I was sent this as an “open letter” — I don’t know if it’s posted anywhere else, but since it’s “open”, I’m happy to let everyone read it.
Dear PZ,
Can I please ask you to refrain from insulting and writing about Sam Harris in the negative. I don’t know what you expect to achieve by constantly writing Sam Harris hit jobs. You are tearing the atheist community apart.
Does it not hurt you knowing that you are contributing to the toxicity of the atheist community? Do you not care about, as Sam Harris says, that his daughter will one day have to read articles about their father being a racist, and Islamophobe? Even if you don’t agree with Sam or Richard Dawkins, can’t you please get in line. They’re the ones on the front lines. They’re are the ones that will bring enlightenment to the masses.
Don’t you care about the damage you are doing? Imaging someone who is considering the notion of god and reads Sam Harris and thinks, “yes this makes sense, I no longer believe”. Now imagine that this person has major influence in society. Imagine that maybe this person becomes president. Imagine the good they could do.
Now imagine that they then read a PZ Myers blog post, and they read you saying Harris is a bigot and racist etc. You just prevented that president from being enlightened and doing great work as president, because they instead read something religious and became religious.
These are the stakes. We are not cultists, we are just pragmatic, for the greater good. I compel you. But I bet you have your mind made up and are not willing to listen to my sound reasoned arguments.
I feel a duty to at least try to persuade you and your readers. Please just write something positive about Sam, at least that way you appear neutral and unbiased.
kind regards,
Hmm. How shall I put it?
NO.
I’m always baffled by the one-sidedness of these complaints. Harris says torture is OK, racial profiling is a good thing, etc., etc., etc., and he’s not the one tearing the atheist community apart
, it’s the people who stop and say NO.
The worst thing possible is that Sam Harris’s kids might read that someone dislikes their father’s opinions; once again, we ignore the children in Iran and Iraq whose father might be dead because of Harris’s opinions. They don’t matter, but Sam Harris does.
The hypothetical about some future president becoming an atheist because they read Harris is absurd and misses the point. I don’t mind if a future president is a theist, as long as they don’t excuse torture and war (and quite a few other things). I wouldn’t vote for an atheist president who wants to see more racial profiling against Muslim Americans. To put atheism at the top of your list of criteria and to excuse all other violations of an Enlightenment philosophy is not the way to enlighten the Republic. I favor neither a theocracy nor an atheocracy. I don’t assume that someone would be a good president simply because they’re an atheist — I think Sam Harris would be a nightmare president, and I think I would be a terrible president, too. There are skills involved in being a great leader, and lack of belief in gods isn’t a necessary one of them.
But mainly, I’m amazed at atheists who ask others to be silent about disagreement. Way to be great critical thinkers, guys! If that’s the way your mind works, I guess they really are at risk of reading some fragment of what I write and being converted to, say, Catholicism.
But the problem isn’t what I write. It’s their authoritarian personality.
Was that from Sam’s mom?
Um… You certainly sound like a cultist.
By the power of Sam?
New heuristic: if anybody feels the need to tell you how sound and well-reasoned their arguments are, they probably aren’t.
I’m always surprised to discover that bloggers are expected to be “neutral and unbiased”. Of course, this expectation always seems to come from people who disagree with that blogger.
That it never occurred to the letter writer that the opinion that Sam Harris is a racist Islamophobe is the neutral and unbiased stance is just darling.
I fully expect that an analogous open letter has been sent to Sam Harris beguing him to stop tearing the atheist community apart by being a violent, racist, sexist arsehole. Right? RIGHT?
*snort* Dude, please stop tearing the atheist movement apart by making it so absolutely obvious that you don’t know what soundness, reason or arguments are. It’s upsetting me. Think of the children and the future presidents.
Adopt MY biases and transparent, blind and devoted partisanism, that way you’ll totally look neutral and unbiased!
What a fucking joke.
I hope his kids read criticisms of their father, and are inspired to be less of an asshole the same way my embarrassing racist grandma is partly an inspiration for me to be wary of my own racism.
Letter Writer:
So, misogyny, toxic sexism, racism, bigotry, harassment, torture, and war are the new enlightenment? Glad I’m on the other side.
Oh for…<double facepalm>. Nice to know the truth doesn’t matter at all.
You are tearing the atheist community apart, Lisaah!
I’m not PZ, but I would be perfectly happy to stop saying and writing negative things about Sam Harris. And will do so as soon as he stops supporting torture, making racist and sexist statements, and otherwise being a person with a lot of negative characteristics.
Also, I feel PZ’s part about being fine with a theist president if they’re a humanist and not all racist and gross like Sammy. One of the big compromises I’ve had to make is my choice to hang out with christians that respect my identity over “skeptical of trans people” atheists where I am.
I’m calling bullshit.
No indeed.. The “Open Letter” argues for tolerance about a man who seems to have little in the name of some greater good. Its a plea for rigid conformity “for the great good”. How …disturbing.
They’re the ones on the front lines
Twitter and internet blogs, good restaurants and nice hotels? These are not the Flanders trenches we’re talking about.
That’s got to be some kind of inept satire, surely?
You should feel flattered, P.Z. Whether the writer(s) realize it or not, by feeling the need to write this “open letter” they admit they think you’re a big enough voice to influence a non-negligible segment of the atheist community.
This makes me think the writer is pretty young. It’s just an oddly naive request. So I’m a little hesitant to be so harsh on him/her.
But yea, if anything, Sam Harris should refrain from insulting and writing about Muslims in the negative. Sam Harris is the one being divisive, insulting everyone around him who disagrees, and ranting about how misunderstood he is (even though he is profoundly ignorant and incurious about the topics he writes about). It should be frightening that Sam Harris could influence someone who gains power, leading to justifications of torture and war crimes. That wouldn’t be positive at all.
I for one would like to thank PZ for all of his hard work helping to tear the atheist movement apart. I want to be on the other side of…well, pretty much everything from Sam Harris and his fellow Sound Reasoned Arguers™.
In the Harrisids’ book, Enlightenment equals making sure that white atheist nerds never ever get beaten by brown muslim jocks. And, well, it is technically true that if you commit genocide by nuke against Muslimdom, there won’t be any muslim jock to beat up the next generation of white nerds.
Ok, I should’ve read further before responding, but that film… it gets into your head. (Mind you, upon writing “gets into your head,” that scene from Mass Effect on Feros with totally-not-Quark got into my head, so maybe it’s just that my head is just prone to things getting into it.)
I’m curious: if they think that this president of theirs is so easily swayed that reading a Sam Harris article is enough to turn them into an atheist, or that reading a PZ Myers article is enough to turn them into a theist (I think that’s what they were getting at?) what makes them think this president would be an enlightened president doing great work anyway? This is a hypothetical person whose entire worldview is apparently shaped by the most recent article they read. That’s not somebody who’s going to be a force for greatness and rationality. If they can’t read criticisms of Harris’ massive and obvious failings without deciding that the man is utterly wrong about all things and that they should therefore become theists, then they’re clearly not a careful thinker anyway, and there’s no reason to expect great work from them no matter what they believe regarding gods.
Damn right you’re not cultists! You’re just Tau. Stay strong, Shas’la, the cadre is with you.
This is what religious nuts might be jabbering about when they declare atheism a religion. It’s almost a perfect parody of the “please don’t harm the church” argument they espouse for not criticizing the popes/priests/preachers/gurus/imams, exposing sexual abuse and other amoral behavior in the organization, and so forth.
cynix 11:
Sam Harris is pretty strong evidence that atheism in and of itself does not equal “the great good.”
Look, I made a Sam Harris bobblehead image, for no reason whatsoever! I’m pretty sure it’ll come in handy eventually. Like, the next time he opens his mouth.
Tone trolls are always
r[bl]ight. Your lack of cogent arguments is laughed at. My free speech means I can describe SH as I see his bigotry. His vocal bigotry offends many atheists, and we don’t feel SH is anything but an authoritarian asshole, and we will say so. Tell SH to shut the fuck up, as he doesn’t represent me or my beliefs.“Even if you don’t agree with Sam or Richard Dawkins, can’t you please get in line.”
Get in line? GET IN LINE?! Are you kidding me?!
No matter WHAT your point is (Sam Harris, God, hotdogs, 2nd amendment, your favourite colour, Buffy vs. Xena, whatever), when you say “please get in line”, you have proven conclusively that you don’t think, don’t want to think, and that nothing you say will show the tiniest bit of intellectual honesty.
“Can’t you please get in line?” Ho. Lee. Fucking. Shit.
Do you not care about, as Sam Harris says, that his daughter will one day have to read articles about their father being a racist, and Islamophobe?
If Harris really cared about that, he’d stop taking racist and Islamophobic positions.
Do these people understand that you have to unpack things for them to be explanatory and not merely assertions? ESPECIALLY the non-literal ones. Non-literalism are meant to grab attention but unless PZ is literally pouring toxins around this email is not a things of sense and reason.
The brackets will make sense below.
No examples of insults. They are necessary to make sure this person is not obfuscating about insulting characterizations.
No explanation for why it’s a “hit job” and not valid criticism.
Completely ignores the behavior of people we are complaining about that was already tearing the community apart.
Unless PZ is pouring toxins around you have to do some explaining why they things PZ is writing is toxic. That means taking the insulting characterizations and showing why they are unwarranted. I NEVER SEE ANYONE GET TO THIS STAGE and this email does not quite make it to the level most do (quoting the thing but not saying why it’s a problem).
The other solution for Harris’s daughter is for Harris to stop being a racist and an Islamophobe. That is a clear appeal to emotion fallacy.
There are no “front lines”. Your metaphor seems to mean we should only let our cultural leaders do anything of substance in a conflict and that they should be above criticism. Which I find a little fucked up because the people who are on the front lines in reality were not leaders, they were ground level soldiers. The people actually on the metaphorical “front lines” are the ones in comment sections, Facebook, and all the other one on one interactions.
Because apparently only saint Harris can open the eyes of others. This right here is good evidence of authoritarian thought because they seem to feel that someone has to be an authority to be convincing. That potential future person could be convinced by random people in comment sections too.
See the above. If the arguments are good and we teach good reason, logic and the ability to handle in-group criticism we won’t end up with as many people engaging in the flawed reasoning.
“Something religious” needs defining because religion ultimately most likely has to do with how human beings do social organization, social control and social conflict. If you strip out the appeals to the supernatural, the behaviors I see many atheists complain about are things that exist in our community as well. Multiple manifestations of common underlying social behavior with one set driven by supernatural narratives.
These are your cartoon stakes. You can put them back with the falling anvils and other ACME products. You asserted cult behavior along with lots of other things. This is not sound reasoning, these are assertions and not arguments.
In fact all those bits I bracketed up there are utterly unexplained. So this conclusion is utterly unwarranted.
That “I bet you have your mind made up” is little but an attempt to justify the lack of effort at the previous portions.
You felt the duty to compose a collection of assertions, just-so stories, characterizations that require unpacking and assorted fallacies of reasoning.
On top of that like many other atheists and skeptics you have no fucking clue when it comes to bias. We are all biased and we will all be biased because what we normally call “bias” is how reasoning is shaped irrationally. Rational bias is still bias towards a conclusion, characterization and more. Reality will be biased and you don’t get reality by trying to shame someone into falsely adding some positive because you dole like the negatives that you clearly have not understood, even if just to disagree with it.
Atheism doesn’t have a pope, but apparently it does have a few messiahs…
I think the letter was written by a ‘bot.
@chigau, 26
A brobot?
Is it possible to be an authoritarian but have your brain focused on the level below, or across from you in the perceived social hierarchy?
I’m not offended by the use of authoritarian as a pejorative even though I believe I have such a personality, and that I believe that it’s ultimately a human neutral that needs proper use and control. Society does suffer from the actions of authoritarians and so feeling threatened by the personality type is understandable, an authoritarian personality is a bit like a gun and worth being concerned about. I’m just wondering about sub-types and how I avoided the trap.
Feel free to ignore this if it’s too off topic.
One laughs at the letter. Was that the intention?
Atheism, right or wrong!
Ra-ra!
After the Supreme Court installed Bush the Younger in 2000, and he began doing all the horrible things that everybody knew he would, a lot of people in the left/liberal/progressive community were up in arms. A letter was written to a local newspaper by a Bush supporter, tearfully urging people to support Bush and citing the Bible as to the necessity of supporting our unelected leader. That letter had the same tone and roughly the same reasoning as the letter above, and can be dismissed for the same reasons. Only conservatives put up a united front to support immoral actions in the name of loyalty to party/tribe/association.
The whole “hit piece” thing makes me think this is one of those “Ugh regressive left claiming our war crimes and torture are bad” people. I’ve noticed that they’ll call anything critical of Harris a “hit piece”, even ones that I’d consider way too lenient on him.
@ Athywren 7
My thoughts exactly. Now I’m picturing Harris and Dawkins throwing around a football in San Francisco.
@ robro 19
I see that too. The more I look at research into religion and social thought the more I see things in our community that we have previously pretended was only religious.
Did this person learn how to make absurd hypotheticals from Sam Harris? “What if you’re in a situation where a terrorist will blow up the world if you don’t agree with me. Wouldn’t you agree with me then?”
What are the chances, the Email- writer is a poe?
schini, #36
I thought it was just me. It totally sounds like a Poe to me.
I don’t think it’s a Poe. Sounds more like a non-native English speaker to me, and as for the content, it’s hardly off the mark of all the other Harrisites who have landed here.
My first thought was “this can’t be real,” but then again there are all types of people in this world. It should hardly be surprising that someone out there sees Atheism as a Force For Good in the abstract (calling a conversion to atheism “being enlightened”) and is only just involved enough in current events to know that one of the leaders is being criticized.
And hey, conservatives almost assuredly are not the only group with authoritarians in the mix. I’ve just never seen that mentality so… exposed.
“For the greater good, stop criticizing our leaders and get in line.” Good lord…
I just can’t. Calling Harris a bigot and a racist is “something religious” that will make someone who was convinced that God doesn’t exist go back to believe in God? What?
@schini 36, Saad 37
It’s a good question and it is possible. I wondered too at some points.
But the reasoning is so much like what we see in conservative authoritarian thought that I erred on the side of it being legitimate because the reason things are poes is because they represent a kind of irrational and illogical thought that makes them plausible. In that respect even a poe is still useful to deconstruct.
What parts suggest that the person is pretending to you?
Chris J, #40
I think what they’re saying is if they see Harris being called a racist by PZ, they’ll drop End of Faith and delve right into Leviticus instead.
From his name and a few other cues in his email (which I’m not sharing), probably not a native English speaker.
#38, #39:
Well, I can not be certain, but
just sounds so contrived/ artificial to me …
You know…I remember from years ago Sam Harris saying he should be able to “call a spade a spade.” I remember him using that phrase quite often, actually. And I agree; he should be able to “call a spade a spade.” But then so should we.
schini:
*Cough* Me @ 38:
PZ @ 43:
Can we drop the stupid Poe shit now?
athywren @7, Oh hi (/nickrivieravoice)
Dear Open Letter writer,
With just a few changes, which do not change the form of argument employed by yourself…
Would you, Open Letter Writer, see the above as a compelling argument?
Do you not care about, as Sam Harris says, that his daughter will one day have to read articles about their father being a racist, and Islamophobe?
I mean, if Harris is actually concerned about his daughter ever reading such things, there’s a super easy way for him to make people stop criticizing him for being a racist and islamophobe. Stop being one. Hell, he doesn’t even need to actually stop being one, just stop publishing his own written and spoken words saying those things.
If he actually issued some kind of article of expressing regret and renouncing those views, no one would ever bring it up again. If he simply just stopped ever writing it, it might take a trickle effect, but eventually it will be “that opinion he wrote 10 years ago which he hasn’t brought up since”
But at best, his writings currently renounce racism and islamophobia with with doublespeak and JAQing off, wherein asking the question is asserting it’s a reasonable response.
Daz @48, very well done.
Daz @ 48:
Well done!
Broken Things @31 – I’d be interested in finding how much support that letter writer gave to the current president over the past seven years.
“The greater good…”
Shorter version of the letter:
Substitute the X and Y of your choosing.
tonyinbatavia #50: & Caine #51:
Thank you both.
Daz@48, Nicely done!
@48 Well, done sir! The open letter writer will probably take umbrage that you’ve only given Harris the rank of Father and not Cardinal or Archbishop, and dismiss it as an unsound, hysterical argument. :)
I can’t help but read that letter and picture the “leave Brittany alone” YouTube guy from a few years back.
The whole letter is one collection of logical fallacies. It’s so obvious it’s amusing.
A better question. Doesn’t Sam Harris care about the (real) damage he is doing? No, because he is an idiot.
I don’t have to imagine this. I was still a xian when I read The End of Faith. All I thought was that Sam Harris was an idiot and I had just wasted a few hours of my valuable lifetime.
Every sentence of the letter is just wrong but enough is enough. It’s almost as if…Sam Harris had wrote it!!!
Dear Kind Regards: Do you not care that David Duke’s children will one day have to read articles about their father being a racist? Won’t somebody think of the children?
You do not seem the least bit concerned that Harris might actually be saying and writing racist things.
OK… Harris seems to have come to the correct conclusions about the existence of gods. And he was bright enough to get a PhD n neuroscience.
Cthulhu, this is dumb.
1. By the time she can read, she will know anyway. Sam Harris isn’t hiding anything.
2. She likely will also be a racist and Islamophobe. Children do absorb their parent’s attitudes quite often.
@45: The only memorable thing I recall one of my schoolteachers ever saying was an admonition to avoid swearing: “Call a spade a spade, not a bloody shovel.”
While gardening, I never follow that advice but I always remember it.
I wonder does this person go onto r/atheist and brag that they are not like those brainwashed religious sheeple and that they can think for themselves. No Gods, No Masters!
But criticise one of the Great Leaders of the atheist movement. How DARE you! After ALL they have done for Atheism! Apologise at ONCE!
Yeah….Mindless hero worship and authoritarianism are still bad things even if you get rid of religion so try to work on not practising that behaviour, alright?
Athywren@7: Yeah, I read that sentence in Tommy Wiseau’s voice as well.
We are all individuals.
I’m not.
You’re not the Messiah, you’re a very naughty … individual
“just write something positive about Sam, at least that way you appear neutral and unbiased. ”
The irony in this sentence is kind of amazing.
I’m a character. Of sorts.
It’s pretty funny to hear this “please don’t be MEEEAN with your words” plea from a Sam Harris fan, because I still remember the Accommodationist Wars in which New Atheists like Harris (and PZ!) were told they were being mean to religious people and should shut up.
I think we’re piling it on a bit too much. If this person is sincere, they may be new to atheism, have just read Dawkins’ and Harris’ books and are still of the misguided belief that there exists a movement of like-minded people linked by a common worldview.
We’re a bit ahead in that regard now, but most of us were that email writer 5 years ago (minus the accomodationist vibe and the far-fetched hypotheticals) when it came to investing time, money, hope and energy into a common movement of freethinkers and unbelievers.
Give this person time to learn that it’s all bullshit.
Not a cult not a cult not a cult not a cult…
In answer to your question, yes. I think I share the same trait with you–given the opportunity of absolute, or near-absolute power, I would be utterly unhesitant to use it to establish something more akin to my idea of a just society, which would largely entail working on eliminating privilege.
One of the key differences, I think, between ‘our’ subtype and that presented by Sam Harris and his fanboys, is that they extend this beyond themselves. Even in the case of people who largely agree with me (say, Bernie Sanders, for example), the notion of giving someone else that much power is abhorrent to me. I know too much about the human condition, and too little about the inner workings of the minds of others, to be able to believe that such power will not be misused and corrupted, once acquired.
So even though it so very often results in my ostensible allies and fellow-travelers being shut down or diverted, I prefer to live under a system where the powerful are kept in check. I can believe that I would be a benevolent tyrant; I cannot fathom trusting that role to anyone else. (Indeed, in my more juvenile fantasies about such, one of my first steps is to ensure that once I die or otherwise leave the position of autocrat, no one else will be able to rise to my place, instead making certain that power would transfer peaceably to a more representative form of government.)
Harris, and his fanboys, however, are foolish enough to believe that once a government has power to do what they want it to do, it will never be used in ways that they themselves do not like. This is the common error of every supporter of every totalitarian movement.
See? This is exactly what you get for being Dr. Poopyhead.
/s
You make very reasoned arguments, PZ.
Thanks to your writings I am now converting to Catholicism.
Together we can end the atheist plague that is faulty reasoning!
65 & 66 : Have you guys played Monty Python FLUX? Lots of fun!
“Lie back and think of Sam Harris” is a real turn-off.
Giliell:
Oh…I think I may have just figured out how to vomit up my estrogen vibe.
BAHAHAHAHA seriously I actually laughed out loud at that. PZ is just the last person I would imagine getting in line. Er, metaphorically, that is, I don’t imagine him outright just cutting to the front of actual physical lines. But asking someone to get in line is so much an organized religion request.
Anyway, how about this:
“Imagine someone who is considering the notion of god and reads PZ Myers and thinks, “Yes this makes sense, I no longer believe.” Now imagine that this person has major influence in society. Imagine that maybe this person becomes president. Imagine the good they could do.
“Now imagine that they then read a Sam Harris blog post, and they’re [insert group Harris is disparaging about, or against wanton violence, or what have you].” Anyway I guess at this point the theory is because some atheists have bad ideas about other people and not all atheists get along in harmony and chocolate rainbows, they decide there really is a god, because only a god could make atheists bad and differ on things?? I don’t even know.
So Harris needs his safespace?
@71 rorscharch
Speak for yourself. Even at my most ignorant and most fanboyish, i would have never dared to suggest that people ignore blatant immorality, sexism or racism for the benefit of the atheistic cause.
———
Since even directly quoting Sam Harris is liable to be considered a heinous attack, is it even possible to say something nice about Harris without making shit up? I suposse if one cherrypicks only the bits that he consents to be quoted on, whatever those might be (which still leaves you with, at best, a very arguable value of “nice”). Cherrypicking…the very essence of neutrality and lack of bias.
@khalihs,
Yes.
Also Zombie Fluxx.
You can quote him as long as you include the full context. I suggest starting with “In the beginning was the singularity.”
Can these atheist please stop breaking our SJW community apart and get in line?
Say something nice about religious people, even Muslim, that do good, just to at least appear unbiased?
….
Some problems are just more important than religion. Get over it.
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite: Here’s a brilliant book for you on the subject of authoritarians and authoritarian followers. Free download PDF by a University of Manitoba prof who spent years studying the subject. I guarantee you will find it interesting. Very readable.
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
I had to laugh when he used the “think of the children” ploy.
Isn’t this a recipe for apple pie?
The appropriate response: http://i.imgur.com/QAt1ujp.jpg?1
In any social system, when someone wants to alter the status quo, it is they who are seen as trouble makers and rocking the boat.
If African Americans want the same as white Americans, they’re told to stop being divisive.
When a woman asks for what a man gets for granted and exerts her mind, she’s a shrill harpy.
If LBGTI want the same as cis, they’re told to stop rocking the boat.
And so on…..
@Giliell, 77
I was eating.
You monster. ¬_¬
I may never be able to fully enjoy wagon wheels again.
@khalihs, 76
Attempting to sing a unique Monty Python song in a deliberately bad French accent each round is disturbingly fun.
Did anybody already call “concern troll” on this one?
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- @77
Well that’s certainly killed my libido for the next day or so
Alas poor Harris fanboi, doesn’t want their new found idol dethroned.
Well, if you won’t say nice things about Harris, I will!
He has very well-groomed hair. As a bald person I envy him.
“Do you not care about, as Sam Harris says, that his daughter will one day have to read articles about their father being a racist, and Islamophobe?”
Was that a serious question? How about Harris stop saying Islamophobic and racist things? That would work.
He has really nice hair, the kind of hair that looks really nice. It covers his head really well, just like really nice hair should.
This is your mind on Establishment Atheism. Tell me again how rational and skeptical and freethinky it is to command people to “get in line”. And don’t dare tell me they’re on the “front lines”. Of what, exactly? White atheist male exceptionalism? Regressive social ideas? Feh. The last lines those thin-skinned, overrated blowhards saw were at their own book signings.
“Enlightenment to the masses” eh? Go on – tell me again how you’re not a cultist! Dawkins and Harris may or may not have messiah complexes, but darn tootin’ a lot of their acolytes do.
Oh, and wringing your hands over how Harris’ kids will react if/when they see a critique of him online? If I were you (or Harris) I’d actually be far more concerned that they’d read his own work, in which he touts the value of racial profiling & torture, the idea that maybe some beliefs are so dangerous that it’d be ethical to kill those who hold them, and the disinterested shrugs that are all he can muster in reaction to civilians killed by US bombs.
If I were one of Sam’s kids I’d also want to know why he recorded a four-hour interrogation of one of his critics then refused to publish even a highly-redacted transcript, much less the audio in its entirety. Coming on the heels of his declared “victory” over Chomsky (which gave me much mirth) it seems more than a little self-serving and more than a mild hint that, instead of having Omer Aziz for breakfast, he’d actually just shat in his own cornflakes.
Then I’d quiz him about the whole “estrogen vibe” comment.
If my own dad conducted himself as Harris does, the racism and Islamophobia would be just the fucking start of a long and uncomfortable conversation.
Here’s something I don’t get: why is it that some people who recognize that there’s agreement between two people on one topic (like the existence or nonexistence of god) and yet miss the fact that we can disagree on other topics (like xenophobia)?
That’s analogous to saying I’m a Donald Trump supporter because I happen to agree with him that the George W Bush presidency was a disaster.
Has everyone here read this yet?
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism
@freemage
It’s interesting. I feel very similarly to how you are saying but I think there may be some subtle differences, or we have just experienced them a bit differently.
I don’t often think of it in terms of absolute power, but if I had it I certainly would wield power. I normally think in terms of the areas where I am certain I should assert authority. It’s like I see the instinct of authority as a self-referenced assertion of dominance. That assertion can be tied to anything and on behalf of anything, but the core of it is still me being authoritative. So I try to have rules for when I should assert authority, why I am asserting it, who I am asserting it for, how I’m asserting it…all to make sure that I account for where I am in the process because I always try to make sure that it’s never only about me, which might be equivalent to what you say about eliminating privilege.
I also have a sensor for how much power people around me have and how they exercise it, and I too try to feed the instinct to keep everyone about as powerful as everyone else.
I think I agree, I certainly have seen enough human ugliness to distrust everyone and myself . I’m not so sure that we are not extending power beyond ourselves. We do certainly choose to support others and treat them like authorities in a more limited sense (I like to think that we are more friendly to mutual criticism of different varieties, and that we criticize our authorities while still respecting their role). But I would agree that there is a large problem with investing too much power with authority structures and people, I can’t bring myself to join any political parties in the current system for example so I spend a lot of time on one-on-one interactions when acting politically.
I too care very much about ways of checking power, and I think that every authoritarian’s “inner demon” only trusts “us” as part of how the system works. I’ve thought a lot about what to do about the power imbalance and I’m not so sure about all of my ideas myself. I’m effectively anti-death penalty, but I can imagine circumstances under which I would support it. For example it never comes into play for anyone who is on the bottom of society, but if you are rich you have the money for it. And I’ve toyed with the idea of it kicking in more readily the more people you affect with your power in society (or some other way that things get more punitive faster when you abuse power).
I’m not really that serious about it though, in fact I think that is the first I’ve mentioned that one and it functions more to learn how to think about ways of adjusting social power imbalances. Another one is that I have a litmus test for candidates that involves a willingness to actively go after people in their own political, social, and any other psychological in-group with serious consequences for wrong doing (torture, whistle-blower harassment, abuse of authority re: OWS and police, wall street abuse). I get a lot of flak for it but if a party gets desperate enough and I hear enough about why people are not voting I’ll speak up. I have no patience for hyperbole that has to twist the reality into knots like “I’m helping X” when a lack of an action is nothing of the sort. I find it difficult to respect any argument that includes that sort of rhetoric no matter how well it works on the rest of the troop.
I think this is true enough in that they are certainly effectively blinded to the threats as we see them in the public, politically charged encounters we have and see around here. Certainly there is a large group that I can’t get straight answers out of on specific things that matter. How that works inside I’m not too sure yet because I’m not quite sure how to compare the inner world of different authoritarians. Fear is a strong root of it, I certainly let it guide me while I try to keep it rational and logical. How strongly and completely it blocks ways of looking at people and groups as well as text on the page I’m not sure. I’m always thinking about it though.
@zaledalen
Thank you very much!
I have always wanted to read it, but in my current unemployment I’ve been kind of limited. Now I can. Thanks!
@zaledalen #85: reading the book, it’s awesome!
“Please get in line”, they literally wrote that.
People really need to get this idea out of their heads that – just because we all don’t believe in gods – we’re automatically on the same side on everything else, too.
Oddly, when people make the argument that we’re all on the same side and need to just toe the party line, the conclusion is always that someone else needs to change what they say. You’d think that if group unity was so important to them, they’d be willing to adjust a bit themselves.
I’m guessing that the letter writer is a recent convert from an authoritarian religion and hasn’t gotten rid of the idea that he has to have a leader yet. He may be amenable to the idea that, in fact, we don’t have to agree with our “leaders” in everything or even be nice to them all the time.
It’s quite simple really. If Harris doesn’t want his daughter to read that he is bigoted, xenophobic and racist, then he should stop being bigoted, xenophobic and racist.
“Even if you don’t agree with Sam or Richard Dawkins, can’t you please get in line.”
And now I have the image of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins doing Beyonce’s Formation video.
It’s possible the letter writer meant “Get in line” as in “get in line behind all the other people who are criticizing”, as a plea to stop piling on the apparently voluminous complaints/criticisms of SH? Like “can you please not complain because too many people are complaining”.
I’m sure the fawning fans are sick of hearing complaints. It’s too bad for them that the complaints and criticisms are justified. -shrug-
Sam Harris Fanboiz (and Fangrrlz, but nearly always boys) are a pain in the cloaca. They infest Alternet, the more so since it carried a report on Harris’s spectacular failure in his correspondence with Chomsky. I’ve whiled away several hours arguing with them.
They really cannot grasp that Sam Harris is an embarrassment to the skeptical community.
If Harris really were as intelligent, articulate and perceptive as his fanboys like to paint him, he’d be deeply embarrassed to have fanboys of this calibre. Yet somehow I suspect he’s not embarrassed by them at all.
What the Great-Leader-worshippers don’t seem to realise is that you can admire and find a person interesting because of what they say and do while still being prepared to look critically at the next thing they say and do tomorrow; it doesn’t have to entail swallowing anything and everything a person says and does just because it comes from the Emperor. They’re a bit like … um, was it WLC who argued that genocide is moral if his god does it?
I’d doubt very much he cares what Salon or the like write about him. Nobody take them seriously anyway
fal1, #109
Oh, really?
*snicker* Can’t view the link @110 by Saad right now, because Work Computer classifies it as ‘Entertainment’.
@Saad yeah that was my point, he’s already addressed them. You can’t honestly read that and think Salon is quality journalism?
@112: I can’t read that and think Sam Harris is a decent human being capable of rational thought. Not to mention that he’s a narcissist. He’ll only give interviews if he can control the content? He sounds like Trump or Putin or someone. My question is not why did Salon cut the bits that they did, but rather why they ran any of Harris’ incoherent and pointless ramblings at all?
?Where did Saad say that they think Salon produces ‘quality journalism’?
@Dianne 113
Can you clarify which bits from the article indicate that he isn’t a decent human being capable of human thought?
He’s given literally hundreds if not thousands of interviews where that isn’t the case. I think you are referring to his own personal podcast, and I’m pretty sure all podcasters reserve the right for final approval of what gets aired. Here’s hoping he will air the podcast in question now but who knows.
Anyway, before the countless accusations of being a Harris fanboi, I disagree with him about a lot of things, but I also disagree with a lot of the hit pieces against him….guess that makes me a bigot as well.
My correspondent sent me a follow up: I’m supposed to watch this video, which supposedly tells me something about what I’m doing. The chorus:
It starts with a policeman (me?) kicking a sad, innocent homeless man (Sam Harris?).
I don’t even.
Definitely a crazy person
@PZ
Don’t worry, a member of your rational & well cool youth brigade is here to give you the proper response.
@fal1: How about the bit where he rants that only Islam produces suicide bombers? It’s like he’s never heard of the kamikaze pilots. Or didn’t know that Viet Cong sometimes blew themselves up surrounded by US troops as a tactic of war. Or, say, the IRA. You know, that little intra-Christian conflict. You’d think he’d notice, but apparently not. I suppose, technically, the IRA preferred proxy bombing, i.e. using non-members as human bombs rather than their own people, but I fail to see how that’s better.
All of which makes his claim that Christianity isn’t bound up with society in the same way that Islam is all the more astonishing. Hello, “the troubles” were LONG after the Renaissance or even Jefferson. For that matter, it’s as often Christians committing abuses in Africa as Muslims. Both religions have sent missionaries to various places on that continent with the intent of making them as fundamentalist as possible. Or when he talks about a colleague who is a “gay Jewish atheist” and how he’d be “murdered three times over” in an Islamic country–any Islamic country, apparently. Well, I can think of Christian countries where he would have been in trouble for any of those three characteristics too…and might be again.
Also the “some of my best friends are…” defense of his prejudices. What person capable of honest self-evaluation would use that one?
His whole interview is lacking in insight and historical understanding of everything from Islam to US history.
He also said Malala is the best thing the Muslim world has produced in a thousand years.
How condescending and patronizing.
And, of course, false.
But Saad, don’t you see how that proves that he loves women and is not sexist at all? Look how he gave the poor little woman a pat on the head, even though she doesn’t dress to his approval.
@Dianne 119 Oh right, so you’d be happy if he added ‘in the last 50 years’ to his statement regarding suicide bombers? I don’t see whats so outrageous about that statement, given the present day situation if you see a headline on the news about a suicide bomber, who would you first suspect? Who else is presently producing suicide bombers? What absolute nonsense.
And you fail to see how using non-members as human bombs is different than blowing yourself up? OK. You’re acting like he hasn’t written entire books attacking Christianity.
@Saad OK, if you find that condescending and patronising then you are going out of your way to be offended.
I’d say that being a neocon kook that supports torture and racial profiling automatically gets you disqualified from the “decent human being” label.
….
No.
First off, it would completely negate his claim that Islam is unique and uniquely evil because it and only it produces suicide bombers.
Second, how long ago exactly do you think “the troubles” in Northern Ireland were?
Third, should I consider Timothy McVeigh a fine and upstanding citizen and not at all a problem because he didn’t blow himself up with his bomb? How about the perpetrator of the Montreal Massacre? All okay because he shot himself rather than blowing himself up? Or the white guy who shot up a black church recently? He’s not a bad guy because he used a gun AND survived?
The only reason to focus on suicide bombers in particular is that it’s a tactic currently used by Islamic terrorists. Christian and other terrorists prefer to live to gloat about their crimes. I don’t see why that makes them better. It strikes me as a sort of gerrymandering of terrorism in order to say that OUR terrorists are not as bad as THEIR terrorists.
But dianne, surely my statistic that proves only Japanese culture could produce kamikaze pilots is worthwhile and meaningful, right?
What the hell is cherrypicking?
Actually, yes, I do. At least suicide bombers demonstrate the courage of their convictions. Strapping a bomb to someone else and forcing them to walk into a crowd while you blow them up from a safe distance is distinctly more evil. So, thank you, I believe that you have just demonstrated that Christian terrorists are more evil than Islamic terrorists. Though this still strikes me as a silly distinction to make.
Except that’s not what Dianne said. Try reading for comprehension. Here’s the line again:
Dianne didn’t claim there was no difference; she pointed out that using proxy bombers was not better than using suicide bombers–in part because it is literally more cowardly. Stop punching the straw, it’s had enough.
And… ninja’ed by the actual quoted writer. Ah, well.
@Dianne But Islam is unique, the present day problems are unique no? What other ‘conflict’ of recent times has been based on Jihad?
Secondly…but as you pointed out yourself, the ‘troubles’ didn’t use suicide bombers as a general approach to killing people, so your point is moot.
Third, what has that got to do with Sm Harris’ claim about suicide bombers? You’ve already said yourself they generally used innocents to plant bombs (you know, because the IRA didn’t believe in Jihad and martyrdom).
@127 OK fine then its no better, but it’s completely unrelated to SH’s claim about suicide bombers currently being unique to islam. Its nothing like a suicide bomber.
@130
Right, but the point is that you actually have to justify pointing to “jihad” and “suicide bombings” in particular as some kind of special evil, rather than just another bad thing among thousands of other bad things groups do to each other.
If I control for “Giant blubbery mammals with tusks that swim”, the only animals I find are going to be walruses, but that doesn’t make walruses particularly notable.
No.
Um…have you heard of this guy named GW Bush? He talked about going on a crusade…
Which, as you admitted in comment #122 is untrue! And even if it were, again, so what? Why is suicide bombing bad but proxy bombing or triggering a bomb from a distance somehow “better”? If it’s not better, then why the focus on “only Islam uses suicide bombers”? Why is that any more relevant than “In WW2, ONLY the US used B2 bombers”?
Jihad is bad.
Other explosions, not so much.
Yawn. OK fine, its all the wests fault.
I submit that only western culture could lead you to drop nukes on other countries. After all, 100% of nuclear bombs were dropped by us.
Therefore, western culture is a hateful ideology and must be destroyed QED where’s my bill maher interview
“According to Jane’s Information Group, between 1980 and 2000, the LTTE carried out 168 suicide attacks causing heavy damage on civilian, economic and military targets.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bombings_in_Sri_Lanka
@134: Does that mean that you’ve run out of actual arguments and are resorting to whining and making up claims? Who said it’s “all the west’s fault”? The only people claiming that all the guilt in the various global conflicts currently ongoing are you and Harris.
@133 chigau
Well? Don’t you like mining? As in mining for resources to build great things, not putting landmines around an area. Well, don’t you?!?
I mean, whiny snark aside, I’d put the west as at least partially responsible.
We have a habit of deposing leaders at a whim and propping up ones that are more favorable to our interests, with no regard of the social unrest or dictatorial regimes we end up causing.
Remind me, who was it that originally armed, trained, and funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan back when they were fighting the Soviets? Oh yeah, it was the CIA…
@139: Well, al Qaeda was pretty much a Reagan product and ISIS a Bush product. And then the west is propping up Saudi Arabia, which is about the worst in terms of oppressive, terrorist exporting Islamic regimes, so, yeah, I’d have to say the west bears some responsibility.
Saganite #138
A discussion of mining could cause a serious derail, here.
Let’s stick with fal1’s fine arguments.
@Dianne 134 No, it means I think we’re arguing different things and there is little point in going round in circles. I happen to believe islamic terrorists pose a unique threat right now, partly due to the idology of Jihad and Martyrdom, you seem to disagree.
@136 Dunc Good point, I hadn’t realised that was so recent. However, 168 attacks in 20 years doesn’t exactly convince me it’s at the same level we’re experiencing today. There must of been thousands and thousands of them…
@139 Vivec don’t get me wrong here, I’d hold the West at least 50% to blame for the current situation, especially the US. It’s the complete denial of reality with regards islamic terrorists that annoys me.
Some people think this person is a martyr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaVoy_Finicum
@143: Given that the LTTE were only ever active in Sri Lanka, which is quite a small country with a commensurately small population, that’s still a fairly significant number of attacks. Also, that particular statistic shouldn’t be taken to imply that they stopped in 2000 – the last major LTTE suicide attack was in 2009. Anyway, you’re dodging the issue – you (and Harris) seem to be trying to argue that suicide bombing is a uniquely Islamic phenomenon, when this is clearly not the case.
fal1, what exactly IS your point? You have literally produced no evidence whatsoever that Islam is worse in any way, only made the false assertion that it is “unique”. Which it is not, even after you tailor your definitions to exclude all other ideologies as best you can. Why does repeating “unique” make you feel any better about your prejudices or even Harris’?
“Anyway, you’re dodging the issue – you (and Harris) seem to be trying to argue that suicide bombing is a uniquely Islamic phenomenon, when this is clearly not the case.”
While this may be true, they’ve certainly demonstrated that they’ve taken a liking to it as a means of terrorism.
@143
I don’t think anyone here is denying that you can draw some degree of causation between terrorism and islam. What you actually need to justify is characterizing it as unique or somehow worse in comparison to the things every other country does.
We’ve killed and maimed a ton of innocents – that we’ve reported – with drones. We’ve killed even more with firebombs and nukes. We put our own people in concentration camps. When does the US get declared a morally abhorrent terrorist nation that must be profiled and invaded for the sake of the world community?
Probably if the day comes that we don’t have the military power to snuff out anyone that tries.
And martyrdom. Certainly unique to Islam. Certainly Christianity has no concept of martyrdom. Hmm…I wonder what saint’s day today is?
I think the whole 72 virgins (or whatever the number is) when you die is unique to Islam, is it not? Of course, the Mormons were shooting for that while still alive… wait, I think I recall something about Mormons getting a whole planet to themselves … bah, whatever. All religions are silly.
…Which is exactly my point. It’s an arbitrary distinction we put to some countries while we turn around and do just as bad things because no one can tell us not to.
@152 I was pretty much agreeing with you. It’s easy to claim moral superiority when you’re separated from the majority of the nastiness by a couple huge oceans and a vast military. We have politicians today saying waterboarding isn’t enough. Too many people wrap themselves in the blanket of moral superiority so tightly that they choke out their own humanity. It’s a sad thing.
IRT to the 72 virgins, it’s not a universal belief, and there’s always been some debate about that. It’s from the Hadith and generally considered dubious, and various interpretations have varied on number, nature, and even existence of the aforementioned houris.
Raisins. It’s a mistranslation. After death you get 72 raisins, whatever the hell your soul could want with 72 raisins.
Also, my bad, then. I’m bad at reading tone through text.
@155
That’s one possible interpretation of a specific hadith, but there are corroborating hadiths and passages that do refer to actual companions in the afterlife, so it’s not as cut and dry as “it was a mistranslation”
Actually, I have no idea if my claim in 155 has any, um, theological merit or not. I just love the idea of the Islamic MRA blowing himself up so that he can get to heaven and get the virgins and finding that what he really gets is a box of Sunkist’s best.
Heh heh… raisins. That was much needed in a thread growing too bitter.
Dianne @ 150:
Christian feast day:
Anastasia the Patrician
Marie-Eugénie de Jésus
Harriet Tubman (Lutheran)
Himelin
John Ogilvie
Macarius of Jerusalem
Pope Simplicius
Sojourner Truth (Lutheran)
March 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Today, in 1945, The U.S. Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting conflagration kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.
@160: Thoughts, more or less in order:
1. Lutherans have saints? I didn’t know that.
2. Sojourner Truth is one. Cool!
3. Harriet Tubman too? Also cool!
4. Wait a minute. They have to share a day? Why don’t they each get their own day?
Unrelated thought: It is highly likely that Japan would have surrendered on terms as early as 1943. The firebombing of Tokyo as well as the nuclear attacks were probably unnecessary. Nagasaki certainly was.
You can almost guarantee that any religion with 2+ members will have theological debates. Given the sheer number of adherents and time the Abrahamic faiths have been around, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t 50 different translations of any given line of scripture.
@146 My point was that your objections to SH with regards that article were laughable. You said he wasnt a decent human and wasn’t capable of rational thought. When I asked why your reasoning was that you thought this because he claimed islamic terrorists are unique in using suicide bombers and because he said Christianity isnt tied into society as much as islam. This is nothing but nit picking. It’s a joke of an argument. What percentage of all suicide attacks in say the last 100 years would you say werent carried out by islamic terrorists? Itwas a massive article and that was all you could come up with to claim he isn’t a decent human and is incapable of rational thought.
And I don’t think Islam is ‘worse’ than any other religion, but in 2016 I am more worried about islamic terrorists than any other.
@148 Vivec.
No, no, no, if you don’t condemn all of Islam and all muslims as a special kind of evil to the point of declaring that they must be erradicated, and justifying all sorts of moral atrocities from the petty and pointless to the massive and brutally evil, you are denying the reality of islamic terrorism. Either or, nothing in between.
Any thoughts to the idea that SH targets Islam in a large part at least because so many people are afraid to do so and the fact that they seem to get the most news coverage as of late?
I see him as a relatively equal despiser of all religions that people do vile things in the name of.
Harris’ central argument is both factually wrong and morally ridiculous and it’s nit picking to point that out? If he were capable of rational thought he’d make a fact based argument. And if inciting violence against an overwhelmingly innocent (most of the 1.2 billion Muslims out there AREN’T suicide bombers) and less powerful group isn’t indecent, I don’t know what is.
Again, you literally never made any argument that demonstrated that suicide bombing was in any way less moral or worse than any other form of bombing or any other method of massacring. And you are moving the goalposts with remarkable speed. First it was “no one but Muslims” then it was “no one but Muslims in the past 50 years” now it’s “mostly Muslims in the past 100 years”? What’s your evidence? At least find a source that documents the number of attacks of various sorts in the past 100 years before making this claim.
I think it’s much simpler than that. He’s an atheist neocon. Same thoughts as your average neocon on the matter, but couched in ~resoned arguments~ rather than christian dominionism.
Also, no, still holding that no one that’s pro-torture and racial profiling can qualify as a decent human being.
Sure. I mean, it’s so hard to find anybody criticising Islam these days… I might have gone for a whole hour one day last week without seeing anybody criticising Islam. There have probably only been a few hundred books on the topic in the last six months, and blog posts and op-eds criticising Islam are only produced at the rate of a few thousand per week.
This is a valid point.
I spend almost all my time in Germany and the US. Therefore, I worry mostly about right wing terrorists, at least in terms of threats to myself. If I lived in Indonesia or Iraq I might think differently, but the overwhelming risk in the EU and US is right wing terrorists.
Vice@125: in French, suicide bombers in any style are called “kamikazes”
DYAC. “Vivek@125” is what I typed.
I’m in the UK (specifically Scotland), and I don’t worry about terrorists at all. I probably have less danger of being involved in a terrorist attach than I do of being struck by lightning. I worry about bad drivers.
Shark attacks are more likely than frog attacks, but I don’t live my life in fear of either.
Argh. Vivec@125. damnyoubraincorrect.
@dianne it is nit picking, the vast vast majority of suicide attacks are carried out by islamic terrorists. I can’t believe anyone would even argue this. And I don’t think you can claim the whole of Europe as being at more risk of right wing terrorists. Do you have any evidence to back that up? That doesn’t sound right.
@172
Well, in that case, let me define my terms. Kamikaze as in Japanese suicide pilot used during WWII.
Either way, you could make up an analogous statement pretty easy, like my one about walruses.
fal1, #164
Depends where you live.
I’m in the States, and the only terrorists which concern me are the homegrown variety, of which, there are too fucking many. Outside of that, oh, killer cops and every other asshole in the U.S. wandering about with a gun? Yeah, that’s worrying.
@177
I can’t speak for Europe, but in the US, islamic terrorism doesn’t make up an overwhelming amount of terrorist attacks. Granted, 9/11 was unusually successful, but there’s nothing about its success that depends on Islam to achieve. A new Kaczynski could do the same and get similar results. If you discount 9/11, the total amount of deaths is comparable.
Also, still feeling to see why controlling for suicide bombings is a useful metric. Every country does terrible things to each other, and if you’re going to pick out one, you have to justify it.
As I said above, if I look at the list of all animals and control for “blubbery, tusked sea-mammal”, I’ll end up with nothing but walruses. That alone does not make walruses particularly notable.
1. So what?
2. What is your evidence for this? I asked you this once before and you ignored the question so I’m guessing that you have no data.
fal1, #177
What do you think that shows? What’s your conclusion from that observation?
I wonder if PZ’s original correspondent is sad that this thread now less about Sam Harris and more about fal1.
unless…
Chigau @ 185:
Nah. Letter writer is all appeal to emotion. Fal1 seems to be under the impression that they have The Great Point of Rational Argument.
Caine #186
That could just means they are clever.
Fiendishly clever.
Chigau @ 187:
A Harrisite, clever?
Caine #188
Maybe they’re PennyL doing a bait and switch.
Chigau:
*Snort* … aw, fuck.
You know what else is unique to Islam?
Believing that there’s no gob but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet! This proves, well, I don’t know what exactly, but it certainly proves something.
Jeez. Just because some tactic is currently predominantly employed by one group neither means that it is an inherent property of that group nor does it mean that we should pay attention to this and this only while ignoring and even justifying other acts of violence.
Tell me, fal1, why is killing 10 people or 20 people while simultaneously killing yourself worse or uniquely worrisome while killing 20 people while safely sitting a few thousand kilometres away is apparently ok?
Giliell:
Well, um…well, someone who commits suicide is committed, and commitment is seriously fucking scary, everyone knows that! And killing people while staying safe to kill even more another day, well, that’s just common sense!
dianne, #160:
Yep. Here’s wiki on the subject:
It’s not really that different from the RCC, except for the typical Protestant idea that you’re not supposed to pray to them. The stated reason here isn’t that it’s idolatrous, but that prayer is for redemption. That just seems to suggest that it wouldn’t work to pray to a saint, not that it would be wrong to do so. So their prohibition of it is about more than that.
Well, see above, I guess: there are only 365 days in a year, and if all (Lutheran? “True”?) Christians are technically saints, there has to be a lot of sharing. But of course, they’re not all officially recognized as such on the calendar. Anyway, if they both shared a birthday, or it happened to be the case that they both did something special on the same day, that would seem a little more fair. Probably, they just don’t think it’s important to dedicate that much time to both of them separately. They have obscure white saintly dudes to think about.
——
Grumpy Santa:
Who? Those “so many people are afraid” to “target Islam” (whatever that means… with bombs or words or whatever) — who are they?
But before you try to conjure up an answer, step back and examine your reasoning:
(1) not many people “target” Islam, as they are afraid to do so, which is why Harris does it.
(2) lots of people “target” Islam, as it gets the most news coverage, which is also why Harris does it.
It could be either or both, or literally any state of affairs whatsoever, and according to this bit of apologetics, that explains and/or justifies Harris’ behavior. How am I supposed to make sense of that? If it’s completely undetermined by the facts, how could that be a cause of his behavior? How could it be a reason why he’s right to behave that way?
If you’re not sure about either, because you’re just searching for any answers that don’t amount to “Harris is a bigot,” why not split it into two alternative questions, about two separate and internally coherent possibilities, if you understand what’s inconsistent about this? You’d still be loading in your dubious assumptions that a large part isn’t due to Harris’ bigotry, but at least you’d be asking something that somebody could try to answer.
Glod damn, it irks me to see rationalists resort to deepities. Sure, jihadism is unique to Islam. Just like omerta is unique to the mafia. The fact that other groups have other words to refer to the exact same concept? Eh…. But yeah, definitely, you’re not gonna find a Christian jihadist! Well done. You’ve won the semantics round of the argument. Shame about the rest of it.
Interestingly enough, I generally find myself being more worried about the MRA style terrorism than Islamic terrorism. Entirely coincidentally and completely off topic; does anyone want to take bets on which of those groups I spend more of my “worrying about the badguys” time focussing on?
@ fal1 re suicide bombing:
If terrorists had an air force and drones and ships that could fire missiles from the sea, that’s what they’d be using. Would they be better people then?
No, see, then it’d be suicide bombing by proxy.
The only point I made about suicide bombing was in regards to a discussion with dianne and her disgust at sam harris saying suicide bombing was unique to islamic terrorists, my only point was that as it currently stands that is hardly an outrageous comment (at least to me). That’s all I said about it.
Sure, it’s not an outrageous comment, it’s an outright false comment, which we already demonstrated. You have to add a lot of qualifiers before you can single out islamic suicide bombings.
fal1, what is your point? All I see is a vain attempt to justify your own paranoid Islamophobia.
Those of us who don’t get paranoid, don’t fall into the SH’s illogical traps, and laugh at them.
@ fal1 # 197
I don’t really see the point of targeting one specific method of murdering people to the exclusion of others, even Islamic terrorists were the only people who used that method (which has already been shown as false).
fal1
The fucking point is the fucking framing. Harris frames Islam and muslims as uniquely violent and dangerous. It’s the dog that didn’t bark and the dog that wagged its tail at the same time. And of course, saying it was unique to islamic terrorists is not outrageous bit plain wrong, as demonstrated.
To all the anti-Muslims here (and everyone else, actually), pretty please with sugar on it do yourselves a favor and go listen to Pour Down Like Silver, the 1975 album by Richard and Linda Thompson. Dont be put off by the cover photos that show Richard wearing a turban and Linda a headscarf. The album is indeed inspired by their religious faith as converts to Islam but they keep their sense of humor. The words are often spiritual but not necessarily religious. (“Dance until your feet don’t touch the ground” is in fact Sufi but feel free to think disco.) The music is wonderful.
My point is simply that it’s lovely. And human. And deeply cross-cultural, which I think is great. I don’t share the faith but I share the feelings. Enjoy!
And, as I have repeatedly pointed out, it is a point that is both wrong and inane. Muslims are not the only group to ever or even currently use suicide attacks and if they were that would be of practically no importance to anyone’s assessment of the relative danger of Islam versus any other religion. Harris uses the supposed fact (again, false) of Islam’s “unique” use of suicide bombings to claim that Islam is somehow worse than Christianity and justify his proposed prejudicial laws. This is outrageous behavior. I find it hard to believe that any reasonable person would think otherwise, but, given Harris’ popularity, I guess some people do hold such beliefs. I wonder if perhaps atheism makes one uniquely prone to believing Harris’ logical fallacies. Hmm…might be time to limit the number of atheist immigrants to the US lest we end up with a bunch of right wing crazies, huh?
Athywren:
Well, you see, a crusade isn’t at all like a jihad, oh no. They have nothing in common whatsoever. Nope.
Contains sarcasm, read at your own risk.
Isn’t “jihad” more or less “holy war” in Arabic? So that’s like saying that Germany is uniquely evil because no other country declares “Krieg”. (Well, except Austria, but they’re also uniquely evil. And Switzerland, but we’ve never heard of them and, um, the point is that most Kriege in the past 100 years have been declared by Germany and isn’t that enough to let you know how unique their behavior is?
Technically, a closer translation would be “righteous struggle”. The term “jihad” can be applied to charitable or social struggles, such as to improve literacy or reduce child mortality. AFAIK, this was the most common sense in which it was used from around the 16th century up until it began to be used in the sense of “holy war” again by the (CIA-backed) mujahideen in the Afghan-Soviet War.
So when Fal said that only Islam had a concept of jihad they were really saying that only Islam had a concept of struggling for righteousness? I feel a bit insulted.
I will stop saying negative things about Sam Harris when they stop being true.
No, you could have ended up with narwhals. That proves walruses are uniquely evil or something?
Harrisites are afwaid of dem eeebil Islamic values becos they are sooo unlike the western Christian values that they desperately cling to despite having agreed there’s no God.
this discussion illustrates for me the nature of prejudice and bigotry.
When confronted by reason and a more objective look at reality it reveals itself to be profoundly irrational and deliberately ignorant. the proponents hold to their “beliefs” like a scared child will hold on to their teddy bear. If they were not big enough to cause real harm (and do cause real harm) they could be easily pitied and reassured.
it seems pretty clear that reason has a some what limited effect on it or those who suffer from it.
uncle frogy
I’m on Concordia University campus, a few blocks from Dawson College, just on the other side of the mountain from École Polytechnique. You could argue I’m about equally at risk from a mentally ill professor with a gun or a conspiracy theorist with a gun or a misogynist with a gun.
Islamic terrorists supposedly discussed blowing up a fuel tanker in town but didn’t actually do it. I’m super-skeptical of the whole thing, given how often the FBI and CSIS groom unhappy young muslim men into would-be terrorists only to arrest them, but who knows.
So, pretty much exactly the same as “crusade”, then.
Seems more like a “war” like the “war on poverty” or the “war on drugs.”
Ah, shit, I always forget Narwals.
The Wikipedia page on Palestinian suicide attacks lists 171 attacks, cumulative from 1989 through 2015. That’s barely more than the number of attacks carried out by the Tamil Tigers from 1980-2000, as cited earlier. That strikes me as a sensible unit of comparison.
It’s true that there are multiple conflicts among and within majority-Islamic nations where suicide bombing is going on. But it’s been observed by people with more clues than me that the overwhelming majority of suicide attacks are made against the forces and people of an occupying nation – fundamentally nationalist, expressed in whatever philosophical or religious terms are handy. (The Tamil Tigers, for instance, were hardcore Marxists.) And if you look at why those conflicts are going on, you find a lot of outside powers’ interference, often going back decades. Many of these are not the fault or choice of the occupied and subjugated people, any more than than enslaved African-Americans were somehow responsible for the American Civil War.
People always do forget about Narwhals.
Until it’s too late.
@fal1 #164 “I am more worried about islamic terrorists than any other” And I am most worried about the bigots with the biggest influence. Like in my country: Wilders; and in the US: Trump, if he gets elected; and most of all the stupid and shortsighted people who support them. In the western world, the impact of Islamic terrorist attacks on everyday life is next to zero, but Trump and Wilders and their supporters make life unbearable for many.
Yes exactly like those very recent crusades. Can someone please explain to me how I am incorrect in saying that Islam is unique in its concept of Jihad (holy war) and Martyrdom. Using the same definition please, not simply that because Christians call someone who is killed for following jesus, that is completely different.
fal1 #218
Have you been drinking?
Crusade and Jihad are not even close to the same thing. Plus one of them was hundreds of years ago.
That’s a Yes, then.
@220: First, you’re right. “Crusade” has an unambiguous implication of an actual war involving killing people, whereas “jihad”, as has been pointed out, simply means “righteous struggle” and can (and frequently does) mean things like fighting poverty or crime or inequality. Note that English, at least, has no word for “righteous struggle” so I think we’re going to have to give the morality point, if there is one, to Islam on this one.
Second, you really don’t follow current events or I should say recent history much, do you? George Bush described his invasion of Iraq as a crusade. Note that the US military also has a weapon called a “crusader” and that there is what is described as a “crusader culture” within the US military, so it isn’t just “one nut” saying that it’s a crusade. (Not that Bush could be described as “one nut” since he was the duly, if ambiguously, elected representative of the US people.)
profoundly irrational and deliberately ignorant. the proponents hold to their “beliefs” like a scared child will hold on to their teddy bear
like I said above. words and languages I know are complex things and have varying shades of meaning in context and by those using them at the time.
Many ways to translate them form one language to the next. Fal1 you said Crusade was used a long time ago, you were thinking of something like King Richard the Lion hearted to be a crusade (jihad) to free the holy land while I was reminded of “the Campus Crusade For Christ”
the world just ain’t a simple as you would have it
uncle frogy
I’ve already said I see them as different (Crusades and Jihad), so why on earth would I care what Bush called his illegal war?! Where in Christianity is the concept of Martyrdom?! It isn’t there, not in the same sense it is in Islam. I didn’t say whether that makes it better or worse, I said its different and it explains the behaviour of suicide bombers and explains why it is (mostly unique) to Islam in present days. Then came the army of commenters screaming islamophobia….typical.
I didnt say the word Crusade was used a long time ago, I said the crusades were a long time ago. This is a pointless argument, lets just agree to disagree. It is painfully obvious to me (and fortunately most rational people) that the behaviour of muslim terrorists can be explained by the concepts of jihad and martyrdom in islamic ideology, which are unique to islam. I don’t see whats so offensive about saying that.
Good grief but the Islamaphobes are dull thinkers.
What stupid person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs
Easily refuted bullshit. Now, time to take your paranoia elsewhere.
That’s a completely different definition of the word martyr and you know it- plus I explained why in #218. Christians call anyone who died because they follow Jesus a martyr.
*nods*
*siiiiigh*
Not offensive, just wrong. Well, no, because they’re specifically islamic jihad and islamic martyrdom, coming from islamic ideology and all… but as concepts, they’re far from unique. As has been pointed out previously.
Also:
Except that one war that Bush called a crusade, that one… well, I’m not sure if that one’s actually over, despite being Mission Accomplished. Though I suppose it depends on what ‘a long time ago’ means on your relative scale of time.
dianne
It can also mean “doing your best in school”. “Jihad” is a very broad concept and “horribly killing people who do not follow our fringe position on Islam” is simply not the whole of it and obviously not the one most muslims hold valid as they tend to be the majority of its victims.
Giliell, #191
Because of othering probably.
@fal1
The thing is, as far as the things you’re saying about the uniqueness of Islamic terrorism are true, they’re pretty trivial and not worth making the centre of an argument, and as far as they’re meaningful and worth making the centre of an argument, they’re not true.
Of course the ideas of “Manifest Destiny” and “God’s own country” have never, do currently not and will never play any role in USA domestic and foreign policy…
Saad
Next you know somebody will write an email and demand we stop about drone pilots killing people, including grannies tending goats and kids on their way to school lest the children of those drone pilots will read about it on the internet…
I feel like the fear-mongering and portrayal of Muslim mass killers as somehow being in a different category of scary than non-Muslim western/white mass killers is the same phenomenon as the fear-mongering and portrayal of a POC rapist somehow being scarier than a white rapist and being some sort of existential threat to the peace of white society.
It seems like just the non-sexual version of the same thing. And Sam Harris and his types peddle the narrative continuously without even realizing what a horrible tradition they’re taking part in. Or maybe they do realize it.
Nope! Otherwise there would be too many martyrs to make it worth compiling a list.
That’s lutherans you’re thinking of, as clarified above what with Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth having their own saints’ day. Sure, they’re a very specific type of christian, so I suppose your definition holds. But what about us (lapsed) catholics? Martyrs were those who underwent some particular (painful) trial or ordeal – preferably voluntarily – at the hands of unbelievers to prove their own true faith. It was preferable that women were virgins, though I don’t know if this was a hard-and-fast rule, but certainly sounds like an ordeal to me, esp. if in the name of Jesus. While many martyrs didn’t necessarily take many others with them in the form of bombings, I think the persecutions carried out by Thomas More certainly count as mass murders in the name of fanaticism. The christian kind, this time.
Sorry paranoid Islamophobic bigot, it is accurate. Unlike what you claim….
The words of paranoid bigots are subject to extreme skepticism….
Drop the paranoia about Islam. It makes both you and SH look like scared unthinking idjits.
@rq 228 OK, last comment then I’ll go because this is a waste of time (cannot believe how much you guys keep misunderstanding and misquoting me- joke!).
OK so people are disagreeing that, what, other ideologies have used their own concepts of Jihad and Martydom? I never denied that, its obvious that other religions have their own ideologies. As you pointed out, islamic jihad and islamic martydom are unique to islam and lead to the behaviours we are seeing today. That’s literally all I said. I would also add that the reason we are seeing it in action today is because of Bush and Co’s illegal war (or crusade).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_martyrs
I’ve already said that I see you and a narwahl as the same and therefore you are a sea mammal.
What? It makes exactly as much sense as what you just said. You can see them as different all you want, but that won’t make it so.
fal1, still not making any progress in persuading us that we should also be paranoid about Islam. We won’t share in your delusions. You may as well try elsewhere with your bullshit.
Holy tautology, batman!
fal1, you don’t seem to get …
argh
Look, we agree that islam is full of crap. Just as full of crap as xtianity or any other religion; they’re all chokka with lies and nonsense and excuses for misogyny and racism (along with some perfectly anodyne or even decent bits and pieces as well, like the golden rule which is in most of ’em somewhere simply because it gets everywhere for obvious reasons). But most of the world’s muslims, just like most of the world’s xtians, are ordinary, fallible, widely varying people who would quite like to get on with their lives in peace.
When you buy into the right-wing extremist xenophobia promulgated by Wilders and Harris and the EDL or the BNP, all you are doing is playing right into the hands of shit like Daesh by alienating ordinary citizens from each other more and more.
We need – I mean, whether as nations or as individuals – to work to do away with with terrorism without othering a billion or so people and confirming what Daesh tells them about us – that we “hate them all indiscriminately”. Because bravo, Harris et al, that is what Daesh wants us to do – it does such a good job of encouraging recruitment for them.
Christian martyrs? Sure. John Birch, in the mythology of the John Birch Society:
The KKK has rosters of martyrs to its cause, too.
@opposablethumbs #242 I don’t disagree with anything you wrote there. I already said I disagree with a lot of what SH says.
People just love any opportunity to throw around the word bigot and islamophobia
Saad
Yeah, I mean people are trying really hard to get us anti racist feminists to admit that refugees commit sexual violence, harassment and hold misogynist attitudes. What I hear is “let us act as if those things weren’t widespread around the globe and as if such attitudes and actions were rare and not at all common in mainstream society.”
I lost a comment there, but basically Dunc covered it in 241. Mine was longer, but I doubt wordcount is a good way to judge the quality or explanatory power of a comment.
Hey, fal1, why are you still wasting your time here? As per your 237:
It describes you and your delusions. Nobody will join you in your paranoid and irrational delusions. Quit wasting your time trying, as they can’t be rationally justified. We know better, you don’t.
Giliell
Which is funny (in a painful kind of way) because I don’t see any anti-racist feminists denying this, but the only part these people seem to hear is the ‘but this is not significantly different from the fact that men in white European society also commit sexual violence, harassment and hold misogynist attitudes’. Like the second part totally means that we mean to say that only white men do it, too, and the agreement also expressed can safely be ignored.
Dunc, #241
I had overlooked that post. That’s hilarious.
You must admit, that the logical fallacies that fal commits are uniquely fal logical fallacies. It’s true that other posters have been known to commit logical fallacies and I don’t deny that, but you must admit that fal logical fallacies are unique to fal. But surely you won’t throw around claims of falaphobia just because I pointed this fact out, would you?
dianne
It’s true that other commenters may commit logical fallacies, but they’re not fal logical fallacies, so I would agree that fal logical fallacies are uniquely unique to fal, therefore these logical fallacies, by virtue of being unique fal logical fallacies, are especially egregious. All others can now safely be ignored or explained away as simply ordinary, non-unique logical fallacies.
Then why harp on about islam somehow being unique? The “unique” things you mention are irrelevant; yes of course you can say it’s in a unique situation right now this minute but that’s meaningless – everything, every snowflake, is unique; details about islam might be important if you were planning a specific lecture or leaflet or refugee rescue campaign, but they are a distraction that gets in the way when what’s at issue is racism, xenophobia and alienation. Elevating islam into a unique bogeyman doesn’t help us combat terrorism; it makes the situation worse by encouraging the scum in the EDL who want to beat up anyone who looks like a target to them (such as sikhs).
All of which makes it harder to criticise islam because the bloody islamophobic bigots in the EDL etc. are drowning out everybody else’s voices – which in turn is making it possible for islamic idiots to accuse Maryam Namazie, of all people, of islamophobia! When she does things like e.g. raise legitimate issues like misogyny, which is evil no matter who is perpetrating it. If we want to combat Daesh, we should be supporting muslim feminists, supporting calls for a cessation of bombing and for political negotiations, and demanding our government distance themselves from Saudi Arabia (not that they ever will, there’s too much money at stake for the rich).
(gads I’m slow off the keys. Just realised it might look as if I’m somehow implying Namazie is religious; nope.)
People just love any opportunity to throw around bigotry and islamophobia
FTFY
About crusade, it’s used in a much wider sense than holy war. There’s an example in the top post on the front page:
noun
1. (often capital) any of the military expeditions undertaken in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries by the Christian powers of Europe to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims
2. (formerly) any holy war undertaken on behalf of a religious cause
3. a vigorous and dedicated action or movement in favour of a cause
verb (intransitive)
4. to campaign vigorously for something
5.to go on a crusade
Much like people just love to throw around the word terrorist. Or jihad. Or suicide bomber. Or unique. Or logic. Or fallacy.
It is obvious that they just like to throw those words out there but don’t actually believe they really mean anything!
Just thought maybe that this “open” letter was just trollin.
“Imaging someone who is considering the notion of god and reads Sam Harris and thinks, ‘yes this makes sense, I no longer believe’. Now imagine that this person has major influence in society. Imagine that maybe this person becomes president. Imagine the good they could do.”
Good thing all the future movers and shakers are white males with no connection to Islam or the Middle East, huh?