Find exceptions to rule -> claim rule doesn't exist

These are not "exceptions". These aren't one-offs, or black swan events. It's not even close.

If you believe that I'd say you are willingly refusing to believe the evidence.

Assert opinion as fact. Win arguments.

I'm confused, what exactly is your solution considering that you hold education to have no effect? Am i seeing a "final solution" being presented?

There is no solution that I can see, at least not from an outsider. The change must come internally. We just don't have 500 years for Islam to figure it out. I'm simply saying it's a much bigger issue than people make it out to be. It's much more complicated than so many on the left think it is.

I personally think all religion is laughable, but Islam seems to be particularly dangerous at this point in time because of technology.

Lol is that you Ben? Because you are proving Harris' point with your knee-jerk caricature of Maher, just like Ben did.

How about this: 78% of British Muslims thought the Danish cartoonist should be prosecuted for drawing cartoons that offended them. Am I allowed to mock those Muslims for their backwards and anti-human rights position? Or does that make me an Islamophobe? Or does the fact that 22% displayed some semblance of rational thought let Islam off the hook?

And yes I know several Muslims and they are very cool people. That does not make some ideas of their religion worthy of disdain. Particularly if one is a liberal who gives a crap the rights of women, homosexuals, freedom of artistic expression, etc.

Apply one poll to 1 billion+ muslims. Claim credibility/neutrality because of muslim friend.

Don't even bother quoting the other well known polls of Afghanistan and a couple other places, show that the majority of the global population hold these views or take your bigotry elsewhere.

I'm honestly confused about how many smart and progressive people on the left are so bent out of shape over this argument.

Where is the courage to believe in the ideas that have brought us so far as a society? Where are the people who should be standing up against the oppression of women and homosexuals, as revots33 mentioned? Why do you tolerate intolerance?

It should be abhorrent to us that these ideas are so wide-spread through the Muslim world. But the insta-reaction from the left is racism or bigotry. No, it's about criticizing bad ****ing ideas, not a group of people because of their skin color.

And wtf is up with this skin color racism thing anyway? Islam is a religion, not a race. There are plenty of white/asian/black Muslims.

If "dem people" are resistant to education (in your very enlightened view), how will anything change? Are you walking away from the "final solution" implications of your earlier statement?

You have a point here. Your views are not racist, they are bigoted. Consider this a victory (?).

It's pretty phenomenal (understandable though) how Islamic extremists have successfully censored almost all media everywhere in the world from showing representations of Muhammad.

I have no idea why it is so hard to understand that the muslim couple living down the road are not statistically likely (not even close) to be knife wielding crazies (or supporters of knife wielding crazies). There is nothing to suggest that they are. Furthermore, there is too much complexity involved to pick out one certain thing and tracing everything back to it, there are cultural/historical/political factors in play, like we understand that you are too lazy and/or simply unable to figure this out, but you shouldn't assume that everyone is like you.

I dislike all religion. I don't view them as all equally dangerous. Anyone who does is just lying to themselves. In fact :

Muslims are more concerned about Muslim extremism than Christian extremism

Here in the West, academics and liberal media-types often bend over backwards in an effort to convince the public that the threat from radical Islam is no more or less serious than the threat from radical Christianity, Judaism or [insert any religion here].

But in almost every country Pew surveyed, Muslims themselves indicated the threat from Muslim extremism is more serious than the threat from Christian extremism — that is, if they didn’t indicate they feared both equally or neither.

Notably, in Iraq, 45 percent of respondents said they worried mostly about Muslim extremists groups, while only three percent said they worried mostly about Christian extremists groups. Sixteen percent said they worried about both Christian and Muslim extremist groups.



http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/01/ni...lds-muslims/2/

There are some disturbing findings in the Pew poll, if it is to be believed:

1.) A majority of Muslims in several countries think adulterers and apostates should be put to death

According to the poll, 86 percent of Muslims in Pakistan, 84 percent in Afghanistan, 81 percent in the Palestinian territories, 80 percent in Egypt, 65 percent in Jordan, 57 percent in Iraq and 54 percent in Malaysia and Bangladesh favor stoning as a lethal punishment for adultery.

A majority of Muslims in several countries also support the death penalty for Muslims who convert away from Islam, including in Afghanistan (79 percent), Egypt (88 percent), Pakistan (75 percent), the Palestinian territories (62 percent), Jordan (83 percent) and Malaysia (58 percent).

6.) A high percentage of Palestinians and Afghanis say suicide-bombing civilians is justified

Forty percent of Muslims in the Palestinian territories and 39 percent of Muslims in Afghanistan said attacking civilian targets to defend Islam is often or sometimes justified. Further, 18 percent of Muslims in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories said such actions are “often” justified.

Take sample of polls that are not representative of the majority of muslims in the world -> apply findings to majority of muslims in the world.

I am an atheist but that doesn't stop me from pointing out your faulty reasoning.

Dunno. It seems like that's the case. But, you shouldn't assume progressives aren't enraged about the incredible human rights problems in many of the countries that adopt Sharia law. The oppression of women in the middle east is surely one of the biggest human rights problems in the world, as is slavery in the Gulf States.

To not consider those crimes terrible and think that those responsible should be held accountable would be incredibly patronizing/condescending as if the people in those societies are inferior and shouldn't be held to the same standards.

Wait, did you actually look at the Pew poll? Did you see the methodology or are you just talking?

Do you want a link to the actual ****ing poll itself? I mean come on dude. Are you criticizing just to be argumentative or do you have access to some information that the rest of us don't?

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/05/09/t...s-society-faq/



How can you call a survey that excludes Saudi Arabia, India and China a “global” survey of Muslims?

Although we decided that we could not safely and reliably conduct face-to-face interviews on religion in a few countries, including Saudi Arabia, India and China, we were able to survey in a total of 39 countries that collectively are home to approximately 67% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. These countries span the globe from Africa and the Middle East to Europe and Asia. Across these regions, the survey captures the views of Muslims in a wide range of social, cultural and political contexts. The results of the survey – from divergent views about sharia to differences over women’s rights to varying attitudes toward violence in the name of Islam – provide empirical evidence that the survey represents a broad, as well as in-depth, picture of how Muslims see themselves and their societies in the modern world.

These issues aren't the same scale. Is human trafficking a problem in the United States? Absolutely. It's known and it's documented. Is that a bigger or smaller problem, than say, the treatment of women and homosexuals in many Arab countries? Don't get me wrong, I think both are terrible, but if you'd have to start somewhere, we could start with half the human population in Saudi Arabia.

wil,

In 2003, 64% of Americans thought that the US should invade Iraq, motivated mostly by 9/11, which had nothing to do with Iraq. US soldiers didn't do all the killing, but something like 100k Iraqi civilians were killed in the following decade.

Doesn't mean Islam is off the hook, but we aren't exactly Jainists ourselves.

Agree and agreed. I'm with ya. But I think one has caused much more misery and harm than the other.

Dude you are taking the findings from a majority in several countries and applying the them to the entire sample size. Your own poll doesn't support your assertions.

I was actually taking your side in that post.

90% of the population of Qatar are non-citizen laborers and many are essentially slaves. That's millions of people.

OTOH, there maybe be few hundred thousand people who are essentially slaves in the US, most of them child prostitutes. Not a pretty picture.

Dude maybe you should look at the numbers again. This isn't a small scale poll. It's huge, and it represents a LARGE number of Muslims.

And as bad as all that is, there is so much less mayhem per capita now than any time ever in history. Still a long way to go of course.

This is troubling data but it doesn't support the "all muslims are extremists" narrative that Harris seems to have sold you on.

I actually think Harris does a good job explaining himself:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/c...ed-from-itself


After the show, a few things became clear about Affleck’s and Kristof’s views. Rather than trust poll results and the testimony of jihadists and Islamists, they trust the feeling that they get from the dozens of Muslims they have known personally. As a method of gauging Muslim opinion worldwide, this preference is obviously crazy. It is nevertheless understandable. On the basis of their life experiences, they believe that the success of a group like ISIS, despite its ability to recruit people by the thousands from free societies, says nothing about the role that Islamic doctrines play in inspiring global jihad. Rather, they imagine that ISIS is functioning like a bug light for psychopaths—attracting “disaffected young men” who would do terrible things to someone, somewhere, in any case. For some strange reason these disturbed individuals can’t resist an invitation to travel to a foreign desert for the privilege of decapitating journalists and aid workers. I await an entry in the DSM-VI that describes this troubling condition.

Contrary to what many liberals believe, those bad boys who are getting off the bus in Syria at this moment to join ISIS are not all psychopaths, nor are they simply depressed people who have gone to the desert to die. Most of them are profoundly motivated by their beliefs. Many surely feel like spiritual James Bonds, fighting a cosmic war against evil. After all, they are spreading the one true faith to the ends of the earth—or they will die trying, and be martyred, and then spend eternity in Paradise. Secular liberals seem unable to grasp how psychologically rewarding this worldview must be.

As I try to make clear in Waking Up, many positive states of mind, such as ecstasy, are ethically neutral. Which is to say that it really matters what you think the feeling of ecstasy means. If you think it means that the Creator of the Universe is rewarding you for having purged your village of Christians, you are ISIS material. Other bearded young men go to Burning Man, find themselves surrounded by naked women in Day-Glo body paint, and experience a similar state of mind.

After the show, Kristof, Affleck, Maher, and I continued our discussion. At one point, Kristof reiterated the claim that Maher and I had failed to acknowledge the existence of all the good Muslims who condemn ISIS, citing the popular hashtag #NotInOurName. In response, I said: “Yes, I agree that all condemnation of ISIS is good. But what do you think would happen if we had burned a copy of the Koran on tonight’s show? There would be riots in scores of countries. Embassies would fall. In response to our mistreating a book, millions of Muslims would take to the streets, and we would spend the rest of our lives fending off credible threats of murder. But when ISIS crucifies people, buries children alive, and rapes and tortures women by the thousands—all in the name of Islam—the response is a few small demonstrations in Europe and a hashtag.” I don’t think I’m being uncharitable when I say that neither Affleck nor Kristof had an intelligent response to this. Nor did they pretend to doubt the truth of what I said.

I genuinely believe that both Affleck and Kristof mean well. They are very worried about American xenophobia and the prospects of future military adventures. But they are confused about Islam. Like many secular liberals, they refuse to accept the abundant evidence that vast numbers of Muslims believe dangerous things about infidels, apostasy, blasphemy, jihad, and martyrdom. And they do not realize that these doctrines are about as controversial under Islam as the resurrection of Jesus is under Christianity.