First of all, I'm totally lame, I admit it - I have several unanswered questions in this thread and I've been too involved in other things to come back here and answer them. Sorry!

You are changing the context. When I said it was a false dichotomy, this is what I was responding to (and quoted):

Neither of those two statements necessarily comes close to matching anyone's opinion, because there are other obvious interpretations of the world. Islam is not monolithic, so it does not necessarily make sense to make declarations about "it". How about these as reasonable (and obvious) alternatives to the false dichotomy above:

1) Practitioners of Islam could use their religion to justify peacefulness
2) Practitioners of Islam could use their religion to justify violence

and the point that Sam Harris makes / tries to make / is often maligned for it seems:

a) All religions are not the same. There is an obvious path (through the hippyness of Jesus) for Christians to turn away from the more violent aspects of the bible in favor of being more easy going than the most violent interpretation of the bible would seem to demand.

b) Islam does not have such an obvious path away from conquering or death to apostates, etc., but that isn't to say that someone couldn't find a way.

c) All religions are not the same. While anyone can cherry pick their nominal holy texts to find the parts that most coincide with their peaceful, 20th century, democratic ideals, an argument that Sam Harris has articulated [and which I freely admit I am not knowledgeable enough to confirm or deny] is that the Christian bible is much more a hodgepodge of apparently contradictory morals, moods, and guidelines, than is the Koran. The Koran, he says, by virtue of delivering more of a consistent "straight line" message with regard to its narrative and its protagonist, lends itself somewhat less to picking and choosing ideas. Of course, a person determined to be peaceful and egalitarian could get around this.

So given a, b, and c, one could say that Islam is not necessarily a religion of violence; however, a group need not hijack the religion in order to interpret it with a high degree of violence and intolerance, relative to the pre-dominant modern interpretations of other major religions.

Back to my opinions again: even if all of this is true, it does not "prove" anything definitively or somehow have the last word about why Islamic extremists may (or may not?) be in practice more likely to be terrorists than Christian extremists.

You are misreading what I say so consistently. I don't say that ever or even in the given passage. I've been very explicit in saying theology is part of the explanation, but other things are at work too.

I gave an example of how not to think, and you interpret that as blaming all males. You don't provide much reason for continuing to respond.

No I'm not Aaron has also pointed this out but for the purposes of clarity

In context it is not a false dichotomy because of the assumption in bold. The two things that are being contrasted, hence the dichotomy, follow logically from the assumption which you had already accepted.

And when is it predominantly due to religion?

I did misread this sorry.

I think it's interesting these are the two points you choose to reply to. If you don't want to respond, then don't. Go back to saying "mooselems"

But in your reply you've left out my counter example. It is a false dichotomy because there are other choices besides 1 & 2. If Islam must be either be labeled "peaceful" or "violent," that would change things. But as it stands, it is a category error I suppose. Because ... see my previous response and examples of how Sam Harris can reject the statement without accepting either of your alternatives. And I may agree with him, but nevertheless think it is not of central importance whereas he seems to think it is critical.

A blizzard of claims and your complaint is that I responded to the main one.

Okay, when is "it" predominantly due to religion? Well, loads of times. When Mohammed Atta instructed the other pilots to shout "God is great" at the moment of impacting the towers, that was very religious. Now indulge a request from me and identify a primary criticism of Harris's method as repeated over and over by me or Aslan quotes in this or the other thread. Not your interpretation, what you think we'd accept as a fair summation. I say you don't know.

That isn't an answer. What is the predominant reason they actually flew the planes into the buildings?

Gee.... it's not like I ever explicitly addressed this error at all.....

If you reject

P* Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked by extremists

then you have to accept one of these propositions

P1 Islam is not a peaceful religion
P2 Islam is not being hijacked by extremists

If P1 and P2 are both false then P* has to be true. There is no false dichotomy.

TBH I'd just accept P1. And this is why, cheers Aaron

They consistently claimed their religion required them to drive the US out of the Mideast.

But that immediately brings in endless complications. A zillion Muslims were horrified by the act and do not believe their religion requires them to fly into buildings. So were the hijackers wrong about what their religion required? Or is "Islam" no single thing?

Happy? Now, do you understand what Aslan says are Harris's fundamental errors? I bet you can't even identify a key quote, much less summarize his argument.

What's wrong with: P3 Islam is not a single quantity; it's both violent and peaceful.

P3 implies P1 (with aaron's caveat that P1 does not imply "Islam is a violent religion")

I remember many videos of Muslims celebrating the attack. Should I post them for you? You quickly handwave the "endless complications"?


Please explain.

Well, I'm sure there are no videos from the same moment of Muslims mowing lawns and washing dishes, so I'm just going to concede the point to you.

Is this the first time you beat your wife?

Of course the rules of logic are valid, however you commit a category error when you treat Islam like X and demand is X violent or not violent. You are also equivocating when you attempt to talk about these premises as precise logical statements and also real life ideas in the same setting.

I've summarized what I think Harris has said on the topic of whether or not Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked by extremists. I don't see the point in selecting one of your two characterizations of what he must believe, when what I have offered is succinct and more accurate and not apt to distort the answer.

So if anyone wants to score points, fine - remove all the content and replace it with variable names that we assume are discrete and indivisible, then there was no false dichotomy. However, since there are other choices available that in a practical sense do not match very well to either of the two choices you offered me, I stand by my claim that it is a false dichotomy. That I should have to explain this multiple times is ridiculous.

Sure, but doesn't this get to the heart of the matter? Harris claims that it isn't just a small group of radical extremists. He claims that many reputable polls allow us to extrapolate that hundreds of millions of Muslims support the imposition of Islamic law, death to apostates, punishment for insulting Mohammad, mandatory covering of women, various levels of support or sympathy for suicide bombers, etc.

I am not really making the argument, I don't have links to the polls or any kind of data at my finger tips, but that is the central claim that Harris makes: the data shows widespread support, and the West responds by blindly saying "all religions are basically good, only a few extremists on either side believe bad things."

If we are saying it is both violent and peaceful then we are saying that neither are intrinsic qualities so we can reject P1. Which is where I actually stand.

You have stated it multiple times despite it being explained why it is not a false dichotomy. Stand by whatever claim you want.

You're closer with the category error fwiw and I think you should focus on that rather than defend it's a false dichotomy when it clearly isn't.

I'm such a slow pony

I've provided quotes from his end of faith book where he says something quite different. His argument is not just widespread extremism, it's that that is the true nature of Islam and non-extremists become that way only by rejecting canon. So like extremists, he's appropriating the right to define a true Islam. It's dipsht stuff. He's arguing from definition.

Are you able to board the logic train?

If I'm committing a category error, then so is Harris. I'm using the language in the exact same sense he is.

Because logic doesn't apply to "real life ideas" ever.

You are welcome to believe whatever you want about Harris' argument. You can even reframe it in ways that aren't even consistent with his style of argumentation (which I believe you have). But at this point, you have kind of fallen into Harris-fanboy status where it seems you're simply not willing to accept a criticism of his position.

Nah. The ridiculousness of it is that you can't deal with basic logic.

You don't have to concede anything. I'm making a point. Sure, there are millions of Muslims who comdemned the attacks. There were some who rejoiced in them.

Back to the hijackers themselves - what other motivations made these people fly airplanes into buildings? We know their backgrounds. Middle class. Educated (some went to grad school). No real political oppression. No poverty.

What are the reasons these people did this? If we take the liberal line of thought that we should provide education, decent housing, decent security/living conditions, opportunity for jobs and then everything will be honkey-dorey, what happened in this instance? These people had all those things. They had every "incentive" to live, at least, in the way we think that people should be "happy".

Please explain your side of the argument.

Be detailed.

Nonsense. He's made his argument. Martydom, Jihad, Sharia, etc are all doctrines of Islam. He argues it's about as controversial as the resurrection is in the Bible.

You disagree with his sentiment that it's a very plausible interpretation of Islam. Some people don't. I think most normal people reject these things because it just doesn't fit into their daily lives, and rightfully so. I think a large portion of Catholics reject Catholicism's rules also, and yet they still call themselves Catholic. Harris makes that link, even though it's a bit harder to understand.

You reject that argument, and thereby reject all his arguments. Which is absurd.

I don't know if he is wrong, but I don't think what he says can be dismissed out of hand.

It is trivially true that there are innumerable interpretations of any given religion, but he claims that having read the canon of Islamic texts, he believes the most obvious interpretation is X, and so to be Muslim and not believe X, you have to start the mental gymnastics. I guess I just don't find that fantastically implausible.

But even if he is wrong, I'm not sure it matters so much. His point ultimately is that it is better if people don't believe X; if X is a strawman or simply one of many equally valid "obvious" interpretations of Islam, then so much the better (assuming you agree that X is undesirable).

And regarding quotes from his book, given the fact that he has been criticized for the book and then answered the criticisms in print and video interviews, it seems like the conversational high ground to not necessarily continue to characterize him based on the book. I don't remember if there is some greater context to the stuff you quoted that somehow exonerates it, but I do know if you look you can find plenty of commentary from him on this subject from AFTER the book that presumably clarifies his stance.

The electric appeal of their messianic faith animated them. They indeed are prime examples of the power of religious belief.

The error is to say their beliefs typify anyone besides themselves and explicit supporters and to see a generalized threat from Islam rather than specific actors. Muslim theologians regularly denounce terrorist interpretations of martyrdom. They are fully religiously inspired, not lapsed, per Harris. To say that the hijackers' inspiration was drawn from specific tenets of the Koran is true but misses the point. Everybody justifies their position with quotes. Here's a wiki article about pacifist interpretations of the Koran.

A Christian Identity preacher can rattle off biblical quotes justifying segregation. But when they murder a black guy, do we say "Christians lynch father of four"? No paper in the country would run that headline because everyone would see it as insulting the whole faith. Yet exactly that is running today about an attack on Christians in Pakistan. And Christian Identity adherents are all about the religious motivations for racism. Occasionally parents kill children in exorcisms. We attribute that to their twisted selves, not Christianity, even though religion was central to the act.

Nothing I say here should be interpreted to mean there are not powerful Islamic currents promoting extremism. But when you do not carefully define the culprits, you inflate the number of enemies you face. Harris is very explicit that Islam is pathological; he cannot help but offend everyone. I only want to fight people that attack us, not faith. You want a billion enemies or ten million?

This is one of those situations where people who don't do theology simply don't know how to do theology. That Harris thinks that X is the "most obvious interpretation" of a sacred text and that therefore X is somehow the way that the text should be interpreted is a terribly failed understanding of theology, and of human thoughts in general.

Ahhhh... a classic case of can-do-no-wrong. Even if he's making a completely false argument that has no bearing in reality, that's still good for his position.