Brilliant. But, it's not like it's the first time blowhard Dawkins has said some really stupid things, that ignorant people swallow, and parrot.

Another quote from the review:

"At this point in time — with his sweeping, unsubstantiated and historically ill-informed polemics — Dawkins has dug his own intellectual grave."

Aaron, I'm probably blurring the written response and the video. Did you watch the video? He says if you support liberal values like equality for women and gays -- those are the two stick out for me, but I'm sure he mentioned some others -- then don't forget those in the face of other liberal ideals like standing up for other disenfranchised people

I believe his point was, if as a liberal those so-called liberal ideals are at the core of your ideology, then you have to overcome the knee-jerk reaction to stand up for Muslims since they appear to be under attack and in need of defense, because in fact, Harris Argues, hundreds of millions of ordinary Muslims all across the globe are not only against equal rights for women and gays, but they aren't pulling off feats of mental magic to arrive at these conclusions; rather, they are following relatively straight forward interpretations of their religion. And so, he reasons, it is appropriate to call these things out as Muslim problems and demand that the other billion+ Muslims who maybe don't agree with these things so strongly should offer support / criticism / reflection / alternatives / etc.

I still think it is far better to chastise people of any/no religion who are unable or unwilling to share the reigns of power with others not like themselves, but at the same time, I don't think Harris is arguing from some kind of anti-Islamic echo chamber, as (bizarrely) commentators want to make him out to be.

I did not watch the full video, just the first minute or two before I got bored.

I do agree that some manifestations of liberalism have problems, much in the same way that I think that some manifestations of Christianity, Islam, and secularism have problems.

Harris' intellectual problems stem from the fact that he doesn't seem to accept that there is such a thing as a different manifestation of the various religions. He has a particular image (a strawman) in his head of what he thinks he's arguing against, and even though he tries his best to put up various intellectualized barriers around what he's saying in order to try to hedge against criticism, his fundamental viewpoint is simply ignorant of the realities around him. (If you read posts by Mightyboosh when he talks about things like religious parenting or religious literalism, you find the exact same phenomenon.)

The classical problem for liberalism is that it gets confused about what it thinks it's supposed to be defending because it keeps wanting to limit itself in certain ways. For example, the liberal viewpoint often puts a value on self-determination, but then pulls back if the self-determination ends up being different from what they had hoped it would be. The basic question is whether liberalism is about holding specific positions on specific issues, or is it about holding a specific meta-position on how it evaluates issues? Is liberal self-determination the ability for individuals to determine their own path, or is liberal self-determination about creating societies of people who hold specific values in common (instead of other values)?

So when Harris is defending "liberalism from itself" the question comes down to what specific value he thinks he's defending and what specific threat there is.

Here is Harris in a different article discussing Islam:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_t...ality-of-islam

He's being absolutely clear in his view that he thinks Islam cannot possibly be a peaceful religion. So since he doesn't want to differentiate between different expressions of Islam, the question is whether his concept of liberalism is broad enough to allow for authentic differences in perspective, or whether he's following the pseudo-self-determination model where you're free to do whatever you want to do as long as what you want to do is something that I think you should be allowed to do.

I wouldn't say that he's arguing from an echo-chamber. To my knowledge, there really aren't that many people who agree with him on the substance of his claims*. So it's not like he's surrounding himself with people who agree with him and is simply repeating the arguments they're making because he's been receiving endless affirmation for the statements he's made. I don't think he's actually Islamophobic. I think he's just wrong in his analysis of Islam. But I would say he is anti-Islamic.

* The people who do agree with his claims are probably Islamophobic, which is why it's so easy to hang the label on him.

Well, I think you need to be careful here so you don't do the same mistake you accuse Harris of, a narrow focus on the holy work itself. Obviously "the Bible" has never willfully killed anyone. It is a written work and has no will of its own. When we speak of religion in an historical context we speak of religion as a sociocultural phenomena and a broad reference to human action as a trend. In an historic context it is also implicit that we are referring to the religious influence of leaders and the religiously inspired willingness to comply.

This is no different than me stating "The US has a problem with obesity". When I say this I am not saying that "the US state forces citizens to overeat" or that "Americans are obese", I'm stating something that roughly translates to "The US has a nationwide trend towards obesity likely caused by sociocultural factors".

I know from former debate that some debaters try to disqualify description of trends as inherently without meaning. I think that is a completely bogus argument, and one that people employ pretty much exclusively because they disagree with the conclusion, not the method as claimed. It is no more "impossible" to conclude that a religion causes violence than it is to state that a company creates jobs.

I do not see any evidence of this. Over and over, Harris specifies that he is critical of the manifestation of Islam whose adherents very strongly support very bad ideas. Everyone does this, but the difference is that most people couch it in terms of "terrorists" or "Jihadis" or "Islamists" whereas Harris refers to a variety of (reputable) polls that point out that these bad ideas are very strongly supported by millions of people, and supproted/respected (but perhaps not quite as much) by hundreds of millions of people -- not just a fringe group holed up in some training camp in the sands of Yeman.



Again, I don't see this at all. Even his vocal critics seem to agree with "what he thinks he's arguing against" but only think he exaggerates the numbers, or dispute the conclusions he draws about people's beliefs based on their stated (poll results) beliefs.

And I think he is clear about this. He thinks liberals are so concerned about being sensitive toward Muslims that they are (in his opinion) blinding themselves to the fact that hundreds of millions of Muslims hold very bad ideas, believe in them strongly, and (for what its worth) there is a straight line from the holy books of their religion to their actions, as opposed to say Buddhists who are cutting off heads and thus actually acting in opposition to their religious texts, despite the fact that they may be acting as a group under the banner of Buddhism.

Again I disagree. I do not see any evidence for this interpretation. He stresses that Islam, as it is practiced today by hundreds of millions of people, is bad. But hundreds of millions of other Muslims today are peaceful. And furthermore the solution he proposes to the prevalent bad variant is to reform it -- this is the opposite of saying it cannot possibly be peaceful.

No. Harris makes amateurish errors in historical analysis and blanket denunciations, as clearly demonstrated with quotes from his book.

Harris's two juvenile errors:

1. He removes Islam from historical context. He separates it from everything else going on in a society and attributes violence to select theology. This is known as being monocausal. If people are violent, it's because they are Muslims, not the immensely complicated milieu they come from.

2. He essentializes Islam as a single, violent thing. He cherry picks some quotes and says that's the authentic Islam. Islamic practice that is not violent is not authentic. But a religion is how it's practiced in all its variation. It's as if Harris said abolitionists were not real Christians since the Bible supports slavery.

Here's a fine review of Karen Armstrong's new book on religion and violence. It's not just about Islam, but applies nicely to this thread.

A pull quote:
Any violent act has immensely complex factors behind it, and to single out religion or Islam is to efface how things happen. That's why Harris is FOS.

When pressed, Harris et al may acknowledge other factors, but then go right back to trashing Islam or other religions. That's because he knows very little and can't think historically -- he attributes violence to a single, simple, cause: Muhammad, rather than examining the complicated context that produces killings. But it also makes Harris popular, cuz MOOSLEMS.

He's having his cake and eating it too. He offers scraps of nuance to the people who demand it, then goes back to imbecile statements about Islamic savagery.

Sure. And it also happens to be that Harris thinks that "the manifestation of Islam whose adherents very strongly support very bad ideas" includes virtually all Muslims.

If that were actually the case, Harris would not need to clarify his statements to make himself look less Islamophobic.

He is welcome to his opinion, but this really only serves to make him look dumb and Islamophobic (even though he's only really anti-Islamic).

The line he draws is there, but it's also an extremely naive line to draw. It would be like drawing a straight line from the Second Amendment to gun violence, and then saying that American Democracy is responsible for mass killings on school campuses.

So if it is false that "Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked by extremists" then there are only a limited number of interpretations that you can reasonably reach:

1) Islam is not a peaceful religion
2) Islam is a peaceful religion, but it's not being hijacked by extremists

Which of these two statements most accurately matches your understanding of Harris' position?

The counter-argument falls on its own face as it commits the very error it is criticizing. Obviously if you can't point to religiously inspired violence and war "because society nature is too complex to point out single trends as causes", then you can't point to mercantilism, monarchism or any other phenomena either.

Also; If I say that "200 000 people attend a rock a concert", I'm merely saying that 200 000 people attend a rock concert, I'm not saying I know the exact actions or motivations of 200 000 people. But since I know a lot of people like rock, a conjecture that "people liking rock is a main cause of the attendance" is not unreasonable. I'm still not saying that these 200 000 people like rock, but I find it dubious that a rock concert would reach an attendance of 200 000 without enjoyment of rock playing a huge factor.

Personally I find religious norms are somewhat arbitrary and that Abrahamic religion typically puts huge emphasis on authority. I'm convinced this provides a very fertile system for individuals to wield great power without too much in the way of checks and balances, and that this can work and have worked as both a great catalyst and cause of much conflict and war. I would also claim that history definitely supports my view. Obviously I can't prove that I am correct, and there of course exist alternate explanations. Still, to state that my claim is unsupported strikes me as simply false.

Your posts are beyond vomit-inducing. Please, stop using "MOOSLEMS". You make yourself sound like some sort of idiot.

Describing Harris as "knowing little" and "can't think historically" is beyond laughable. He's extremely highly educated in a very complicated field and has studied religions and history extensively, which is blatantly obvious by the content of his various works.

If you disagree with him, then please, make a valid argument. You come off completely idiotic in the way you are disparaging him. Not a single logical thinking human being could possibly describe Harris as a person as "knowing little". If anyone comes off as "knowing little", it's you.

lol @ "MOOSLEMS".

This is not true. His point is that there are many Muslims in the world today who justify violence through their religious texts. Almost everyone else in world currently does not. He has never said that "if people are violent, it's because they are Muslims". Please show me where he said that.


Once again, he does not. We've covered this in other threads, yet you spew the same crap on other threads. He doesn't cherry pick anything. He says that Jihad and Martydom and justification of violence by the sword are themes carried out through the Quran and the Hadith. He argues that it is a very plausible way for Muslims to interpret the texts.

A religion is not how it is practiced in all its variations. We went through this argument. Some forms are accepted as mainstream interpretations. Some are not so much. He argues there is no reformed version if Islam. Your point about abolitionists and Christianity are off the mark. It is not a good analogy, and you know it.

I believe Sam Harris has allowed his public persona to be hijacked by his need to prove 1 particular idea: in addition to the violent Muslims that we hear about on the news, if you look at the consistent results of multiple respected polls, you will find that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who either support the violence OR support what the violent actors are trying to achieve and sympathize with them OR support what the violent actors are trying to achieve but condemn their violence.

He seems obsessed with what he sees as the media / the public's willingness or even desire to say all people are basically good, and all religions are basically the same, so if there are violent extremists, they must be a tiny minority who are twisting and distorting the religion. And he won't rest until each and every member of the media / public comes around and acknowledges this.

That being said...

Yes and no. Removes Islam from historical context? I don't see that. He isn't saying its horrible because of magic -- poof! we have a bad religion! However it got bad, he thinks that Islam (as practiced by many many people) is bad, and should change.

Maybe he does some cherry picking, but at the same time, his interviews, over and over and over, are nothing if not an admission that he is not talking about ALL MUSLIMS, or EVERY possible interpretation of Islam. He is talking about views that bla bla bla polls bla bla bla hundreds of millions of people bla bla bla.

I haven't read the book, but I agree with the quoted sentiment. When I was much younger I was probably just the type of person to say that religion was the cause of more wars than anything else, but eventually it rang hollow and I stopped saying it.

I think you are right, but not to the degree that you are professing, if that makes any sense. In Harris' defense, there does indeed seem to be a tendency of people to reason as you have and conclude that religion couldn't possibly be a prominent cause for tension or violence, rather than concluding that religion isn't the ultimate cause, even though it is a huge proximal cause right now.

Maybe this is just an anecdote that can be ignored and/or explained away, but he points out that Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians in the occupied territories are in almost exactly the same situation, but the Christians aren't carrying out violent acts against civilians as a response to it. So sure, maybe we can find reasons to ignore or explain it, but MAYBE there is truth to the idea that ONE of the primary factors involved are the messages the two groups take from their religion.

Horrible editing on my part, this should really go somewhere earlier, but another point to notice is that makes claims about the nature of Islam that you are free to refute, but you haven't. You have attacked him for saying them, but not proved him wrong. That is, he likes to make the point that a neutral observer could read the Koran and easily understand how people who believe violently in an effort to achieve worldwide prominence for their religion, whereas for instance the same neutral observer would have a hard time understanding how a Buddhist could use their religion to justify the same kind of violent efforts. If you think that is nonsense and that any attempt at oppressing women, killing homosexuals, killing apostates, conquering and spreading Islam, etc., is clearly not justified by the text, then just enlighten us.

I suppose it gets tricky because it is a matter of opinion, and one person's rational justification is another person's excuse making.

On the contrary, I have seen him state many many times that it includes hundreds of millions of the 1.6 billion Muslims alive today; distinctly not "virtually all."

If someone is easily misconstrued then they must believe the thing they are misconstrued to believe? Seems like nonsense to me.

What an incredibly obvious false dichotomy.

I think he would probably say that Islam is a religion that is, through a straightforward reading of its texts, interpreted by hundreds of millions of people in a way that is more violent in practice than other major religions are interpreted by equally large numbers of their adherents.

Your attacks of his views do not ring true to me at all; not just that you disagree with him, but that you haven't actually paid much attention to what he is saying. I would like to stop putting words into his mouth defending him to you at this point. Bash away, but I don't think you're actually attacking what he has been saying very clearly in many interviews and articles recently.

If the statement

P1. Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked by extremists

Is false then at least one of the two propositions that constitute it must be false.

P2. Islam is a peaceful religion
P3. Islam has been hijacked by extremists.

It's not a false dichotomy because we have ascertained that it is not both of these things by virtue of the P1

No, he argues violence is the core of the religion. For people who read:

He insists on essentializing Islam, arguing that non-extremist or violent practitioners become so by drifting away from the violent, authentic core:

By that definition, Jihadists are not Islamic because they are a small minority. Does even Harris say something so off the wall as there is no reformed Islam? Visits to Beirut and Istanbul are in order.

Explain how.

I don't think you understand the arguments about essentialism and historical context. Harris never discusses context, he just yelps about Koran verses. If you understood essentialism but still disagreed with my attack on Harris, you would have to argue that we can explain Saudi Arabia only by reading the Koran.

He never discusses the the rest of the context. Where is it?

His acknowledgement that not all Muslims are bad does not let him off the hook. He never goes into comparative analysis -- why Turkey is moderate, Saudi Arabia extremist. He knows only one note. He can't discuss the history of Turkey because he doesn't know anything about it. The guy's a pure dilettante.

There are Christian members of the PLO, for starters. The PLO began as a secular organization. It's guerrilla campaign had little Islamic content and was mainly secular nationalist, yet it was violent. Islamic revivalism doesn't play a big role in the fight with Israel until the 1990s. Palestine is actually an example of devout Muslims arriving late to the stage. This is a good example of Harris knowing very little, just seizing on random, facile examples.


The point is that an historical explanation has to bring in all the factors and weigh them as a whole. He examines only one. That's Karen Armstrong's point.

Let's grant three hundred million Muslims as a reasonable interpretation of "hundreds of millions." What percent of Muslims are part of "the manifestation of Islam whose adherents very strongly support very bad ideas"?

If this were some sort of poll, in what situation would that not be considered an overwheming majority? I'll grant "virtually all" is a bit of rhetorical flair, but you seem to be defending him in the way that some old white Republicans try to point to any person of color as an example of diversity.

Let's see if you can board the logic train:

1) You think that Harris' vocal critics grant him "what he's arguing against" is legitimate.
2) Harris' vocal critics basically accuse him of Islamophobia

Therefore

3) Whatever position Harris is arguing is consistent with accusations of that he's Islamophobic.

Does that sound right to you?

Sorry, but the logic is what it is. I can break it down for you into smaller pieces, but I'm currently doubtful that you're willing to believe what's right in front of you:

"Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked by extremists" is a compound statement with two distinct claims:

1) Islam is a peaceful religion
2) Islam is a religion hijacked by extremists

In order for the original claim to be false, one of these two pieces must be false.

If 1) is false, then Islam is not a peaceful religion. (Note: This doesn't immediately imply that Islam is a violent religion, though Harris' position does provide some backdrop for that type of inference.)

If 1) is true, then 2) is false. This means that Islam is a peaceful religion but it was not hijacked by extremists.

I don't know whether Harris would actually use a comparative approach to justify his position. It doesn't seem to be how he's arguing things.

It may not ring true to you, but you are also exhibiting failures of logic. So it doesn't really bother me much that they don't ring true.

Whatever you think he's been saying "clearly" keeps requiring him to write posts and give follow-up interviews so that he can explain his position. I would take that as a clear sign that he's not clearly arguing anything at all.

How? If it is impossible for her to determine that "religion" causes large-scale violence due to the complexity of human society... how can she then implicitly claim that "merchant greed" causes large-scale violence? What is is about merchant greed that makes it as a phenomena where the complexity of human society is not a relevant factor? Why can't (a) religion be subject to such method?


I know this is a tangent, but I'm exploring it because if it can't be explained then her entire argumentation is unraveled.

Here's the thing: I AGREE with the bolded 100%. And if that's ALL that Harris is saying, then there would be no issue.

But he says so much more than this, and that's where he gets himself into trouble.

The violent extremists ARE the minority. The conflation of those who believe things that are harmful and the category of people labeled "the violent extremists" are not the same group of people. By trying to lump people he thinks believe things that are harmful as being "violent extremists" is where he's getting himself into trouble.

The problem with his position is completely obvious to those who aren't oblivious.

It should be noted, however, that a small minority can definitely make a group / organization / nation / culture violent. We can freely discuss if this is the case with the Abrahamic religions and Islam, but I hope people agree that this principle is unproblematic.

For the record, I don't think "Islam is violent". That description is to too coarse. But I a) don't think it is peaceful, and b) think it both acts as a catalyst and cause of much violence.

I think it is more accurate to claim it can make them / it appear violent.

Depends on how you look at it. Persons in authority (not necessarily formal positions of power) can cause large masses of completely normal people to do grievous and violent acts, and very often this is greatly aided by ideology.

A great example is for example the french revolution. I choose this example as it should be relatively non-controversial. Obviously revolutionary leaders were not the sole causes of the revolution, but it would be wrong to claim it is impossible to detect their influence.

If you look at the raw numbers, there are exceedingly few Muslims who have engaged in the types of violent behaviors that come to mind when we think of the phrase "violent extremists."

I agree with the example, but I do not see how it supports anything you're saying in the first paragraph or how it relates to other comments ITT. As far as I can tell, nobody is saying that the Islamic religion has no influence at all or that it's undetectable. The question is a matter of weighting.

Yep, 100% spot on.

Sure, but by that metric you are excusing every single big 'ism in the entire history of mankind.


Well, let's not waste more of each other's time then.