#sam harris

[unsolicited-opinions]

Hi! As someone who really appreciates the nuanced and well-sourced information you provide, I have a bit of an issue with the post you reblogged from startrek-themed-barmitzvah a few days ago. I'm not defending the antisemite that they're debunking, or arguing against the overall point of the debunking, just the part of the post where they say that Islamophobia as a whole isn't real and cite Sam Harris, a guy who believes that Islam is a uniquely evil religion and holds Muslims as a whole responsible for Islamic extremists. The linked article demonstrates that attitude pretty clearly, and you can also find more examples of that cited in his Wikipedia page. That part's buried in the middle of the lengthy post, and it's unlike you to let it pass without comment, so I wanted to point it out.

I agree that bigotry against Muslims exists in the West.

I agree with Harris that claims of Islamophobia are frequently used to shut down criticism of Islam which would be completely ignored if applied to any other religion.

I also think Harris is right to point out that when Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, or Buddhist religious doctrine is publicly criticized, nobody's life gets threatened.

Harris does not hold all Muslims responsible for Islamic extremists - and I think you should support that assertion.

Harris has repeatedly and explicitly affirmed that the vast majority of Muslims are not violent and are peaceful, decent people who interpret their religion in liberal or moderate ways.

I agree with Harris' condemnation of Jihadists and Islamists for the same reasons I agree with his condemnation of Christian Nationalists and Kahanists and believe this should be utterly uncontroversial.

...have you read the book he wrote with Maajid Nawaz?

Harris absolutely does not hold Islam to be uniquely evil, but he does argue that Islam poses a uniquely dangerous set of challenges among contemporary religions, and that's pretty difficult to dispute from a sociological/anthropological perspective.

So, I don't think your characterization of Harris' views are accurate and I urge you to try reading him so you can critique his actual assertions.

Are you trying to say something other than 'anything which quotes Sam Harris is bad'?

Am I missing something?

[liskantope]

Sidestepping the larger thread for multiple reasons: if there are people who identify as dragons, and they do human things anyway, I don’t care. If there are people who identify as dragons, and they want to eat virgins, I want to stop them for the same reason I want to stop humans from eating virgins. I don’t have separate rules for humans and dragons.

I agree with this on its face.

But here's the thing: certain quirks indicate a high likelihood of wanting to do something that is harmful. Someone believing that they are a dragon, it would seem, is much more likely to have the delusion that they can fly, which comes with obvious hazards, or that when they breathe on raw meat they're cooking it (or the eating-virgins thing you mentioned, I suppose). That is, unless they believe they're actually a dragon but somehow live exactly as a human, which is incoherent unless it's a more abstract spiritual sort of belief (which a lot of the time I suppose is the case for otherkin), to which I have about the same attitude as I do to most religious beliefs which is standing for tolerance of them but to some degree regretting their prevalence and certainly bristling if I'm required to give positive affirmation of them.

(Compare to Sam Harris and others arguing, in the context of free will and ethics -type discussions, that character/intentions/motivations matter when we compute moral judgments, because while in themselves they don't decrease utility, they are indicators of whether a person is likely to do a utility-decreasing thing. Also compare to the general verdict around Chickengate -- I'm referring to an explosion in rat Tumblr discourse instigated by Nostalgebraist during my earliest years here (can't remember if you were also around) about how we should judge someone knowing that they f***ed a dead chicken, the idea being that while the act doesn't directly do harm, it indicates something about the person doing it that suggests they might do harm in other ways.)

A variation on the above: even if for most individuals an untrue or incoherent belief isn't leading them to do harm, I (and I think most other people) generally see beliefs in falsehoods as a Bad Thing compared to beliefs in truths and want to increase the latter at the expense of the former within society.

These considerations, applied to someone thinking they're a dragon or an attack helicopter or a raccoon, mostly don't map very well to transgender people, though.

[eretzyisrael]

[aurlthatyoufindfunny]

love is real and your ego is an illusion whats not clicking

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Sam Harris: The left has been successfully manipulated by Islamists and apologists for Islamists.

In certain cases, this is a knowing alliance, and in certain cases, just frank manipulation, and people on the left are morally confused. You know, I don't think someone like Hassan Piker is confused, and he knows exactly what sort of alliance he has. And I think that's true of Mamdani, too.

Winston Marshall: Do you think Mamdani is an Islamist?

Harris: Certainly, an apologist for Islamists. The fact that he can't quite figure out what's wrong with the phrase 'globalize the intifada' and that the worst he'll say of it is that he doesn't use that language, nor does he encourage it, but he's not going to condemn it. He's a proud DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] member, and they were out on October 8th supporting Hamas. There's just no way that should be possible. And there's no way that anyone who's got that level of callousness and confusion – confusion being charitable – should be running a major American city, right, much less being the poster boy for the future of democratic politics.

So, I mean, there's something very sinister about the way Islamists have spread their ideology through the West and targeted liberals.

––

Full interview:

[jackoshadows]

Two clowns who pretended to be atheists so they could use their atheist card/credentials to be freely Islamophobic and now sitting together defending Israel because God's chosen have the right to massacre children and steal/colonize land because it says so in their holy book....

I can't believe there was a time when as a new atheist I bought into their grift and genuinely followed their speeches/documentaries/conversations...I was a real idiot.

[mysharona1987]

[shkedia]

"Among all the values and forms of knowledge humanity imparts to its children, many Palestinians teach theirs to aspire to martyrdom above all. Stated this way, the reader can be forgiven for not fully grasping the implications. Another way of putting it, is that many Palestinian children understand that their parents’ and teachers’ greatest hope for them, as well as their true value as human beings, consists in subordinating every good thing—self-knowledge, compassion, scientific insight, artistic expression, love and laughter—to future acts of suicidal terrorism, for the purpose of murdering infidels, apostates, or Jews. If there is a more profane angle at which to set the initial trajectory of a human life, no one has found it."

- Sam Harris, Hamas and Human Sacrifice