The root of all evil

[NJS 4386]

I accept what you say about Germany but taking the UK quite a large number of people still call themselves "christians" but only ever attend funerals and weddings etc. I think if you counted church attendees or members as Isegrim put it then a clearer picture emeges. Obviously I'm not saying that church attendance is a pre-requisite of faith but I think its a pretty fair indicator.

 

Perhaps my "hope" that these countries are less religious than sometimes stated is overestimated but in comparison to bastions of religiosity like South America, the muslim world in general and the US I think saying those countries lean towards agnosticism isn't that much of a push. They are certainly less religious to a fair degree.

 

I'd love the UK to have the separation of church and state as established in the US but with a lot stronger adherence especially on things like charitable status. Unfortunately a lot of our problems in this area when it comes to constitution are wrapped up in the bloody royal family as well - another thing I abhor

[Isegrim 9775]

I accept what you say about Germany but taking the UK quite a large number of people still call themselves "christians" but only ever attend funerals and weddings etc. I think if you counted church attendees or members as Isegrim put it then a clearer picture emeges. Obviously I'm not saying that church attendance is a pre-requisite of faith but I think its a pretty fair indicator.

IMHO that is rather down to the fact that thanks to the modern welfare state (developed on the foundation of Christian principles btw) most people don't face existential questions in everyday life. A lot of people just don't feel the urge to deal with religion in these circumstances. Normally this changes when people are challenged by unsual situations (illness, death etc.) and starting to ask themselves metaphysical questions. Then a lot people suddenly come back to religion in its different forms. As long as this is the rule I would no society call agnostic.

[Papa Lazaru 0]

I accept what you say about Germany but taking the UK quite a large number of people still call themselves "christians" but only ever attend funerals and weddings etc. I think if you counted church attendees or members as Isegrim put it then a clearer picture emeges. Obviously I'm not saying that church attendance is a pre-requisite of faith but I think its a pretty fair indicator.

 

I think the figures on people being religious will be massively wrong as you say. Many people will be classed as/registered as a religion from when they were bprn, but have no interest in or belief in it as an adult. I mean me, my parents and most of my friends are all christened and would be classed as protestants or catholics yet are all either staunch atheists or agnostics.

 

As you said, alot of people will use churches for weddings and funerals and never set foot in one for any other reason, nor take part in any other aspect of the religion. Theres nothing wrong with this at all, but it does affect the figures of who are christians in this country!

Personally i would refuse to use a church for my wedding as it would make me a massive hypocrite and i'd be taking advantage of their facilities, time and effort when i don't think i should given my beliefs and feelings.

[Renton 21626]

I accept what you say about Germany but taking the UK quite a large number of people still call themselves "christians" but only ever attend funerals and weddings etc. I think if you counted church attendees or members as Isegrim put it then a clearer picture emeges. Obviously I'm not saying that church attendance is a pre-requisite of faith but I think its a pretty fair indicator.

IMHO that is rather down to the fact that thanks to the modern welfare state (developed on the foundation of Christian principles btw) most people don't face existential questions in everyday life. A lot of people just don't feel the urge to deal with religion in these circumstances. Normally this changes when people are challenged by unsual situations (illness, death etc.) and starting to ask themselves metaphysical questions. Then a lot people suddenly come back to religion in its different forms. As long as this is the rule I would no society call agnostic.

 

How was the modern welfare state founded on Christian principles, and which ones were they, the "nice" cherry picked ones? I've always associated christianity with conservatism and charity, and the welfare state with socialism, which I think tends to be more humanitarian and agnostic in nature.

 

Also a lot of people actually lose faith when they are ill or a loved one dies, as they see how cruel and random life can be. Those that don't are no doubt trying to comfort themselves with the thought that they or their loved ones will live for eternity in paradise. Of course, if they really want to follow the Bible, they should also consider they may end up being tortured for eternity, but that isn't very fashionable these days.....

[NJS 4386]

Socialism not christianity founded the welfare state - even if it was originally the Liberal party that laid the groundwork.

 

That great bastion of christianity, the tory party, never lifted a begrudging finger unless it was the hypocrisy of charity.

 

When people are scared it can give them comfort to embrace superstition even if they've rejected it in their "real life". That does not give that suprtsistion itself any merit or truth.

[Isegrim 9775]

How was the modern welfare state founded on Christian principles, and which ones were they, the "nice" cherry picked ones? I've always associated christianity with conservatism and charity, and the welfare state with socialism, which I think tends to be more humanitarian and agnostic in nature.

Well, it's based on the idea of caritas. And in the 15th and 16th century you'll find all over Europe the spreading of the idea of "public good" as a further development of the idea of caritas which became a task for the state, e.g. especially hospitals for the poor and ill etc. (often funded by the dissolution of monasteries who were thought to be perverting the ideas of caritas and public good). The real secularisation of these services only took place about 200-300 years later. Your distinction between charity and humanitary needs some explanation to me tbh as I find it quite absurd.

 

As for the comments of "cherry picking". Isn't in the end everything a kind of "cherry picking", even in natural science? Poor ideas/theses get dropped because of new (better) interpretations/perceptions/findings (gnosis). I think that is a sort of common ground between empirical and non-empirical sciences.

Edited January 7, 2007 by Isegrim

[NJS 4386]

Your distinction between charity and humanitary needs some explanation to me tbh as I find it quite absurd.

 

I see charity as crumbs from the table to salve the consience of the well off rather than an attempt to change.

 

I see the wefare state/socialism as a more fundamental recognition of human brotherhood and an attempt to make a real difference (though I know its idealistic and usually impractical).

[Isegrim 9775]

Your distinction between charity and humanitary needs some explanation to me tbh as I find it quite absurd.

 

I see charity as crumbs from the table to salve the consience of the well off rather than an attempt to change.

 

I see the wefare state/socialism as a more fundamental recognition of human brotherhood and an attempt to make a real difference (though I know its idealistic and usually impractical).

Yes, but even the socialistic ideas just didn't spread from the ground, but are the result of a continuous process. Of course you have at first the catholic ideas of doing good works for the benefit of your afterlife. Then you get the protestant reformation telling people that they will get salvation regardless of their actions in life on earth, which doesn't mean they dropped the idea of caritas in the form of responsibility, but it was the (absolutistic) monarch who was responsible for it. The next step is the state as form of a community taking over and getting the responsibility. When you take Marx and Engels (and especially the latter as a strong religious past) for example, they didn't just came up with something totally new but just were trying to further develop existing ideas to better the current state. It's only their whole concept as a sum of several already known ideas and concepts that is revolutionary.

[NJS 4386]

Your distinction between charity and humanitary needs some explanation to me tbh as I find it quite absurd.

 

I see charity as crumbs from the table to salve the consience of the well off rather than an attempt to change.

 

I see the wefare state/socialism as a more fundamental recognition of human brotherhood and an attempt to make a real difference (though I know its idealistic and usually impractical).

Yes, but even the socialistic ideas just didn't spread from the ground, but are the result of a continuous process. Of course you have at first the catholic ideas of doing good works for the benefit of your afterlife. Then you get the protestant reformation telling people that they will get salvation regardless of their actions in life on earth, which doesn't mean they dropped the idea of caritas in the form of responsibility, but it was the (absolutistic) monarch who was responsible for it. The next step is the state as form of a community taking over and getting the responsibility. When you take Marx and Engels (and especially the latter as a strong religious past) for example, they didn't just came up with something totally new but just were trying to further develop existing ideas to better the current state. It's only their whole concept as a sum of several already known ideas and concepts that is revolutionary.

 

That makes sense but then I'd go back to questioning the motivation. If someone does "good works" with the promise of heaven that to me isn't as good as doing them just out of a sense of inherent "goodness" that I've been talking about. Thats why I mentioned the "brotherhood of humanity" as a concept.

 

Okay the end result is desirable but the flip side to that to me is the "Mr Hyde" of dogma which as well as the promotion of the "lies" we've mentioned in this thread of bad science also takes the form of opressive ideas such as those on homosexuality and more modern times contraception.

 

This "baggage" to the more altruistic side of religion is what I really find distateful and is why as Sam Harris says some of the more Eastern philosophies with their less dogmatic approach to life seem less "harmful" as a whole.

[Gemmill 44881]

A serious debate on Toontastic. Who would have believed it?

 

At the same time as posting leaders, Gemmil and Alex are absent, coincidence?

 

 

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

 

 

 

WoooOOOooooo! Sorry lads, I'll stay away more often so you can all impress upon one another how intelligent you are.

[Guest alex]

Jesus is gay

[Renton 21626]

Back to usual then.

[Guest alex]

Back to usual then.

Ooh, get you.

[Gemmill 44881]

Back to usual then.

 

 

 

What other books did you lads get for Christmas? Perhaps we can have another thread where you all quote from them so we know what boffins you are?

[Renton 21626]

I think Gol should lock and goldify this thread before you two do any more damage to it tbh.

[Gemmill 44881]

The gold forum? Are you having a laugh? Lock it, by all means though.

[Renton 21626]

The gold forum? Are you having a laugh? Lock it, by all means though.

 

This thread is was class. If you don't like it, clear off!

[Gemmill 44881]

The gold forum? Are you having a laugh? Lock it, by all means though.

 

This thread is was class. If you don't like it, clear off!

 

 

 

It's alright like. A bit sixth-form-common-room though.

[Renton 21626]

The gold forum? Are you having a laugh? Lock it, by all means though.

 

This thread is was class. If you don't like it, clear off!

 

 

 

It's alright like. A bit sixth-form-common-room though.

 

About time we had a serious philosophical thread, and well you know it. If this is sixth form, what the hell are the other 99% of threads that rapidly descend into juvenile name calling and sniggering?

 

[Meenzer 15530]

The gold forum? Are you having a laugh? Lock it, by all means though.

 

This thread is was class. If you don't like it, clear off!

 

 

 

It's alright like. A bit sixth-form-common-room though.

 

About time we had a serious philosophical thread, and well you know it. If this is sixth form, what the hell are the other 99% of threads that rapidly descend into juvenile name calling and sniggering?

 

Gay.

[Gemmill 44881]

Downloaded this and watched it yesterday. Very interesting, and now I'm as clever as all of you.

[Happy Face 29]

Two columns have been published in the past week harshly criticizing the so-called "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens: this one by Nathan Lean in Salon, and this one by Murtaza Hussain in Al Jazeera. The crux of those columns is that these advocates have increasingly embraced a toxic form of anti-Muslim bigotry masquerading as rational atheism. Yesterday, I posted a tweet to Hussain's article without comment except to highlight what I called a "very revealing quote" flagged by Hussain, one in which Harris opined that "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists."

 

Shortly after posting the tweet, I received an angry email from Harris, who claimed that Hussain's column was "garbage", and he eventually said the same thing about Lean's column in Salon. That then led to a somewhat lengthy email exchange with Harris in which I did not attempt to defend every claim in those columns from his attacks because I didn't make those claims: the authors of those columns can defend themselves perfectly well. If Harris had problems with what those columns claim, he should go take it up with them.

 

I do, however, absolutely agree with the general argument made in both columns that the New Atheists have flirted with and at times vigorously embraced irrational anti-Muslim animus. I repeatedly offered to post Harris' email to me and then tweet it so that anyone inclined to do so could read his response to those columns and make up their own minds. Once he requested that I do so, I posted our exchange here.

 

Harris himself then wrote about and posted our exchange on his blog, causing a couple dozen of his followers to send me emails. I also engaged in a discussion with a few Harris defenders on Facebook. What seemed to bother them most was the accusation in Hussain's column that there is "racism" in Harris' anti-Muslim advocacy. A few of Harris' defenders were rage-filled and incoherent, but the bulk of them were cogent and reasoned, so I concluded that a more developed substantive response to Harris was warranted.

 

Given that I had never written about Sam Harris, I found it odd that I had become the symbol of Harris-bashing for some of his faithful followers. Tweeting a link to an Al Jazeera column about Harris and saying I find one of his quotes revealing does not make me responsible for every claim in that column. I tweet literally thousands of columns and articles for people to read. I'm responsible for what I say, not for every sentence in every article to which I link on Twitter. The space constraints of Twitter have made this precept a basic convention of the medium: tweeting a link to a column or article or re-tweeting it does not mean you endorse all of it (or even any of it).

 

That said, what I did say in my emails with Harris - and what I unequivocally affirm again now - is not that Harris is a "racist", but rather that he and others like him spout and promote Islamophobia under the guise of rational atheism. I've long believed this to be true and am glad it is finally being dragged out into open debate. These specific atheism advocates have come to acquire significant influence, often for the good. But it is past time that the darker aspects of their worldview receive attention.

Whether Islamophobia is a form of "racism" is a semantic issue in which I'm not interested for purposes of this discussion. The vast majority of Muslims are non-white; as a result, when a white westerner becomes fixated on attacking their religion and advocating violence and aggression against them, as Harris has done, I understand why some people (such as Hussain) see racism at play: that, for reasons I recently articulated, is a rational view to me. But "racism" is not my claim here about Harris. Irrational anti-Muslim animus is.

 

Contrary to the assumptions under which some Harris defenders are laboring, the fact that someone is a scientist, an intellectual, and a convincing and valuable exponent of atheism by no means precludes irrational bigotry as a driving force in their worldview. In this case, Harris' own words, as demonstrated below, are his indictment.

 

Let's first quickly dispense with some obvious strawmen. Of course one can legitimately criticize Islam without being bigoted or racist. That's self-evident, and nobody is contesting it. And of course there are some Muslim individuals who do heinous things in the name of their religion - just like there are extremists in all religions who do awful and violent things in the name of that religion, yet receive far less attention than the bad acts of Muslims (here are some very recent examples). Yes, "honor killings" and the suppression of women by some Muslims are heinous, just as the collaboration of US and Ugandan Christians to enact laws to execute homosexuals is heinous, and just as the religious-driven, violent occupation of Palestine, attacks on gays, and suppression of women by some Israeli Jews in the name of Judaism is heinous. That some Muslims commit atrocities in the name of their religion (like some people of every religion do) is also too self-evident to merit debate, but it has nothing to do with the criticisms of Harris.

 

Nonetheless, Harris defenders such as the neoconservative David Frum want to pretend that criticisms of Harris consist of nothing more than the claim that, as Frum put it this week, "it's OK to be an atheist, so long as you omit Islam from your list of the religions to which you object." That's a wildly dishonest summary of the criticisms of Harris as well as people like Dawkins and Hitchens; absolutely nobody is arguing anything like that. Any atheist is going to be critical of the world's major religions, including Islam, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that.

 

The key point is that Harris does far, far more than voice criticisms of Islam as part of a general critique of religion. He has repeatedly made clear that he thinks Islam is uniquely threatening: "While the other major world religions have been fertile sources of intolerance, it is clear that the doctrine of Islam poses unique problems for the emergence of a global civilization." He has insisted that there are unique dangers from Muslims possessing nuclear weapons, as opposed to nice western Christians (the only ones to ever use them) or those kind Israeli Jews: "It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of devout Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence." In his 2005 "End of Faith", he claimed that "Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death."

 

This is not a critique of religion generally; it is a relentless effort to depict Islam as the supreme threat. Based on that view, Harris, while depicting the Iraq war as a humanitarian endeavor, has proclaimed that "we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam." He has also decreed that "this is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with millions more than have any direct affiliation with Al Qaeda." "We" - the civilized peoples of the west - are at war with "millions" of Muslims, he says. Indeed, he repeatedly posits a dichotomy between "civilized" people and Muslims: "All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth."

 

This isn't "quote-mining", the term evidently favored by Harris and his defenders to dismiss the use of his own words to make this case. To the contrary, I've long ago read the full context of what he has written and did so again yesterday. All the links are provided here - as they were in Hussain and Lean's columns - so everyone can see it for themselves. Yes, he criticizes Christianity, but he reserves the most intense attacks and superlative condemnations for Islam, as well as unique policy proscriptions of aggression, violence and rights abridgments aimed only at Muslims. As the atheist scholar John L Perkins wrote about Harris' 2005 anti-religion book: "Harris is particularly scathing about Islam."

 

When criticism of religion morphs into an undue focus on Islam - particularly at the same time the western world has been engaged in a decade-long splurge of violence, aggression and human rights abuses against Muslims, justified by a sustained demonization campaign - then I find these objections to the New Atheists completely warranted. That's true of Dawkins' proclamation that " often say Islam [is the] greatest force for evil today." It's true of Hitchens' various grotesque invocations of Islam to justify violence, including advocating cluster bombs because "if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too". And it's true of Harris' years-long argument that Islam poses unique threats beyond what Christianity, Judaism, and the other religions of the world pose.

 

Most important of all - to me - is the fact that Harris has used his views about Islam to justify a wide range of vile policies aimed primarily if not exclusively at Muslims, from torture ("there are extreme circumstances in which I believe that practices like 'water-boarding' may not only be ethically justifiable, but ethically necessary"); to steadfast support for Israel, which he considers morally superior to its Muslim adversaries ("In their analyses of US and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. . . . there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah"); to anti-Muslim profiling ("We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it"); to state violence ("On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right. This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that 'liberals are soft on terrorism.' It is, and they are").

 

Revealingly, Harris sided with the worst Muslim-hating elements in American society by opposing the building of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero, milking the Us v. Them militaristic framework to justify his position:

 

 

 

 

"The erection of a mosque upon the ashes of this atrocity will also be viewed by many millions of Muslims as a victory — and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice."

 

 

 

 

Harris made the case against that innocuous community center by claiming - yet again - that Islam is a unique threat: "At this point in human history, Islam simply is different from other faiths."

In sum, he sprinkles intellectual atheism on top of the standard neocon, right-wing worldview of Muslims. As this superb review of Harris' writings on Israel, the Middle East and US militarism put it, "any review of Sam Harris and his work is a review essentially of politics": because his atheism invariably serves - explicitly so - as the justifying ground for a wide array of policies that attack, kill and otherwise suppress Muslims. That's why his praise for European fascists as being the only ones saying "sensible" things about Islam is significant: not because it means he's a European fascist, but because it's unsurprising that the bile spewed at Muslims from that faction would be appealing to Harris because he shares those sentiments both in his rhetoric and his advocated policies, albeit with a more intellectualized expression.

 

Beyond all that, I find extremely suspect the behavior of westerners like Harris (and Hitchens and Dawkins) who spend the bulk of their time condemning the sins of other, distant peoples rather than the bulk of their time working against the sins of their own country. That's particularly true of Americans, whose government has brought more violence, aggression, suffering, misery, and degradation to the world over the last decade than any other. Even if that weren't true - and it is - spending one's time as an American fixated on the sins of others is a morally dubious act, to put that generously, for reasons Noam Chomsky explained so perfectly:

 

"My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it.

 

"So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century."

 

 

 

 

I, too, have written before about the hordes of American commentators whose favorite past-time is to lounge around pointing fingers at other nations, other governments, other populations, other religions, while spending relatively little time on their own. The reason this is particularly suspect and shoddy behavior from American commentators is that there are enormous amounts of violence and extremism and suffering which their government has unleashed and continues to unleash on the world. Indeed, much of that US violence is grounded in if not expressly justified by religion, including the aggressive attack on Iraq and steadfast support for Israeli aggression (to say nothing of the role Judaism plays in the decades-long oppression by the Israelis of Palestinians and all sorts of attacks on neighboring Arab and Muslim countries). Given the legion human rights violations from their own government, I find that Americans and westerners who spend the bulk of their energy on the crimes of others are usually cynically exploiting human rights concerns in service of a much different agenda.

 

 

Tellingly, Harris wrote in 2004 that "we are now mired in a religious war in Iraq and elsewhere." But by this, he did not mean that the US and the west have waged an aggressive attack based at least in part on religious convictions. He meant that only Them - those Muslims over there, whose country we invaded and destroyed - were engaged in a vicious and primitive religious war. As usual, so obsessed is he with the supposed sins of Muslims that he is blinded to the far worse sins from his own government and himself: the attack on Iraq and its accompanying expressions of torture, slaughter, and the most horrific abuses imaginable.

 

Worse, even in its early stages, Harris casually dismissed the US attack on Iraq as a "red herring"; that war, he said, was simply one in which "civilized human beings [westerners] are now attempting, at considerable cost to themselves, to improve life for the Iraqi people." Western violence and aggression is noble, civilized, and elevated; Muslim violence (even when undertaken to defend against an invasion by the west) is primitive, vicious, brutal and savage. That is the blatant double standard of one who seeks not to uphold human rights but to exploit those concepts to demonize a targeted group.

 

Indeed, continually depicting Muslims as the supreme evil - even when compared to the west's worst monsters - is par for Harris' course, as when he inveighed:

 

Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies."

 

 

Just ponder that. To Harris, there are "tens of millions" of Muslims "far scarier" then the US political leader who aggressively invaded and destroyed a nation of 26 million people, constructed a worldwide regime of torture, oversaw a network of secret prisons beyond the reach of human rights groups, and generally imposed on the world his "Dark Side". That is the Harris worldview: obsessed with bad acts of foreign Muslims, almost entirely blind to - if not supportive of - the far worse acts of westerners like himself.

 

Or consider this disgusting passage:

 

"The outrage that Muslims feel over US and British foreign policy is primarily the product of theological concerns. Devout Muslims consider it a sacrilege for infidels to depose a Muslim tyrant and occupy Muslim lands — no matter how well intentioned the infidels or malevolent the tyrant. Because of what they believe about God and the afterlife and the divine provenance of the Koran, devout Muslims tend to reflexively side with other Muslims, no matter how sociopathic their behavior."

 

 

 

Right: can you believe those primitive, irrational Muslims get angry when their countries are invaded, bombed and occupied and have dictators imposed on them rather than exuding gratitude toward the superior civilized people who do all that - all because of their weird, inscrutable religion that makes them dislike things such as foreign invasions, bombing campaigns and externally-imposed tyrants? And did you know that only Muslims - but not rational westerners like Harris - "reflexively side" with their own kind? This, from the same person who hails the Iraq war as something that should produce gratitude from the invaded population toward the "civilized human beings" - people like him - who invaded and destroyed their country. Theodore Sayeed noted the glaring irony pervading the bulk of Harris's political writing:

 

 

"For a man who likes to badger Muslims about their 'reflexive solidarity' with Arab suffering, Harris seems keen to display his own tribal affections for the Jewish state. The virtue of Israel and the wickedness of her enemies are recurring themes in his work."

 

Indeed. And the same is true of the US and the West generally. Harris' self-loving mentality amounts to this: those primitive Muslims are so tribal for reflexively siding with their own kind, while I constantly tout the superiority of my own side and justify what We do against Them. How anyone can read any of these passages and object to claims that Harris' worldview is grounded in deep anti-Muslim animus is staggering. He is at least as tribal, jingoistic, and provincial as those he condemns for those human failings, as he constantly hails the nobility of his side while demeaning those Others.

 

Perhaps the most repellent claim Harris made to me was that Islamophobia is fictitious and non-existent, "a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia". How anyone can observe post-9/11 political discourse in the west and believe this is truly mystifying. The meaning of "Islamophobia" is every bit as clear as "anti-semitism" or "racism" or "sexism" and all sorts of familiar, related concepts. It signifies (1) irrational condemnations of all members of a group or the group itself based on the bad acts of specific individuals in that group; (2) a disproportionate fixation on that group for sins committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially one's own; and/or (3) sweeping claims about the members of that group unjustified by their actual individual acts and beliefs. I believe all of those definitions fit Harris quite well, as evinced by this absurd and noxious overgeneralization from Harris:

 

The only future devout Muslims can envisage — as Muslims — is one in which all infidels have been converted to Islam, politically subjugated, or killed."

 

That is utter garbage: and dangerous garbage at that. It is no more justifiable than saying that the only future which religious Jews - as Jews - can envision is one in which non-Jews live in complete slavery and subjugation: a claim often made by anti-semites based on highly selective passages from the Talmud. It is the same tactic that says Christians - as Christians - can only envisage the extreme subjugation of women and violence against non-believers based not only on the conduct of some Christians but on selective passages from the Bible. Few would have difficultly understanding why such claims about Jews and Christians are intellectually bankrupt and menacing.

Worse still, these claims from Harris about how Muslims think are simply factually false. An AFP report on a massive 2008 Gallup survey of the Muslim world simply destroyed most of Harris' ugly generalizations about the beliefs of Muslims:

"A huge survey of the world's Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence. . . . It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington. . . .

 

"About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews. . . .

 

"Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed. . . .

 

"But the poll, which gives ordinary Muslims a voice in the global debate that they have been drawn into by 9/11, showed that most Muslims -- including radicals -- admire the West for its democracy, freedoms and technological prowess.

 

"What they do not want is to have Western ways forced on them, it said."

 

Indeed, even a Pentagon-commissioned study back in 2004 - hardly a bastion of PC liberalism - obliterated Harris' self-justifying stereotype that anti-American sentiment among Muslims is religious and tribal rather than political and rational. That study concluded that "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" — through the US's "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan".

 

As I noted before, a long-time British journalist friend of mine wrote to me shortly before I began writing at the Guardian to warn me of a particular strain plaguing the British liberal intellectual class; he wrote: "nothing delights British former lefties more than an opportunity to defend power while pretending it is a brave stance in defence of a left liberal principle." That - "defending power while pretending it is a brave stance in defence of a left liberal principle" - is precisely what describes the political work of Harris and friends. It fuels the sustained anti-Muslim demonization campaign of the west and justifies (often explicitly) the policies of violence, militarism, and suppression aimed at them. It's not as vulgar as the rantings of Pam Geller or as crude as the bloodthirsty theories of Alan Dershowitz, but it's coming from a similar place and advancing the same cause.

 

I welcome, and value, aggressive critiques of faith and religion, including from Sam Harris and some of these others New Atheists whose views I'm criticizing here. But many terms can be used to accurately describe the practice of depicting Islam and Muslims as the supreme threat to all that is good in the world. "Rational", "intellectual" and "well-intentioned" are most definitely not among them.

 

UPDATE

Sam Harris in 2005: "I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror."

 

Sam Harris in 2012: "We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it."

 

Sam Harris in 2005: "In our dealings with the Muslim world, we must acknowledge that Muslims have not found anything of substance to say against the actions of the September 11 hijackers, apart from the ubiquitous canard that they were really Jews." (Harris' own ugly canard would come as news to CAIR, the leading Muslim advocacy group, as well as most of the world's Muslims).

 

By themselves, those statements - fully in context - negate 90% of the comments from Harris defenders. If you're going to defend him, do remember to defend these.

 

One last point: I absolutely do not believe that Harris - or, for that matter, Hitchens - is representative of all or even most atheists in this regard. The vast majority of atheists I know find such sentiments repellent. They are representative only of themselves and those who share these views, not atheists generally.

 

http://www.guardian....s-muslim-animus

 

Figured it was safe to revive this thread now Leazes is gone. Some controversial views on Dawkins, Hitchens and particularly on Sam Harris which readers of theirs might be interested in.

[NJS 4386]

THere are aspects of Harris' writing which I've always rejected but I have no problem agreeing that Islam deserves special mention when it comes to the threat to the world. Obviously that doesn't mean I recognise that the US reaction to it isn't a huge factor but trying to say that Islam is the same as Buddhism (for example) in this contect is bollocks.

[SloopJohn 0]

what a brilliant article: very revealing about the irrational underpinnings of modern positivism

 

it's going to be interesting to see the reaction to it

[Happy Face 29]

THere are aspects of Harris' writing which I've always rejected but I have no problem agreeing that Islam deserves special mention when it comes to the threat to the world. Obviously that doesn't mean I recognise that the US reaction to it isn't a huge factor but trying to say that Islam is the same as Buddhism (for example) in this contect is bollocks.

 

Myanma is currently in the throes of buddhist riots that have killed dozens...

 

The Meikhtila riots in central Myanmar which also spread to other towns have killed more than 40 people and raised fears that religious and ethnic clashes would continue to worsen in the country.

 

a huge mob of Buddhists came to attack the mosque and the madrassa alongside it. The Muslim people fled in time, and no one was killed or injured, but the mosque was damaged and desecrated, and the madrassa completely burned out. It was a smouldering scene of fear and misery.

 

Although they portrayed themselves as devout Buddhists, Burma’s military rulers showed no compassion toward anyone who did not bow before them.

The outcome is that we now have countless “Buddhist extremists” in Burma. Sadly, they are everywhere. They are out on the streets and sitting in Parliament, wearing military fatigues, business suits and monk’s robes.

So the rise of “Buddhist” fascists in Burma comes as no surprise to anyone who has witnessed the machinations of the country’s rulers over the past half-century. Their presence in the streets of Meikhtila is no more than a throwback to the darkest days of military rule, and one that will not be exorcised easily.

 

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/03/31/religious-extremism-blamed-for-myanmar-riots/