posted. Harris content is all over YT, this is just one video I remember because it almost exclusively deals with him having an hour to directly respond to many of the allegations aimed at him. If you're someone that truly believes some of the more serious claims I urge you to watch/listen.

It is a somewhat video condensed form of https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy

The ones he routinely gets hit on are selective quotations on "nuke the middle east" and Harris wants to "profile every Muslim"

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#premptive_nuclear_war
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#profiling

Just get out of here.

He is not denying anything. He making a lot of circumambulation to finally admit that we should profile muslims. That it. Just admit that you're idol accept racial/religious profiling. It's black or white, there is no grey: profiling or no profiling, and Sam Harris is in favor of profiling.
His only line of defense it's that he was speaking about airport and that israelies are doing it (lol). So what ??? It's still profiling.

So just reply to that: do you think that profiling muslims is acceptable or not ?

I swear those Harris fanboys...

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Just get out of here.

He is not denying anything. He making a lot of circumambulation to finally admit that we should profile muslims. That it. Just admit that you're idol accept racial/religious profiling. It's black or white, there is no grey: profiling or no profiling, and Sam Harris is in favor of profiling.
His only line of defense it's that he was speaking about airport and that israeli are doing it (lol). So what ??? It's still profiling.

So just reply to that: do you think that profiling muslims is acceptable or not ?

I swear those Harris fanboys...

It seems like some liberals see indiscriminate Muslim suffering as an acceptable loss in the battle to "modernize" or erase Islam. It's all an academic exercise without any personal or immediate consequences so they can view it in a detached manner.

It's just something you have to take as a given if you want to discuss with them at length.

 

[RustyNails]

While I dumped some mini-essays in here, which I didn't actually intend to do as heavily as I did (bored today), I probably should say a few extra things given I noticed I've been quoted above.

I personally do not always see eye to eye with many of the names I mentioned, I just think there are times some of the accusations levied are done so to cloudy the waters and act as cheap shots. Out of all the names I mentioned, I do not see any of the people truly leading the charges as far right wing political figures or actually engaged in directly targeting and abusing individuals.

Ironically, Maajid is the one who had a genuine background of extremism, with the groups he was part of. Dawkins, unlike Harris and Hitchens, went a bit off the deep end with snark and hot takes on Twitter. I used to say he routinely came across as a try-hard Hitchens. The guy himself though has still put out lots of great work, books and more. Especially around biology/evolution where some argue that is really where he should have stayed (the religious fields often best debated by Harris/Hitchens ~ Although some of Dawkins takedowns of creationists were pretty entertaining and his mini-series on Darwin educational). That was a bit of my point about how someone does/says some stupid shit and there is thousands waiting in the wings to instantly pounce and say everything this person has ever done is now invalidated because of x (usually a retweet/dumb Tweet). I also have to say the selfish gene is one of the most misquoted/misinterpreted texts around, it's mind-boggling how people still botch discussing it and often use it to try and condone ridiculous statements.

Many of the issues someone like Harris faces is he is ripe for selective quoting and the fact most people can't be bothered spending hours reading all his books and hours watching youtube videos. He often dives in taboo subjects/content and with that comes many hard debates that some would rather never happen. Some may call this being a contrarian, but let us not pretend human beings do not delve into discussing complex matters around humanity/theology/thinking/spirituality/etc. Often we keenly look for intent and how people align morally so we can weed out who themselves may be extremists/problematic figures before simply assassinating someone's character for bringing up taboo subjects. That is to say you do not need to agree with Harris at all, but it should take a bit of tact before simply writing him off as a genocidal maniac.

Funnily enough an old, being the first Rubin Report, spent 1+ hour JUST handling Sam Harris controversy ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqxlzHJrU0 It's worth a watch if you do not think your soul will become corrupt for yet again another Rubin video being posted. Harris content is all over YT, this is just one video I remember because it almost exclusively deals with him having an hour to directly respond to many of the allegations aimed at him. If you're someone that truly believes some of the more serious claims I urge you to watch/listen.

It is a somewhat video condensed form of https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy

The ones he routinely gets hit on are selective quotations on "nuke the middle east" and Harris wants to "profile every Muslim"

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#premptive_nuclear_war
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#profiling

Let me ask you this, and instead of textwalls that go roundabout in saying nothing (seriously go start a blog somewhere), do you agree with Sam Harris we need to profile Muslims? Lets get you on the record.

 

[Audioboxer]

Just get out of here.

He is not denying anything. He making a lot of circumambulation to finally admit that we should profile muslims. That it. Just admit that you're idol accept racial/religious profiling. It's black or white, there is no grey: profiling or no profiling, and Sam Harris is in favor of profiling.
His only line of defense it's that he was speaking about airport. So what ??? It's still profiling.

So just reply to that: do you think that profiling muslims is acceptable or not ?

I'm not quite sure where I stand on what Harris has said about profiling/airport security. I do not think I do agree, or I think I'd have to admit it's a topic I have to hand over to law enforcement/security to decide how they do things. My field of study is psychology and it's routinely the case when police/security attempt to create profiles and/or come to conclusions of who could fit into things they are looking for, some forms of profiling happen. It's always happened to some degrees, it's about not having powers abused and maintaining human dignity. I find it uncomfortable to discuss the topics Sam is, but I do have to say on his website it does seem to make sense that the old lady being searched is incredibly unlikely to end up registering as a threat in the airport, just as an old lady like that would probably score a low probability of fitting a police search for crimes in general. That could be seen as profiling based on age, are older people more unlikely than young to fit certain MOs (Modus operandi)? It shouldn't mean old people, therefore, do not get randomly searched, they may just score low on a probability chart for who may end up being one of the very few people who do end up causing an issue for airport security.

What I do feel however is it's not now a case of he's a fascist, or that I have to accept I'm a fascist.

 

[Next]

What was that poll he was talking about where 100% polled muslims in the UK consider homosexuality morally reprehensible? Is that real?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I'm not quite sure where I stand on what Harris has said about profiling/airport security. I do not think I do agree, or I think I'd have to admit it's a topic I have to hand over to law enforcement/security to decide how they do things. My field of study is psychology and it's routinely the case when police/security attempt to create profiles and/or come to conclusions of who could fit into things they are looking for, some forms of profiling happen. It's always happened to some degrees, it's about not having powers abused and maintaining human dignity. I find it uncomfortable to discuss the topics Sam is, but I do have to say on his website it does seem to make sense that the old lady being searched is incredibly unlikely to end up registering as a threat in the airport, just as an old lady like that would probably score a low probability of fitting a police search for crimes in general. That could be seen as profiling based on age, are older people more unlikely than young to fit certain MOs (Modus operandi)? It shouldn't mean old people, therefore, do not get randomly searched, they may just score low on a probability chart for who may end up being one of the very few people who do end up causing an issue for airport security.

What I do feel however is it's not now a case of he's a fascist, or that I have to accept I'm a fascist.

Masterful deflection.

 

[RustyNails]

I'm not quite sure where I stand on what Harris has said about profiling/airport security. I do not think I do agree, or I think I'd have to admit it's a topic I have to hand over to law enforcement/security to decide how they do things. My field of study is psychology and it's routinely the case when police/security attempt to create profiles and/or come to conclusions of who could fit into things they are looking for, some forms of profiling happen. It's always happened to some degrees, it's about not having powers abused and maintaining human dignity. I find it uncomfortable to discuss the topics Sam is, but I do have to say on his website it does seem to make sense that the old lady being searched is incredibly unlikely to end up registering as a threat in the airport, just as an old lady like that would probably score a low probability of fitting a police search for crimes in general. That could be seen as profiling based on age, are older people more unlikely than young to fit certain MOs (Modus operandi)? It shouldn't mean old people, therefore, do not get randomly searched, they may just score low on a probability chart for who may end up being one of the very few people who do end up causing an issue for airport security.

What I do feel however is it's not now a case of he's a fascist, or that I have to accept I'm a fascist.

Me: Sam Harris is a bigot because he supports profiling Muslims
You: well not reallllly, here's his justification, taken out of context.
Me: do you support profiling of Muslims
You: I'M A PSYCHOLOGIST DONT ASK ME.

You either support bigotry or you dont. If you dont, no need to defend Harris. No need to couch these answers in terms of what-ifs and probabilities.

 

[HiredN00bs]

Also, its very easy to prove Harris a bigot, and it bothers him to no end.

Does it matter that it bothers him? Do you find him to be a rational thinker? Do you think he is capable of changing his mind or message based on new information or new perspectives? I can say that Maajid appears to have had some influence on his rhetoric.

I think Sam Harris is possibly wrong on any number of issues, and he talks to a lot of right-leaning voices, but he seems at least somewhat interested in evolving his understanding on the topics he discusses.

I have no problem calling Sam or other liberal voices out for when they're wrong or shitty, but this binary idea that people are either racist/not-racist or bigoted/not-bigoted and unlikely to change isn't accurate or fair to the way that people and minds work, especially thoughtful ones like Harris.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Masterful deflection.

Um what? He answered by saying he doesn't agree with profiling, and then elaborated on the nuances. How is this deflection?

 

[RustyNails]

Does it matter that it bothers him? Do you find him to be a rational thinker? Do you think he is capable of changing his mind or message based on new information or new perspectives? I can say that Maajid appears to have had some influence on his rhetoric.

I think Sam Harris is possibly wrong on any number of issues, and he talks to a lot of right-leaning voices, but he seems at least somewhat interested in evolving his understanding on the topics he discusses.

I have no problem calling Sam or other liberal voices out for when they're wrong or shitty, but this binary idea that people are either racist/not-racist or bigoted/not-bigoted and unlikely to change isn't accurate or fair to the way that people and minds work, especially thoughtful ones like Harris.

I'm sorry I must have missed his take where he says religious profiling is wrong? Care to link?

 

[Audioboxer]

Me: Sam Harris is a bigot because he supports profiling Muslims
You: well not reallllly, here's his justification, taken out of context.
Me: do you support profiling of Muslims
You: I'M A PSYCHOLOGIST DONT ASK ME.

You either support bigotry or you dont. If you dont, no need to defend Harris. No need to couch these answers in terms of what-ifs and probabilities.

Of course I do not support bigotry. The only debate you'll get out of me is even when I think Harris is bringing up controversial or uncomfortable debates, of which I may disagree, I'll judge some of his intent on whether or not I truly think he's doing so to be a sinister, vicious and/or vindictive man.

The question I'll ask you is do you not think there are many uncomfortable discussions had within security and the police forces when it comes to what will go on with searching/profiling? It's not an all or nothing field. We cannot simply remove all airport security, and we cannot simply turn into a human rights abusing big brother scheme.

For what it's worth, let me state I would absolutely hate to be certain people going through airport security. There are thousands of cases of unfair treatment and the anxiety many have when approaching security must be unbearable. When we try to approach something like security with human judgement involved, it's ripe for abuse and misuse of power. Maybe one day the whole process will be automated with machines. I'm unsure of what that would fully be like, but possibly everyone just having to walk through a full body scanner? That itself could bring up privacy concerns, bringing us back to will we forever have to rely on human judgement?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Um what? He answered by saying he doesn't agree with profiling, and then elaborated on the nuances. How is this deflection?

He said he doesn't know where he stands on what Harris has said about it. It's right up there if you want to take another look. The rest was equivocation

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

I'm not quite sure where I stand on what Harris has said about profiling/airport security. I do not think I do agree, or I think I'd have to admit it's a topic I have to hand over to law enforcement/security to decide how they do things. My field of study is psychology and it's routinely the case when police/security attempt to create profiles and/or come to conclusions of who could fit into things they are looking for, some forms of profiling happen. It's always happened to some degrees, it's about not having powers abused and maintaining human dignity. I find it uncomfortable to discuss the topics Sam is, but I do have to say on his website it does seem to make sense that the old lady being searched is incredibly unlikely to end up registering as a threat in the airport, just as an old lady like that would probably score a low probability of fitting a police search for crimes in general. That could be seen as profiling based on age, are older people more unlikely than young to fit certain MOs (Modus operandi)? It shouldn't mean old people, therefore, do not get randomly searched, they may just score low on a probability chart for who may end up being one of the very few people who do end up causing an issue for airport security.

What I do feel however is it's not now a case of he's a fascist, or that I have to accept I'm a fascist.

Harris just want to be sure that brown guy in his plane have been tripled check. The example of the old white lady is really a sham. I know what he mean and you know what he mean.

As this old white lady is unlikely to be a terrorist, which of those two should receive a more intense background check in the airport ?

This guy?

Or one of those guys ?

Common sense, right ?

 

[excelsiorlef]

Please remember that Sam Harris is a man that tried to give credibility to Charles Murray and The Bell Curve in 2017.


The problem with many folks is that they conflate smart with right or good.

Sam Harris is smart but he's frequently not right or good

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Please remember that Sam Harris is a man that tried to give credibility to the Charles Murray and The Bell Curve in 2017.


The problem with many folks is that they conflate smart with right or good.

Sam Harris is smart but he's frequently not right or good

But how can I know for sure that I'm not biologically less intelligent because I'm black unless I listen intently to someone making that claim?

 

[g11]

What was that poll he was talking about where 100% polled muslims in the UK consider homosexuality morally reprehensible? Is that real?

None of the 500 British Muslims interviewed believed that homosexual acts were morally acceptable.

52% that homosexuality should not be legal, 23% want Sharia law

I believe in both cases the sample size was 1001 people FWIW.

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

Does it matter that it bothers him? Do you find him to be a rational thinker? Do you think he is capable of changing his mind or message based on new information or new perspectives? I can say that Maajid appears to have had some influence on his rhetoric.

I think Sam Harris is possibly wrong on any number of issues, and he talks to a lot of right-leaning voices, but he seems at least somewhat interested in evolving his understanding on the topics he discusses.

I have no problem calling Sam or other liberal voices out for when they're wrong or shitty, but this binary idea that people are either racist/not-racist or bigoted/not-bigoted and unlikely to change isn't accurate or fair to the way that people and minds work, especially thoughtful ones like Harris.

If you're in favor of racial profiling, you're bigoted. It's a no-brainer.
If you think that muslims shouldn't have a prayer room three blocks from ground zero because they have some kind of collective guilt over 9/11, you're bigoted.

It's not really a complicated matter.

 

[MUnited83]

Since it is so easy to prove, could you do it here for those of us who don't see him that way? It should be simple, after all.

Harris thinks profiling every single Muslim is okay and that BLM is setting back civil rights. He's nothing but a dumbass bigot. How the fuck is anyone still listening to him as if he's rational is amusing to say the least.

 

[IrishNinja]

Harris thinks profiling every single Muslim is okay and that BLM is setting back civil rights.

wait, for real? i tossed harris in the bushes years ago, but if you can cite that, i'll...do so again

 

[MUnited83]

wait, for real? i tossed harris in the bushes years ago, but if you can cite that, i'll...do so again

Slight correction, he thinks BLM will make it so race relations go back a generation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sincere-kirabo/what-sam-harris-gets-wron_b_11680182.html

"I worry that BLM, if it got all the attention that it wants, it could set race relations back in this country a generation."

How anyone uses Harris to support their arguments at this point is quite frankly ridiculous to me. Dude's a grade A piece of shit.

 

[excelsiorlef]

He also believes saying I have a black friend is a valid defense against racism

“Who is the evil genius who first convinced the world that being able to honestly say that ‘Some of my best friends are Black’ is not an adequate defense against the charge of racism toward Black people?”

And more

In a recent episode of his Waking Up podcast titled “Racism and Violence in America,” Harris shared what he believed to be enlightened ideas on racism and declared that he wanted to gain greater clarity on issues unique to the Black community.

Not wanting his lofty perspective contradicted, Harris avoided the likes of Stacey Patton, Michael Eric Dyson, Michelle Alexander, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Sikivu Hutchinson, or Marc Lamont Hill—Black academic-activists enmeshed in the struggle for racial justice in this nation. Instead, he opted to reinforce his beliefs by speaking with Glenn Loury, a professor of economics at Brown University.

While Black America isn’t a monolith, Loury—as a longtime Reagan conservative who now characterizes himself (9:47) as “centrist or mildly right of center democrat”—is in the vast minority. Although he’s far from being a Stacey Dash, he was nevertheless carefully chosen for the same reason the media flocks to the small contingent of Black conservative token figures: to act as a Trojan horse that soothes white discomfort and diminishes white accountability when discussing race.

Harris prefaced this deliberate act of smoke and mirrors by stating (4:09-4:18) he didn’t want the discussion “contaminated by identity politics,” explaining that he believes “identity politics are just poison, unless your identity at this point is Homo sapien.”

And more

Despite Loury’s occasional injection of disabuse, he was ultimately complicit in a two-hour long session that granted Sam Harris a cover for racial scapegoating and red herrings. One of the most unsettling aspects of this dialogue was Harris’s preoccupation with partitioning himself (and the majority of whites) from racism. At one point (26:22-26:55) Harris says,

“Showing white bias on the IAT (Implicit Association Test) doesn’t make you a racist. Racism is the endorsement of norms that support that bias. It’s a person’s understanding that he’s biased and his further claim that he’s happy to be that way, because he believes that society shouldn’t correct for such biases, because they’re good, because white people really are better than black people. He’s someone who wants society to be unfair based on the color of a person’s skin, because he thinks skin color is a good way to determine the moral worth of human beings.”


Harris only regards overt forms of racism as indication of “true” racism. This is why he demarcates racism in such a way (27:04-27:14) that categorizes racists as being “a tiny minority in our society at this point” and the remaining white population as “people of goodwill, and people of moral enlightenment.” He continued to prop up this belief by alleging whites who voted for Obama (27:32) have “cancelled their personal racism” and by using terms (27:38; 30:40) like “real racist.”

 

[IrishNinja]

Slight correction, he thinks BLM will make it so race relations go back a generation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sincere-kirabo/what-sam-harris-gets-wron_b_11680182.html

How anyone uses Harris to support their arguments at this point is quite frankly ridiculous to me. Dude's a grade A piece of shit.

He also believes saying I have a black friend is a valid defense against racism

And more

And more

wow, there it is - "real" racism is a small #' identity politics are the real problem and having black friends/voting for obama helps negate that. normally you have to go to conservative/libertarian figures to hear this kinda fuckery, but here it is from the perfect example of a faux-liberal "ally" of minorities.

 

[Audioboxer]

Harris just want to be sure that brown guy in his plane have been tripled check. The example of the old white lady is really a sham. I know what he mean and you know what he mean.

As this old white lady is unlikely to be a terrorist, which of those two should receive a more intense background check in the airport ?

This guy?

Or one of those guys ?

Common sense, right ?

If you're asking me personally I'd say it would depend on actions/behaviour in the queue and when approaching scanners? Apart from random searching, which I don't know what metrics that would be based on (every x amount of people?) you'd have to think security is looking for people sweating, twitchy, acting strange, unusually quiet and so on. Is that behavioural profiling? I mean part of the purpose of having a sea of eyes in airport security is to constantly watch people and watch their behaviour. Civilians are actively asked to report suspicious behaviour. This extends way beyond physical safety concerns and to things such as tackling smuggling goods and anything else prohibited. I know you know that I'm just saying.

As I said above when people do get searched it largely becomes about human dignity and treatment. Do not create a scene with someone, do not talk down to them, do not embarrass in front of others and if someone has a special request try and meet that request (such as asking to go to a room). Usually, when you see abuse in airports it's a failure from staff to treat people like humans. In most other cases if you're treated with respect most people just accept security is an unfortunate consequence of the world we live in and no, it wouldn't be possible to just allow everyone to walk onto planes spared the uncomfortable metal detectors, shoe removals, body pat downs and occasional full body scans/searches.

The overarching debate from me would be a thought that I believe forms of profiling do happen, and I think I can understand why. The uncomfortable hypothetical situation is more to face off a 4-year-old girl with a middle-aged man. Or the same for 80-year-old woman with a middle-aged man. Do you think it's likely that many would think the child or the elderly person is statistically just as likely to account for most of the historical incidents recorded in airport security history? Whether it's terrorism, or drug smuggling, or contraband carrying, etc? I don't think so. You'll probably find men outweigh women, and ages below something like 10 and over something like 70 do not feature often. Is it ageist and sexist for profiling based on these hypotheticals? Well, I think yes, it could be, but it's all about how security handle it and how they treat passengers.

What isn't acceptable to me as it wouldn't be many others is outright abuses of power, treating people poorly and so on. If it was proven airport security was only targeting (or heavily one-sided) specific people then yes, I would agree too that was outright discrimination. Random searching would still suppose to mean just that, people are picked randomly. So yes, children and old ladies will indeed still get the same search treatment as others.

 

[excelsiorlef]

wow, there it is - "real" racism is a small #' identity politics are the real problem and having black friends/voting for obama helps negate that. normally you have to go to conservative/libertarian figures to hear this kinda fuckery, but here it is from the perfect example of a faux-liberal "ally" of minorities.

And again this is a guy who had Charles Murray on to defend the Bell Curve and agreed with Murray a ton through out.

It's bizarre how so many keep giving him a pass.

Because it's not one example it's a bloody pattern

 

[thefil]

Since we seem to have a lot of people who dislike Harris in the thread right now, I'd like to ask again from the previous page - any recommendations for people to read/listen to who tackle similar subjects, are intellectually rigorous, and come to better conclusions?

This is not a gotcha question. I'm looking for more input.

*edit*

On another topic, I found the torture section in his controversy page thought-provoking and probably a less complicated question than muslim profiling. The question posed at the start was: if you had 100% certainty that a person knew the location of a nuclear bomb that would kill millions of people, would it be morally justified in torturing them to prevent those deaths? Harris' conclusion is that torture should be illegal because almost any law would be abused, but that waterboarding may be ethically justified, especially if you would accept *killing* that person to prevent deaths as ethically justified.

I don't necessarily agree with him on this, I'm just talking through ideas that were new to me as of this morning and curious if any Harris opponents can provide a rebuttal.

*edit2*

I also read his profiling defense as arguing for an "anti-profiling" (his word) of people like elderly and children to avoid those people being subject to onerous investigation, but it's possible I'm giving him too much credit and it's more correct to read between the lines. It's also possible that this anti-profiling is morally indefensible. Also still digesting.

 

[RustyNails]

If you're asking me personally I'd say it would depend on actions/behaviour in the queue and when approaching scanners? Apart from random searching, which I don't know what metrics that would be based on (every x amount of people?) you'd have to think security is looking for people sweating, twitchy, acting strange, unusually quiet and so on. Is that behavioural profiling? I mean part of the purpose of having a sea of eyes in airport security is to constantly watch people and watch their behaviour.

Are you being obtuse on purpose, or do you not know the difference in scanning for acting suspiciously versus religious or racial profiling?

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

If you're asking me personally I'd say it would depend on actions/behaviour in the queue and when approaching scanners? Apart from random searching, which I don't know what metrics that would be based on (every x amount of people?) you'd have to think security is looking for people sweating, twitchy, acting strange, unusually quiet and so on. Is that behavioural profiling? I mean part of the purpose of having a sea of eyes in airport security is to constantly watch people and watch their behaviour. Civilians are actively asked to report suspicious behaviour. This extends way beyond physical safety concerns and to things such as tackling smuggling goods and anything else prohibited. I know you know that I'm just saying.

As I said above when people do get searched it largely becomes about human dignity and treatment. Do not create a scene with someone, do not talk down to them, do not embarrass in front of others and if someone has a special request try and meet that request (such as asking to go to a room). Usually, when you see abuse in airports it's a failure from staff to treat people like humans. In most other cases if you're treated with respect most people just accept security is an unfortunate consequence of the world we live in and no, it wouldn't be possible to just allow everyone to walk onto planes spared the uncomfortable metal detectors, shoe removals, body pat downs and occasional full body scans/searches.

The overarching debate from me would be a thought that I believe forms of profiling do happen, and I think I can understand why. The uncomfortable hypothetical situation is more to face off a 4-year-old girl with a middle-aged man. Or the same for 80-year-old woman with a middle-aged man. Do you think it's likely that many would think the child or the elderly person is statistically just as likely to account for most of the historical incidents recorded in airport security history? Whether it's terrorism, or drug smuggling, or contraband carrying, etc? I don't think so. You'll probably find men outweigh women, and ages below something like 10 and over something like 70 do not feature often. Is it ageist and sexist for profiling based on these hypotheticals? Well, I think yes, it could be, but it's all about how security handle it and how they treat passengers.

What isn't acceptable to me as it wouldn't be many others is outright abuses of power, treating people poorly and so on. If it was proven airport security was only targeting (or heavily one-sided) specific people then yes, I would agree too that was outright discrimination. Random searching would still suppose to mean just that, people are picked randomly. So yes, children and old ladies will indeed still get the same search treatment as others.

The question is not about weird behaviors or checking 8 years old as middle-age men, the question is if Abdullah need to be double-checked or not.

It's a simple yes or no situation.

 

[theCalamity]

I think the only thing you'll get out of Audioboxer is a few paragraphs about nothing.

 

[RustyNails]

Since we seem to have a lot of people who dislike Harris in the thread right now, I'd like to ask again from the previous page - any recommendations for people to read/listen to who tackle similar subjects, are intellectually rigorous, and come to better conclusions?

This is not a gotcha question. I'm looking for more input.

I mean, what "similar subjects" are you looking to increase your knowledge on? Sam Harris is a smart neorologist. If I have curiousity about brain functions I'd love to learn from him. Similarly Maajid is an ex-terrorist, and he may have something to share about his experiences. But anything outside of that is just pure commentary. Would you listen to anything anyone says eloquently or do you want to learn about subjects from people with you know, immersive histories and knowledge in their subjects? What specifically are you interested in listening to? There are eloquent ultra-orthodox Salafist speakers to eloquent ultra-liberal ones, and everything in between. Are you looking to learn about Shariah? Hadiths? Sirah? Qur'an? Tafsir? Islam in West?

 

[IndoAssassin]

I agree with Canada's form of profiling. Only letting Families, or woman and children in to country.

Men don't need to be protected, they are scum of the earth.

Gives woman and children a chance to escape rape and torture, to find a better life.

 

[Audioboxer]

Are you being obtuse on purpose, or do you not know the difference in scanning for acting suspiciously versus religious or racial profiling?

I was answering how I would feel comfortable doing it. Yes I know what religious or racial profiling are. I answer above I wasn't that comfortable with Sam's remarks, more so on religious profiling, but both of them are often intertwined.

The uncomfortable question for you Rusty is out of my post above what are your thoughts on profiling based on age or gender? Behavioural profiling, the thing which I stated above I do feel comfortable with? Any sort of profiling?

Maybe I am displaying idiocy in thinking the behavioural outline above is actually profiling, but it does fit what it is described as

the recording and analysis of a person's psychological and behavioural characteristics, so as to assess or predict their capabilities in a certain sphere or to assist in identifying categories of people.

What would YOU do about searching, as you keep asking me? What is profiling to you? Is any profiling acceptable?

The question is not about weird behaviors or checking 8 years old as middle-age men, the question is if Abdullah need to be double-checked or not.

It's a simple yes or no situation.

No it's not, any sort of searching/profiling is a very complex discussion. It has to be due to the serious nature of what we're discussing. As you're asking me, you'll then get the answer I'd like to give. For me, it would depend on whether this Abdullah fits some of the behavioural descriptors I gave above. If we're talking not about random searching but security actually actively choosing to search someone.

In other words, more information is needed about your hypothetical other than just a name.

I think the only thing you'll get out of Audioboxer is a few paragraphs about nothing.

People sure like quoting me to get some nothing!

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

Since we seem to have a lot of people who dislike Harris in the thread right now, I'd like to ask again from the previous page - any recommendations for people to read/listen to who tackle similar subjects, are intellectually rigorous, and come to better conclusions?

This is not a gotcha question. I'm looking for more input.

On another topic, I found the torture section in his controversy page thought-provoking and probably a less complicated question than muslim profiling. The question posed at the start was: if you had 100% certainty that a person knew the location of a nuclear bomb that would kill millions of people, would it be morally justified in torturing them to prevent those deaths? Harris' conclusion is that torture should be illegal because almost any law would be abused, but that waterboarding may be ethically justified, especially if you would accept *killing* that person to prevent deaths as ethically justified.

I don't necessarily agree with him on this, I'm just talking through ideas that were new to me as of this morning and curious if any Harris opponents can provide a rebuttal.

Jonathan Brown and Seyyed Hussein Nasr are two excellents authors with a different perspective but a clear knowledge of the subject matter (and credentials).

The Study Quran is a pretty good entry point even if it's not without issues.

I don't agree that killing one innocent person is justified if it can save millions (because of the Quranic verse: killing one man is like killing humanity). I don't agree that torture is even justified, since (even if you think that it's ethically correct) it's been demonstrated that people just say anything under torture and the risk of torturing the wrong guy is always there.

 

[IrishNinja]

I think the only thing you'll get out of Audioboxer is a few paragraphs about nothing.

Amen.

A-fucking-men.

Best post I've seen on a topic here on NeoGaf in awhile.

 

[Golden_Pigeon]

No it's not, any sort of searching/profiling is a very complex discussion. It has to be due to the serious nature of what we're discussing. As you're asking me, you'll then get the answer I'd like to give. For me, it would depend on whether this Abdullah fits some of the behavioural descriptors I gave above. If we're talking not about random searching but security actually actively choosing to search someone.

In other words, more information is needed about your hypothetical other than just a name.

This is becoming very tedious.

Ok. You have two guys: John and Abdullah, middle-aged. One is white from Canada, one is arabic looking from Egypt. They both display the same behaviour. Abdullah have a thawb, a beard and a kufi. John have a business suit.

Does it's justifiable to double check Abdullah ? Nothing differentiate Abdullah from John except it's evident arabness and muslimness.

Yes. or. no.

 

[Audioboxer]

This is becoming very tedious.

Ok. You have two guys: John and Abdullah, middle-aged. One is white from Canada, one is arabic looking from Egypt. They both display the same behaviour. Abdullah have a thawb, a beard and a kufi. John have a business suit.

Does it's justifiable to double check Abdullah ?

Yes. or. no.

I'd be inclined to say no in that situation as it's what I would feel most comfortable with.

 

[thefil]

I mean, what "similar subjects" are you looking to increase your knowledge on? Sam Harris is a smart neorologist. If I have curiousity about brain functions I'd love to learn from him. Similarly Maajid is an ex-terrorist, and he may have something to share about his experiences. But anything outside of that is just pure commentary. Would you listen to anything anyone says eloquently or do you want to learn about subjects from people with you know, immersive histories and knowledge in their subjects? What specifically are you interested in listening to? There are eloquent ultra-orthodox Salafist speakers to eloquent ultra-liberal ones, and everything in between. Are you looking to learn about Shariah? Hadiths? Sirah? Qur'an? Tafsir? Islam in West?

I guess generalists who speak to experts and select their experts well. But in the context of this thread, any essay or talk on the state of Islam in the world would be good. I understand I'm out of my depth, but I imagine there is a decent version of one or more of these:

+ a "defense of Islam" against it's most egregious charges levelled by the new atheists or others
+ a survey of Islam in the modern world, describing something different than the majority-Islamist view
+ a survey on the state of Islamic reform
+ an argument that terror/oppression perpetrated by Islamists is not a consequence of their beliefs, or no more so than any other terror/opression

I understand these questions put Islam in an unfairly "must defend itself" perspective, but it's difficult to suggest positive topics when I'm so ignorant, so I can only ask for things as negations.