You may recall that terrible conversation between Sam Harris and British neocon, in which I pointed out a very few appallingly stupid things that were said, and then we got that delightful influx of Harris fans who insisted over and over again that he was taken out of context, he didn’t really say that, and that he also covered his butt with contradictions, so none of it really counted…you know, the usual Harris song and dance. Well, we’re probably going to get some more two-step and soft-shoe, because I didn’t cover half of it. There’s much more awfulness to be exposed to the light.
For instance, Sincere Kirabo calls him out on blatant transphobia.
Throughout Murray’s cissexist rambling tirade about trans and genderqueer people, Harris…giggled, even outright laughed in some spots. Further, when his guest finally finished his verbal onslaught that declared having to recognize the humanity of those who don’t conform to gender norms and stereotypes as “a breakdown of our society,” Harris had only one reply: “That’s hilarious.”
That wasn’t the last of this dismissive commentary, and I implore everyone to listen for themselves as Murray went on to state ideas such as homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia are a part of a political agenda concocted to enforce what he imagines to be the social tyranny of political correctness. Unsurprisingly, Harris agreed with this assessment, even referring to it as anti-intellectualism.
I don’t think anyone will be surprised by this. Just as there is a whole constellation of regressive beliefs correlated with creationism — climate change denial, self-destructive economic policies, and xenophobia, to name a few — so too there is a far too familiar set of attitudes associated with the neocon flavor of atheism. Part of that is a refusal to give broader social concerns their due.
Harris’ muteness, as well as Murray’s (also an atheist) expressed contempt, reflects the general tenor of “mainstream” atheist attitudes. There are widely accepted views in our culture, as well as the subculture of the atheist community, that preference certain issues over others. This leads to a continuation of diminishing the importance of confronting interpersonal and systemic inequalities.
Vocal atheists tend to contend with religiosity adversely affecting legislation and abstract debates over invisible, intangible, and inaudible god entities. At the same time, there’s a continued trend of unconcern for social issues that affect minority groups. There’s a firm belief that “religion poisons everything,” and that if religion (a generalized, non-nuanced view of religious belief) is dismantled, that would somehow alleviate most or even all of our social ills.
I hate the idea that that is our “mainstream”. We need to keep fighting back to reduce these bozos to a forgettable fringe.
“We need to keep fighting back to reduce these bozos to a forgettable fringe.”
Yes. We do.
It’s also a shame that so many of ‘us’ ran mindlessly with the ‘Four Horsemen” hoopla that established 3/4 of them as bozo.
QFT.
indicator of True Atheist (TM), to realize that “religion poisons everything” is exaggeration for emphasis, and not the actuality.
Meaning,
Religion poisons{verb}. Everything with religion is poisoned, while religion is not the only source of poison. Misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, etc etc are not only caused by religiosity, so rejecting religion is not a guarantee of not still being poisoned.
A few book recommendations:
The Battle for Justice in Palestine, Ali Abunimah
The Muslims are Coming!, Arun Kundnani
Savage Anxieties, Robert A. Williams Jr.
#2: Is it really necessary to declare QFT on the basis of ‘belief’? Haven’t we had enough of the nonsense that elevates belief to the status of actuality, let alone truth?
Conceptual models of reality don’t require any allegiance accorded by the straight-jacketing ‘belief-system’ impulse to validate them. Belief systems are antithetical to any position that recognizes any conceptual models as provisional. While its perfectly ok to accept a world view based on best evidence (as currently understood (either by consensus at large or by individual understanding) it is quite obvious that we continuously confuse ourselves over what we are required to ‘believe’.
We might make a better habit of establishing a distinction between the use of the word on a qualifying bases rather than as just a set condition: we may ‘believe’ based on best evidence, but ‘belief’ constrains us to reject any corrective evidence.
I happen to ‘believe’ that belief has no bearing on any actual natural phenomena whatsoever. ‘Belief’ is like a mediaeval castle: always a conceptual fabrication built upon a foundation surrounded by fortifications designed to keep fresh evidence that might contradict it out.
Again, all I can say is that, listening to that total podcast (which goes for nearly 2 hours), I found Harris and Murray, I think they are both civil, articulate and compelling.
I’ll wager that the vast majority of the screeching here will be from people who *didn’t actually listen to the interview*.
Go on, dial it up on Harris’ website and listen to it in the car.
I contend that PZ’s brain just fizzles and sparks at the idea that secular humanists can be conservative, like Harris is and how Hitchens became. It isn’t all about angry feminism, which is all he rants on about nowadays. I think it’s sad to see the quality of PZ’s discourse go down hill so badly over the years. There’s “endearingly curmugdeonly”, which was the PZ I met five years ago, and there’s “4-ulcer apoplexy” which is where he’s at now.
I’m now firmly in Harris’ camp, and increasingly warm to his reasoned analysis of the path of Western Civilisation as it deals with the equally insidious cancers eating it from outside (fundamentalism Islam) and from the inside (the craven surrender of the left to political correctness, the breakdown of the separation of church and state, the entitlement mindset, etc).
PZ, you’re just wrong about Harris, and none of your bluster or those you’ve quoted seem to have addressed his points substantively. Harris’ softly spoken, clear-eyed commentary are just what we need, and not the kind of commentary that jijacks atheism (or even secularism, which is more my concern) in the service of trans-rights, or as a cudgel to wield along with the empty accusation of “islamophobia”.
Why not try defending enlightenment values and leave it at that. Leave your pet peeves at the door. They’re showing, and badly.
I was a somewhat uncritical fan of Harris’s until I read this: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/18/opinion/oe-harris18 and it’s all been downhill from there.
Nathan Zamprogno writes “I contend” [a pile of stupid steaming crap that only reflects very badly on him and won’t sway PZ or any other sensible person]
And no, Hitchens did not “become conservative”, which is the stupidest thing among many contenders in that rant. Hitchens’s position on the invasion of Iraq was certainly ill-considered and was something that, in part, he had in common with conservatives, but “conservative” is not something he ever was.
re @4:
sorry I wasn’t clear which part was being QFT. I failed to emphasize the QFT was final part of the statement .
It seems a lot of people think that by going atheistic they cannot be any of the other social ills that saturate society.
Here’s an experiment we can all participate in to lift the level of this discourse.
#6 Jim Balter calls my use of the words “I contend”, a “pile of stupid steaming crap”.
Next: excoriation for my use of nouns and adjectives.
See? it says more about you than about my (or Sam Harris’) arguments. It immediately telegraphs the weakness of your position for other readers.
Here’s my proposition. Listen to the podcast of Harris interviewing Murray. It’s really good. Here it is:
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
Then come back here and tell me where Harris was unreasonable. If there is any one thing you disagree with, contextualise it against the totality of the 2 hour long debate and judge whether a screaming fit of put downs is warranted when the protagonists are actually saying things that support the cause of western civilisation and of the preservation of secular government.
@8 Nathan
Neoconservatives might care about “the West”, but they sure as hell don’t care about civilization. They’re clearly not too keen on being civilized out of their own regressive crap.
I think the defense of western civilization first and foremost necessitates defending the values that would distinguish us from places like ISIS – gender equality, respect for queers, social mobility, social welfare… I don’t see an ally in someone that just wants their particular color of fascism to beat someone else’s. I don’t support a war that only the barbarians in the East and the West want to wage.
If we want religious extremism to fizzle out, we should be working with freethought activism throughout the world. You don’t do that with bombs and racism.
Nathan, by writing things like “the craven surrender of the left to political correctness, …., the entitlement mindset, etc”, you have already established that you are a dimwitted right wing ideologue who no one here has any reason to listen to. The notion that anyone will bother with your “propositions” is a foolish conceit of your sort. If you want an audience, you need to learn to fake being a non-jackass long enough to establish some minimal credibility, rather than immediately destroying it … but I doubt that you have the basic competence to even do that.
Over and out.
All Nathan Zamprogno is saying is that if you disagree with Sam Harris, you want Muslims to destroy all of western civilization. it’s so breathtakingly reasonable, what do you guys not get? Sam Harris is the good guy, liberals and brown people are the villains. All you have to do is listen to him speak for 2 full hours and you’ll realize human decency is a poison to our society.
/sarcasm
Jumping Croesus on a pogo stick, people who cry about being victimized by political correctness disgust me.
Nathan @8:
You propose people spend two hours listening to a podcast which impresses you, so that your claim about PZ’s fizzing and sparking brain seems justified?
<snicker>
Here’s my proposal: if you really dispute that Harris was approbatory towards Murray (which is the contention in the OP), provide a transcript and I might care to read it. Perhaps.
P.S.
No, you dunce, I did no such thing. My words in brackets are a characterization of the things you contended, not a characterization of the words “I contend”. Sheesh.
Hi, John!
[TM]
P.P.S. A right wing sleaze like Nathan is doing Sam Harris no favors by championing him.
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”
That is an example of some of the finest enlightenment thinking I’ve ever encountered, but that equality become less self evident when you’re talking about queer folk, or women, or people with skin pigmentation. Considering them to be equal is oppression, apparently. Worrying about how they’re treated by society is “craven surrender.” What a morality-free train wreck Nathan seems to be. But on the plus side, he can recognize a gentle tone of voice. So he has that going for him.
This is like saying that you position is weak if, when a mosquito lands on you, you swat it rather than engage in a debate with it on the merits of having your blood sucked. Sorry, but my position on right wing ideology is as well established as my position on having my blood sucked.
Seconded. I’ve heard enough shit out of Harris that I’m simply not going to spend two hours listening to him. Give me something I can scan and I’ll take a look.
Christ. Go back and listen to Harris’s interview? You do realize that this and my previous post on that interview include quotes and explain why we did not find it so
That just says it all. Trans-rights? That’s hijacking! Atheists don’t need no dang trans-rights. We need soft-spoken cis white men who will help us ignore such irrelevancies!
Nathan Zamprogno (#8)
Oh, just what the world needs: another living caricature of an insufferable prig who fetishizes lofty discourse but can’t make a single goddamn point grounded in reality.
But don’t you all realise that transphobia, homophobia, islamophobia, etc, are all just another point of view, equally valid on account of being positions held by people who have declared themselves to be reasonable? You see hatred, irrationality, fear, prejudice…but it’s just being conservative, just like you like chocolate but i like vanilla. Can’t we all be friends and fight for my goals while i hate you?
Nathan, sincerily, if you think any of that horseshit is reasonable and deserves anything but angry condemnation, FUCK YOU. (Imagine i said that very softly and with a smile).
@20 A. Noyd
My, isn’t it obvious that verbosity and tone doth maketh the validity of an argument? True intellectuals only speak in the form of limerick, with perfect pronounciation while they walk calmly valancing a book on their heads.
[I just posted this in the earlier Sam Harris thread, not realizing how old that was, so I’m reposting it here]
I exchanged some email last year with Noam Chomsky about Sam Harris after Harris wrote this appalling piece, which was retweeted by Steven Pinker: http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel
Chomsky had some choice words for both of them, calling Pinker’s views “grotesque” and sending me this: http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/12/steven-pinker-on-the-alleged-decline-of-violence/
On Harris, he sent me an unpublished letter that he had written, responding to Harris’s charges against him, which I can’t post here. But after I sent Noam this article by Theodore Sayeed: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/sam-harris-uncovered.html
he commented “I hadn’t realized the depths of his depravity though, even descending to relying on the disgusting racist and dedicated liar Dershowitz.”
I also sent him this ad hominem non-response from Harris to the above: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/wrestling-the-troll and Sayeed’s rejoinder, in which he admits to misrepresenting Harris by failing to “portray the full spectrum of his views”: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/09/sam-harris-in-full-court-intellectual-mystic-and-supporter-of-the-iraq-war.html
Noam’s final comment about Harris: “Quite a guy.”
And that should be “balancing”. I know, i know, the likes of me can’t be tolerated in polite company, i’ll see my self out and tell Mr. Harris that he is an irrational, hateful, weaselly wanker.
Sam Harris was fortunate enough to obtain fame finding a niche in taking hundred (or more) year old arguments for atheism and dumbing them down for the masses. Ever since he started expressing his own ideas, he exposed himself as a third-rate hack of a mind. I’ve watched Harris videos before and was thoroughly unimpressed, so I see no need to repeat the experience. For me it is no longer the case that, “you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today.”
Nathan, #5
But it’s not all about feminism. Why did you make that up?
7 out of the 10 blog entries on the first page of Pharyngula right now aren’t about women or feminism.
Second, women and trans people are 100% as important as rich white men. So until society and asshole atheists like you and Harris stops considering them a special interest group, I’m perfectly fine with it being “all about feminism”.
And 7 out of 10 posts on the second page are also not about feminism.
Since 6 out of 20 feminist posts is too much for you, what you’re actually saying is you don’t want feminism at all. Typical atheist dudebro. Apparently, misogyny is only bad when religion does it.
I’ve listened to it, and I really don’t understand the outrage (again). Does having someone on as a guest on a podcast automatically mean he agrees with everything he says? I thought it was pretty obvious he didn’t agree with everything Douglas was saying, but then I also knew he didn’t want Ben Carson as president and look at all the outrage people managed to manufacture out of that.
Nathan, #5
Define political correctness as you’ve used it here. You people love to use that term. Define what you mean by it right there. And real life examples would be nice too.
Usually what people mean by it is the nerve that non-(cis, white, heterosexual men) dare to demand being treated equally in society and not be the butt of dehumanizing jokes.
Present an argument showing that equality and fair treatment of trans people is not at least as important as removing a concrete slab with religious gibberish on it from a courthouse. C’mon, let’s hear it. You seem to be all for reasoned discourse and rationality and intellectual arguments. Bring it. Put your money where your mouth is.
If we’re going to prioritize, I’d say the equality and safety of trans people is far, far more important. But that’s me getting emotional and not thinking with Vulcan rationality like atheist asshats like Dawkins and Harris, who happen to be in the ethnic and gender demographic that is supremely privileged.
You’re just atheist dudebro #93291. You’re not saying anything new: as long as white atheist men are comfortable and not discriminated against or marginalized, it’s all good. Just like as long as white straight Christian men have it good, right-wing bigots like Huckabee see no social injustice. You people are the same.
@27 scjt
Did he expresedly disagree with anything in particular? Agree with specific things?
Because otherwise, tacit agreement is still agreement and support for vile, disgusting views.
@27 scjt-
So… if one has a guest on one’s podcast, one is never allowed to question or chastise one’s guest if they display odious views? One must simply ‘be a good host’ and let them take a dump right in the middle of the floor?
The craven surrender of the left to treating people with respect. How horrible.
Ugh. Harris is proud of being unable and unwilling to think the simplest thing through, and has clamoring fans all over the place, emulating his complete inability to think. Harris is a poster for anti-intellectualism.
But, but, giggling, saying “that’s hilarious” and characterising opposition to those ideas as “anti-intellectualism” and not demonstrating any disagreement whatsoever, aren’t the same as agreement. The important thing is he didn’t explicitely say “i agree with everything you said” with those EXACT words, so accusing him of agreeing is distorting his views and misinterpreting him.
In order to adequately represent Harris you have to ignore what he says and assume what he doesn’t say, as well. It’s all very biblical…
Nathan @ 5:
Lovely how you set up Harris as articulate, civil and compelling, while assuming every response will be screeching. Goodness, no bias there. Oh no.
Treating all people as people, yes, yes, that is certainly craven. Utterly horrid, really, the idea of having empathy and compassion for all, with dreams of a level field and respect for all peoples. Why it’s enough to upset your tea.
There’s an entitlement mindset at work, to be sure, but it’s on the part of Harris and his cronies, white men who have no desire to lose so much as a jot of their privilege and power.
I am destroyed with astonishment to hear it.*
*Contains professional levels of sarcasm.
@30 Rowan vet-tech
No I never said that. I think the fact that there isn’t a quote up in PZ’s article of Sam agreeing with Douglas says all there is to say, Harris is being hounded again for not instantly condeming the guy, and, would you believe it, “chuckling”. Outrageous…..where do I get my pitchfork?
I just don’t think it adds anything to the discussion and is quickly resembling a witch hunt with PZ and Greenwald etc. Sam Harris always comes across as polite and articulate, and is the last to resort to mud flinging. Each to their own though….I just feel that a lot of the criticism he gets is unfounded, especially with regards Islam- Sam and Maajid’s book is the only thing I’ve read that comes close to offering a reasonable way forward from the current situation we find ourselves in.
@ 33. No you don’t, you just have to actually read or listen to everything he says, not wait for PZ or whoever to pick out the odd quote with no context, and then get yourself all worked up about it.
scjt @ 35:
For someone who is held up as an articulate, compelling voice of reason, Harris is unable to briefly note “I don’t find that funny” or “I disagree”. Some hero you have. And yes, I have no problem being troubled by Harris giggling, laughing, and going along with open bigotry against trans people. Anyone should find that troubling, really.
Now, looking at your post overall:
Hounded, 1.
Outrageous, 1
Pitchfork, 1
Witch hunt, 1
I’d hope you’d realize the absurdity of using these terms, but apparently not. Harris is not being hounded, offering up criticism is not outrageous, don’t know about you, but I don’t own a pitchfork, and there is no witch hunt of any kind, and you’d think it would occur to you geniuses that the bulk of witch hunt victims were women; and I’ll toss this one in for free: there’s no lynching going on either (once again, you’d think you geniuses would figure out that white men weren’t the ones being lynched overall, they were the people carrying them out).
So, do you have anything of substance to say, any criticism to refute which does not involved hyperbole?
#5:
“There’s “endearingly curmugdeonly”, which was the PZ I met five years ago, and there’s “4-ulcer apoplexy” which is where he’s at now.”
I take it you mean “His anger is endearing when I agree with him, but if he dares voice support for causes I don’t endorse, then it’s the berzerk rage of a lunatic!”
@37. Firstly, I thought it was obvious I was being sarcastic, but never mind. With regards PZ and Greenwald etc I don’t think it is absurd, this is the second article PZ has posted regarding this podcast, after quite a few others attacking SH that follow the same formula of providing a few quotes from discussions of several hours length and then claiming he’s a bigot. Criticism is fine but none of the criticism given is relevant as for the most part they misrepresent his views. Sam Harris is far from a hero of mine, I don’t agree with a lot of what he says. I’m a fan of him, PZ and Greenwald etc but I don’t agree with what they all say all of the time. I just think it is blatantly obvious that he isn’t racist, he isn’t sexist and he isn’t a bigot.
scjt @ 37:
You can lose all this shit, too. We’ve all been through the constant refrains of ‘St. Harris must never, ever be quoted!’ ‘If St. Harris is quoted, it will always be out of context!’ ‘It is not possible to properly quote, in context, St. Harris, oh no, oh my, no’.
This bit of idiocy, also a sign of a distinct inability to think things through, has become the new mantra of the Harris followers. Please, spare us all. This is not an argument, it’s blind faith. Contrary to what most think, many of us do read or listen to the whole mess everytime Harris opens his mouth or keyboard, which is too bloody often. We’re aware of the context. It doesn’t help.
This attempt to force others into never quoting Harris is a dishonest tactic, to say the least. Harris doesn’t mind quoting people, and doesn’t much give a fuck about context. Why don’t you tell him to never, ever do that? Oh, that would be unreasonable, wouldn’t it?
So, try again. Do you have anything of substance to say, or a valid argument, which does not revolve around hyperbole and/or “don’t quote St. Harris”?
@40. Do you?
Cruel and unusual punishment
Um, no. It’s certainly not blatantly obvious and some more substantial argument would be helpful.
@40. I already said I don’t agree with a lot of what he says. He can say some shocking things to get his point across but to anyone not looking to be outraged it is clear he isn’t being serious (Ben Carson, for example).
I’m merely pointing out that these articles are a waste of time. How many times has PZ reviewed one of his books and addressed the arguments made? Never. Instead we get these pointless hit pieces (or a link to someone elses).
@42. Have you read his book with Maajid Nawaz?
scjt:
Gosh, I think it’s blatantly obvious that he is sexist*, he is a bigot, and he supports the institutionalized racism in the States. Of course, I am: a woman, LGBT, mixed race. So you could safely say I read things differently than you do. I doubt I’ll forget Harris’s anytime soon. Perhaps you should consider why you think Harris isn’t a bigot, isn’t sexist, and doesn’t support racism.
*Bit of a trick here, as we are all sexist, there’s no way to escape it. Each of us needs to become aware of it, start looking with that awareness, and work to not be sexist.
@36 scjt
So…tacit agreement, is it? Yeah, thought so…
Wrong. He is a paranoid bigot, as it shown by the results of what he says, not how he says it, which is irrelevant. Welcome to reality, not the head-up-your-ass world of SH fanbois.
scjt:
Yes. I’m not the one repeating the fan boy chorus. I’m awaiting anything resembling a valid argument. This will be the last bloody time I reply to you unless you can figure out what my nym is – I know, so hard to find, right there above every fucking comment of mine. I’ve had the courtesy to use your nym, I’m not a fucking post number, and this isn’t twitter. Also, learn to fucking quote. Christ.
To quote someone, use:
<blockquote>PASTE TEXT HERE</blockquote> which will result in:
So, given that Sam Harris is a doofus and the only reason we care what he says is because he’s regretably influential, what I really want to know is what Harris defenders think.
Do they (a) think Harris is pro-trans rights, and we’re misinterpreting the interview, or (b) think Harris is right because trans rights are unimportant or wrong, or (c) some incoherent mix of the above? Thread so far suggests (c).
@45. OK, for the third time, I do not agree with everything he says, and your quote would be an example of that- if he hadn’t already cleared it up himself. I guess I choose to believe what he says.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/im-not-the-sexist-pig-youre-looking-for
I listened to the whole thing a couple days ago, and I’m referring to the 2:12:12 version with the addendum Harris added to take extra shots at his critics.
He starts out acknowledging that statements he made were “gifts to my critics.” You would think that would fall in the context of admitting that he made mistakes, but no; he only wants to denigrate people who quoted him accurately in order to “mislead their audiences about my views.” He says Cenk Uygur must be having a “breakdown” for mounting extensive criticism of Harris’ statements, then he whines for a couple of minutes about how horrible Noam Chomsky’s views are and how nasty Glenn Greenwald is.
He insists that “You know how freaked out I would be” if Ben Carson won the Republican nomination. Do we? Perhaps if he would tell us about it rather than say that under some artificial and contrived set of circumstances invented by none other than Sam Harris, he would vote for Carson. His reason for such contrived and limited support of Carson? He agrees with Carson on the solitary issue of the danger of global jihadism. And supposing that they are correct in recognize the problem, why would we believe that Carson would be able to formulate a policy to deal with it successfully? The remedies he has suggested so far indicate the he would react precisely as the jihadists want him to, by increasing polarization. If you force Muslims to a choice between Islam and Western style civilization, you should not be surprises that some of them will not choose as you wish them to.
And so, he used and extra 16 minutes not to apologize for those acknowledged “gifts to my critics,” but to double down.
@Caine apologies I only just signed up, have been reading the blog since well before it moved to ftb I’ve just never bothered with the comments.
“Those quotes are out of context! And just what is the context? Oh I’ll never tell~ Just spend a few hours on research and maybe buy a book to make my argument for me, at which point if you still disagree I can say you did it all wrong anyway.”
@Reg 51. See this is what I don’t get, in the original interview that the whole Ben Carson thing came up he did make it very clear what he thought about him, both before and after the offending statement that caused all the fuss. I dont understand why people have such trouble following his arguments.
Has anyone here read his book with Maajid Nawaz?
Nathan @5
Um, so if I say something really shitty in a recorded conversation, all I have to do is keep talking for another couple hours and that dilutes the shittiness of it? Is that what you’re saying?
If you say something awful, or encourage someone saying something awful, and you want to be redeemed, you gotta get that done sooner. Other people don’t have time to sit for 2 hours to find evidence that you aren’t a shithead. So again, this is a case of Harris being either a bad person or a bad communicator.
I enjoy that both the people condemning Harris’s reaction and those supporting Harris are asking people to listen to the interview. The relevant section is from 30:00-32:20, and it’s certainly fair to say that Murray is, at the very least, incredibly dismissive of the fight for trans* rights.
I have more of an issue with Harris’s academic research.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748718/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/doi/10.1002/ana.21301/abstract
It seems to be from the “lets ask a few people a question and when our machine lights up claim we know what the brain is doing school of research”.
Trans rights are totally a distraction. It’s not like there are transgender atheists or anything. Just old white men.
I got what it was about, it was an insult to Noam Chomsky. He was saying “I hate Chomsky so-o-o-o much, I would prefer this incompetent instead.” Was Chomsky a part of the conversation before Harris made him so? No. Is Chomsky running for president? No. So if this childish and petty behavior blew up on Harris, I don’t have any sympathy.
scjt @ 55:
I have not. If there’s something regarding the book which is relevant to this discussion, please, talk away.
The last book I attempted to read by Harris was his recent sojourn into spacey spirituality. Got about a third of the way through before deciding I hated this crap from Chopra, I wasn’t suddenly going to find a virtue in it because Harris wrote it.
So no, I didn’t read his book with Nawaz. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll never ever read another book by Sam Harris at all.
I’m pretty sure that means you may never criticize Harris again, PZ. According to the arguments in this thread, you must read every word he ever wrote and listen to every word he ever spoke before you can say something about something he said.
@Caine 61 You asked me why I do no think he is a bigot, that book is one of the more significant reasons, giben that most of the claims of him being a bigot are related to islam.
@Reg 60 Ok, you asked the question “Do we?”. I was answering it.
@Gen 63 Did I, or anyone else, say that? I was merely pointing out that it would be more productive to comment on his published works rather than relentlessly pulling random quotes from the countless interviews/podcasts he takes part in, and misrepresenting his views yet again in an attempt to discredit him and acting all outraged about nothing in particular. The Ben Carson saga is a prime example of this pointless repetitive nonsense.
scjt
The Harris and Nawaz book is a transcript of a dialogue between them.
Pretty much like an interview or podcast.
Scjt:
When you characterize a conversation as “productive” or “not productive,” have you ever specified what is being produced? Consider doing that, and also explaining why the thing being produced is worth putting effort into producing in the first place.
Whereas your drivel defending SH is prime example of repetitive nonsense too. Touche….
@Chigau 65 You don’t see the difference?!
What is the difference in bloviating? Be specific.
scjt
A writing and publishing a book usually involves editors and multiple revisions.
Transcribing a dialogue involves writing down what someone said.
That’s different.
@69 Nerd ha ha do you know what bloviating means? If he was bloviating I doubt you’d all have your pants in a twist
@chigau 70 If it was just a transcript he’d of put it on his blog. But think what you like. I’m done arguing with people who haven’t actually read it
okey dokey
Harris thinks there is a justification for using torture (experts disagree). Harris thinks there is a justification for using nuclear bombs, even preemptively. Harris thinks that profiling (sorry, anti-profiling) based on racial characteristics is perfectly ok and desirable (experts disagree). Harris thinks he can erase sexist remarks by declaring himself above sexism. Harris thinks giving a platform, not challenging in the slightest and giving tacit support to transphobia is just fine. Harris thinks that Ben Carson’s anti-islamic policies are agreeable and represent a superior understanding of the middle east’s sociopolitical situation than the views of Chomski.
But yeah, we all just like to be outraged for the silliest of reasons. There’s clearly nothing to legitimately critisize in that most soft-spoken, most uberational of atheists, the Harris.
I’m wondering how the Harris and Nawaz book erases the tacit (and not so tacit at all) agreement with transphobic rethoric.
@DOAAN Yawn. Ok I’ll respond later I’m away out for dinner now. Your response does make me wonder whether you read anything he says beyond that which PZ decides to selectively post on here.
Are you going to talk to us about that magical creature, The Harris Context? We’ve heard about it before, it’s thoroughly unconvincing stuff…
The fact that the quotes are selective is irrelevant because there is no context or nuance that makes the content of those quotes not bigoted, sexist or wrong…You see, context is not actually magical, it doesn’t make self-standing shit disappear.
Haven’t we learned by now that the “big names” are never, ever wrong and if we disagree with them, it’s because we’re jealous haters who aren’t skeptical? It’s, like, science or something.
@scjt
I don’t see the need to read everything about a person who just signal boosted blatant transphobia. I get enough of that during my daily life that I don’t need extra doses when I’m choosing my recreational activities.
Oh but I guess it doesn’t matter if your hero is cissexist when you yourself are also cissexist.
Drink a tall glass of STFU please.
OK, next time I write about Harris, I’ll be sure to post the entire text of Letter to a Christian Nation, The End of Faith, Free Will, Waking Up, and The Moral Landscape, along with a complete copy of every word posted to his website. Wouldn’t want to be accused of quoting him selectively, after all!
What a fucking maroon.
Who the fuck cares what you a FANBOI, considers? Why don’t you shut the fuck up? You can’t. Because SH CAN NEVER BE WRONG.
*snicker, tee-hee, bwahahahaha, from 50 years as skeptic*
Anybody can and will be wrong. Why don’t you consider you and and SH are wrong?
@PZ #80
But what about transcriptions of YouTube videos of Sam Harris talking? You can’t interpret his books without reference to those as well.
And what if he has a diary? How do you know his opinions on Muslims and Islam without checking whether he also wrote about them privately?
I listened to the whole thing long before this thread came about. The Ben Carson thing was really weird since he contradicted himself almost in the same sentence. I sort of wrote that off as a poor attempt at humor or a poor choice of analogy. I was really embarrassed for him on the trans joke laughter. Also surprised he did not edit it out.
Pretty sad to see him sliding off this way.
“How can you dismiss Saint Thomas Aquinas without reading him?”
Because I’ve heard enough of him from his fanbois to get a rather solid idea of his arguments seem to be.
Until I find a fanboi that can make a more compelling argument, reading Christian (or, say, Creationist) apologia will be very low among my priorities.
I simply have better things to do with my time.
Same for the Harris fanbois.
The more they post here, the less impressed I am.
@Saad #28
I don’t think we should use this even if it were in snark mode.
Even using the most merciless, cold logic, Dawkins and Harris are being irrational.
We should reclaim “rationality” from them.
They are failing at the very thing they want to champion.
@PZ 80 I never said that, I said maybe you could actually read his published works and make some constructive criticism on the arguments made, rather than copying and pasting a couple of sentences taken out of context from the countless appearances he makes, usually from a 2-3 hour discussion, which is all you seem to of been doing recently (rather obsessively).
scjt, one can only cherry-pick when there are cherries to be picked.
If you consider that context vitiates the quality of those cherries, why not directly demonstrate that, rather than merely asserting it?
@ Scjt:
When people say “You have to read the whole thing, you’re missing context!” I ask why.
If they give a satisfactory answer, I will go and read the whole thing. Or at least withdraw criticism based on allegedly out of context quotes or whatever.
You have not answered the question “why” convincingly.
Scjt, why aren’t you showing EVIDENCE we are wrong? We have to take YOUR word we are wrong. When I hear that, my question is why are you engaging in an argument from authority, YOUR authority? When you can’t/won’t provide the evidence you are that authority…..
My scientific conclusion is that you know you are full of bullshit.
Do you defenders of the Great and Mighty Thinker Sam Harris find it compelling when Christians challenge you over whether you have read the whole Bible with an open mind? For instance:
No?
How about when they ignore any criticism of the Bible by claiming the portion in question was taken out of context. Like this:
Still no?
Because that’s exactly how convincing you lot are when you say we have to complete your reading list of Harris’ works before we’re allowed to air any discontent (at least, that you’ll consider).
I’m not saying you have to read everything, I’m saying do some due diligence! I am not going to accuse him of being transphobic for inviting someone on a podcast, despite Douglas’ bizarre rant or attempt at humor or whatever it was.
@scjt
What do you consider constructive criticism? I am a person with a tremendous tolerance for rhetoric and invective and I want to know why I should care about what you consider constructive? Frankly, I get a little bored without some profanity at the least.
Also if you think that a context changes a meaning it should be trivial for you to describe that context in outline. I’m not going to go hunting for something that might take a whole chapter or 15 minutes of podcast. Consider it the equivalent of a citation.
He’s calm. Calmer than you, dude.
And I’m saying the same about you, Fallacious Argument From Authority.
No quotes, no citations, you have nothing but BULLSHIT, and you know that.
@scjt
Huh ? Do I think Harris will vote for Carson – probably not. Will he vote Republican ? I don’t know.
But that is missing the point. The great communicator did choose Carson v/s Chomsky for a reason right (and he chose it! No one tried a gotcha on Harris!)
Chomsky (in a good many cases correctly imo) attributes blame to the West when it comes to conflicts in the Middle west. Per Harris that attribute is sufficient to make him vote for Carson (if his only other choice was Chomsky) , irrespective of how crazy stupid Carson is.
Harris reminds me of a commenter who stated that while Sarah Palin was nuts and dangerous he’d still vote for her because taxes. That’s the equivalent of what Harris chose to express. Do you deny that ? – its not a question of whether Harris will seriously vote for Carson – It’s a crystal clear illustration of what Harris is willing to overlook if someone has similar views about the danger that Islam/Muslims can cause us.
scjt (#91)
Oh, so you didn’t actually mean it when up in #36 you said, “you just have to actually read or listen to everything he says”? ‘Cause that’s still right there. (Or were we supposed to divine that you were obviously being sarcastic again?)
Anyway, what I actually said was that you Harris fans “say we have to complete your reading list of Harris’ works before we’re allowed to air any discontent.” Now, what the fuck do you mean by “due diligence” exactly if not completing your preferred reading list?
Show us who was accusing him of transphobia merely for inviting Murray to the interview. Or admit you made that up.
@BSCJ 92 I would have to say it would address the main points he is making rather than picking a soundbite to stoke the outrage fire. As I have said several times, I do not agree with everything he says but I do think his views are often misrepresented. All of these quotes (nukes, muslims, profiling, sexism etc) are usually part of a much larger conversation and are usually part of a ‘thought experiment’ or specific scenario that he (or whoever he is talking to) has concocted to make a specific point. He always makes it clear (at least to myself) what he actually thinks in these conversations. I guess I tend to take that opinion to be his actual opinion, while yourself and PZ (and everyone else in this thread it seems) seem to to believe the specific quotes, and take that to be his actual opinion.
@scjt97
>”I would have to say it would address the main points he is making rather than picking a soundbite to stoke the outrage fire.”
You should be able to state this main point as the context you mention instead of asserting it’s existence.
I have no way of telling the difference between what you agree with and what you do not otherwise.
@scjt
Ok read this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html
And tell me definitively what Harris’ position is on whether America should torture or not as part of its official policy.
One problem wth Harris is that he builds neat semi logical constructs or hypotheticals in order to justify quite extreme positions.
For instance he will come up with a wartime situation: should you “torture a known terrorist or risk high numbers of civilian deaths due to incomplete intelligence?” If we say no to torture then we accept tactics with noble goals but foreseeably worse ethical outcomes – dead children.
Another example of a theoretical is his moral acceptance of the following law:
“We will not torture anyone under any circumstances unless we are certain, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the person in our custody has operational knowledge of an imminent act of nuclear terrorism”.
Or he will say if we are going to invest money in airport security to avoid jihadi terrorism then limited resources should be directed on that group likely to engage in jihadism: muslims.
Ergo profiling of a nasty nature where race and religion tend to intersect.
The hypothetical emerges again when he asks what if a jihadist state whose ideology embraced martyrdom and who had a stated desire to destroy the West acquired nuclear weapons? Could there be a cold war under these circumstances? Or would the opponent’s stated goals require a fast tracked escalation which threatened disaster for everyone? A bloody hypothetic given the lack of a current contender state. Yet Harris appeared to be encouraging first strike atomic war. Or is he? It’s all very slippery.
All in all Harris is dangerous as he wraps logical puzzles up in hypotheticals to establish the bona fides of torture inflicted on racially profiled victims – quite likely as prelude to a world wide nuclear holocaust. Put like this, the man is a monster.
@scjt
I asked (@42) for an argument in support of you assertion that “it is blatantly obvious that he [Harris] isn’t racist, he isn’t sexist and he isn’t a bigot.” You replied (@44) “Have you read his book with Maajid Nawaz?” That is not an argument. Whether I have read that book or any other is irrelevant to what I requested.
The argument that, ahem, some of his best friends (or co-authors) are Muslim is unlikely to convince anyone. If your question was meant to imply that, it failed ludicrously. If, however, there is such an argument to be found in that book, what is it?
I am not an expert on Harris, but it seems quite clear that he frequently says outrageous things that he also contradicts, sometimes (as noted by thompjs @83) in very short order, so when accused of A he can point to not-A. This is not solid ground for endorsing not-A, since anyone else can point to A. In answering, you would well advised to take account of that observation, whether by refuting it explicitly or by explaining how it is not relevant.
Right … saying
as he did in http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel is polite and doesn’t fling any mud.
In so many of these threads there is someone who chooses to be the designated imbecile, who demonstrates the effects of stupidity, ignorance, and intellectual dishonesty. It started out with Nathan Zamprogno but he quickly passed the baton to scjt, who has performed the duty with gusto.
That’s nice, but no one who is intellectually honest agrees with you, so the fact that you think it is of no relevance. Now that you have voiced your opinion that, by its formulation, implies that there is no room for any possible counterargument, why not just run along rather than trying badger people into agreeing with you when they clearly aren’t going to?
If he isn’t serious in his claim that
… if, in other words, he lied, then just what is his point? What a dolt like you seems incapable of grasping is that the point rests entirely on the seriousness of the claim. If it turns out that … no, no, Harris was just joking, he isn’t such an idiot and really does think, like any sensible person, that Noam Chomsky’s totality of understanding of what’s happening now in the world is far superior to that of Ben Carson, then his “point” vanishes into thin air.
The plain fact is that Harris said something mindbogglingly stupid and ignorant, fueled entirely by his grossly irrational Muslim Derangement Syndrome, and you’re here defending it for no reason other than that you are a mindless sycophant. If you weren’t … if you were really someone who doesn’t agree with a lot of what he says, then this would be a prime target for your disagreement and an opportunity to join with others who rightly disagree, rather than your moronic, grossly dishonest attack on those who are rightly “outraged” by Harris’s outrageous statements which reflect his outrageous beliefs that he has so often expressed.
Yet not one example/link to where SH, at the end of the day, misrepresented. All I can can infer, is that YOU have nothing, but can’t shut the fuck up. I have names for such people. They start with liars, and end with bullshitters.
Show us one example, or go away.
It was a direct quote, jackass.
Jim Balter @80:
There you go again, characterizing someone by what they said! Dont you understand that what they meant is much more significant than what they actually typed? And of course what they meant varies by context, so if they were talking to you they would obviously put things differently, in a way that you could understand what a lovely and talented person they are; whereas if they were talking to some bigot, then they would make sure that the bigot understood what a lovely and talented person they are; and if these statements superficially seem to require some kind of contradiction, that is in fact not the case because the underlying root meaning is the same: the writer is a lovely and talented person. It’s quite simple really, and transferable too.
scjt @ # 97: … usually part of a ‘thought experiment’ or specific scenario that he (or whoever he is talking to) has concocted to make a specific point.
Quite so. Pls come back and tell us if/when Harris tries making a point based on, y’know, facts.
Why the fuck would I want to spend even a moment of my life listening to someone who said this “Given a choice between Noam Chomsky and Ben Carson, in terms of the totality of their understanding of what’s happening now in the world, I’d vote for Ben Carson every time,”
Seriously. Ben Carson’s advisers go around telling us how little he knows about the rest of the world, and how slow he was to pick up stuff they were teaching him. Ben Carson himself admits he doesn’t know much about foreign affairs. And we have atheists telling us that somebody who thinks Ben Carson knows more than Chomsky is an intellectual.
Wow. And to think a few of you called me a fanboy….
Firstly, when I said “read or listen to everything he says”, what I meant was read or listen to everything in the specific podcast or conversation, i thought that was obvious, as the complete sentence was ” No you don’t, you just have to actually read or listen to everything he says, not wait for PZ or whoever to pick out the odd quote with no context, and then get yourself all worked up about it”. I then cleared it up further by saying do some due digiligence. Hopefully we can put that point to bed now.
@deepak Yes I have read In Defence of Torture, just what did you think the topic at hand would be?! Sounds a bit like a “thought experiment” or a specific scenario to me….I also read the article he posted called “My Position on Torture”, which he had to write after you lot threw your toys out the pram again http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/response-to-controversy#torture
OK so we both agree he isn’t going to vote for Carson, which is exactly what PZ and everyone made out like he said. I agree he was mainly having a go at Chomsky, immediately following his failed attempt at a dialogue with the man. He wasn’t being serious, which is what I originally stated (as did SH at the time, but what does that matter?).
@Jim OK calm down man you’re getting bit worked up here, it says a lot that you act in such a way due to one or two people disagreeing with the general consensus of this little fan club you have going here. You’re still just posting a single sentence, at least post the paragraph:
What is unreasoned, or can be classified as “mud slinging” here? I said he was polite and articulate (that’s a direct quote, jackass!), what isnt polite and articulate about that or the piece in general? In that very same article he also says
But these quotes on their own are meaningless. Again – read the whole article to understand his whole opinion. Its not complicated.
@Petesh
It’s not complicated….to anyone with an ounce of sense if you read or watch the whole article/podcast/interview or whatever it is clear what his opinions are on these matters. He makes it painfully obvious and he posts follow ups to clear up any misunderstandings- which are usually a result of the thought experiments etc mentioned earlier. It really isn’t hard to determine what he thinks on these matters, but i guess it’s even easier to just be outraged.
@110
So what you are saying is that if i listened to the whole thing i would at some point get to the part where Harris isn’t supporting and agreeing with a transphobic arsehole, right? Would you care to provide the time in which Harris makes it clear that he disagrees with his guest and that he supports trans rights? You know, just so i know i’m there when i get there…
Oh, and by the way, that clarification of his about the “torture controversy”, he is still a fucking idiot and he is still wrong. So, like we’ve been saying, no context, no nuance, no clarification is going to shine that turd…because it turns out that after all of those things are taken into account, the turd is still the same turd.
Still no solid evidence from sjct. Typical of SH fanbois. All noise, no substance. Just like SH. When will they ever learn how to think and avoid paranoia?
<mode=SamHarris>Here’s a . What if I banned scjt? No, that’s not a threat! It’s just a ! Don’t you know that if you call something a it immediately makes all the implications and consequences and possibilities vanish, like magic, as if I’d never brought it up?
I’ll also point out that I’m just asking questions. Asking questions is good, right? No one can object to asking questions! Like, I could ask if it would be OK to torture scjt, or whether they’re really a human deserving the full protection of the law, and that’s fine, because it is a question. I’ll also call it a to be really safe.</mode>
scjt
When I read the whole of Harris’s sexist pig article in 2014, I concluded that he was a sexist pig.
When I re-read it yesterday ago, I re-concluded that he is a sexist pig.
Why do you persist in insisting that because someone comes to a different conclusion than you, they haven’t ?
Chigau @ 114:
I’d like to know the answer to this also. Way upthread somewhere, I noted that it was safe to say that my reading of Harris being a sexist asshole was going to be different to that of scjt, because we’re coming from very different perspectives. I’m not wrong about the estrogen vibe business, that’s sexism, full stop. I don’t have a problem with people who are honestly ignorant, and have yet to awaken to what’s going on every day, but this so-called ‘Harris magic’, that I don’t get. “You didn’t read the whole thing! You have to read the whole thing!” Okay, read the whole thing. “You didn’t read it right! You don’t understand what he’s saying! Read it again! And read this and that and this, too!” As if repeated reading or viewing is going to result in a halo over Harris, blinding you with blissful enlightenment.
Maybe it’s like one of those magic eyes pictures that i remember being popular in the 90’s, maybe you just have to cross your eyes and wait for the image to change. Or maybe you just have to read Harris’ words upside-down, in the reflection of a mirror, wearing a collar made of rat teeth while you burn some insence and a chicken is sacrified to The Context.
Or…..you know, maybe Harris really is an arsehole…
Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia, #116
How did you know about my weekend plans? :(
scjt (#110)
You called yourself his fan up in #39, peabrain. And folks here aren’t necessarily talking about just you when they mention Harris fan(boi)s, but also all the other fatuous defenders of Harris who keep showing up here with inept apologetics.
I’m scared to drink the water at your house if this is your idea of clear. Note that I haven’t been confused about what you meant, hence my my phrasing in #90 about “your reading list of Harris’ works.” And, again, where’s your evidence anyone was accusing Harris of transphobia merely for inviting Murray to the interview? For someone sneering at the supposed reading comprehension failures of others, you’re rather hung up on things nobody has said.
sect @110:
Good grief! Just about all of the previous paragraph about Palestinians. Harris tries to cover himself with “not all Palestinians” (literally!) but otherwise tars an entire people with genocide. “There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could.” Really? He does understand, does he not. that Jews and Palestinians actually both lived in that area within living memory and without mutual genocide? I have no idea if elsewhere he acknowledges the terrorist activities of Begin in the 1940s, for example, but I for one do not extrapolate from them to insist that Israelis are committing genocide (Begin was fighting for independence). What he is slinging in what you have quoted is mud. There’s none so blind as will not see.
As expected, the debate here has become sterile and invective has trumped civility.
The excuse offered when someone points out anger is invariably that *their* anger is righteous, and that one’s opponents have no moral compass. It’s transparently self-serving.
But that’s exactly the tenor of most of PZ’s comment threads. That’s fine. It’s his rules. But the conclusion we’re left with is that this is an indulgent kindergarten play-space that’s welcome to fume among itself while more serious thinkers like Sam Harris are left to grapple with the existential threats to western civilisation.
I’m in Australia. Forgive a discursive tangent in aid of a broader point: In Australia we regard your entire political landscape from Sanders to Trump with complete despair. Your discourse is broken. America is broken. Some of you see that. Most are in denial. As an example, 40 years ago, we decided we needed federally funded and universal health care with no eligibility test bar citizenship. Brought in by a left-of-centre government, it’s been bilaterally supported by governments of both hues ever since. What you regard as impossible, we and many other countries see as self evident. Why is this?
Some years ago, we had a problem with illegal immigration. Leveraging the advantages of being an island continent, we closed the borders and deaths at sea dropped to zero. Introduced by a right-of-centre government, the measures have been grudgingly acknowledged by the left as effective and as having saved lives.
In Australia, any political candidate which tried to use religious faith as a debating point or a way of demonising opponents is (generally) laughed out of the room.
There isn’t a single educational body in Australia which leans towards teaching creationism. Our (conservative) government decided that antivax parents get their government benefits shut off, and banned from enrolment at preschools and schools. Simple. I might be going all Will McAvoy on you but that speech about America not being great any more is spot on, and I doubt any of you here will recognise yourselves as a part of the reason why.
I’m pointing out the contrast between Australia and America to raise a more general point about precisely the kind of discourse in this thread, and to Sam Harris. Commenter scjt is spot on in reminding people of the need to be honest in being mindful of context. And there you go, parodying that and suggesting we’re demanding we quote every word Harris has ever said or written before weighing in. That’s juvenile.
Harris is not saying that reducing inequality with women is unimportant, or that any other minority concern you want to cite, is unimportant. Harris is saying that a lot of soft-headed left-of-centre pet causes really need to be contextualised against an existential threat posed to western values and western civilisation through misguided compassion. One day, there will be a bigger-than-9/11 attack. Maybe it will be nuclear. Maybe it will be to engineer closing the straits of Hormuz so that a third of the world’s petroleum supply disappears. Maybe it will be the assassination of a world figure or the destruction of an iconic monument. Maybe the soft-headed groupthink will evaporate on that day, like it did for those who supported Neville Chamberlain’s foreign policy and who then realised that Churchill was right from the beginning about appeasement.
I’m glad Harris is out there pointing this out, whether as gedankensexperiments or otherwise. Neither scjt, nor myself, and I suspect even Sam Harris minds if you think he’s an awful pig, because the points he makes are the ones being considered seriously by people with real power; people who are a long way from the naive armchair warriors in this forum. Harris is right.
Fixed that for you.
What threats that he isn’t paranoid, bigoted, or misogynic about? There aren’t any….
The claim that “most are in denial” does not reflect my experience. I’d be interested in seeing evidence that I’m wrong.
Nathan Zamprogno
You haven’t actually read the Commenting Rules for this blog, have you?
Dictionary atheist dudebros are like intelligent design creationists.
They ride in with the banner of reason and rationality and intellectual discourse. Then when someone meets them head-on for an actual reasoned discussion, they duck and dodge the points being put to them. You ignored the answers you received to your little whine about women and trans people having equal rights, particularly mine. Why is 6 out of 20 blog posts being about feminism a problem? And how is an atheist advocating for equality for trans people a hijacking of atheism?
That’s probably right.
What is Harris’s solution to preventing that again? I know ethnic profiling and torture have been two main points of his.
And I’m still having trouble with this
Harris is a writer, blogger, and chat-show talking-head.
chigau, @125,
PZ is a backwater academic and blogger, FWTW.
So fucking what? :)
(Or, you indulge in the genetic fallacy)
—
Now, if you wanted to use what you quoted, you’d have noted that “… more serious thinkers like Sam Harris …” relies on its proponent admitting that PZ is a serious thinker (though less serious).
(Chewtoys are chewtoys, but you should know better)
—
Nathan @120:
I’m in Australia too, and take this opportunity to inform those who aren’t that you do not speak for all of us.
(That’s leaving aside that we Aussies are America’s lapdogs, politically…)
Nathan @120:
Existential threat, eh? And the O so evident “misguided compassion”
western values and western civilisation” have hitherto exhibited.
(Oh, yeah… feel that compassion! ;) )
John Morales #126
I was more going for:
but St. Sam is:
.
.
.
I’m so confused.
—-
Thank you for providing another Australian insight.
I hope everyone actually reads it.
—
and Merry Happy whatever seasonal things to you and yours.
and some old-fashioned *hugs*
[love you too, chigau]
PS:
By which he means we (Australia’s Governments) decided that “out of sight, out of mind” was a valid principle and spent huge amounts of money in using our military infrastructure to intercept boats before they reached our borders and, where possible, imprisoned their travelers (including children) in offshore detention camps in foreign countries. And “we” (I am ashamed to relate) instituted (counter to our humanitarian commitments) legislation which made it unlawful to mention any details of this activity under pain of serious penalties, and have even paid people smugglers to send their smuggled people away.
(Anyone who doubts me, search for reports — e.g. by Amnesty International among others)
@Nathan and to some extent scjt
Read this in the gentlest’ soothingest tone you can imagine.
Sam Harris isn’t saying inequality isn’t important, but Nathan sure as hell is.
Sam Harris is a Serious Thinker, so he spends his time thinking about how dangerous brown people and laughing at transphobic jokes.
I don’t know how someone comes to the conclusion that Islam or Isis is an existential threat, because that’s the kind of utterly stupid idea only a Serious Thinker could come up with. A much worse 9/11? How much worse? 10 times? 30,000 deaths will bring America to its knees? Will 300,000? I don’t think so. But then again, that’s because I’m not ignorant or cowardly enough to be a Serious Thinker.
Know what I think is an existential crisis? God damn inequality. Power imbalance is an actual civilization destroyer. Every revolution I can think of was because of messed up power distribution. Same goes for countless riots (though not all). Hell, inequality is a major contributor to Islamic terrorism.
The real threat from terrorism comes from the response of the population, the kind of responses that include “torture” and “racially profile all Muslim looking people.” That is the kind of shit that ruins a place, because opening the door to torture and discriminating against one group leaves others vulnerable, and is still monstrous even if the torture garbage is contained to just one group. I would say Serious Thinkers that overreact and promote oppressive measures are more of an existential threat than any random Muslim because America (or Britain, or France and Australia) aren’t patches of dirt. There is an ideal and idealism inherent in America. “Fuck it, let’s make people think they’re drowning” is anti-American, anti-Britain, anti-France, and anti-humanity. It’s also in direct opposition to those “enlightenment” principles you espoused and shat on earlier in the thread. When you abandon these ideals, you are what is destroying Western Civilization, not some guy in Syria.
Also, please fucking shut up about civility. You aren’t civil. You’re not being civil. Putting a bow tie on Conan the barbarian doesn’t make him civil or aristocratic. You espouse backwards, infantile, gibberish arguments and ideas and keep saying you’re being civilized, when the only thing you’re doing is avoiding “mean” words. Stop fucking denigrating the word “civility” because you don’t know what it is or what it means. And your barbarism doesn’t become civil just because you say it is civil. Me in Kampf isn’t barbaric because of its tone. It wouldn’t become civil if it had more Please and Thank You language.
Also, stop using the word context. You don’t know what that word means either. You don’t know what the word means. You don’t know what the word means. You don’t know what the word means. You do not know what context means. His shittiness is still apparent if you listen to his interview (as I did). There’s no real extra context there. 2 full hours of unrelated discussion aren’t context for a statement. The meaning of his words (and actions) is more important than how he says it, though this concept will never ever register to you, apparently.
When you asses say “context!1!21!2!2!3!42!1!2!3” all I hear is “You haven’t read the Koran in the original language! You can’t judge it!”
What you’re impressed by is superficial charm. He can say really ugly things in pretty (“civil”)ways. You still don’t know what the word context means.
Oh wow, this manages to be a Dear Muslima inside a mysogynist/transphobic declaration, encased in hypocrisy.
Hey, women, trans* people, we’ll get to you being human beings with rights after we’ve defeated The Brown. Until then, will you just shut up? Men are trying to save the world here, with their serious thinking and their hypotheticals about when it’s ok to torture muslims. The occasional chuckle at transphobic jokes is just to let out steam, the tension of hating muslims takes a serious toll on serious minds.
And don’t you dare pretend that sexism and transphobia are more serious threats to you than ISIS!! Because while you lay dying in some alley after having been savagely beaten up, or while your rights are being taken away, the threat has been evaluated by serious, manly minds, and they are not at all threatened by petty things like that, because serious minds and thinky thinkers of the special kind have minds that see reality for what it is, the imminent threat of brown people coming for you!!!!1!
Pet-causes…FUCK YOU.
@DBP
Well said.
Just popping in to point out that some of us consider the bombing of London, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s to have been “worse than 9/11” and somehow Britain, Germany and Japan got past them. Less scare-mongering and more work on inequality and prejudice of all kinds, say I. Real individuals are needlessly damaged every day in our societies, and I consider that more important than the fears of what might happen expressed by the comfortable.
Petesh @ 134:
I’m with you. I’ll add that one of the reasons I loathe the fear-mongering of Harris, and fans like Nathan, is that they ignore, utterly, terrorist acts which have taken place outside the U.S. – oh, the only terrorism that counts is any that might take place in the States (9/11! 9/11! 9/11!), so c’mon, you bloodthirsty assholes, start bombing the fuck out of all the brown peoples! The narrow focus of bigots leaves only one answer: more terrorism for everyone! A never-ending cycle of violence which serves only to create people who see violence as the answer to everything.
Caine @135:
Also, existential threat, my ass. White supremacy and religious fundamentalism are under existential threat within the US, and quite right too. I am pretty sure that religious fundamentalism (at least) is under existential threat within parts of the Middle East. Sometimes these internal conflicts get expressed abroad (it’s politically safer to kill foreigners, for both sides). But that does not mean that their main application is not in fact internal.
Sometimes I do wonder about the state of philosophy in parts of modern Western academia.
I’m an Australian, and would like to point out that indeed, John Morales is right. What we have here, in Nathan, is an Australian right-winger claiming that his right-wing views are espoused by all other Aussies. His blind assertion (the propaganda worked on some people, I guess) that the right-wing Abbott government’s decision to ‘close the border’ was humane, legal and, apparently, now admitted to be the right thing by everyone in Australia is entirely incorrect. We, as a country, broke the legally binding UNHCR Refugee Convention (http://unhcr.org.au/unhcr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=58). Apparently that’s a good thing that’s accepted by all Aussies. But remember, as long as we call them boat-people and not refugees, it doesn’t count.
Go back to your Alan Jones party. You sicken me and I’m frustrated that I have to live in a country which entertains your views through voting.
Shorter scjt: Dear ladies, cis and trans, dear trans men, dear non-straight people, dear people of colour. We will care about human rights abuses as soon as they’re committed by muslims. Until that, you must shut up because if you don’t you’re metaphorically in bed with Daesh and have only yourselves to blame if the people who rape and kill you are no longer white guys.
There are contexts in which I might kind of agree with this statement. The US system is a big fat ugly mess. But coming from an Australian, from the people who elected Tony Abbott? From the government that solved its “immigration problem”* by sending people trying to get to it to off shore concentration camps? Um…no. I’ll take the US system, thankyouverymuch.
*In what sense does Australia have an immigration problem? I admit I have only been in Australia once, but it looked under, not overpopulated to me.
dianne,
It doesn’t; rather, the contrary. But it’s a marvellous political lever, and won an election which had hitherto been in the balance — so that it became used by both major parties.
Here is its genesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_Overboard_affair
I have been in Oz for some four years and am appalled by how refugees are treated.
Abbot answer to child abuse in the concentration camp with “meh”, unsurprising from someone who won the elections on reducing spending, xenophobia and climate change denial.
Both the two major parties support boats turn backs.
Gotta love the “existential threat” argument though.
The Kurds, who contrary to Sam Harris and the other imbeciles are facing a *REAL* existential threat from Daesh (and Turkey!) have built a progressive society where women and normally in position of authority and affirmative action to include gender and religious diversity in their governing bodies.
Does no one else appreciate the irony of all this outrage caused by what was essentially a joke about the fact we’ll all be bickering over PC nonsense when the Mullahs nuke us?
I’ve listened to it again (link to the offending segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04sSvofgWTg) and to be fair Douglas’ rant was worse than I remembered, but given his reputation and having listened to him in the past I do still believe it is an attempt at humour (backed up by the fact Sam was laughing nervously and said ‘hilarious’). He was trying to emphasise the contrast of priorities between the gender identity stuff and the threat of terrorists, whether rightly or wrongly- it was a rant/joke. So again, I am not going to accuse either of them, especially SH, of hatred/transphobia based on this alone. Clearly a joke, and, whether you find it funny or not, you cannot police humour.
@138 That is nonsense, I could equally say:
“Shorter regressive left: Dear ladies, cis and trans, dear trans men, dear non-straight people, dear people of colour. We will care about human rights abuses only if they are committed by non-muslims. Until that, you must shut up because if you don’t you’re metaphorically in bed with bigots. If you’re muslim and partake in any of the aforementioned we don’t want to hear about it, because you’re only acting that way because of the behavioue of the west, nothing to do with your religion or the fact that no other religion preaches jihad or martyrdom, that’s just a coincidence”
The fact is the reality is somewhere in the middle.
scjt:
<snicker>
You’re very exercised over this purported “outrage”, ain’t ya?
There goes two hours of your life. Well-spent, eh?
So… Douglas is just ranting jocularly (or is he jocularly ranting?). But not because he is outraged by the contrast of priorities, but because individuals apparently must either prioritise “gender identity stuff” or else “the threat of terrorists” — i.e. Mullahs with nukes.
I do like your sudden non-committal attitude, though: “whether rightly or wrongly”.
In what sense is expressing opinion on a blog “policing” humour?
If expressing an opinion counts as “policing” in your book (powers of arrest, oh my!), then how are you not policing the alleged policing any less?
(Oh, hey… there’s some irony I do appreciate!)
scjt
your bigotted paranoia is showing
Of course you have ample evidence you can show us that this is, in fact, what you’re arguing the way you dismissed our issues as “pet causes”.
Yep, for trans women, especially of colour, the threat of terrorists is about the same as that of the general population (freaking low) while the threat of being murdered for their gender identity is freaking high.
Of course, for Harris et al the threat of being attacked/murdered for their gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and skin colour is about zero.
@john morales
If not outrage what emotion would you associate with an article heading like “The depths were insufficiently plumbed” ?
It’s not an either or situation though. The joke was, from my understanding of it anyway, in regards to the situation in America where there was a huge deal over the whole Caitlin Jenner situation (that the vast majority of people could care less about) and was contrasting that with the situation with terrorists where the POTUS is too scared to even mention the fact that ISIS are muslims.
I didn’t say it was. Quite the contrary, you can be as offended as you like but it doesn’t change anything. It’s meaningless and utterly pointless to be offended by a joke. Just move on already.
Christ on a bike, not this again…
“It was a joke” is not a get-out-of-being-an-asshole-free card.
scjt, #147
Can you explain this one to me because I’ve seen this as a popular right-wing criticism of Obama.
What use would it be for the president to explicitly say that ISIS are Muslims?
Because:
A) Everyone knows that already.
B) Given the increasingly hostile and discriminatory climate in America towards Muslims, would the President repeating for some reason that ISIS are Muslim help people in anyway or would it only contribute to the hateful climate?
@Giliell 146
I was literally quoting Douglas when I said “…..when the Mullahs nuke us”.
Sorry I don’t follow what you are getting at here?
You don’t think Sam Harris gets daily death threats? And Douglas is gay so you don’t think he has been discriminated against?
Anyway, I didn’t even say that the risks are the same where are you getting that from?
scjt:
Disdainful contempt.
If it’s not “an either or situation” in relation to priorities, whence the purported contrast in relation to such?
And, leaving aside that you initially wrote “a rant/joke”, if you seriously imagine that “the whole Caitlin Jenner situation” was a bigger deal in America than terrorism, and that “the POTUS is too scared to even mention the fact that ISIS are muslims” (!), then you are seriously delusional.
(Perhaps you are confused by Barack Obama having said that the country is not at war with any religion, but rather with ISIS)
Yeah, you did, by implication: “Clearly a joke [joke/rant, initially], and, whether you find it funny or not, you cannot police humour.”
Funny thing is, if one can’t police humour, then clearly no-one here could possibly be policing humour — unless you imagine people can do something that can’t be done.
It does amuse me how you admonish people not to do what you claim cannot be done — and that after the fact, as if it had been done.
(Cogency is not your strong suit, is it? ;) )
<snicker>
Like you’re doing?
@ saad 149
You don’t think its important to have a name for their ideology? Maajid Nawaz explains this far better than I ever could so:
“Islam is a religion, and like any other faith, it is internally diverse. Islamism, by contrast, is the desire to impose a single version of Islam on an entire society. Islamism is not Islam, but it is an offshoot of Islam. It is Muslim theocracy.
In much the same way, jihad is a traditional Muslim idea connoting struggle—sometimes a personal spiritual struggle, sometimes a struggle against an external enemy. Jihadism, however, is something else entirely: It is the doctrine of using force to spread Islamism.
President Barack Obama and many liberal-minded commentators have been hesitant to call this Islamist ideology by its proper name. They seem to fear that both Muslim communities and the religiously intolerant will hear the word “Islam” and simply assume that all Muslims are being held responsible for the excesses of the jihadist few.
I call this the Voldemort effect, after the villain in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Many well-meaning people in Ms. Rowling’s fictional world are so petrified of Voldemort’s evil that they do two things: They refuse to call Voldemort by name, instead referring to “He Who Must Not Be Named,” and they deny that he exists in the first place. Such dread only increases public hysteria, thus magnifying the appeal of Voldemort’s power.
The same hysteria about Islamism is unfolding before our eyes. But no strategy intended to defeat Islamism can succeed if Islamism itself and its violent expression in jihadism are not first named, isolated and understood. It is as disingenuous to argue that Islamic State is entirely divorced from Islam as it is to assert that it is synonymous with Islam. Islamic State does indeed have something to do with Islam—not nothing, not everything, but something. That something is the way in which all Islamists justify their arguments using Islamic scripture and seek to recruit from Muslims”
Continued here:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-beat-islamic-state-1449850833
@John Morales 151
I didn’t imply anything but think what you like. I’m merely pointing out that a bad joke doesn’t make someone transphobic.
What is wrong with me initially saying a rant/joke? I still stand by that, I don’t know what he was thinking when he said it it could be a rant or it could be a joke or it could be somewhere in the middle, unlike you I don’t pretend to know what someone is thinking, and I won’t put some one on trial accused of hatred for silence (or nervous laughter).
scjt to Saad:
Hysteria? I guess so; for example, those who speak about “the fact we’ll all be bickering over PC nonsense when the Mullahs nuke us?”.
(Hey, did you know Pakistan is Islamic and has nukes?)
Who do you imagine has argued that, O straw-dummy erecter?
scjt, #152
I agree that ISIS has something to do with Islam and that much of Islamism is a valid interpretation of Islam (since Islam, like religion in general, is internally inconsistent and self-contradictory).
But what I was asking is what will Obama saying to the American public in speeches that “ISIS are Muslims” do?
People know that already.
Getting on a podium as an authority figure and reiterating to the American public that a terrorist group belongs to the same religion as millions of your fellow citizens* does harm, not good.
* Citizens who have found themselves on the defensive in this country for no reason and who have been the victims of ongoing threats and vandalism already
scjt @153:
In your own words, a “rant/joke” “backed up by the fact Sam was laughing nervously and said ‘hilarious’”, “and to be fair Douglas’ rant was worse than I remembered”.
(You do know what you’ve written is there for anyone to see, right? ;) )
Your desperate backpedalling is most amusing, particularly when it’s so obviously counter-factual.
Feel free to quote me pretending to know what someone is thinking — while I smile as I quote you doing so: “He was trying to emphasise the contrast of priorities between the gender identity stuff and the threat of terrorists, whether rightly or wrongly- it was a rant/joke.”
—
Anyway, I’m breaching commenting rules by dominating. So I’m out for the nonce.
Who the fuck has ever suggested that Islamis State is divorced from Islam?
How the fuck does that justify refering to islamic terrorism as Islamism?
If the religion associated to a particular terrorist group is to be considered the source of the terrorist threat, then christianity is BY FAR a vastly larger threat to any westerner. I don’t see you wailing about the imminent threat of Christianism.
Fucking hell, reading you is a pain…what a moron…
scjt, #152
One more point:
People like Trump, Carson and Cruz make sure to remind their followers that these terrorists are Muslims.
Do you think that’s doing good for the country?
@john morales ok and that implies I accused pz of policing how exactly? And how is openly admitting that on second listen he was more offensive than I remembered ‘back peddlin’? It doesn’t change the fact it was a bad joke/rant.
@Dreaming The POTUS. And let me explain again how we got to talking about him before you ask…
In my opinion it was a joke by Douglas, he was ranting about it being a ridiculous situation where people are getting harassed etc if they do not think caitlin jenner is an attractive women, and contrasting that with the very scary fact that the POTUS is too scared to mention that ISIS may just be taking some of their ideology directly out of the quran.
@Saad 158
No it is terrible for the country That theyre the only ones addressing the problem -and the majority of them are seeing it through right wing christian goggles (which if history has taught us anything can be very dangerous also).
@159 scjt
I know, they should be uberrational thinky thinkers like you and Harris and refer to ISIS as “the muslims”. It’s so annoying when people refuse to generalise in a harmful way.
What you want is for SCOTUS to generalise to all of Islam, just like you do. They know very well that there is a relation between islamic terrorism and islam, they also know that this relation is not absolute and it’s not at all the only factor, or even the most significant one and that it’s not even remotely as relevant as people like you would like to pretend. They also know that generalising is dangerous and harmful.
I repeat, christianism, in the sense that you use islamism, is a far greater threat to me than islam is. Why isn’t it scary to you when entire societies refuse to acknowledge the relation between christian terrorists and christianity?
Yes, YOU and HARRIS are hysterical in your paranoia about Islam. You two are bigots with imagined problems.
You and Harris can take a long walk off a short peer, while those of use who can get beyond such paranoia go about our business.
Take your bigotry elsewhere. No sale here.
scjt, #160
They’re not addressing the problem though. How is “Muslims are here to kill you” addressing the problem?
You still haven’t explained how Obama telling the American public that ISIS is Muslim (something they know already) would help address the terrorism problem?
What purpose would repeating an obvious fact serve in countering ISIS?
@ Dreaming 161
No, it isn’t otherwise I would of said that. Discussing the problem of Islamic exterimism and its association with Islam does not automatically make someone a racist- in fact it is the only way the problem is going to be solved. Not discussing it just leads to hysteria, especially when it is left up to morons like Trump to comment on.
Maajid is a muslim, and a former terrorist, who has travelled the world speaking with jihadists/Islamists/Muslims/ex-Muslims/Christians/Jews/atheists in trying to work out a way forward. So I’ll take his word on the terminology involved…
@ saad 163 Because that IS how they (Trump et al) address the problem, and that is why it is terrible for the country.
@ Nerd 162 Ha ha ha drama queen. Why is it bigotted to admit a link between Islam and the likes of ISIS? Because that it all I’ve said. And that the ideas put forward by the likes of Maajid Nawaz are the best way forward, he believes (as do I), that Islam is open to reform and should find its place in a secular world (much like christianity is slowly but surely doing in the west).
That is not too say I do not think that the West’s behaviour (particularly the US and UK) has also lead to the formation of, or increased recruitment to, terrorists groups as well, but to claim no link between the ideology of Islam and the terrorists is ridiculous.
@saad 163 and that article i linked gives a whole swath of reasons as to why it would make sense for the POTUS to address the actual problem, I’m not going to regurgitate it here. I don’t see how anything you’ve said address the arguments he made?
Oh. He was just joking. About an issue that destroys people’s lives.
When you’re down to the “just joking” defense, you’re done, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Stop now.
Jesus. You wrote another one while I was posting.
Fucking STOP right now. No more posting on this thread for you.
When I see 3 comments in a row by one person, and that the entire thread has come to be dominated by one person frantically replying over and over and not learning anything, it’s like watching someone stammer and bluster to try and get their way. I can see the flop sweat from over here.
So seriously, YOU ARE DONE. Post again on this thread and you will be banned.
scjt, #165
I shouldn’t have mentioned the GOP because now you’re ignoring my main question which was why you want Obama to tell the American public a useless fact about ISIS that they already know.
People who criticize Obama for not doing so are usually people who prefer the GOP treatment of Muslims.
@ PZ 167
Whatever you say PZ. You keep whining about jokes (because that’s all it is, whining).
Lots of things destroy peoples lives, and lots of people joke about them. Get over it. I’ve already said I didn’t find his joke/rant particularly funny, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to condemn him for saying it. By making a fuss over jokes like this and missing the bigger point being made all you are doing is pulling focus away from the very real acts of racism (or transphobia) that are taking place, because people get fed up of hearing about people being offended by jokes and the like.
Ban me if you like, I’m responding to people asking me questions. Sorry that bothers you. This site is one big circle jerk.
scjt
In which case you should mark it as, you know, a quote.
Well, you need to demonstrate that “the left” in general and us here in specific actually dismiss human rights abuses when committed by folks who ain’t white guys the same way you brushed away the issues we face as “pet causes”. Or do you just pull it out of your ass to seem clever?
You really don’t get it, do you? Before you start twisting my words: DEath threats are wrong, it’s wrong that Harris gets them and I’m sure it’s taking a toll on him. BUT: getting death threats for being a particularly vocal proponent/opposer of something is not the same as getting death threats for existing. “The Talk” parents have with their daughters is not “The Talk” they have with their sons. “The Talk” black parents have with their children is often about “how not to get killed by the police for playing in the park”. Those are not “pet causes”. In summary: the biggest threat to Hartis are religous extremists. The biggest threat to us is the world we live in. To dismiss our challenges as “pet causes” shows you don’t give a flying fuck about our wellbeing.
Well, from the whole dismissing these issues as “pet causes”? How often do people have to repeat it before you understand what your own words conveyed to the readers?
Sure, it’s not like there’s ample evidence that “jokes” reinforce hostike climates and cultures in which violence against the “butt” of the jokes is seen as more acceptable. Why bother with science when dudes have an opinion?
Pretty is who pretty does.
I don’t believe in what people are “in their heart of hearts”. It’s what they say and do that counts. If somebody makes transphobic jokes, that’s what they get judged by.
Bullshit. How much Caitlin Jenner tickles your boner is irrelevant. People are getting called out for denying that Caitlin Jenner is, in fact, a woman. Which is not harassment.
Which problem? Muslims? THEY’re making muslims the problem. Muslims aren’t the problem. Daesh is. Saying that Islamism is connected to Islam is adding zilch to the discussion. That’s like blaming chemistry and physics for global warming.
There’s no inherent link or causal chain that leads from Islam to Islamism. Just like there’s not inherent link that leads from Chritianity to either the KKK or some gay Lutheran pastor.
PZ says to scjt:
Aaaaaand, scjt posts twice more. Wonderful way to prove you’re stupid, with zero reading comprehension.
Sorry, PZ
Didn’t see your post before I hit submit
So is your group paranoid about Islam. Not one working brain cell in your group, other than the fear cells. Your higher think is totally shut down.
How to defeat ISIS? Help the Muslims in the area kick them out. Don’t make it Islam vs. Xianity. But, rationality isn’t the strong point of those who only know irrational fear.
Example from years ago.
We had a troll from Australia who was paranoid about Islam. He was terrified of living under Sharia law. When challenged to provide a reasonable scenario how this could occur in their lifetime, dead silence. And when challenged on what he meant, something as innocuous as a Halal deli opening down the road was imposition of Sharia law on them. Never mind, that a Kosher deli was the imposition of Talmud law, and a vegan restaurant was the imposition of vegetarianism upon their poor soul. Stark, raving scared of their own shadows, and any change whatsoever. Xenophobia in action.
Which is why I go beyond emotional responses like xenophobia.
That’s just whining? I’m not sure if you just don’t know what the word “whining” means or whether you know, but would still like to use it to tar the opinions and observations of others.
Also, it’s rather silly for people to keep saying Obama won’t refer to the religion of Muslim terrorists. He has, more than once, but the response has always been “lalalala I can’t hear him saying ‘Islam’!”
Y’know, before you can declare that someone has never said something, you kind of have to listen to the bulk of the things they’ve said. Y’know, to check whether you’re right. Otherwise it’s not just context you’re leaving out. When the President says, for example, that ISIS employs a “perverted interpretation of Islam,” in what way is he failing to verbalize their religiosity?
And back to saad’s question, which like most of the questions you assure PZ you’re responding to, you never responded to: what good, exactly, is accomplished if a politician tells everyone that an organization called the Islamic State espouses Islam? What’s so awesome about announcing the blindingly obvious?
Fuck off.
“It’s just a joke”…i’m growing to hate that phrase with a fierce fucking passion…
The idea that people “just joke” and this doesn’t reflect in any way their actual beliefs and opinions, is exactly the reason why it gets used by vile human beings who want to get away with the terrible shit they say. And the fact that privileged arseholes are unable to see the real harm that those “jokes” do to real people because it doesn’t affect them is yet another prime example of how privilege works.
You people who aren’t white, male, or islamophobic, need to focus on the real priorities, which are white, islamophobic male’s irrational fears of muslims who are coming to get them!!!
A Dear Muslima…again? And this time mixed in with the old “my support for your humanity is contingent on you not being an annoyance of any kind to me”. Disgusting.
You don’t get to tell the victims of abuse how much of it they must tolerate. Those “jokes” are REAL acts of transphobia, sexism, racism and homophobia. Ignoring them as “jokes” only serves to support transphobia, sexism, racism and homophobia…so no, fuck you, we won’t stop “making a fuss” about real acts of aggression that dehumanise and demean us.
If people like you are alienated from a cause that is morally right because it’s an inconvenience to them, fuck them. And if you are alienated from a cause on the basis of people not laughing at your shitty, abusive jokes, you were never a supporter of that cause in the first place and you are a special kind of piece of shit.
Just to be clear to people like you, if your support is dependent on those conditions, you are not allies, you are not good…you are the baddies and you can fuck off.
Jesus fucking christ, what a blind fucking arsehole…
scjt has been banned.
Tell me you’re surprised.
@PZ:
Dammit, I almost finished my bigot bingo card!
Poor scjt, first he has to suffer the terrible injustice of having to listen to people complain that they are being abused by “harmless jokes” that merely dehumanise and perpetuate prejudice that affects their lives in entirely real ways, and now he is banned. Can’t poor, white, male, islamophobes catch a break? They suffer so much…
Lesbian Catnip @179 — that’s the problem isn’t it. Hyper-rational vulcan trolls spout so many obvious words but so little content that you can’t even reliably fill out a bingo card before they get banninated.
I guess it makes sense that they like Harris and other people who can’t write a concise thought to save their lives.
Wow. Way to kill a thread, PZ. Harsh.
Nathan, why should PZ have to read shit he can’t stomach? Banning noisome trolls clears the air…. :-)
Dudebro atheist Nathan,
Are posts #25, 26 and 28 not showing up on your screen?
Nathan, one persons paranoia is not an argument, neither is trying to use ridicule as an argument.
If you have a cogent point, cogently make it.
Otherwise, just another incoherent fanboi of SH.