Affleck is just showing that he has insufficient intellect to understand a conditional. Harris isn't saying that muslims are evil; he's saying that if - if - one is to blame Christianity as a religion for its failings, one should also blame Islam as a religion for its failings. By failing to listen before he speaks, Affleck essentially ends up arguing for the position that it's okay to criticize Christianity, but Islam is sacrosanct, which is completely irrational.

To be fair, although Affleck is pretty emotional and irrational the other two guys "on his side" seemed a tad more capable.

Thommo wrote:I'm not sure any of that really matters, whether or not Islam is the "root cause", or if there even is such a thing regarding such broad conceptions of behaviour the fact remains that it spreads and endorses particularly heinous murders in a way totally unlike any other religion or ideology that I am aware of. I think it's going beyond scepticism not to acknowledge that.

I'm sure you're right that many other ideologies could be producing similar results and if they were I think we'd be justified in criticism of those ideologies as well.

My point was that surveys about attitudes towards women or criticism of the predominant ideology are likely to yield similar results in plenty of countries throughout the world, and are therefore not necessarily evidence that the majority of Muslims in the majority of countries are extremists or religious fundamentalists. Not to mention the number of people who answer, even in an anonymous survey, the way they think they should answer.

jaroge wrote:As for westerners thinking it's ok to kill a woman who cheats on them.... Even if it were true that that number is as high, the real problem is how the rest of the society condones it.

Not OK, understandable. It's a key difference. Do the rest of these Muslim societies really condone it? As far as I'm aware, there's not a single Muslim-majority country where honour killings are legal even when the actions of the victim prior to the killing are a crime in the country itself. There might be some fucked up tribe in some backwater area of Pakistan where it's the case and the community will help cover it up, but generally, I don't think you're let off lightly if you commit an honour killing even in the strictest of Muslim regimes.

Warren Dew wrote:Affleck is just showing that he has insufficient intellect to understand a conditional. Harris isn't saying that muslims are evil; he's saying that if - if - one is to blame Christianity as a religion for its failings, one should also blame Islam as a religion for its failings. By failing to listen before he speaks, Affleck essentially ends up arguing for the position that it's okay to criticize Christianity, but Islam is sacrosanct, which is completely irrational.

Yeah, he comes across as a twat. I can barely hear Sam Harris for interruptions. It takes him the entire interview just to finish his original point, because every time he gets about half way through, Affleck interrupts him with the pre-formed opinion that he's some sort of racist. Which is a perfect demonstration of the problem they're talking about.

On the other hand, in another interview with Reza Aslan on the issue of IS, he makes a very valid point about how to deal with them. He claims that for them, this is a war of cosmic significance, so anything we can do to play down that aspect of it would be a good thing. As soon as we start also talking about Good vs. Evil or Islam vs. Freedom, that plays right into their hands. For political reasons, it might be a good thing to play down the Islamic aspects of their ideology, and instead talk about genocide, particularly when Muslims are the chief victims of said genocide, and also the main people we're reaching out to to do most of the fighting, it'd probably not be a great idea to talk about Islam being the problem from a purely political POV.

Here's his views on IS, btw.

Thommo wrote:To be fair, although Affleck is pretty emotional and irrational the other two guys "on his side" seemed a tad more capable.

They aren't on his side, though. Nicholas Kristof, for example, actually agrees with Harris, not with Affleck; he just argues that neither Christianity nor Islam should be blamed as a religion, rather than both of them.

I'm With Stupid wrote:As far as I'm aware, there's not a single Muslim-majority country where honour killings are legal even when the actions of the victim prior to the killing are a crime in the country itself.

In Pakistan at least, the family of the victim can waive criminal prosecution in favor of civil fines. When the perpetrator is from the same family as the victim, as is usually the case with honor killings, this essentially legalizes the practice, since the family ends up paying a fine to itself.

I'm With Stupid wrote:

quisquose wrote:There poll results do highlight a difference in views between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK, and there are similar polls for the rest of Europe.

The problem you have in the UK is that you're generally talking specifically about Pakistani Muslims. If not born in Pakistan, certainly still brought up in that culture. So it's then very difficult to separate what the religion itself is responsible for compared to what the predominant culture is responsible for. I'd be almost certain that your average Pakistani Christian would also have some views that we'd find somewhat troubling. With Christianity, you can actually do a comparison, because we have wide-scale historical immigration from Christian countries too. I'd be interested to see the difference in attitudes between white Christians and Christians from an Afro-Caribbean or African background, for example. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that you'd see far more conservative views from the latter on a whole host of issues.

You are correct. For that reason it is wrong to blame Islam, because it is no better or worse than any other religion.

It's the mixture of religion and flawed cultural ideologies that the problem. The reason why religion and deeply ideological cultural politics are so dangerous is that they make absolute truth claims but have deeply unsatisfactory procedures for deciding between competing claims. Too many people are convinced that they have a handle on absolute truth, which therefore gives them the right to bully others and intervene in their lives.

How do we address this problem?

I think we have to go to the source, and undermine the idea that anybody has a handle on absolute truth. Religious adherants might think that any kind of criticism is offensive and should be forbidden, and I call bullshit on that idea. Karen Armstrong might think that criticism of religion itself leads to radicalisation, that somehow secular society is to blame, and I call bullshit on that idea. Ben Affleck might think that it is wrong to criticise Islam because it tars all Muslims with the same brush, and I call bullshit on that idea.

If 20% of Muslims share either Jihadi or Islamist worldviews then we have a problem. It might be 0% of Indonesian Muslims, and a higher percentage of Pakistani Muslims, but it is still a problem of Identity Politics shared by people who think they have a handle on absolute truth.

quisquose wrote:You are correct. For that reason it is wrong to blame Islam, because it is no better or worse than any other religion.

That's a curious statement. I mean...wouldn't it be odd if all religions were equally "good" or "bad"? Or is it basically impossible to measure by any reasonable metric, how good or bad a religion is?

But then is this really relevant? In the time of the Inquisition I wouldn't have wanted to live in Spain. Today I'd happily live in Spain but I wouldn't want to live in Saudi. It's the zeitgeist of any particular religion that matters isn't it? We can't afford not to kick back against virulent ideas simply because an ideology could be more Sufi than Wahabi. That's not how ideologies work.

Cthulhu's Trilby wrote:

quisquose wrote:You are correct. For that reason it is wrong to blame Islam, because it is no better or worse than any other religion.

That's a curious statement. I mean...wouldn't it be odd if all religions were equally "good" or "bad"? Or is it basically impossible to measure by any reasonable metric, how good or bad a religion is?

But then is this really relevant? In the time of the Inquisition I wouldn't have wanted to live in Spain. Today I'd happily live in Spain but I wouldn't want to live in Saudi. It's the zeitgeist of any particular religion that matters isn't it? We can't afford not to kick back against virulent ideas simply because an ideology could be more Sufi than Wahabi. That's not how ideologies work.

Surely it's important to recognise that there are different ways of thinking and still following Islam though? Different ways of interpreting it? And since I presume we all accept that Islam isn't going anywhere soon, the best we can hope for is a Christianity-style reform of the religion, resulting in a more liberal interpretation and a quiet sweeping under the carpet of the more unpleasant aspects of it. I don't see anything intrinsic in the text of Islam that makes it an unsuitable candidate for reform. After all, Judaism is arguably a far more violent religion on paper, and yet you rarely see Jews calling for the death of rape victims or homosexuals. Blanket judgements about the religion basically state that there's no hope for reform, and certainly how the religion is practiced in many countries now is terrible, but I don't think it means there's absolutely no hope for Islam at all. Obviously I'd rather everyone in the Muslim world discarded these ideas completely, but that's simply not going to happen any time soon. Reform is more realistic, certainly in particular countries. But obviously it's a very tricky thing to deal with, because as we've seen, there are plenty of people in the region willing to use extreme violence to make things go in the opposite direction.

I'm With Stupid wrote:Surely it's important to recognise that there are different ways of thinking and still following Islam though? Different ways of interpreting it? And since I presume we all accept that Islam isn't going anywhere soon, the best we can hope for is a Christianity-style reform of the religion, resulting in a more liberal interpretation and a quiet sweeping under the carpet of the more unpleasant aspects of it. I don't see anything intrinsic in the text of Islam that makes it an unsuitable candidate for reform. After all, Judaism is arguably a far more violent religion on paper, and yet you rarely see Jews calling for the death of rape victims or homosexuals. Blanket judgements about the religion basically state that there's no hope for reform, and certainly how the religion is practiced in many countries now is terrible, but I don't think it means there's absolutely no hope for Islam at all. Obviously I'd rather everyone in the Muslim world discarded these ideas completely, but that's simply not going to happen any time soon. Reform is more realistic, certainly in particular countries. But obviously it's a very tricky thing to deal with, because as we've seen, there are plenty of people in the region willing to use extreme violence to make things go in the opposite direction.

I find nothing to disagree with in that. There's no reason why Islam can't be reformed one day. However, look at Christianity - a religion whose central figure is a man of selfless sacrifice, kindness and compassion and yet still, for centuries, his message was twisted to justify vile crimes. Indeed, I would argue that the Old Testament was the reason for that. The Old Testament with its strict codes of laws. What do we find in Islam? A central figure who is essentially a warlord and a book which is essentially a long list of laws. If I had to pick one of them to have a good outcome for humanity without knowing where we are today, it would be a no-brainer wouldn't it?

I'm With Stupid wrote:Surely it's important to recognise that there are different ways of thinking and still following Islam though? Different ways of interpreting it? And since I presume we all accept that Islam isn't going anywhere soon, the best we can hope for is a Christianity-style reform of the religion, resulting in a more liberal interpretation and a quiet sweeping under the carpet of the more unpleasant aspects of it. I don't see anything intrinsic in the text of Islam that makes it an unsuitable candidate for reform. After all, Judaism is arguably a far more violent religion on paper, and yet you rarely see Jews calling for the death of rape victims or homosexuals. Blanket judgements about the religion basically state that there's no hope for reform, and certainly how the religion is practiced in many countries now is terrible, but I don't think it means there's absolutely no hope for Islam at all. Obviously I'd rather everyone in the Muslim world discarded these ideas completely, but that's simply not going to happen any time soon. Reform is more realistic, certainly in particular countries. But obviously it's a very tricky thing to deal with, because as we've seen, there are plenty of people in the region willing to use extreme violence to make things go in the opposite direction.

Nothing to disagree with there.

But how does this reform come about? Because religious adherents want to change, or because religions operate within a society that changes?

I would suggest that it's very much the latter, and the fact that religion attempts to inoculate against criticism with blasphemy rules is evidence of that.

With this in mind I think it is totally appropriate to be critical of Islam when dealing with fanatical Muslims, just as it is appropriate to be critical of Christianity when dealing with fanatical Christians.

There were some very nice members of the Nazi party, you read about them as the ones who tried to save and shelter the Jews and Chinese. But Hitler was a cunt and the party he was a member was still a pile of bullshit, just like Mohammed and Islam.

What is it too hard to understand? The majority of Muslims do not behave like Mohammed did or follow his books to the letter, or live in nations that forbid the practice of Islam to follow its full bigotry or hate to non believers. They are Muslim lite and good for them for having a conscious, decent morels, education and ethics not found in the holy books.

Cthulhu's Trilby wrote:

quisquose wrote:You are correct. For that reason it is wrong to blame Islam, because it is no better or worse than any other religion.

That's a curious statement. I mean...wouldn't it be odd if all religions were equally "good" or "bad"? Or is it basically impossible to measure by any reasonable metric, how good or bad a religion is?

But then is this really relevant? In the time of the Inquisition I wouldn't have wanted to live in Spain. Today I'd happily live in Spain but I wouldn't want to live in Saudi. It's the zeitgeist of any particular religion that matters isn't it? We can't afford not to kick back against virulent ideas simply because an ideology could be more Sufi than Wahabi. That's not how ideologies work.

I think you have to look at the underlying message of that religion.

In Islam it is, the ultimate good and peace in the world is for everyone to be Muslim or submit to Muslim rule. (ok Christianity can be argued to be the same in that but in how this is achieved Islam now differs). It is totally Machiavellian, you know the goal, the end, Mohammed now teaches his followers any and all means are permitted to get there. You may lie, cheat, steal, murder, enslave, beg, hide, cower, pretend friendship, do absolutely anything and everything as long as all become part of Islam. Which is exactly how Mohammed lived his life, as did his later followers in his holy war until the bulk of its driving force died out.

The ginormous, incredibly diverse group of people that make up Muslims in no way compares to the Nazi Party. Mohammed and Islam are gross but the overwhelming majority of Muslim people and what they practice and believe Islam to be is not. The same cannot be said about the Nazi party. The majority of Nazis weren't regular, moderate individuals practicing a watered down cherry-picked version of Nazism and anti-antisemitism.

I'm With Stupid wrote:
Here's his views on IS, btw.

I've watched a couple of RT clips on ISIL, and there seems more of a dig at America rather than impartial debate and talking points going on here.

I can only suggest Putin is digging himself a hole and will find Russia in trouble when Russian born Islamic forces start attacking his country and interests for the new caliphate which I'm sure will happen.

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:The ginormous, incredibly diverse group of people that make up Muslims in no way compares to the Nazi Party. Mohammed and Islam are gross but the overwhelming majority of Muslim people and what they practice and believe Islam to be is not.

But Mohammed is the ideal for muslims isn't he? Even down to the beard. So aren't we saying that the less muslim a muslim is, the better? Whereas if Jesus' followers were more like him the world would be a better place?

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:The ginormous, incredibly diverse group of people that make up Muslims in no way compares to the Nazi Party. Mohammed and Islam are gross but the overwhelming majority of Muslim people and what they practice and believe Islam to be is not. The same cannot be said about the Nazi party. The majority of Nazis weren't regular, moderate individuals practicing a watered down cherry-picked version of Nazism and anti-antisemitism.

Sorry, you missed my point so I'll word it differently.

The books are the same, bad books, bad teachings. The leaders the same, nasty men willing to have people died for their new world order. The propaganda of the man the exact same, the spiritual and infallible leader who can do no wrong.

There is no Muslim I have yet met and debated on the www with who say the Quran is not the ultimate book to follow, the only argument you might get is regarding the Hadith which many Muslims will happily throw under the bus as not always strictly the words of Mohammed. Mohammed also has a god like status, he can do no wrong, never be wrong, never say anything incorrect, everyone should be the perfect Muslim like Mohammed was.

That above paragraph is believed by the most peaceful and gentlest Muslim to the most fanatic ones who would chop off your head. It can't take much to flip one to the other, after all Mohammed did it and invaded North Africa to Southern Europe, to India and beyond by military conquests not by isn't Islam a nice friendly message like Christianity (pre Spanish and the New World division Spain formally the European front line against Islam I might add so learn a few tricks on conversions by them I bet).

I'm With Stupid wrote:

jaroge wrote:As for westerners thinking it's ok to kill a woman who cheats on them.... Even if it were true that that number is as high, the real problem is how the rest of the society condones it.

Not OK, understandable. It's a key difference. Do the rest of these Muslim societies really condone it? As far as I'm aware, there's not a single Muslim-majority country where honour killings are legal even when the actions of the victim prior to the killing are a crime in the country itself. There might be some fucked up tribe in some backwater area of Pakistan where it's the case and the community will help cover it up, but generally, I don't think you're let off lightly if you commit an honour killing even in the strictest of Muslim regimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_kill ... egal_codes

The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honour defense in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defense in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Peru, Syria, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority.[62]

Though to be fair, I am not sure that the "honour killing" in those cases overlaps directly with what we would ordinarily think of as an honour killing, but given you were willing to widen the scope somewhat you may find it relevant.

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Mohammed and Islam are gross but the overwhelming majority of Muslim people and what they practice and believe Islam to be is not.

If you find women not having the freedom to choose how to dress gross, then this is wrong.
If you find women not having the freedom to disobey her husband gross, then this is wrong.
If you think women not being allowed to get a divorce is gross, then this is arguably wrong.
If you think daughters not having equal inheritance rights is gross, then this is wrong.

I could go on like that for a long time.

The value judgements I can't speak for except for myself - there is a list as long as my arm (provided already) of things that not just a significant minority but an actual majority of muslims believe, that are gross. Harris's point is that there are people who would lose their shit over North Americans supporting this stuff but will happily give muslims a free pass even though this is what the majority view is, a far cry from being an overwhelming minority.