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Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, & Daniel Dennett
Topic Started: Oct 16 2014, 08:01 PM (1,284 Views)
19nate79

And what is your argument to that?

They don't have to follow it? That's what he said.
The new testament does exact what he says.
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19nate79

Wahoo08
Oct 16 2014, 11:41 PM
19nate79
Oct 16 2014, 10:54 PM
Wahoo08
Oct 16 2014, 10:02 PM
Cbear
Oct 16 2014, 08:38 PM
Gitche Manitou will eat these pale face sinners hearts and scatter their ashes to the 4 winds.
You might actually like some of these guys, Cbear. Harris is one of most anti-Islam guys you'll ever come across. Dawkins' basically states that he sees the big three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as more or less the same and leaves it at that. Harris however, is pretty explicit in his belief that Islam is far worse than Christianity. I'm not much of a fan of his, but I'm willing to meet you in the middle :wink:

Hitchens is another guy that came across as a goddam lilberal, but was one of the most outspoken neo-cons and supporters of the Iraqi War 10 years ago. In fact, he died after having alienated many of his followers because of this.
Not true

He says the old testament is worse than the Koran, but that nobody takes it very seriously any more in any significant percentage. Islam, however does have a significant minority that does.
Harris references the terrible things that are written about in the Old Testament, but also points out that the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus act as a counterweight to the Old Testament and softens the message of the Bible. He also argues, that there is no such counterweight in the Koran.

Personally, I don't agree with him. I think man shapes religion more than religion shapes man. If you were to take religion out of the Middle East, you'd still have strongmen fighting over control of oil, you'd still have a largely barren desert that stunted economic growth, you'd still have the repercussions of Sykes-Picot that drew arbitrary lines though ethnic groups, etc. Religion just acts as a steroid that radicalizes political differences to an extreme.

Regardless of my thoughts though, Harris is pretty clear that he doesn't view Islam and Christianity as equal.
Are you arguing that what preceded them wasn't fucking awful?
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HugeMMAFan
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The problem is not religion. The problem is mostly economic and political. It's also party cultural and societal, but if you fix the economic and political problems at where Islam is most present, the cultural and societal issues with begin to resolve, followed by relligious issues.

You can't even begin fix religious issues without touching the others first. It just doesn't work.
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split decision
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^^^ It is this cauldron of issues. Social, cultural, economic, political and religion. It's not all negative, but there are many harmful aspects, and U.S. interference has incited greater hatred for many in the Middle East.

To think religion is the sole or even primary source of the issues is far too simplistic, it's true.
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19nate79

HugeMMAFan
Oct 17 2014, 02:10 AM
The problem is not religion. The problem is mostly economic and political. It's also party cultural and societal, but if you fix the economic and political problems at where Islam is most present, the cultural and societal issues with begin to resolve, followed by relligious issues.

You can't even begin fix religious issues without touching the others first. It just doesn't work.
Funny when you correct for literacy the numbers of people that believe that horrible shit goes up


A lot of the people that recruit these bombers are doctors and engineers

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19nate79

split decision
Oct 17 2014, 02:42 AM
^^^ It is this cauldron of issues. Social, cultural, economic, political and religion. It's not all negative, but there are many harmful aspects, and U.S. interference has incited greater hatred for many in the Middle East.

To think religion is the sole or even primary source of the issues is far too simplistic, it's true.
If you subtract religion then they have to admit they're murdering you or committing suicide. No paradise kind of takes away the martyrdom incentive. Is it more than religion? Of course. Do muslims disproportionately commit acts if violence today? Yes. Are they justifying it with allah saying it's a good idea? Yup.
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19nate79

said it and then looked up sam harris vs on youtube. perfect

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19nate79

here's what i don't get:

2 nfl players are involved in domestic spats and a lot of you acted like the nfl has a problem. they even had to do classes on it for the other players. that's 2, no i'll round it up to 10 players out of 1696 pleyers in the nfl (not including staff, owners, ettc...). that's 0.6%.

but when that number is just a little over 30 times that amount that are sympathetic to suicide bombers per their own admission it isn't a problem with that group.

just to be clear less than 1% of nfl players beating family members is a problem that the nfl should address and own up to

20% of muslims think suicide bombing is ok in the SAME country and it's not something to be looked at because you're racist and shouldn't lump them all together, which of course nobody was doing
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spasgur
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Wahoo08
Oct 16 2014, 10:07 PM
One more for Cbear. Here's Lawrence Krauss debating a Muslim. I believe this is the debate where he causes a minor uproar when he threatened to pull out last minute after he found out the audience was going to be segregated by gender. See, Cbear, it's not just Christianity that the atheist attack....

I watched that video a couple of years ago but I couldn't finish it. Hamza is such a fucking idiot and a big chunk of the audience is too. It was just annoying me too much that I couldn't finish it. I'll try and watch it again sometime but I just skipped through it again and I was instantly annoyed again. Krauss also, in this debate, does not seem very eloquent, I don't know if he's frustrated or what the reason is, I mean, he's correct in almost everything he says but the hostile audience and the sheer atmosphere of ignorance is probably annoying him too.
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Tallica
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19nate79
Oct 17 2014, 03:38 AM
said it and then looked up sam harris vs on youtube. perfect

Very good video. Nice short and concise interview that gets the bullet points across very well. Not sure how people can disagree with anything he says.
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Wahoo08
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19nate79
Oct 17 2014, 01:37 AM
Wahoo08
Oct 16 2014, 11:41 PM
19nate79
Oct 16 2014, 10:54 PM
Wahoo08
Oct 16 2014, 10:02 PM
Cbear
Oct 16 2014, 08:38 PM
Gitche Manitou will eat these pale face sinners hearts and scatter their ashes to the 4 winds.
You might actually like some of these guys, Cbear. Harris is one of most anti-Islam guys you'll ever come across. Dawkins' basically states that he sees the big three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as more or less the same and leaves it at that. Harris however, is pretty explicit in his belief that Islam is far worse than Christianity. I'm not much of a fan of his, but I'm willing to meet you in the middle :wink:

Hitchens is another guy that came across as a goddam lilberal, but was one of the most outspoken neo-cons and supporters of the Iraqi War 10 years ago. In fact, he died after having alienated many of his followers because of this.
Not true

He says the old testament is worse than the Koran, but that nobody takes it very seriously any more in any significant percentage. Islam, however does have a significant minority that does.
Harris references the terrible things that are written about in the Old Testament, but also points out that the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus act as a counterweight to the Old Testament and softens the message of the Bible. He also argues, that there is no such counterweight in the Koran.

Personally, I don't agree with him. I think man shapes religion more than religion shapes man. If you were to take religion out of the Middle East, you'd still have strongmen fighting over control of oil, you'd still have a largely barren desert that stunted economic growth, you'd still have the repercussions of Sykes-Picot that drew arbitrary lines though ethnic groups, etc. Religion just acts as a steroid that radicalizes political differences to an extreme.

Regardless of my thoughts though, Harris is pretty clear that he doesn't view Islam and Christianity as equal.
Are you arguing that what preceded them wasn't fucking awful?
Come on, Nate. I'm not arguing anything. I'd just summarized some of Harris' views and now you're trying to defend the guy. Agree with him or don't agree with agree him. I don't care. But there's nothing that I wrote that he hasn't stated publicly.
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Wahoo08
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spasgur
Oct 17 2014, 07:08 AM
Wahoo08
Oct 16 2014, 10:07 PM
One more for Cbear. Here's Lawrence Krauss debating a Muslim. I believe this is the debate where he causes a minor uproar when he threatened to pull out last minute after he found out the audience was going to be segregated by gender. See, Cbear, it's not just Christianity that the atheist attack....

I watched that video a couple of years ago but I couldn't finish it. Hamza is such a fucking idiot and a big chunk of the audience is too. It was just annoying me too much that I couldn't finish it. I'll try and watch it again sometime but I just skipped through it again and I was instantly annoyed again. Krauss also, in this debate, does not seem very eloquent, I don't know if he's frustrated or what the reason is, I mean, he's correct in almost everything he says but the hostile audience and the sheer atmosphere of ignorance is probably annoying him too.
Krauss always come across as pretty arogant and I can certainly see how that would turn people off. He's a smart guy though.
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split decision
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19nate79
Oct 17 2014, 03:49 AM
here's what i don't get:

2 nfl players are involved in domestic spats and a lot of you acted like the nfl has a problem. they even had to do classes on it for the other players. that's 2, no i'll round it up to 10 players out of 1696 pleyers in the nfl (not including staff, owners, ettc...). that's 0.6%.

but when that number is just a little over 30 times that amount that are sympathetic to suicide bombers per their own admission it isn't a problem with that group.

just to be clear less than 1% of nfl players beating family members is a problem that the nfl should address and own up to

20% of muslims think suicide bombing is ok in the SAME country and it's not something to be looked at because you're racist and shouldn't lump them all together, which of course nobody was doing
You're part of the problem.

You distort arguments. Flat out wrong on two points:

1) Who said the 20% of the Muslims that believe suicide bombing is justifiable under some circumstances are not a problem that should be looked at? Find me any post in this thread, written by me or others, that says it's acceptable for those people to hold such a belief? I know I said they haven't acted on it despite calls from ISIS for them to rise up (and that's true), but I haven't said there's not an underlying problem with that minority that should be addressed.

2) People on this forum and outside of it make statements quite often lumping Muslims together. That's reality. Now, you have differentiated in making some of the arguments that you've made, but don't pretend that others don't regularly "whitewash" the entire issue by sliding into generalizations. I have said that Maher and Harris are guilty of generalizing at times -- I DID NOT say neither of them has valid points for that reason.

This isn't a black and white issue. There are shades of gray.

The ironic thing about this, despite all the nuances and subtleties that exist, is that you yourself are distorting the facts.

You create a clever analogy using NFL players and then try to make it sound like another poster (me) has argued that 20% of suicide bomb apologists is not of concern because others here are "racist" (certainly not a term I have used because race doesn't refer to religious beliefs -- so another false accusation) and "lumping them all together" (which some people do, but even so I have never said it give Muslims carte blanche to act in whatever way they please).

Once again, it's easiest for you to dismiss others that don't align with your ideology. Dismiss Zakaria. Dismiss Aslan. Dismiss me.

You'd make a good politician, Nate. I'll give you that.


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Strongo
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i love Dawkins.
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Tallica
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split decision
Oct 17 2014, 09:06 AM
19nate79
Oct 17 2014, 03:49 AM
here's what i don't get:

2 nfl players are involved in domestic spats and a lot of you acted like the nfl has a problem. they even had to do classes on it for the other players. that's 2, no i'll round it up to 10 players out of 1696 pleyers in the nfl (not including staff, owners, ettc...). that's 0.6%.

but when that number is just a little over 30 times that amount that are sympathetic to suicide bombers per their own admission it isn't a problem with that group.

just to be clear less than 1% of nfl players beating family members is a problem that the nfl should address and own up to

20% of muslims think suicide bombing is ok in the SAME country and it's not something to be looked at because you're racist and shouldn't lump them all together, which of course nobody was doing
You're part of the problem.

You distort arguments. Flat out wrong on two points:

1) Who said the 20% of the Muslims that believe suicide bombing is justifiable under some circumstances are not a problem that should be looked at? Find me any post in this thread, written by me or others, that says it's acceptable for those people to hold such a belief? I know I said they haven't acted on it despite calls from ISIS for them to rise up (and that's true), but I haven't said there's not an underlying problem with that minority that should be addressed.

2) People on this forum and outside of it make statements quite often lumping Muslims together. That's reality. Now, you have differentiated in making some of the arguments that you've made, but don't pretend that others don't regularly "whitewash" the entire issue by sliding into generalizations. I have said that Maher and Harris are guilty of generalizing at times -- I DID NOT say neither of them has valid points for that reason.

This isn't a black and white issue. There are shades of gray.

The ironic thing about this, despite all the nuances and subtleties that exist, is that you yourself are distorting the facts.

You create a clever analogy using NFL players and then try to make it sound like another poster (me) has argued that 20% of suicide bomb apologists is not of concern because others here are "racist" (certainly not a term I have used because race doesn't refer to religious beliefs -- so another false accusation) and "lumping them all together" (which some people do, but even so I have never said it give Muslims carte blanche to act in whatever way they please).

Once again, it's easiest for you to dismiss others that don't align with your ideology. Dismiss Zakaria. Dismiss Aslan. Dismiss me.

You'd make a good politician, Nate. I'll give you that.


It seems as though when confronted with strong evidence and strong arguments, you are willing to concede your position and acknowledge and affirm the main points being made, but then are very quick to turn back to the same old rhetoric. You start trying to add caveats about how they are guilty of occasionally lumping all Muslims together and that's bad and it somehow changes the facts.

I'd actually argue it's that kind of response that is guilty of lumping all Muslims together. These criticisms are heavily directed, and heavily stated as such, towards an alarmingly large percentage that hold AND PRACTICE beliefs that are in conflict with what we know to be on the right side of morality and justice for humanity.

By cherry picking quotes, taking things out of context, and making hollow accusations of bigotry or racism, you are perverting the focus of the critiques and become guilty yourself of lumping all Muslims together and in doing so REMOVE the focus from the problematic part of the population.

It's true Harris, and the others are opposed to the dogma of all religions, but that doesn't mean they can't have very valid, salient points about the inherent and very real problems of particular ones. Why "Liberals" have allowed for the tolerance of intolerance has eluded me.

EDIT: To clarify, the use of "you" isn't meant to be directed at you particularly, but to the side you tend to fall on. You may not have made direct claims of racism, but it's all too common from the liberal opposition to their claims.
Edited by Tallica, Oct 17 2014, 10:18 AM.
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