Religion Thread

Das Knecht said:

Just saying, this line from you:

He also ignores how Muslims make up the vast majority of victims hurt by extremism, a reality which doesn't support the message he's trying to convey with this article that describes the so-called "Reality of Islam."

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just carves it in stone: you are very ignorant of Sam's views. See, this is actually one of his major points he keep on going about.

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I don't intend on claiming that I know much about his views in their entirety, my focus is on this article in particular, and in this article he purposely fails to mention the aforementioned fact in an intellectually dishonest pursuit of painting a different picture.

Purposefully? You know exactly what was going through his head all those years ago? Wow, you must have some exceptional psychic abilities. Especially if you can deduce that he had goals that run contrary to his published ideas. Or perhaps you expect him to belabor the point in every article he ever writes on a related subject, so as to avoid such misunderstandings. You know, just copy and paste his complete written works at the end of every article. That would solve it.

Magorian Aximand said:

Purposefully? You know exactly what was going through his head all those years ago? Wow, you must have some exceptional psychic abilities. Especially if you can deduce that he had goals that run contrary to his published ideas. Or perhaps you expect him to belabor the point in every article he ever writes on a related subject, so as to avoid such misunderstandings. You know, just copy and paste his complete written works at the end of every article. That would solve it.

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Oh good, here comes Mag. I'd expect him to mention such a thing in an article that clearly relates to it and would be nice to mention it in to get the whole picture, but of course, when the fact runs contrary to the fear mongering he's attempting in that particular article, he's not going to mention it. Perhaps he's changed his opinions on the matter since then, I don't know, but it certainly seems like he's doing it on purpose. But no, I'm sure he just ****ing forgot to mention it in an article where it'd help his point if he didn't mention such an important fact that clearly relates to the subject at hand.  ""

Except, you know, all the times he's made the same point and included that fact in the years since 2006. But sure, you cherry pick and refuse to acknowledge that you may be mistaken about someone's views when it's been pointed out to you that they make exactly the point you're accusing them of purposefully ignoring. It's not like you could possibly have been mistaken about their ideas or, god forbid, their intentions which you've intuited from a short article written nearly a decade ago.

Magorian Aximand said:

Except, you know, all the times he's made the same point and included that fact in the years since 2006.

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The years since 2006? That could still mean he's changed his opinion.

Magorian Aximand said:

But sure, you cherry pick

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Cherry pick? This article is what I'm focusing on and I've already made it clear, and I have the strange idea that what he writes in the article would reflect his interests and ideas at that time. I'll readily admit that I haven't read anything else he's written, except for a few articles that didn't relate to this subject.

Magorian Aximand said:

and refuse to acknowledge that you may be mistaken about someone's views when it's been pointed out to you that they make exactly the point you're accusing them of purposefully ignoring.

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I've already said my focus is on the article, and in the article he's expressing the view that, as the others here have said themselves, Islamic extremism is merely mainstream Muslim ideas. I find it extremely difficult to believe that he just forgot to mention such an important and immensely notable fact that should have probably caused him to reconsider his point, or would have caused readers to reconsider his point. Leaving out important facts to support one's point is very common among writers.

Magorian Aximand said:

It's not like you could possibly have been mistaken about their ideas or, god forbid, their intentions which you've intuited from a short article written nearly a decade ago.

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No, no, I'm sure that you're right, that such a person who presumably knows much about the conflicts involving Islamic extremism and knew about it at the time would've forgotten to consider such an important fact.

Anyway, I don't care for arguing over this one thing for long, so whatever you believe, whether it's that he intentionally or unintentionally left it out, so be it.

Wolfy, the point is that if the fact that Muslims are the principle victims of Muslim violence damaged the actual point Sam was making, it wouldn't have been included in future articles in which he makes the same damn arguments. His mind hasn't changed, and thus he's included these facts. He's included these facts while reiterating his arguments from 2006.

What I'm suggesting, if you can slow down enough to see it, is that in light of that fact you may actually be wrong in what you assume Sam is arguing for or trying to accomplish in this article. Right?

I'm not sure how I could be mistaken in what he's arguing for in that article.
"It is time we recognized—and obliged the Muslim world to recognize—that “Muslim extremism” is not extreme among Muslims."
This is one of the main points he's making. Then after that, he tries to make the point that Muslims pose a threat to Europe. Unless if there's something I've missed.

Either he's addressing the fact that "extremism" in the Muslim world is not relegated to perhaps a few thousand outliers, and is instead a much larger minority. And that this is a problem not seen currently in other religions around the world either because the "fundamentals" of Islam are more problematic than those religions (take Jainism for example), or in the case of equally problematic scripture, Islam has not undergone the tempering that has made widespread violent Christianity a thing of the past. This would be one of the reasons he makes a point of supporting moderate Muslims in the article, and has done so repeatedly since then. And he's making these points because of the refusal of many to acknowledge that such a problem even exists, and were more willing to condemn the cartoonists than the murderers.

Or, he's fear mongering, trying to scare the world into thinking all Muslims are evil, dangerous, and the end of the world as we know it.

One of those two things would be damaged by acknowledging that Muslims are the primary victims of Muslim extremism, and one is not. Can you figure out which?

Well then that comment about extremism not being extreme is hardly necessary. The number of Islamic extremists is indeed hardly a tiny minority, but I wouldn't consider their views as representing the views of most Muslims around the world, which seems to be more or less what he's saying.

Neither would Sam. I'm confident that what he's saying there is that the views attributed to "extreme" Muslims is actually a reasonable interpretation of the scripture, which is why that minority isn't so small.

Magorian Aximand said:

Neither would Sam. I'm confident that what he's saying there is that the views attributed to "extreme" Muslims is actually a reasonable interpretation of the scripture, which is why that minority isn't so small.

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Meh, I'd still consider his comments about the possibility of Muslims becoming a majority in France or whatever bull****, but what you're saying is his main argument is something I can agree with nonetheless, so fair enough.

Hey, agreement!

My guess is that was included as an attempt to make the situation a little more real to the western readers, but yeah, nobody can be right about everything. I'd have to look into whether or not he's made similar claims about the population elsewhere, or if he's abandoned or corrected the idea.

Das Knecht said:

In 2007 or 2008? Harris wrote that article in 2006.

Aside from that, I couldn't find a link in any of your posts to a study that says 2/3rd of European muslims are not religious. Does this study/do these studies also poll the general muslim opinion on women's rights, apostasy and so forth too? Or how about their attitudes on jews?

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It is behind this link:
http://dougsaunders.net/2013/09/10-myths-about-muslim-immigrants-in-the-west/

Actually, Muslims change their cultural views dramatically when they emigrate. For example, 62% of American Muslims say that “a way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that the rights of Palestinians are addressed” — a rate barely lower than that of average Americans (67%), and vastly ahead of the miniscule response among Middle Eastern Muslims — for whom between 20% and 40% agreed with that statement.

Similarly, 39% of American Muslims and 47% of German Muslims say they tolerate homosexuality, compared to single-figure responses in most Islamic countries — and those rates are rising with each immigrant generation. On these important questions, Muslim immigrants are converging with Western values fast.

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and

True, 49% of Americans from Muslim backgrounds say they consider themselves “Muslim first and American second” and 47% claim to attend a mosque on Friday. But you have to compare that to American Christians, 46% of whom say they identify themselves as “Christian first and American second” (that number rises to 70% among Evangelicals). And 45% of American Christians attend a church service every Sunday.

In other words, Muslims have adopted exactly the same rate of religious observance as the people around them in their host country. We see this just as strongly in France, where a fifth of Muslims are atheist and only 5% attend a mosque regularly – almost the same rate as French Christians.

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So my 2/3rds was wrong - never go off memory - and the ratio of fervent Muslims to secular Muslims is even lower.

And let's not forget this part:

When a large-scale survey asked if “attacks on civilians are morally justified,” 1% of the French public, 1% of the German public and 3% of the British public answered yes; among Muslims, the responses were 2%, 0.5%, and 2%. Asked if it is “justifiable to use violence for a noble cause,” 7% of the French public agreed, along with 8% of French Muslims; 10% of the German public and fewer than 2% of German Muslims; 10% of the British public and 8% of British Muslims. This may well be because 85% of the victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims.

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Das Knecht said:

It's also quite telling how you cling onto one slightly dubious point he made, thus missing the entire point of the article - to challenge the "tiny minority of extremists" claim. Even if he is wrong, European muslims are generally much more liberal and secular than muslims elsewhere(though the situation in UK doesn't seem all that good either).

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That's an entirely different argument and you could have, perhaps, inferred from the fact that I didn't touch it at all, that I might actually agree with Harris. On that point. While disagreeing him with the other point; a Muslim majority in France or in Europe in general.

I think we're in some form of agreement then. I don't think Sam tried to make the Eurabia argument in his article: I rather think it was an example to make his point hit closer to home with some of his readers. Regardless of that, it seems to be a now-debunked example.

Pro ideology:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912014/Saudi-blogger-Raif-Badawi-wife-Ensaf-Haidar-says-lash.html

Dailymail.

Leonidas, you have to post serious sources I wan to be taken seriously

What are you guys complaining for? You can confirm for yourself that the source is truthful.

It's dailymail. I couldn't accept it as a truthful source even if it claimed that the sky is sometimes blue. And I don't click on dailymail links, thanks to godfrey's activity in this very thread.

That's your own problem, mate