"The Problems with Islamic Fundamentalism is the Fundamentals of Islam"

[Sosa]

hLiku08FlRg

[Black Sheep]

Sam harris: awesome eloquent and sharp as always.

Now let's just wait for the " gasp! you islamophobes!" crowd of revleft.

[brigadista]

i havent watched the full lecture but in the clip you post has no global context - no consideration of occupation by western armies from christian nations of non christian countries and interference by the west in islamic nations governments- wouldn't he be better concentrating on the effects of christian fundamentalism in the US rather than pandering to western prejudices and stereotypes of islam outside of the wider context- this is simplistic and quite insulting

[Che a chara]

That was a load of crap to be honest.

Sam Harris is an Islamophobe. Making snide comments in reference to the cartoon photo of the prophet Muhammad, and not once mentioning the reason why Islamic extremism is prevalent in certain areas, and that is US led imperialism and racism.

He continually denigrates the Arab/Muslim world and their belief, while not offering any rationale, just bigoted assumptions and not disclosing the hardship and social conditions the Muslim world has had to endure in response to Western invasion and exploitation.

He shows pictures of three muslims, who happen to be terrorists, to ingrain that this is what Islam really represents. why not put photos up of other non-moderate Muslim believers, i.e. Imams, who represent pacifism, and other non-moderate pacicfist muslims who are in the MAJORITY.

I also see he is a staunch supporter of Israeli war crimes on Palestine:

"For instance, [liberals] ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause"

Lies and revisionism .....

Yeah, blame the Muslims ya cretin for their retaliation to land theft, ethnic cleansing and breaches of international law and human rights abuses.

[SpineyNorman]

Whilst there may be something to his arguments on Islam as an ideology (I am undecided - though my belief is that the question, "why do so many young muslims find "radical" Islam so attractive" is far more important, and one that he consistently fails to address), he is, without doubt, an apologist for US and Zionist terror. He supports the Zionist occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and all the US occupations in the Middle East. The historical context in which he places his criticism of Palestinian resistance is notable only by its absence.

His arguments are nothing but imperialist apolagia. He looks at Islam from an idealist perspective (it is the "extreme" beliefs that motivate acts of terror) which is strange, since he claims to be a rationalist atheist. Surely a rational approach to any account of Islam would include some material analysis - what socio-economic consitions are prevalent in countries where "radical" Islam prevails that are not present in those in which it does not? But in order to do this he would have to criticise US foreign policy. He's not going to do that.

If you want to read a critique of Islam that is not drenched in imperial sentiment I would suggest Tariq Ali. If you just want to feel all superior and western stick with Harris (but remember - if you do this you are submitting to an irrational delusion - someone who is all rational and intelligent and learned and stuff surely wouldn't make such an error, would they?)

Confirmation biases are irrational whatever viewpoint is being expressed.

His justification for torture and his vision of a truth pill (one that brings about unbearable agony and unconsciousness at the same time so that those administering the "pill" suffer no distress) in "The End of Faith" is fucking frightening. Harris is no friend of the left.

[#FF0000]

I really can't believe that people really think this way when all it takes is a glance at a history book to find out that Islamic Fundamentalism only became a "mainstream" movement in the past 50 years as a direct result of US and UK intervention in the Middle East (and other countries interfering elsewhere).

EDIT: And Saudi Oil money. That helped fundamentalists a lot too.

[Lt. Ferret]

the context for why some Americans are racist against blacks = unforgiveable

the context for why some Muslims are religious bigots against non-muslims = well, you see, its really a complex and stirring issue into the heart of economic exploitation and culutural impe-......

[SpineyNorman]

the context for why some Americans are racist against blacks = unforgiveable

the context for why some Muslims are religious bigots against non-muslims = well, you see, its really a complex and stirring issue into the heart of economic exploitation and culutural impe-......

White Americans were invaded/bombed/had popular democratic governments overthrown/natural resources raped, etc. by blacks when exactly? Context is everything.

[Lt. Ferret]

Context is everything when excusing religious based fundamentalism, abhorrent sexism, innate racism, violence against freedom of speech or self expression, and throwing acid on the face of women?

lol. Islam is dog shit and it always was. Doesn't mean other religions aren't, but don't your hard on for anti-imperialism intermixed with supporting theocratic reactionaries.

[brigadista]

Context is everything when excusing religious based fundamentalism, abhorrent sexism, innate racism, violence against freedom of speech or self expression, and throwing acid on the face of women?

lol. Islam is dog shit and it always was. Doesn't mean other religions aren't, but don't your hard on for anti-imperialism intermixed with supporting theocratic reactionaries.

those things don't happen in the west???

[Lt. Ferret]

:blink: It's okay that Muslims do it because some Christians do it?

Are you even an Atheist?

[ComradeMan]

Islamic fundamentalism of a form under Hassan-i-Sabbah is what brought down the city of Baghdad when it fell to the Mongol chief Hulagu Khan.

Islamic fundamentailsm is not all that new.

[brigadista]

:blink: It's okay that Muslims do it because some Christians do it?

Are you even an Atheist?

the post i replied to implied that this only happens in muslim countries ,prompting my response .

[#FF0000]

the context for why some Muslims are religious bigots against non-muslims = well, you see, its really a complex and stirring issue into the heart of economic exploitation and culutural impe-......

Nope. Muslims fundamentalism is bullshit. The thing is that people paint Islam with a broad brush and start thinking that everyone Middle Eastern hates women and wants to blow things up. I don't really see the similarities between white racism and this tbh.

[Lt. Ferret]

Yeah this mostly happens in western countries once muslims move there and do islamic shit.

[Lt. Ferret]

Nope. Muslims fundamentalism is bullshit. The thing is that people paint Islam with a broad brush and start thinking that everyone Middle Eastern hates women and wants to blow things up. I don't really see the similarities between white racism and this tbh.


Even fighting against bigotry against Arabs or Muslims (and im married to an arab) doesn't excuse how shitty Islam is. Just becasue some people paint all Arabs or Muslims as terrorists doesn't make Islam a good thing.

[brigadista]

Yeah this mostly happens in western countries once muslims move there and do islamic shit.

not responding to that stupidity

[#FF0000]

Yeah this mostly happens in western countries once muslims move there and do islamic shit.

Yeah like go to places to do their religious thing and pray

[#FF0000]

Even fighting against bigotry against Arabs or Muslims (and im married to an arab) doesn't excuse how shitty Islam is. Just becasue some people paint all Arabs or Muslims as terrorists doesn't make Islam a good thing.

Eh maybe. tbh I'm not the militant anti-theist I once was. Religion and believing in a god isn't the worst thing in the world despite it being kinda dumb. If someone wants to do their religious thing then whatever, as long as they shut the fuck up about it.

[Lt. Ferret]

I'm generally pretty quiet about it but people take that "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing and run with it.

[Sasha]

"too understand why highly educated western youth turn towards terrorism one shouldn't look at the Koran but at the history of groups like the RAF" Tariq Ramadan

I think he has an good point, and while connected and they both influence each other struggle in countries suffering under imperialism is not the same as jihadism in the west. Just as struggle in the 3th world and urban guerilla weren't the same. And staying with that analogy; to say that either or both are inherent to/caused by marxism is obvious bollox too.

[ComradeMan]

Eh maybe. tbh I'm not the militant anti-theist I once was. Religion and believing in a god isn't the worst thing in the world despite it being kinda dumb. If someone wants to do their religious thing then whatever, as long as they shut the fuck up about it.

I don't have a problem with Islam really, fundamentalism yes, but Islam no.

However that last comment of yours....

UlLaUCAQlQQ

Five times a day in every city of Islam.... :thumbup1:

[Crimson Commissar]

UlLaUCAQlQQ

Five times a day in every city of Islam.... :thumbup1:
And you're completely fine with that? Honestly? That's some fucked up cultist shit right there. :laugh: The fact that the religion of Islam actually DEMANDS that every human does this prayer bullshit is actually very worrying. When I remember how many people in this world are actually followers of Islam, it's even worse.

[Sam_b]

And you're completely fine with that? Honestly? That's some fucked up cultist shit right there

I'm completely fine with people following their faith by their choice and praying five time a day, don't you?

[#FF0000]

The fact that the religion of Islam actually DEMANDS that every human does this prayer bullshit is actually very worrying

They only demand it of Muslims, actually. :mellow:

But yeah the Islamic call to prayer is whatever to me. It's background noise and no more annoying than the highways or airports or churches with bells that I've lived next to.

I don't think all mosques have it anyway. w/e

[Crimson Commissar]

I'm completely fine with people following their faith by their choice and praying five time a day, don't you?
When its such a significant percentage of our species that is religious, then it becomes a problem.


They only demand it of Muslims, actually. :mellow:

But yeah the Islamic call to prayer is whatever to me. It's background noise and no more annoying than the highways or airports or churches with bells that I've lived next to.

I don't think all mosques have it anyway. w/e
And they demand that everyone becomes a muslim. Don't try to twist it and claim that they're respectful of other's faiths. Muslims know fully well that their religion condemns all non-believers to eternal torment in hell.

[ComradeMan]

When its such a significant percentage of our species that is religious, then it becomes a problem.


And they demand that everyone becomes a muslim. Don't try to twist it and claim that they're respectful of other's faiths. Muslims know fully well that their religion condemns all non-believers to eternal torment in hell.




Nec vero superstitione tollenda religio tollitur.

[#FF0000]

And they demand that everyone becomes a muslim. Don't try to twist it and claim that they're respectful of other's faiths. Muslims know fully well that their religion condemns all non-believers to eternal torment in hell.

The muslims I know are markedly less pushy with their religion than the Baptists know, and historically Muslims have been pretty tolerant of other religions in "their" lands. Probably not to the degree we are today but still.

EDIT: I also noticed a Muslim comrade literally told you himself that he doesn't believe non-believers go to hell.

Man, you are stupid.

[Crimson Commissar]

The muslims I know are markedly less pushy with their religion than the Baptists know, and historically Muslims have been pretty tolerant of other religions in "their" lands. Probably not to the degree we are today but still.

EDIT: I also noticed a Muslim comrade literally told you himself that he doesn't believe non-believers go to hell.

Man, you are stupid.
I've talked to plenty of muslims who have admitted that yes, the official belief of islam is that non-believers go to hell. Although I do believe the more specific position is that muslims, christians and jews go to heaven, but everyone else has to be "punished for their sins". Muslims are only tolerant of other monotheists, but no one else.

[#FF0000]

Muslims are only tolerant of other monotheists, but no one else.

I live around a lot of Muslims and they are all really really nice to me and I make music with another so uh [citation needed]

[ComradeMan]

But, but---- even if someone believes you will go to Hell... if you don't believe that then what the fuck difference does it make? It would be like me attacking a Buddhist because they said I'd be reincarnated as a carrot or something... I don't believe that to be honest so it doesn't cause me a problem.

I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe and everyone is cool.

[Crimson Commissar]

But, but---- even if someone believes you will go to Hell... if you don't believe that then what the fuck difference does it make? It would be like me attacking a Buddhist because they said I'd be reincarnated as a carrot or something... I don't believe that to be honest so it doesn't cause me a problem.

I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe and everyone is cool.
It's fucking sickening. It's not just like insulting someone, they're literally wishing that every single person on this earth who does not agree with them deserves to be tortured FOREVER. It's on the same level as being a holocaust sympathiser. (No, I'm not saying the holocaust ITSELF is as bad as believing in hell)

[ComradeMan]

It's fucking sickening. It's not just like insulting someone, they're literally wishing that every single person on this earth who does not agree with them deserves to be tortured FOREVER. It's on the same level as being a holocaust sympathiser.

Not quite the same thing though is it champ?

[SpineyNorman]

Context is everything when excusing religious based fundamentalism, abhorrent sexism, innate racism, violence against freedom of speech or self expression, and throwing acid on the face of women?

lol. Islam is dog shit and it always was. Doesn't mean other religions aren't, but don't your hard on for anti-imperialism intermixed with supporting theocratic reactionaries.

Yes, it is. The second paragraph is utterly incoherent but I'll try to decifer it. I think you're saying that I allow my "hard-on" for anti-imperialism get intermixed (is that even a word?) with "supporting theocratic reactionaries".

You're either with us or against us, eh Lt. Ferret?

Please give an example of me defending theocratic reactionaries. Thanks.

[#FF0000]

It's fucking sickening. It's not just like insulting someone, they're literally wishing that every single person on this earth who does not agree with them deserves to be tortured FOREVER. It's on the same level as being a holocaust sympathiser. (No, I'm not saying the holocaust ITSELF is as bad as believing in hell)

Who. Cares.

[SpineyNorman]

Even fighting against bigotry against Arabs or Muslims (and im married to an arab) doesn't excuse how shitty Islam is. Just becasue some people paint all Arabs or Muslims as terrorists doesn't make Islam a good thing.

What's that got to do with this thread? Nobody is saying it's a "good thing". Are you really that simple? Saying you can understand why something happens, whilst not endorsing it, is possible, you know? Or is nuance a bit too much for you?

The point here is that Harris is trying to say, or at the very least infer, Muslims are predisposed to fundamentalism due to the fundamental tennets of Islam. This means that "moderates" are the "enemy" too. It's them and us thinking, placing all muslims in the category of "dangerous other."

Personally I see ordinary Muslims as the most important group when it comes to remedying the situation, not part of the problem itself.

[SpineyNorman]

From The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:

"The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue."

What do people think Marx was saying here, and how might that apply to what's happening in the middle east?

[Sasha]

But, but---- even if someone believes you will go to Hell... if you don't believe that then what the fuck difference does it make? It would be like me attacking a Buddhist because they said I'd be reincarnated as a carrot or something... I don't believe that to be honest so it doesn't cause me a problem.

I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe and everyone is cool.

I even find that often the more religious Muslims are more tolerant of non muslims, gays, etc as they tend to believe its only up to god to judge people.

[SpineyNorman]

They only demand it of Muslims, actually. :mellow:

But yeah the Islamic call to prayer is whatever to me. It's background noise and no more annoying than the highways or airports or churches with bells that I've lived next to.

I don't think all mosques have it anyway. w/e

It doesn't seem to be very different from the church bells that wake me up EVERY FUCKING MORNING and then go out christ knows (pun intended) how many times a day, irritating the shit out of me.

Religions are weird, a bit daft and irritating. They all share these characteristics.

[SpineyNorman]

When its such a significant percentage of our species that is religious, then it becomes a problem.

And how we address this problem is also important. Demonising the moderates, who are best placed to address the problem of fundamentalism, doesn't seem to be a very good strategy.



And they demand that everyone becomes a muslim. Don't try to twist it and claim that they're respectful of other's faiths. Muslims know fully well that their religion condemns all non-believers to eternal torment in hell.

Do they? In reality? Back that up, make it concrete: which Islamic theocracy(ies) actually do(es) this? List them please.

[ComradeMan]

It doesn't seem to be very different from the church bells that wake me up EVERY FUCKING MORNING and then go out christ knows (pun intended) how many times a day, irritating the shit out of me.

Religions are weird, a bit daft and irritating. They all share these characteristics.

Live and let live.

If some religious person came up to you and told you that you were dressed in an unacceptable way that offended them, or perhaps your sexual orientation disturbed them, or perhaps you went to a disco and the neighbours complained of Satan's music you'd be accusing them of being intollerant but then you are just as intollerant back!
:confused:

[SpineyNorman]

Live and let live.

If some religious person came up to you and told you that you were dressed in an unacceptable way that offended them, or perhaps your sexual orientation disturbed them, or perhaps you went to a disco and the neighbours complained of Satan's music you'd be accusing them of being intollerant but then you are just as intollerant back!
:confused:

I agree. The point I was making was that Islam is not some kind of special case. I'm sure that my drunken, sexually promiscuous antics often irritate the hell out of my churchgoing neighbours. They are willing to put up with that, just as I am willing to put up with the bells. It's give and take innit.

[Diello]

Religion is one of the few things I sometimes sincerely wish I were ignorant of; almost everything about the way it's handled fills me with irritation.

On one hand you've got the religious lunatics who will unapologetically stomp your face in just for disagreeing with them; you've got the religious "moderates" who smugly hold that they have a deeper understanding of their religion-- that when their holy book says "Murder and oppress!", they understand that the true meaning is "Show love and compassion!", and it's too bad that you're incapable of understanding as deeply as they do; you've got the idiot liberals who assert that religion performs some vague but irreplaceable positive function and that all the killing and the retardation of science-- that's just the fringe, and hardly worth mentioning.

It must be terribly easy for someone who lives in a liberal area to hold a more "moderate" view of religion-- "Oh, these people who are against religion, they're just reactionaries. They don't see the fine gradations of the issue. Sure, there are a few religious fanatics, but you have fanatics in all walks of life... They're just a small fringe; it's not really a problem. And maybe some religious views aren't proven, but it's good for people to believe in something that helps them live well. Does it really hurt anyone if you believe that the world is 6,000 years old? Live and let live." I think that if most people who hold "moderate" views on religion had ever had to live in an area dominated by fundamentalism-- where schools teach creationism and one has to fear for one's physical safety for transgressing local religious rules-- they would find it much harder to dismiss the delusions of religion as either irrelevantly marginal or harmless. The only thing that separates "benign" religious kookiness from iron-fisted theocratic oppression is whether or not they have a sufficient majority in the area.

It seems that almost no one except the "new atheists" looks at religious belief in terms of "Is it true?" Yes, yes-- cultural imperialism, privilege, tolerance, etc., but if the central claims of a religion are demonstrably unjustified, why on Earth should one be supportive toward it? No matter how mistreated the adherents of a belief system are, why should one assign respect to that system if it's based on lies?

Of course, one reason is that it's fashionable to display what's thought of as a "complex understanding" of religion. People are much less likely to call you on "It's too bad about fundamentalism, but religion has a lot to offer us too... To each their own... Terrible the way Muslims are marginalized and mistreated..." than "Religion is wrong." As ever, it's much easier to get away with shrouding one's views in vague centrist pretension than to make a clear judgment, no matter how justifiable.

To listen to Christians talk about Islam as some sort of demon-religion that should be swept away and replaced with good, honest Jebus-worship is cringe-inducing, sure, but the idea of opposing Islam for being demonstrably incorrect as "islamophobia" is ridiculous; you might as well talk about "geocentrismphobia."

[#FF0000]

that when their holy book says "Murder and oppress!", they understand that the true meaning is "Show love and compassion!"

As an atheist you should know damn well that what a Holy Book really says doesn't matter whatsoever to a religious person.


I think that if most people who hold "moderate" views on religion had ever had to live in an area dominated by fundamentalism-- where schools teach creationism and one has to fear for one's physical safety for transgressing local religious rules-- they would find it much harder to dismiss the delusions of religion as either irrelevantly marginal or harmless.

Religious fundamentalism is different than someone believing in something dumb and shutting the fuck up about it.


The only thing that separates "benign" religious kookiness from iron-fisted theocratic oppression is whether or not they have a sufficient majority in the area.

No.

[Sam_b]

I think the 'most fucking sickening' thing is in fact a so-called leftist who has been shown time and time again to bigoted tendencies towards Muslims and doesn't have the political aptitude to realise that religion is not the most immediate, nor long-term immediate, threat to the working class.

You are turning into a one-man crusade, coming into threads on anything ranging from Islam to the EDL to the situation in the Middle East and speaking absolute crap and running away when challenged on it. Sort yourself out.

[#FF0000]

you guys understand that we oppose this anti-muslim sentiment in society because people end up targeting anyone who looks brown because of it right

[ComradeMan]

I even find that often the more religious Muslims are more tolerant of non muslims, gays, etc as they tend to believe its only up to god to judge people.

That's exactly the way I answer Christian fanatics too- with scripture and it gets them angry!!!

‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s* eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your neighbour,* “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s* eye

[Crimson Commissar]

I think the 'most fucking sickening' thing is in fact a so-called leftist who has been shown time and time again to bigoted tendencies towards Muslims and doesn't have the political aptitude to realise that religion is not the most immediate, nor long-term immediate, threat to the working class.

You are turning into a one-man crusade, coming into threads on anything ranging from Islam to the EDL to the situation in the Middle East and speaking absolute crap and running away when challenged on it. Sort yourself out.
I never said it was the most threatening thing at the moment, but it definitely is a threat, not only to the working class but to humanity as a whole. You however seem to deny that religion is even a concern at all. Don't know about other countries, but in Britain all the left seems to do is continuously praise Islam and go on rants about palestine or iran. I don't really expect the entire leftist movement to agree with me, but fucking hell, just because you don't hate religion like I do doesn't mean you need to praise it and everything associated with it. As a whole, our movement needs to take a secular stance on this for now, regardless of what our personal beliefs on it are. If we start supporting any religion we're going to just get ourselves into a whole lot of shit.

[ComradeMan]

.......just because you don't hate religion like I do doesn't mean you need to praise it and everything associated with it. As a whole, our movement needs to take a secular stance on this for now, regardless of what our personal beliefs on it are. If we start supporting any religion we're going to just get ourselves into a whole lot of shit.

The fact you state you "hate" religion (an abstract concept covering many, many areas) shows there is an inherent bias in your argumentation that derails any discussion into a subjective rant from your point of view alone.

"Our movement" is fundamentally concerned with a socio-economic policy that aims to create a classless and egalitarian society with a true form of democracy and alienating around 4 billion (religious) people, i.e. 4/6th of the world's entire population (most of whom fall into the economically/socially oppressed category) is not the right way to do things.

[Kenco Smooth]

I never said it was the most threatening thing at the moment, but it definitely is a threat, not only to the working class but to humanity as a whole. You however seem to deny that religion is even a concern at all. Don't know about other countries, but in Britain all the left seems to do is continuously praise Islam and go on rants about palestine or iran. I don't really expect the entire leftist movement to agree with me, but fucking hell, just because you don't hate religion like I do doesn't mean you need to praise it and everything associated with it. As a whole, our movement needs to take a secular stance on this for now, regardless of what our personal beliefs on it are. If we start supporting any religion we're going to just get ourselves into a whole lot of shit.

Yep. If we stop people believing in god then the horrible abuse of human rights across the world and especially in theocratic states will end.

Oh, wait no it won't. It'll continue all the same. Just without the pseudo-justification of some old book.

And I can't remember seeing anyone on the far-left in a position of supporting Islam as an ideology.

[#FF0000]

Yep. If we stop people believing in god then the horrible abuse of human rights across the world and especially in theocratic states will end.

Oh, wait no it won't. It'll continue all the same. Just without the pseudo-justification of some old book.


This. A million fucking times this.

[Sam_b]

but it definitely is a threat

No it isn't. Of course you could elaborate on this.


but in Britain all the left seems to do is continuously praise Islam

Produce sources that show that the left in Britain 'praises Islam'.


but fucking hell, just because you don't hate religion like I do doesn't mean you need to praise it and everything associated with it.

Show where I have 'praised it and everything associated with it'.


As a whole, our movement needs to take a secular stance on this for now

This is what most decent leftist organisations do. We take a secular stance in that comrades from Islamic, Christian, Jewish or whatever backgrounds can become an integral part of the movement. Good luck on building your 'militant anti-theist secular leftist' movement by shirking any religious leftist or worker away from it, in exchange for your ridiculous ideological purity. Anti-theism is a completely bankrupt ideology and you are a perfect example of it.

The left has not 'started supporting any religion', nobody has in this thread, and you have trouble grasping this very basic concept.

[SpineyNorman]

Religion is one of the few things I sometimes sincerely wish I were ignorant of; almost everything about the way it's handled fills me with irritation.

OK


On one hand you've got the religious lunatics who will unapologetically stomp your face in just for disagreeing with them; you've got the religious "moderates" who smugly hold that they have a deeper understanding of their religion-- that when their holy book says "Murder and oppress!", they understand that the true meaning is "Show love and compassion!", and it's too bad that you're incapable of understanding as deeply as they do; you've got the idiot liberals who assert that religion performs some vague but irreplaceable positive function and that all the killing and the retardation of science-- that's just the fringe, and hardly worth mentioning.

The point that you seem to be missing is that, whilst the texts they use to justify their position may be the same, the difference between the actions of moderates and fundamentalists are great and exist in the material world. The ideas these are based upon may be the same but, as a rationalist, you must see that the way things manifest in reality is far more important than some Platonic "form".


It must be terribly easy for someone who lives in a liberal area to hold a more "moderate" view of religion-- "Oh, these people who are against religion, they're just reactionaries.

Most of the people I have met who are of the "new atheist" viewpoint live in very liberal, middle class areas. Just a personal observation.


They don't see the fine gradations of the issue.

I can't speak for anyone else, but this is a weak vulgarisation of my view. My problem with the new atheists is two-fold. First they accept the fundy view that the fundamentalists are the "true" followers of the faith. This is nonsense, no single denomination can claim this - and that goes for both moderates and fundamentalists. Second, they take a scholastic approach to their "research" in that, rather than looking at what people actually do and asking them what they believe, they come to their conclusions by analysing 1) what the worst of the fundies do and 2) What the canonical texts say.


Sure, there are a few religious fanatics, but you have fanatics in all walks of life... They're just a small fringe; it's not really a problem.

My position is that yes, of course the fundamentalists are a problem, who is arguing otherwise?


And maybe some religious views aren't proven, but it's good for people to believe in something that helps them live well. Does it really hurt anyone if you believe that the world is 6,000 years old? Live and let live."

Who is saying this? Nobody here I would wager.


I think that if most people who hold "moderate" views on religion had ever had to live in an area dominated by fundamentalism-- where schools teach creationism and one has to fear for one's physical safety for transgressing local religious rules-- they would find it much harder to dismiss the delusions of religion as either irrelevantly marginal or harmless.

I'm going to call bullshit on this one. As someone who has lived in a place where fundamentalist catholicism was prevalent, I take the opposite position. Do you think that ridiculing their beliefs will help? In my experience the very best fighters against fundamentalism have been reformers from within the faith itself. An "outsider" criticising their beliefs just makes them more defensive and further entrenches their more extreme views. In addition, I would ask why extreme religion is flourishing in these areas. There are exceptions, but most of these areas suffer from serious social problems and deep inequality, confirming Marx's "opium of the people" thesis.


The only thing that separates "benign" religious kookiness from iron-fisted theocratic oppression is whether or not they have a sufficient majority in the area.

Bollocks. Extreme religious views flourish in extreme social conditions. In Britain we have a state religion, the head of state is the head of the church. We all fund the church via our tax contributions. Yet, despite this political power, religion interferes with our lives far less than in, say, the USA, where there is an official separation of church and state. There may be a link between the size of the religious majority and intolerance of conflicting views but it's not a causal link - both are symptoms of a wider social malaise.


It seems that almost no one except the "new atheists" looks at religious belief in terms of "Is it true?"

I think you'll find that all atheists, "new" or otherwise, do this. Hence their atheism.


Yes, yes-- cultural imperialism, privilege, tolerance, etc., but if the central claims of a religion are demonstrably unjustified, why on Earth should one be supportive toward it? No matter how mistreated the adherents of a belief system are, why should one assign respect to that system if it's based on lies?

Who says we should be supportive of the faith itself? I certainly am not. I have no respect for Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Scientology or any supernatural dogma. But I do respect its innocent followers who, in the case of Islam, are being attacked for no good reason. (To pre-empt a point you may raise, no, the actions of a few loons does not constitute a good reason for demonising a large proportion of the human race; assigning homogenous characteristics to a hetrogenous group is bigotry, pure and simple).


Of course, one reason is that it's fashionable to display what's thought of as a "complex understanding" of religion.

You've caught me out - I choose my viewpoints based on what is fashionable - that's why I'm a communist... oh, hang on...

Either you are projecting your motives onto others or you are engaging in cod-psychology - neither of which is attractive. Maybe, just maybe, people, me included, take a more nuanced view because it seems to accord better with reality.


People are much less likely to call you on "It's too bad about fundamentalism, but religion has a lot to offer us too... To each their own... Terrible the way Muslims are marginalized and mistreated..."

I have never claimed that "religion has a lot to offer us", nor have I seen anyone else on here claim that. Are you saying that it's not terrible the way Muslims are marginalised and mistreated? If not, why not?


than "Religion is wrong." As ever, it's much easier to get away with shrouding one's views in vague centrist pretension than to make a clear judgment, no matter how justifiable.

My judgement is clear - religion is bullshit. But that doesn't mean it's OK to blame moderates for the crimes of fundamentalists, nor is it OK to demonise such a hige swathe of humanity based solely on one interpretation of their texts and the actions of a few nutters who happen to worship the same God.


To listen to Christians talk about Islam as some sort of demon-religion that should be swept away and replaced with good, honest Jebus-worship is cringe-inducing, sure, but the idea of opposing Islam for being demonstrably incorrect as "islamophobia" is ridiculous; you might as well talk about "geocentrismphobia."

I don't have a problem with people demonstrating why Islam is wrong. But that's not what Harris is doing here, is it? He's trying to claim that Islam is predisposed to fundamentalism and oppression in a way that no other religions are. Apart from it being demonstrably false (when I first moved to the UK I attended a school where 48% of the students were Muslim. Their faith never came up and I had many a happy drunken night out on the pull with my Muslim friends, many of whom excelled at science, including biology), if we accept this analysis it becomes far easier to excuse the US imperial ventures in the middle east - they are protecting us all from this threat. This is Harris' true function - he is the liberal propagandist (along with the thankfully soon to be dead Christopher Hitchens) for shock and awe.

[ComradeMan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilo_Torres_Restrepo

Father Camilo Torres Restrepo (born in Bogotá (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogot%C3%A1), Colombia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia) on 3 February 1929 – died in Santander (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santander_Department) on 15 February 1966) was a Colombian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia) socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist), Roman Catholic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism) priest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest), a predecessor of liberation theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology) and a member of the National Liberation Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Army_%28Colombia%29) (ELN) guerrilla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla) organisation. During his life, he tried to reconcile (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reconciliation) revolutionary Marxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism) and Catholicism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholicism). Torres was ordained a Roman Catholic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic) priest in 1954 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954), but continued to study for some years at the Pontifical Catholic University of Leuven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_University_of_Leuven) Belgium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium). When he returned to Colombia, he increasingly felt obliged to actively support the cause of poor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty) and the labouring class (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labouring_class). Camilo Torres believed that in order to secure justice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice) for the people, Christians had a duty to use violent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence) action.

As part of the academic staff of the National University of Colombia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_Colombia), he was a co-founder of the Sociology Faculty together with Orlando Fals Borda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Fals_Borda) in 1960 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960). His involvement in several student and political movements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_movement) during the time won him a large following as well as many detractors, specially from the Colombian government and the church itself. Due to the growing pressure to back down from his radical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_radicalism) politics, Camilo Torres saw himself persecuted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_oppression) and went into hiding (leaving his job as an academic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic)) by joining the guerrillas in Colombia. He served as a low-ranking member of the ELN to whom he also provided spiritual assistance and inspiration from a Marxist-Christian point of view. He was killed in his first combat experience, when the ELN ambushed a Colombian Military patrol. After his death, Camilo Torres was made an official martyr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr) of the ELN.
He is perhaps best known for the quote: "If Jesus were alive today, He would be a guerrillero."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilo_Torres_Restrepo#cite_note-0)

In the Dominican Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic) in 1970 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970) a revolutionary group that included catholic clergy members and university students was founded under the name CORECATO (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CORECATO&action=edit&redlink=1) which stood for Comando Revolucionario Camilo Torres (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comando_Revolucionario_Camilo_Torr es&action=edit&redlink=1) or Revolutionary Command Camilo Torres (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Revolutionary_Command_Camilo_Torre s&action=edit&redlink=1).
In New York City, San Romero of the Americas Church-UCC has founded the Camilo Torres Project in 2009. This project works for social justice and peace for the people of the Washington Heights community.

[Sam_b]

No answer from Crimson Commissar though he's been online :rolleyes:

[Crimson Commissar]

No it isn't. Of course you could elaborate on this.
How the hell isn't it a threat? Religion has tormented humanity since the beginning of civilization. Being an atheist is still unacceptable in a lot of places in the world, and in the places where it is not, it is still considered completely unacceptable to speak out against religion and it's crimes. It is the responsibility of us leftists to create a new society free of the restrictions of the old society. That of course includes eradicating religion and everything to do with it.


Produce sources that show that the left in Britain 'praises Islam'.I'm not going to go searching around for the proof, it's right in front of you. Look at any socialist organisation in Britain and you will see them constantly shouting about the oppression of muslims in Europe, and advocating an actual alliance between leftists and muslims. Trotskyists in particular seem to enjoy praising Islam and it's followers.


Show where I have 'praised it and everything associated with it'.Not you in particular, although I have seen you make a few posts about your support for the Iranian theocracy..


This is what most decent leftist organisations do. We take a secular stance in that comrades from Islamic, Christian, Jewish or whatever backgrounds can become an integral part of the movement. Good luck on building your 'militant anti-theist secular leftist' movement by shirking any religious leftist or worker away from it, in exchange for your ridiculous ideological purity. Anti-theism is a completely bankrupt ideology and you are a perfect example of it.Anti-theism is the only logical option. It's not hard to see that religion has completely ruined human society just as capitalism has. Most countries in the world have a very significant religious population, in some countries like America they are very open about their beliefs and are a danger to the leftist movement. How can we ensure that religious supremacism will not continue in a socialist society? We can't, unless we take a completely anti-religious stance, by educating those within our movement who still follow religion, and removing the mad zealots who control organised religion from any position of power. True secularism is removing any religious influence from politics and everyday life. If people want to worship some psychopathic sky dictator then they can do so in their head.


The left has not 'started supporting any religion', nobody has in this thread, and you have trouble grasping this very basic concept.Anyone who believes that religion has any right to exist in the modern world, is in my opinion a supporter of religion.

[ComradeMan]

How the hell isn't it a threat? Religion has tormented humanity since the beginning of civilization. Being an atheist is still unacceptable in a lot of places in the world, and in the places where it is not, it is still considered completely unacceptable to speak out against religion and it's crimes. It is the responsibility of us leftists to create a new society free of the restrictions of the old society. That of course includes eradicating religion and everything to do with it.
I'm not going to go searching around for the proof, it's right in front of you. Look at any socialist organisation in Britain and you will see them constantly shouting about the oppression of muslims in Europe, and advocating an actual alliance between leftists and muslims. Trotskyists in particular seem to enjoy praising Islam and it's followers..

So the Greek philosophers and mathematicians, Pythagoras for example. The Jains, the native spiritualities etc etc etc were all evil and bad with no redemption. Much of civilisation owes itself to religion/spirituality especially since there was no separation from "belief" and "civis/polis" until the Renaissance, reformation and subsequent age of "enlightenment".

Now, I am not going to defend every Muslim belief, nor am I a big fan of what the Qu'ran says on a lot of things nor how that is put into practice by some religionists but at the same time I am not going to attack someone because of it.


Not you in particular, although I have seen you make a few posts about your support for the Iranian theocracy..

Iran is a case in point- it started out as a revolution that was progressive and then... well the rest is history. But that doesn't mean to say that the Iranians might not also have their point of view either.

The problem is with states and the institutionalisation of religions not with spiritual belief systems per se.


Anti-theism is the only logical option. It's not hard to see that religion has completely ruined human society just as capitalism has. Most countries in the world have a very significant religious population, in some countries like America they are very open about their beliefs and are a danger to the leftist movement.

If there is only one option it's not really an option is it?

Religion has ruined human society? Not greed, not selfishness, not cynicism- things which most religious teachings (even if their practitioners fall short) are actually against.


How can we ensure that religious supremacism will not continue in a socialist society? We can't, unless we take a completely anti-religious stance, by educating those within our movement who still follow religion, and removing the mad zealots who control organised religion from any position of power. True secularism is removing any religious influence from politics and everyday life. If people want to worship some psychopathic sky dictator then they can do so in their head..

You actually show a very narrow and superficial understanding of "religion", which is not a blanket term either.


Anyone who believes that religion has any right to exist in the modern world, is in my opinion a supporter of religion.

All extremists should be shot then....? :rolleyes:

When you tell people what they can and cannot believe then you are making yourself no better than the Spanish Inquisition in all its fury.

[Dimentio]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/idealism-problem-islamophobia-t147792/index.html

This is my reply to this thread.

[Sam_b]

How the hell isn't it a threat? Religion has tormented humanity since the beginning of civilization. Being an atheist is still unacceptable in a lot of places in the world, and in the places where it is not, it is still considered completely unacceptable to speak out against religion and it's crimes. It is the responsibility of us leftists to create a new society free of the restrictions of the old society. That of course includes eradicating religion and everything to do with it.

This seems pretty contraductory: talking about your 'appression' as an atheist (which no doubt you actually experience) and calling for the 'eradication' of religion as a move towards tolerance. I came back to this threat expecting emptyless rhetoric and got it.
Where is the threat of religion in my life right now, then?


I'm not going to go searching around for the proof

This is an admittance that you cannot find evidence.


Look at any socialist organisation in Britain and you will see them constantly shouting about the oppression of muslims in Europe, and advocating an actual alliance between leftists and muslims.

Do you disagree that Muslims are oppressed in British society?

This idea of an 'alliance between leftists and Muslims' actually betrays your bigotry. Muslims can be leftists. We should be uniting with left Muslims, why shouldn't we, in the same way as uniting with leftist Jews, Christians, Sikhs...


Trotskyists in particular seem to enjoy praising Islam and it's followers.


So much so that you cannot provide one shred of evidence to show 'praise' for Islam!


Not you in particular, although I have seen you make a few posts about your support for the Iranian theocracy..

Then you should have no problem posting them here. What is stopping you?


Anti-theism is the only logical option. It's not hard to see that religion has completely ruined human society just as capitalism has. Most countries in the world have a very significant religious population, in some countries like America they are very open about their beliefs and are a danger to the leftist movement. How can we ensure that religious supremacism will not continue in a socialist society? We can't, unless we take a completely anti-religious stance, by educating those within our movement who still follow religion, and removing the mad zealots who control organised religion from any position of power. True secularism is removing any religious influence from politics and everyday life. If people want to worship some psychopathic sky dictator then they can do so in their head.

Empty, empty words. Except you don't believe that people should 'do so in their head' though, do you? Seeing as a paragraph above calls for the 'eradication' of religion.


Anyone who believes that religion has any right to exist in the modern world, is in my opinion a supporter of religion.

So you are against people's right to hold certain values and belief systems?

Looking forward to your next post, where you quote evidence that the left 'praises Islam' and that I support the Iranian state.

[Dimentio]

It is true that persons on the left have used bad arguments to fight off islamophobic bigotry. Some of these arguments are.

I. The crusades (happened like 800 years ago)

II. Science in the Abbasid Caliphate.

III. Science in the Caliphate of Cordoba.

IV. Claiming that Islam is actually pretty progressive.

Those are lame arguments. The issue is not really Islam, but rather the racist idealism of the Islamophobes. To build a fairy-tale image of Islam to counter a fairy-tale image of contemporary muslims is self-destructive and ineffectual.

These arguments are not generally produced by left-wing parties, but by academics with some left-wing, or rather post-colonialist credentials.

[#FF0000]

Anti-theism is the only logical option. It's not hard to see that religion has completely ruined human society just as capitalism has. Most countries in the world have a very significant religious population, in some countries like America they are very open about their beliefs and are a danger to the leftist movement. How can we ensure that religious supremacism will not continue in a socialist society? We can't, unless we take a completely anti-religious stance, by educating those within our movement who still follow religion, and removing the mad zealots who control organised religion from any position of power. True secularism is removing any religious influence from politics and everyday life. If people want to worship some psychopathic sky dictator then they can do so in their head.

Hey there's this thing called historical materialism. you've heard of it right? And, since you hate Muslims/Islam so much, what do you think of this video?

TxdTEVzzr_s

on a scale of 1-10 how much do the muslims in this video deserve this for their supremacist, crypto-fascist views

[DuracellBunny97]

The further away any religious person moves from the fundamentals of their religion, the better, except maybe the Jainists

[hatzel]

on a scale of 1-10 how much do the muslims in this video deserve this for their supremacist, crypto-fascist views

If anybody dares to hold a religious belief (and even if they don't, but look like they might), then they deserve to be violently oppressed by people with little if any grasp of reality...

/sarcasm

If I hadn't included the '/sarcasm', I would have honestly expected Crimson to thank this post...

[black magick hustla]

Even fighting against bigotry against Arabs or Muslims (and im married to an arab) doesn't excuse how shitty Islam is. Just becasue some people paint all Arabs or Muslims as terrorists doesn't make Islam a good thing.

jesus i thought atleast a polisci degree gave someone the capacity to understand that there is not one "shitty islam" in the same way there is no one "shitty chrstianity" and that religious values are very flexible and reflect the society they were borne out of (turkish islam is much less radical than saudi islam), rather than society being a reflection of religious values. historical materialism ftw

[Palingenisis]

http://www.monthlyreview.org/1207amin.htm

Good article.

[NGNM85]

jesus i thought atleast a polisci degree gave someone the capacity to understand that there is not one "shitty islam" in the same way there is no one "shitty chrstianity" and that religious values are very flexible and reflect the society they were borne out of (turkish islam is much less radical than saudi islam), rather than society being a reflection of religious values. historical materialism ftw

Here you are exemplifying several very common (Especially in these sorts of circles.) but totally erroneous ideas. First, is the totally bogus idea that religion is formless, plastic, and malleable. This idea, steeped in modern-day Liberal relativism, as well as, in this case, Marxism, is utter nonsense. (I notice the charge of ‘idealism’, in the Marxist context, has appeared several times.) There is a range of behavior, from the barely religious, to the most ardent fanatics, but even the most cursory examination will reveal that the overwhelming majority of adherents fall into a fairly narrow, and totally predictable range of behavior that corresponds precisely to the prescriptions in the canon that forms the basis of those faiths. It is significant that these arguments are generally only made to explain or justify controversial tendencies or beliefs. When we read the Sermon on the Mount, that’s completely self-evident, but when we read Revelations, or Leviticus, or, whatever, when we encounter a passage about slaughtering heretics, or about ‘ravishing’ women, or endorsing slavery, suddenly, we need a PhD in Theology. As repulsive and backward as they may be, when the disciples of the Westboro Baptist church say; “God hates fags.”, we have to concede they are on firm theological territory. These arguments, though common, are completely bankrupt.

[#FF0000]

Here you are exemplifying several very common (Especially in these sorts of circles.) but totally erroneous ideas. First, is the totally bogus idea that religion is formless, plastic, and malleable.
That isn't bogus at all. Religion is a social thing that humans just made up, so of course it's malleable, and this is demonstrably true. Christians, Jews, Muslims or whoever, 2,000 years ago were extremely different than they are today. The Catholic Church 60-70 years ago is very different than it is today. Hell, the very existence of the Catholic church is a result of someone having a different idea on what constituted Christianity.


There is a range of behavior, from the barely religious, to the most ardent fanatics, but even the most cursory examination will reveal that the overwhelming majority of adherents fall into a fairly narrow, and totally predictable range of behavior that corresponds precisely to the prescriptions in the canon that forms the basis of those faithsIt goes without saying that all religions have rituals and things like that that adherents are expected to follow, but they are absolutely not so strict that they do not change over time. But, hey, let's look at an example. Catholics are expected to do good deeds and be pious and go to church, but is it unheard of to find someone who describes themselves as Catholic to only go to church occasionally? Or rarely? Or never at all?

And let's not forget that in the Bible, it says that working on Sunday is a sin! That's the Sabbath, after all, but do all Christians take Sundays off? Absolutely not.

People and society are definitely influenced by religion, but it's a two-way street. Christianity in a modern bourgeois democracy has a very different character than Feudal Christianity.

And, not to mention, I don't think doing something to get locked up in jail is something Christian faithfuls are expected to do, yet 35 percent of American prisoners, as of 1997 (dated, I know) are Catholic, and 33-34 percent are Protestant.


As repulsive and backward as they may be, when the disciples of the Westboro Baptist church say; “God hates fags.”, we have to concede they are on firm theological territory.

Not necessarily, because there's some evidence now that early Christians were pretty alright with homosexuality. In fact, two Catholic Saints, Sergius and Bacchus, were apparently gay.

So, why do Christians today have such different attitudes than Christians then?

Well, maybe it's because they're reading a book written in a totally different time, era, and situation that's been translated and translated and translated.

Look, my point is, people who are religious don't get everything they believe from their Holy Books. They cherry-pick. Does that make their belief dumb and phony and this and that? Yeah, sure, but it's how religion actually works. People read, people cherry pick, and people take and interpret what they're reading to fit their personal morality, which they developed from society at large through institutions, friends, family, and, yeah religion as it has been presented to them by these institutions, friends, and family.

[Lt. Ferret]

So, find me some good religions? Find me reasons to not disregard religion or throw it in the dustbin of history?

Reject religion. Reject the beliefs of those who practice it. Some are good and just and righteous people. Their belief system is a crock of shit. and Fuck historical materialism if its just a source for religious apologists

[#FF0000]

and Fuck historical materialism if its just a source for religious apologists

Well it depends if you think explaining why religiosity is a thing and identifying all the social causes etc etc is apologizing then I guess it is. If not then it isn't.

[Lt. Ferret]

i get why religion exists. i also get why racism or slavery exists. it doesnt make it acceptable.

[#FF0000]

i get why religion exists. i also get why racism or slavery exists. it doesnt make it acceptable.

yyyyyyyyyup we're in agreement.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Isn't Sam Harris the same joker who wrote the article defending torture, complete with 24-esque "ticking time bomb" scenarios which have never actually manifested themselves in reality?

[9]

Reject religion. Reject the beliefs of those who practice it. Some are good and just and righteous people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justification_%28theology%29)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteousness)

[NGNM85]

Isn't Sam Harris the same joker who wrote the article defending torture, complete with 24-esque "ticking time bomb" scenarios which have never actually manifested themselves in reality?

He wrote an article entitled; In Defense of Torture, which you clearly haven't read. As an aside, I fiind it interesting that many of the people here who have the strongest opinions about Sam Harris are totally unfamiliar with his work, but I digress. While those who are only aware of the title might erroneously conclude that his essay was a ringing endorsement of torture, it was not. From Response to Controversy;

"...some readers have mistakenly concluded that I take a cavalier attitude toward the practice of torture. I do not.

... I considered our mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to be patently unethical.

...I think that torture should remain illegal...

...It seems probable, however, that any legal use of torture would have unacceptable consequences." Etc.

Also, the ticking time bomb scenario is not intended, at least by any intelligent person, to be taken literally. It is a device, a hypothetical scenario used to make a philosophical point. From the horses' mouth; "Such “ticking-bomb” scenarios have been widely criticized as unrealistic. But realism is not the point of such thought experiments."

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/

[NGNM85]

That isn't bogus at all. Religion is a social thing that humans just made up, so of course it's malleable, and this is demonstrably true. Christians, Jews, Muslims or whoever, 2,000 years ago were extremely different than they are today. The Catholic Church 60-70 years ago is very different than it is today. Hell, the very existence of the Catholic church is a result of someone having a different idea on what constituted Christianity.

I never said that there weren’t different interpretations, and sects, and so forth. You can find exceptions, people love to bring up Liberation Theology, except they skip the fact that Liberation Theology is an insignificant anomaly in the history of Christendom. The range is not that wide. Again, broadly speaking, the overwhelming majority fall within a fairly narrow range of behavior, which, predictably, corresponds with the tenets of the particular faiths.



It goes without saying that all religions have rituals and things like that that adherents are expected to follow, but they are absolutely not so strict that they do not change over time.

That isn’t what I said.



But, hey, let's look at an example. Catholics are expected to do good deeds and be pious and go to church,

That depends on how you define ‘good deeds.’ For instance, there are Catholic missionaries in AIDS-ravaged sub-Saharan Africa going to tribal villages and instructing people who have never had the benefit of formal education that contraceptives are bad and they don’t work. They are, essentially, killing people. I find that repulsive, to say the least, However, according to their system of morality, they are doing noble deeds. I’ll return to that in a second.


but is it unheard of to find someone who describes themselves as Catholic to only go to church occasionally? Or rarely? Or never at all?

And let's not forget that in the Bible, it says that working on Sunday is a sin! That's the Sabbath, after all, but do all Christians take Sundays off? Absolutely not.


According to fairly recent statistics between 20-40% of US Christians attend church at least once a week. This is also beside the point.



People and society are definitely influenced by religion, but it's a two-way street. Christianity in a modern bourgeois democracy has a very different character than Feudal Christianity.

Yes, it is commonly called ‘the Enlightenment.’ Church law is no longer state law, not in America, anyhow, (This is one of the few respects in which the US is ahead of Europe, although, European countries tend to have less religious populations, generally.) This kind of behavior is no longer acceptable. In the West religion has been pushed back, we’ve erected barriers against it.



And, not to mention, I don't think doing something to get locked up in jail is something Christian faithfuls are expected to do, yet 35 percent of American prisoners, as of 1997 (dated, I know) are Catholic, and 33-34 percent are Protestant.

If anything, I would expect inmates to be more religious than the general population.



Not necessarily, because there's some evidence now that early Christians were pretty alright with homosexuality. In fact, two Catholic Saints, Sergius and Bacchus, were apparently gay.
So, why do Christians today have such different attitudes than Christians then?

How is homosexuality generally depicted in the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the Hadith, etc.? What has been the historical trend regarding non-heterosexuals in the history of the Abrahamic faiths? You know this; you just can’t accept it because it conflicts with your ideology. I have often noted that it is a particular curiosity of the left, especially the far left, that the painfully obvious is the subject of such impassioned debate.



Well, maybe it's because they're reading a book written in a totally different time, era, and situation that's been translated and translated and translated.

You’re making my point. This is total nonsense.



Look, my point is, people who are religious don't get everything they believe from their Holy Books. They cherry-pick. Does that make their belief dumb and phony and this and that? Yeah, sure, but it's how religion actually works. People read, people cherry pick, and people take and interpret what they're reading to fit their personal morality, which they developed from society at large through institutions, friends, family, and, yeah religion as it has been presented to them by these institutions, friends, and family.

You’re providing an excellent example of cherry-picking, right now, yourself.

You’re also downplaying the importance of belief. The power of a belief, incidentally, in no way corresponds to it’s accuracy. Imagine if I was to throw on a lab coat, walk into an oncologists’ office, and tell someone that it’s been discovered they’ve gone into a miraculous remission. Conversely, imagine if I were to put on a police uniform, walk into an office building and tell some poor secretary that her child has just been killed in a hit and run accident. To the extent that they accepted these statements, they would have a profound effect on these people, and on their behavior. This is why we generally see an inverse relationship between religiosity and rational thinking and behavior.

However, these belief systems are different, and thus, manifest themselves in different ways. As Harris points out, we would have no reason to expect a meteoric ascendance of Jainism to coincide with a tidal wave of violence. Where are the Tibetan suicide bombers? Beliefs, to the extent people believe them, inform their actions. Also, religious belief is an extremely powerful sort of belief, arguably, the most powerful. Religion is the lens through which the faithful see the world.

If your thesis were correct we would not see this uniformity in attitude and action. It is also absolutely helpless to explain the numerous examples of upper-class, even wealthy Jihadists, who have never experienced oppression or deprivation, a number of which don’t even come from especially fanatical families or districts.

Many of the faithful take their morality (Unfortunately.) from their respective religious texts. Even many who are non-religious will, incorrectly, concede that these books have a monopoly on right and wrong. Osama bin laden doesn’t think he’s a bad person. Nor is he simply indifferent like your average sociopath. In his mind, he’s doing something very good, he’s actually engaging in the most virtuous vocation that one could pursue. One of the problems with religion is, being deontological, it completely separates questions of right and wrong from the human consequences, with predictable results.

[Lt. Ferret]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justification_%28theology%29)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteousness)



okay.

[hatzel]

How is homosexuality generally depicted in the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the Hadith, etc.? What has been the historical trend regarding non-heterosexuals in the history of the Abrahamic faiths?

I'll just randomly throw in an almost unrelated thing about the obviously strange Christian idea of grabbing onto the 'don't have gay sex', whilst the 'don't eat pigs' thing is swept under he carpet as 'the old law we don't have to care about any more'...don't ask me why :rolleyes:


Anyway, back to the point, there must be a reason that this one 'rule' has been dragged up to be more important than all the other 'rules'. We would presumably link this to the whole sodomy idea, and this idea that all that bad stuff that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah was because of homosexuality, as Christians seem to like talking about. Otherwise the very word 'sodomy' wouldn't have taken the meaning it has. If we take a Jewish source, though, such as the Talmud, we would see:



He who says, "What's mine is mine and what's yours is yours", is the median type, though this is the way of the Sodomite. He who says, "What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine", is a simple man. He who says, "What's mine is yours and what's yours is yours", is a pious man. And he who says, "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine", is wicked.


It's interesting for me that if a Jew had come up with the word 'sodomy', it would probably have referred to being uncharitable or inhospitable, or just general sinfulness. Because, of course, the list of sins of Sodom are multiple, almost endless. There must have existed some social idea outside of the Christian faith, that these individuals taking to Christianity would have decided that it was homosexuality which should be stressed, above and beyond everything else. Who decided that sodomy wouldn't be a generic word for sin, or for being uncharitable? From a technical standpoint, it's not Christianity in and of itself which caused this whole idea. It was whoever it was who read of the multiple sins of Sodom and decided to pick one out as more important, more serious, than all the others. It is more than possible that early Christianity wouldn't have looked at homosexuality as any better or worse than eating pork. As one prohibition was eventually abandoned, the religion itself cannot be blamed for not abandoning the other. It's a sure fire sign of the teachings of a faith being 'modified' to fit the cultural surroundings, and these would still exist without the faith ever existing. Hmm...

[ComradeMan]

Actually this whole idea of Sodom being punished for "homosexuality" is erroneous- I believe the punishment was for not offering hospitality to strangers.

A big problem is with the interpretation of the words translated as homosexual and current thinking suggests that the denouncement was of pederasty as opposed to homosexuality.

If we look at pre-Christian Europe we find some different attitudes towards homosexuality although it is hard to clarfiy because of what was meant/understood at the times-
It seems, in general terms at least:
Germanic/Nordic areas were anti-homosexual
"Celtic" areas were not anti-homosexual and some Greeks reference Celtic warriors as being quite fond of each other.
Romans- frowned upon it but also sort of accepted it too.
Greeks- well it was quite accepted, and the warrior Spartans were also quite fond of each other too.
Etruscans- may be Greek propaganda, but the Greeks and Romans were "shocked" at just how free and easy the Etruscans were ... :lol:

[NecroCommie]

Well, whether Harris is or is not an islamophobe, (I honestly don't know) I think this one thesis is correct. But then again the problem is not that of Islam but of religion in general. Yes the problem of islamic fundamentalism is the fundamentals of islam, but so is the problem of christian fundamentalism the fundamentals of christianity.

Sam Harris is just an asshole when pretending that Islam is somehow a special case.

EDIT: do notice that I could not watch the movie as my internet is too slow. I just commented on the topic in general.

[NGNM85]

Well, whether Harris is or is not an islamophobe, (I honestly don't know)

He isn't.


I think this one thesis is correct.

Agreed.


But then again the problem is not that of Islam but of religion in general. Yes the problem of islamic fundamentalism is the fundamentals of islam, but so is the problem of christian fundamentalism the fundamentals of christianity.


Sam Harris is just an asshole when pretending that Islam is somehow a special case.

EDIT: do notice that I could not watch the movie as my internet is too slow. I just commented on the topic in general.

He isn't arguing that Islam is any more or less crazy, and he has written quite a bit about what he thinks of Christianity. However, religious fanaticism in most of the Western world is largely on the decline, we seem to have turned some substantial corners. Christian violence, while commonplace in medieval times, is fairly negligible, today. The emphasis on Islam is because of the hold it exerts on the region, the level of the fanaticism, and the degree to which it is institutionalized, where in many of these countries, there is little or no distinction between religious and state laws. Islam's star seems to be uniquely ascendent. Also, it is significant that this particular religion holds sway. As Harris points out, an epidemic of Jainism in the Middle East (Which, again, is just as crazy.) almost assuredly would not be accompanied by the kind of violence we're seeing.

[#FF0000]

The emphasis on Islam is because of the hold it exerts on the region, the level of the fanaticism, and the degree to which it is institutionalized, where in many of these countries, there is little or no distinction between religious and state laws. Islam's star seems to be uniquely ascendent. Also, it is significant that this particular religion holds sway. As Harris points out, an epidemic of Jainism in the Middle East (Which, again, is just as crazy.) almost assuredly would not be accompanied by the kind of violence we're seeing.

Except that this sort of Islamic fundamentalism is literally 50 years old and is only in power because western governments saw fit to put them in power. It has 0 to do with the religion and everything to do with institutions being out of the control of people in the Middle East.

[Alishah]

--Generalizing Islam as if it has only one aspect to offer, because Islam has many different aspects to it.

--Jainism are die-hard fanatics who go insane more then anyone! (Just look how they put mask around the faces almost all time time, afraid of even swallowing a flea!)

--Not everyone thinks Quran was created by a God and not everyone believes Allah stands for a God.

I could go on and on and on!

[ComradeMan]

--Generalizing Islam as if it has only one aspect to offer, because Islam has many different aspects to it.

I agree.


----Jainism are die-hard fanatics who go insane more then anyone! (Just look how they put mask around the faces almost all time time, afraid of even swallowing a flea!)

Source?
All Jains?
Aren't you generalising Jainism now?

Jains also don't have an historical precedent of holy wars, jihads, crusades or conversion by the sword- or at least not that I am aware of- considering that non-violence (ahimsa) is a fundamental part of Jain philosophy. Also what you describe is applicable to Jain ascetics- not just everyday Jains.


----Not everyone thinks Quran was created by a God and not everyone believes Allah stands for a God.

If you don't think that Allah is God or the Qu'ran was the word of God given to Muhammed- then, well, err-- you're not really a Muslim are you?


--I could go on and on and on!

Please do...

[Alishah]

If you don't think that Allah is God or the Qu'ran was the word of God given to Muhammed- then, well, err-- you're not really a Muslim are you?


Please do...

I do believe in Quran being divinely ordained but not by God since he did not create this world. You are generalizing if you think everyone who believe in the Quran believes for the same reason.

Another thing I don't like about the video is that he is playing the blame game for blameless do not blame. So he should focus on something else.

[Palingenisis]

I do believe in Quran being divinely ordained but not by God since he did not create this world. You are generalizing if you think everyone who believe in the Quran believes for the same reason.

Another thing I don't like about the video is that he is playing the blame game for blameless do not blame. So he should focus on something else.

Remember that there are Zionists here who to tar all Muslims for their own racist political reasons.

[ComradeMan]

Remember that there are Zionists here who to tar all Muslims for their own racist political reasons.

Who might they be? The "zionists" who actually lived in an Islamic country, work with Middle-Eastern people and have lived with Muslims?

Imshi!!! :lol:

[ComradeMan]

I do believe in Quran being divinely ordained but not by God since he did not create this world. You are generalizing if you think everyone who believe in the Quran believes for the same reason.

Another thing I don't like about the video is that he is playing the blame game for blameless do not blame. So he should focus on something else.

I'm not going to challenge your personal belief, that is not my right. But from an Islamic perspective...

If the Qu'ran is divinely ordained and Allah is God, i.e. the divine, then who the hell ordained the Qu'ran if it were not Allah?

No one is talking about the motives for belief- but at the same time you can't call yourself a vegetarian and eat beef can you?
;)