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Sam Harris on "Islamophobia"

The part about tenets of faith posing a risk to society does appear bigoted as it paints all Muslims the same. Like Christians, some ignore the more violent parts of their religion and live like civilized people and interpret those violent parts differently in accordance with living peacefully in civilization.

He's using the same tactic some Creationists say about believing in evolution. If you accept yourselves as descended from apes, you will act like some vile animal. It's telling the other group how they will act based on that belief when the actions based on that belief are up to the individual.

It seems bigoted to claim an entire group of people believing in the same thing will all act the same, stripping the members of that group of any sense of individuality. Which is what bigotry does.
 
A'isha said:
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Sure, if we ignore their holy book, muslims are great, but why SHOULD we ignore the quran?
 
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Dare I go to work? There are som Muslims there, nice ordinary people I like to work with. Do I have to live in fear one of them will come to work wrapped in explosives one day?
 
pipelineaudio said:
Sure, if we ignore their holy book, muslims are great, but why SHOULD we ignore the quran?
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She's not saying that. If you think the Quran says something abhorrent then say so, just don't assume that all Muslims subscribe to your interpretation. Global attacks on Muslim that suggest they are all a threat is bigotry.

Religion plays an important role in the lives of many people arround the world, giving hope and guidance. Many Turkish Muslims take the key message from the as being about love. They believe that God wants them to be loving and compassionate. You probably know many Christians this way despite what you may feel are objectional doctrines in the Bible.
 
Fully in agreement with Harris (I think he has in mind rational criticism of islam in what he says above, there is a strong tendency in some liberal, extremist, circles to label all criticism of islam as 'islamophobia', 'bigotry' and so on). Sadly not all interpretations of the text are equally plausible when scrutinized rationally (the conservative interpretations have the edge by far, the Quran is not infinitely elastic in interpretation*), history shows clearly that islam put huge brakes to progress and, as the situation presents today, the 'progressives' of islam are unlikely to lead the way in countries where muslims are majorities. I'm not saying that there are not real liberal muslims (especially in the West) but unfortunately they are a narrow elite and if we perpetuate the status quo (the same religious education for muslims, making excuse for the blatant restrictions of choice imposed on its adherents, praising islam well over its real merits and so on) the old 'defective' religious structures (theological, educational and institutional) will perpetuate and they can produce at most the same pattern we see today (if not way worse). It's definitely not bigotry to observe that vast majorities of muslims are still influenced, at the unconscious level usually, by the many defective parts of Islamic doctrines (yes there is a core 'defective' Islamic worldview, shared in common by many muslims worldwide). Finally Sam Harris is absolutely right, the problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of islam (there is little internal logic which to make it easily amenable to modern values).


*it is true that people can interpret a book how they want but it is not true that all interpretations of the text are more or less equally valid in the light of Rationality, in the case of islam it is extremely clear that the medieval interpretations of islam give a much more plausible vision of the faith. The only way ahead, to create a 'critical mass' of rational muslims capable to direct religion where they want, is to educate people to be aware of the severe limitations of islam
 
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eir_de_scania said:
Dare I go to work? There are som Muslims there, nice ordinary people I like to work with. Do I have to live in fear one of them will come to work wrapped in explosives one day?
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At least that would probably be quick, so your colleague can't be a real Muslim!
Delvo: Anybody who doesn't want to torture non-Muslims to death isn't living by what Muhammad taught.
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A'isha said:
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I'd agree with A'isha here. When you call Islam X or Y, you are calling all of their followers that. The same goes with all religions, and even atheism. Thus to say that Islam itself is violent or some "special threat," is to ignore the diversity of beliefs among Muslims and to shove them all together into one group.

One might come back and say "well when I said that, I didn't mean all Muslims." However in some sense it doesn't really matter what they meant, but what they communicated. Language is all about symbols, and when one is talking about Islam people are going to take that to symbolize all Muslims. It's rather like saying Christianity is violent, or atheism is violent or evil, people are going to take that to mean you are talking about all Christians or atheists. The person may be making their own personal distinction on what exactly the term is in reference to or means, but it's simply foolish to assume everyone can just essentially read their mind. Overall, saying something like that Islam is violent or barbaric is an insulting and bigoted statement lumping all Muslims together, whether or not thats how one intended said statement to be taken.

Lastly someone might say that what they mean is that there is something core to Islam that causes so many to become extremists and violent. This partly goes back to my last point, but I'd also note that I think this is somewhat false. Generally, what people mean with this sort of view is that the foundations of Islam, their texts and early traditions, are what causes so much extremism and violence. After all, is it not from the Qur'an that these individuals justify their beliefs and actions? This sort of view essentially posits that there is basically a "true" Islam, or that which follows the teachings of the texts and early traditions, and a "false" or distorted Islam, in which people are more modern and don't closely follow them.

As I said, I'd say this is only partially true. While the texts of Islam do have some influence on what a person believes, the main factors that influence people's beliefs is their personality*, genetics, and most of all their environment. This is why three different Muslims after reading the Qur'an are going to come away with three different views of it. One might read it and find the texts abhorrent, leading them to reject their faith entirely. This would be because while they may have been brought up to value the Qur'an, they may due to their personality, genetics and environment have different values and beliefs that are simply incongruous with the text that they were brought to believe was the core of their religion. Another might simply ignore and not give much thought to the things that don't match or are incongruous with their beliefs. And another might wish to reform their ways to match more with what the text says. The only reason the text is of any importance is because people are brought up to believe it has importance. It's not the texts that really cause so much violence and extremism, it the extremist and violent cultures who continue to raise children to be extremists and violent.

Someone might wish to say that it is because the culture puts so much stock and value into the texts that makes people become violent or extremists. This is again only partially true. The value they put into it can potentially cause more violence due to there being such in the texts, but there needs to be more cause than that. Afterall, the Torah has plenty of cruelty and violence, promoting rape, genocide, stoning, sexism, racism and other things. Yet Jews and Christians aren't all out pillaging the lands of heathens and raping their virgin women. The environment in which they are raised and reside are much bigger factors in their behavior and beliefs than what their texts may have to say, even if they highly value them.

Lastly, people generally define a religion by what the followers of today believe, not by what exactly their texts might say or by what the original authors' and founders' views were. Thus this goes back to the previous point that while someone may have the view that Islam or Christianity is defined by some core based on the original meanings/teachings from the founders and texts, this isn't necessarily how others are going to take the meaning. In short, someone can have their own definition to something, but for a real discussion to be had where individuals understand each other there needs to be some agreed upon terminology, and when speaking to an audience one should probably use terms as they understand them or at the very least take care to clearly define what one means by a term.

I don't think I was really as clear as I would have liked to of been on some of these points, but theres too much to go through and edit. :P

*I realize that personality is something that comes about from genetics and environment. I simply felt it was something specific worth noting in.
 
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tsig said:
What does your personal anecdote have to do with the OP? Are you implying that all who criticize Islam have some sort of unassailable knee-jerk reaction?

How about if we call those who have an unassailable knee-jerk reaction to defend Islam as Isalmophiles.
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The first thing that the OP said was "There is no such thing as Islamophobia." It's pretty clear the your quoted post was challenging that idea.

Edit: I don't think my point was clear enough. Basically quadraginta was saying that just because criticism of the things people believe shouldn't be considered Islamophobia, doesn't mean that the term doesn't apply to something else.
 
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Everyone has beliefs.
When someone's beliefs lead him to wrap himself in explosives and blow up folk he never met, I have to wonder how useful his beliefs are.

When someone's beliefs lead him to fire high-tech ordnance at people he never met, I also wonder.
There seems little difference here, but for the state of the weaponry.

It seems to me that many beliefs are profoundly silly and it might be better if we all sat down and examined them objectively.
 
Sideroxylon said:
She's not saying that. If you think the Quran says something abhorrent then say so, just don't assume that all Muslims subscribe to your interpretation.
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Go ahead and publish an interpretation of that thing that isnt as equally filthy, evil and immoral as the bible. Lets see that become accepted by mainstream islam
 
Sam Harris said:
Bigotry and racism... are evils that all well-intentioned people must oppose.
...
Islam is a system of ideas [that] pose a special threat to civil society
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A famous Atheist once said "Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?"

I'm sure that if he was alive today, Joe would have agreed with Sam's assertion that Islam is a 'special threat to civil society'. The main difference is that he would have done more to oppose it than just 'observe'.

Being afraid of an enemy who poses a 'special threat' is not a phobia, nor is it necessarily a sign of bigotry, racism, or intolerance. I believe that despite the vilification he received for acting on his fears, Joseph Stalin was at least as well-intentioned as Sam Harris appears to be.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Go ahead and publish an interpretation of that thing that isnt as equally filthy, evil and immoral as the bible. Lets see that become accepted by mainstream islam
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There are a number of lslamic scholars who have done so. You have people like Mevlana who have appeal beyond the Muslim world.
 
Humes fork said:
[qimg]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BeQupAICEAASqGa.png:large[/qimg]

A very well-made point. There should be no limits to skeptical inquiry.

I challenge anyone to find anything objectionable in the quote.
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No different than observing the failings of individuals of differing races. That's not racism.

It's when you obsessively seek out reasons to post about the failings of one single specific race, over and over again that makes it racism.

Please let me know when you post about anything other than your all consuming favorite topic...
 
You know, although Sam Harris is a bigoted douche, he does raise a few points that bear addressing. Just because your accuser is an ass doesn't mean he's wrong.

A'isha said:
Do you deny the fact that some Muslims condemn violence in the name of Islam?
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Condemning violence in general? Happens all the time. But condemning particular acts of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam? Much rarer. And unfortunately, it's the latter that counts. If you're sharing a label with a sociopath, and you don't seem to be doing anything to stop him or be particularly bothered by his actions, that reflects poorly on you, no matter how angelic your own behavior may be.

When Hamas issues a passionate speech denouncing Israel as infidels who will be run off the face of the Earth, or Al Quaeda yadda yadda, etc, etc, where is the quote from the senior Muslim Imam telling him (and the world) he's betraying the principle of Islam? I just skimmed an Al Jazeera article about a Taliban suicide bomber killing 21 people at a restaurant in Afghanistan yesterday. Their selected "this is a tragedy" quote? Ban Ki-moon's press secretary. What do you think that says to the non-Muslim world about what the religion as a whole actually thinks about the violence?


A counterpoint: I'm American. I'm proud of that. I'm not proud of most of the things our government gets up to these days, nor am I proud of my fellow Americans when they keep voting the bastards in every cycle. That said, I'd still strongly disagree with anyone who argues that all Americans support the actions of the American government. I'd point to groups like the ACLU and EFF, who are publicly trying to rein in overreach within the system, and to heroes like Snowden and Manning, who martyr themselves to bring abuse to light on the world's stage to facilitate correction. These groups are not trying to convince the rest of the world "hey we ain't all like that" while turning a blind eye when it becomes inconvenient. They are actively, visibly striving to correct the uncouth elements of their own label.

Does something equivalent exist for the Muslim world? If so, why do you think it's not heard or listened to wide enough to impact the violence?
 
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