Seder didnt "debunk" anything. All he did was use the same old left-wing talking points that have been debunked over and over. Harris has a tight grip on the truth.

@@michaelmarini4627 And that grip on truth is so strong that you don't even have to articulate it to us? It's enough to just say "it's the truth"!? You are either lazy or deluded. Neither is good for you.

@@512Squared Great. If you're that confident, give one thing you think he is wrong on and I'll tell you how he's right.

@@michaelmarini4627 ironic that your reply admits to using confirmation bias to assert a truth even before you've heard any evidence. That's just silly Michael - grow up

@@512Squared Then it's clear you're the one with confirmation bias. I bet you're just one of those people who get triggered whenever someone uses the words "Radical Islam."

Lol

hes the one caling in to debate, its a valid fucking thing to illustrate what you Think and what your argument is. why is that so crazy since you people Think those are incompetent hacks. you put yourself above them so why shouldnt he be able to put himself atleast at the same level?

@@wasdwasdedsf Harris fans never make arguments they just claim superior non existent knowledge

@@chuckecheese5251 oh Another one wthout arguments, what a surprise. such as the non existant knowledge of you guys claiming muslims actually dont Think the way that they report to do, and that their Death cult isnt actually a big problem at all? and the knowledge you guys have that harris and anyone pointing out these things or discussing science is intrinsically, objectively a racist and an islamaphone?

Self aggrandizement at its finest

It is the same crowd.... a shame really, but they do have a "type"...

ufster81 I would love you to say that to my face you little bitch.

All of them ganes Muslims! Am I the archetype of people whatching this?

Couldn't agree with you more... They call progressives and liberals snowflakes... Watch them melt and get triggered just as much when facts are presented... Facts don't care about your feelings

@ufster81 argument

Erock Reinhardt that was insane I didn’t catch it and was like what did he say??? LOL

I caught it too. Of course, I'm a former fundie myself so it's something I'm very aware of. There is a terrible tendency to take one particular group of a religion and then condemn the entire religion based on that group's actions/beliefs. And it's mostly prevalent among atheists that don't really know much about the religion they're talking about.

@@SadisticSenpai61 THe bible itself is homophobic, ffs. So is the Kuran. And a non-fundamentalist christian is less christian than a fundie christian. The more of the Bible you follow, the more christian you are. Fundie christians are simply the logical conclusion of christianity - ergo, christianity is an inherently evil ideology (so is islam). Pro-gay christians are confused and their identity is oxymoronic.

Non-fundie christians and non-fundie muslims can support gay rights all they want - but they need to do it with the knowledge that they are explicitly and unequivocally going AGAINST their own religion (and acting like hypocrites) when they do so.

@@SadisticSenpai61 Non-fundie christians and non-fundie muslims can support gay rights all they want - but they need to do it with the knowledge that they are explicitly and unequivocally going AGAINST their own religion (and acting like hypocrites) when they do so.

@@wasdwasdedsf lmao, fantastic point. Fucking dummy lol

Rip

it does… these frauds videos are trash

This guy would have argued for geocentrism 500 years ago by his own logic lol

NO, he is constantly making the appeals to consequences fallacy in these videos, "we can't criticise because this will happen."

***** dishonest? it's a hypothetical. i wasn't attributing that to Harris here. I'm saying if we cut through all the poll sifting nit picking and for arguments sake, could come to that conclusion.. what is the next step? - what's humorously ironic is that you're the one creating a strawman here.

evelkidnievel You're so dumb you don't even realize you're committing the same fallacy, and you are completely strawmanning.

***** they way one would respond would be to provide some basis to support your argument. You can repeat that i'm "being dishonest" and "gaslighting" until you're blue in the face. That however, does not make it so and is not an argument. again (If you'd like to be productive).. think about what might be the best method to move forward once "we", collectively and finally all agree with Harris. What then should be done ?

kathy kelly lol.. HowlOfMinerva MUST be your sockpuppet account. Your complete inability to understand or correctly identify logical fallacy is almost hilarious if it weren't so pathetic.

The Air Show where are the legitimate criticisms? Mostly what I have seen is butthurt Harris fans whining that someone has dared to attacked their disingenuous hero. The religion as a whole has less to do with the current situation than one would think and Harris's kind of criticism just falls into generalizations that are pointless.

The Air Show and that sounds like an Iranian issue not an issue for everyone who is Muslim. have they executed people in Morocco for heresy? In Turkey? in Algeria?

The Air Show but if similar countries don't do as such it has less to do about the religion and more to do with the particular circumstances within that country ie go beyond surface observations

Another thing i've noticed is that they keep throwing 'Muslim apologist' around. They, like Sam Harris, think all Muslims are one group. Ignorance is a bliss with them.

Culturebreach exactly. I find a number of these Harris fans as ignorant as fox conservatives on the Islamic world or rather more importantly on the circumstances of individual countries and cultures. Their main bone to pick in all this is that they feel people are telling them not to do something - in this case criticize Islam (which isn't the case but whatever) - and they are damned if somebody is going to tell them what to do or not to do.

Why wouldn't he have fans? He is an intelligent human being who displays hardcore facts all the time. Unlike Seder or Brooks.

@@michaelmarini4627 And they have reading comprehension problems, to boot. Hint: the number isn't the ironic part, dumb dumb.

@@michaelmarini4627😂😂 Sam Harris attacks liberals, do you know 90% of educators and scholars are liberals.

okay to say what, snowflake? anything wrong with what they say? how do you people Think its okay to defend an area where in 17 of the 23 countries where the question was asked, at least half of Muslims say sharia is the revealed word of God?????

mich miranda it’s literally based off of survey and polling data of Muslim Countries

... seems like both are pretty problematic....

+Nicholas Yager If what you say here were true, all fundamentalist Christians would be as intransigently anti-shellfish as they are anti-LGBT rights. Similarly, all fundamentalist Muslims would strictly follow the verses outlawing sneak attacks and calling for peace and brotherhood between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The reality is that religion and scriptural strictures have very little to do with Islamist and Christianist extremism, beyond providing a thin patina of rationale. Socio-political and historical factors play a significantly larger role. The problem with the stance people like Sam Harris, Ayyan Hirsi Ali, and other New Atheist-types take is not in calling for an Islamic "Reformation," but the manner in which they engage Muslims. One can't paint Muslims with a broad brush and say, "You need to stop Islamist terrorism from happening!", without being unfair to the vast majority of Muslims. A lot of Muslims are doing their damndest to fight groups like ISIS, and indeed, Muslims are the lion's share of Islamist extremists' victims. So telling them that there are fundamental problems with Islam is understandably pretty galling. There's no problem with the way they follow Islam - they don't hurt anybody in how they practice their beliefs. You may as well be asking them, "How long have you been beating your wife?"

+Steve Firstly, Seventh Day Adventists do, in fact, avoid eating shellfish. Secondly, it is largely for theological reasons that extend all the way back to the founders of Christianity that other fundamentalists don't follow those laws. Paul has long, impassioned speeches about why Gentiles are not beholden to certain Old Testament Laws, including dietary requirements and not, importantly, those regarding homosexuality. There are Gospel passages to the same effect. It is worth noting that orthodox Jews and the vast majority of Muslims do, in fact, abstain from eating shellfish and pork (however there are plenty of exceptions to both, which more or less proves my point because those exceptions are precisely the less fundamentalist, less devout in the group. For example in Turkey, a secular country, more than half the population drinks alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam. This, despite the fact that it is an overwhelmingly Muslim population). More importantly though, I do not argue that every fundamentalist follows every teaching of their holy books (or that holy books are the only things that matter). My only contention is that firstly, beliefs matter in determining action, and secondly that the teachings of the holy books (along with things such as how the founding figures of a religion behaved) matter when determining those beliefs. It is often said that those who do horrible things in the name of religion are somehow intrinsically "evil", and simply "interpret" their texts to justify a toxic message the same way an intrinsically "good" person "interprets" their texts to justify a message of love and peace. I doubt anyone can find any justification for this view of human nature as intrinsically good or evil in the psychological literature. Needless to say, I consider this view misguided. It is not an accident, in my view, that fundamentalist Christians oppose gay marriage, science education and reading Harry Potter. It is no accident that fundamentalist Jains wear face masks and carry broom sticks to sweep insects from their path. It is no accident that the most devout of Muslims do not eat pork, support the death penalty for apostates and cut off the hands of thieves. More importantly though, it is no accident that wherever these ethics are not shared by the religions, those ethics are not practiced in the real world by the followers of those religions. For example, Christians are not at all likely to be vegetarians like Jains, just like Buddhists are not at all more likely to oppose gay marriage or the teaching of evolution like Christians and Muslims. It is certainly not true that one's interpretation of scripture is purely dependent on the character of the person doing the interpreting or the socio-economic pressures they are subjected to. Interpretation of scripture is highly hereditary, and when it isn't the most influential factor is often a charismatic preacher. Now, to be clear, the Christian Bible/Jewish Tanakh is far more deplorable than the Qur'an, However, the Jewish and Christian communities have been bludgeoned so viciously by the hammer of secularism so as to make holding such strict literalist views a veritable embarrassment to the one who holds them. This is why the most literalist of literalist interpretations are not very popular, at least in the Western world, and most Jews are atheists. To your point on tactics, it's not about "paint[ing].. with a broad brush] and telling them they "need to stop Islamist terrorism from happening". It's about getting them to recognise the the roles these terrorists beliefs play in influencing their behaviour, and how those beliefs were shaped by the doctrines of Islam. It's about disabusing them of the notion that revelation is an accurate source of moral truths, so they can recognise how a belief in martyrdom and jihad can be dangerous. Telling a nice, progressive, liberal Catholic that her church is responsible for some of the most heinous crimes committed on humanity may be galling to her, but it is nevertheless true that there is a link between the belief in celibacy for priests, and the infallibility of the Pope, and an ongoing pedophilia scheme; the absolute commitment to natural law and the evils of denying contraceptives to disease ridden African communities and suppressing homosexuality; and beliefs about the existence of the soul and the opposition to abortion and stem cell research.

"It is certainly not true that one's interpretation of scripture is purely dependent on the character of the person doing the interpreting or the socio-economic pressures they are subjected to. " No one said it was "purely" dependent - just largely, ie: to a degree where it's kind of ridiculous how much New Atheists and Islamophobes like you tend to ignore it as a factor. Most of the strictures that we find so onerous in Islam predate the religion in the Middle East. The same is true with Christianity; one need look no further than the Council of Jerusalem to see how quickly Christianity evolved to accommodate the cultural norms of non-Jews in its first generation of existence. No, humans bend and twist religions and ideologies to fit their goals, preferences, and objectives - not the other way around. The reality of the matter is, it doesn't matter what religion ISIS is, and it doesn't matter what Holy Book they claim inspires their actions. It's not really what inspires them, and you're extremely gullible if you believe them. Given the history of the region and the population's engagement with the West over the past hundred years or so, even if Islam never existed, we would still almost certainly be facing a very similar wave of anti-Western terrorism today. In reality, religion plays very little role in international and transnational affairs. It's a fig leaf.

I saw it more like Sam.exe has stopped working lol. Sam could not be wronger on this issue. Fundamentalist religion is religion in its purest form. Non-fundamentalist christians and muslims are LESS christian and LESS muslim than Fundie Christians and Fundie Muslims. Because the fundies actually follow the Holy book like they're "supposed to". Homophobia IS a christian problem, not JUST a fundamentalist Christian problem. Same goes for islam.

Matt Binder is the young sounding guy. He used to be the producer. And Michael brooks is the deep voice guy. Hes still on MR.

@@Nekulturny oh ok thanks.

@@issaciams No problem, yes, it is awkward. In these older videos they didn't seem to have as many cameras in their studio. If you watch newer videos theres usually a split screen when one of the off camera people are talking showing them. Now they have 3 different producers (Matt Lech - Jamie Peck and Brandon something, hes usually pretty quiet, Matt and Jaime talk quite a lot) and Michael Brooks like I said is still there.

He advocates profiling anyone who could be a Muslim (including himself) in order to be more efficient. I don't personally believe it's a good idea but his point was that they deliberately stop people they know are likely to be no threat in order to not be accused of profiling. Sam Seder consistently misrepresents this.

+a.fro80y All his fans were probably radical Christians or Muslims in the past, a bunch of crazies nothing less, they agree with the guy on everything.

+Unknown And the irony is they think they're the Chosen People for embracing atheism.

What is your criticism, probably not a well reasoned one. Be nice to people who hold books as sacred, books that vilify huge sections of the population. Any reason why abortion is such a problem in America? any reason why a religious state has been terrorising the middle east? Oh is those books and people who can't understand philosophical reasoning. Here is a question for you, is torture ever the moral thing to do?

Your an idiot.

HOLY FUCKING Shit!! LMAO! 😂🤣 You are a legend, a.fro80y bro. 😂

videos that get better rating are on average better. the corrolation is fantastic. just like how iq tests and intelligence match up, and how blacks are less intelligent. any real argument?

***** when i clicked on it it was one like 9 dislikes...... So there may be one or two haters who clicked on and have multiple accounts... b/c as I found out the other day trolls have multiple accounts.... I see it's evened out a bit

Because they are fake liberals and now that Sam does not agree 100% with them & someone they like they turn into republicans & say some toxic shit.

***** This. It's not the ciriticism of religion that I have a problem with it (I criticize my own), it's the broad strokes over Muslims and the ignorance of the entire socio-economic issues of the middle east (and elsewhere) by simply claiming that it's "insert religion here's" fault to begin with. It's the same gross oversimplification that fundamentalists themselves do. It empowers them to say "hey, this is what they think of us, lets push back."

iwebber88 The fact that they are muslims contributes to their socio-economic situation more so than if they abandoned a lot of their horrible views and practices. If they aren't following that shit, then they aren't really muslims in the first place.

***** wow. You have a hard on of hate for these guys eh?

but that is Sam entire career making more people understand Islam and Muslims better indirect consequences of his bigotry against Muslims and Islam

Mir Rezaul Tarique being an atheist doesn't mean you hate religion what

You predicted the future.

The Air Show this is you on the phone line in the vid?

I think even if you control for that you get a number around 67% . Maher got it wrong bu inflating it to 87% which is the number who want sharia rules. But regardless the problem with these polls is their very low sample size and their massive fluctuation between the year the poll is taken. There is also the issue of fear of giving the “wrong answer “ in a deeply conservative country. Alot of ppl might be scared of retaliation and I know this as a fact from living in the ME myself. But of course Harris would say aha this just proves how backward the culture of Islam is..etc but that is kind of a deflection because in any totalitarian society that normalizes conservativism you will get an inflated number of ppl pretending to believe certain things. The % could be very inflated. A final issue with polls is how the question is asked. If you just say “do you agree apostates should be killed? “ might be a very different response from “if non muslims can convert to islam in non muslim countries , should Muslims have the same right to leave their religion? “ would probably get a different answer , when you highlight the moral contrast. From experience i do feel alot of Muslims just regurgitate automatically what they were taught without much thinking. And that’s not to say they don’t believe it, but sometimes a simple thoughtful provocation can get them to reconsider. As an ex Muslim I don’t agree with the way Harris portrays the issues in the Muslim world, but there definitely are huge massive problems which unfortunately aren’t talked about by the western left, and so get cynically hyperobolized and used as propaganda by the right. There is a kind of grain of truth to some of what he says, but he mixed truth with lies and half truths , and isn’t motivated by the right intentions.

I've seen people in the comments say that a lot, but would you want people to follow the Bible to a fault? I wouldn't. I prefer my hair short. >_>

I think it's great. The less of that book people believe, the better. I'm not sure there is a person alive who actually adheres to everything in the Bible. I'm not sure it's even possible, since so much of it is contradictory.

If people want to not follow everything in the bible and call themselves Christian well good for them but they aren't.

sunny copper Responds to comment about shameless straw-manning with shameless straw man...

+sunny cooper Sam doesn't want to bomb brown people. If you read his work for yourself you would understand that.

lolololol he does not know shit about theology or philosophy. he is a wanna be daddy mediocre scientist.

This is a constant point made by Harris supporters. Many people have studied Islam for years and came up with different conclusions. Most people's issue with harris isn't his -isms but rather his whininess when confronted with people who simply don't agree. Like you, he loves making the point that his detractors 'don't understand" , are making straw men or are simply "acting in bad faith." He is often wrong and often biased but cannot recognize that he is biased as Ezra of Vox once pointed out and also as Noam Chompsky pointed out in the personal emails Harris published.

+Jeremy Malcom That may have something to do with the fact that many of his detractors _are_ acting in bad faith by misrepresenting his positions. I guess as a lifelong progressive Democrat and atheist myself with an Iranian sister-in-law who lived through the 1979 revolution and watched her country flushed down the toilet by the mullahs, I have a hard time listening to people mount ANY defense for a deeply patriarchal and committedly-theocratic religion like Islam.

on their own page this is a horrific ratio, are you truely clinging onto that it has more likes thjan dislieks?

Sam Seder? I know.

+Jeremy Ablang Yup Regressive Left! They have fucked up the west and pushing their filth and "feelings" all over the world!

Correct. Sam Harris is very regressive.

Also taking a western angle on the results without any social-historical and cultural context is incredibly naive.

ufster81 18:29 actually states: "And say, 'The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills - let him believe; and whoever wills - let him disbelieve.' Indeed, We have prepared for the wrongdoers a fire whose walls will surround them. And if they call for relief, they will be relieved with water like murky oil, which scalds [their] faces. Wretched is the drink, and evil is the resting place." This passage is not suggesting you have the freedom to make up your mind about the validity of passages in the Qur'an, it's suggesting you must believe, or you'll face eternal torture. This idea that people can simply pick and choose is not at all supported by the Qur'an; it is all assumed to be god's word, and therefore morally correct. A person can be considered a Muslim while ignoring some of these passages, but the fact remains that many of the most heinous interpretations are the most plausible ones (and no, we're not talking about just a few verses). Your suggestion is actually that we lie, and promote the idea that the most peaceful interpretations are the most plausible ones. And this may be worth following in some contexts; it could be argued that it was right for Obama to say ISIS is not Islamic, to encourage less insane beliefs, given his position. But as a long term strategy for most people to adopt, promoting this kind of cognitive dissonance among Muslims doesn't accomplish as much as simply arguing against the religion altogether.

64 percent of Egyptian Muslims think apostates should be murdered. Will you choose to pretend that's insignificant? That's the question that matters.

have you been to egypt? Talked to any? Have you checked their laws?

Ronin Dave I must do all these things before I can be concerned about these poll results? Next you'll say I have to live there for a few years and become a Muslim first. Then when I have my own harrowing story about leaving the faith you can tell me that that is only *my* experience and that's it's not indicative of all Muslims. 64 % is a number that should concern you.

sausageman no it doesn't, you fear-mongering chicken little. For 1) 64% of Egyptians are allowed to answer a poll however they please as it won't affect you or I in the US; 2) given the conditions this poll was conducted under it's hardly conclusive of anything; and 3) if the government follows suit and passes laws that's when you criticize the government and pass sanctions. Right now your rant is the song of an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing because you're appallingly ignorant of the subject you are fumbling at to criticize.

Ronin Dave Rant? My OP quoted the Pew poll and was merely to point out the correct figure that these guys can't seem to get right. And you call me ignorant? You should be correcting them too instead of attacking someone who is merely setting the facts straight. I made no other claims, did I? Yet, you feign to know my level of knowledge, my 'bad' intentions, and what's going on in my mind better than I do. Your post says more about you than me. Fearmongering? That's a laugh. I never said anything about the US (where I don't live and I'm not a citizen of, though thanks for assuming), that was YOU. Amazing how bringing up this Pew poll gets one labeled a 'fearmonger'.. it's just so unfair to convey what Muslims themselves reported! Apparently we should never criticize anything beyond our own borders and that doesn't effect us directly.. who gives a shit about the people it does effect and the fact they're being held hostage by this religion? You should write into the White House and suggest sanctions against Islamic State. You're reminding me of an isolationist Paultard- close your eyes and pretend the world doesn't exist and the problem goes away. And then to throw personal insults in there for no apparent reason? It stinks of the tactic of defamation. I wouldn't stick my neck out too far for Islam if I were you.. if you get my drift.

To say the problem is with fundamentalist Islam is to say the problem is with Islam. Moderate Islam is not actually Islam. It’s a watered down and in many cases totally revised version that is not at all true to the Koran. Ask yourself, what is wrong with fundamentalist Muslims? It’s that they take the fundamentals of Islam seriously. So again, the problem is actually Islam, and the caller is not speaking improperly when he blames Islam as opposed to fundamentalist Islam. In fact, Islam and fundamentalist Islam are not in opposition, they’re actually synonyms. Moderate Islam, while highly preferable, is not actually Islam. It is often in direct and undeniable contradiction with the Koran, and the Koran is the foundation of all of Islam. This goes to your point about liberal and conservative theism. In many cases “liberal theists” are just undeniably wrong about the religion. Moderate or “liberal” Christians are in absolute contradiction with the Bible when they support gay marriage. So the determinant of whether or not you support gay marriage isn’t politics leaning, it’s how seriously you take Christianity and the Bible. This just happens to be correlated with political leaning.

@@motorhead48067 Your entire post is a No True Scotsman fallacy and hence is invalid so requires no rebuttal. And as well as being logically fallacious, it is patently idiotic. To say that every word in a religious text must be interpretted literally for a person to be religious is completely absurd. Ironically, you have exactly the same lack of sophistication and nuance that fundamrntalists do, which is sad to see. I can only hope you are young because if you are an adult and have such simplistic views you have a lot to learn.

*"And the idea that Muslim ideas never get criticised by Progressives is 100% pure bullshit, these neocons need to get out of their echo chambers of false narratives."* It's very few progressives that criticise Muslim ideas. Progressives and left-wingers at large are very reluctant to criticise Islam, this is indisputable. This is not some narrative exclusive to neocons, its also held by libertarians, classical liberals, & ex-muslims etc... *"To say that every word in a religious text must be interpretted literally for a person to be religious is completely absurd."* To a certain extent, I agree with you. However, with Islam, it's unique in this regard, the Quran itself and it's most renowned scholars stress that it must be interpreted literally. At it's core, Islam has only one interpretation, and that is the interpretation of Allah, Muhammad and the first 3 generations of Muslims. All of them took their scriptures literally. Which makes Islam at it's core a fundamentalist religion, and that moderate muslims aren't "true" muslims, not according to me, but according to Muhammad's standards.

@@kraftpunk6654 "It's very few progressives that criticise Muslim ideas." We do it ALL THE TIME. Get out of your echo chamber, bro! We criticise them for their homophobia, their treatment of women, Sharia, the fact that the religion is just dumb anyway, the radicalization of so many people etc. Just because we don't assume every Muslim is a terrorist that doesn't mean we don't criticise their bad ideas. "this is indisputable." Of course it is disputable because what you are saying is not true. It is true of some lefties for sure (mainly younger, naive ones), but lefties at large? Nope. "This is not some narrative exclusive to neocons, its also held by libertarians, classical liberals, & ex-muslims etc..." Then they are wrong too. "At it's core, Islam has only one interpretation" Nonsense. I can link you to countless scholars saying otherwise, and not only that but the Quran itself (Qur'an 3:7) says that there are many verses open to interpretation and NOBODY knows the correct interpretation other than Allah because they are extremely elusive and imprecise. The very book you are talking about denies the thing you claim about it, lol! "that is the interpretation of Allah, Muhammad and the first 3 generations of Muslims." Nope, it is the interpretation of Allah alone. And of course this is just a dumb argument because it doesn't address the fact that the book is in fact very vague in parts and open to different interpretations. If some are wrong that is irrelevant to my point - it's just a red herring fallacy. "All of them took their scriptures literally" No, their took THEIR INTERPRETATION literally. Big difference. "moderate muslims aren't "true" muslims, not according to me, but according to Muhammad's standards." Yes they are, they just interpret the document differently. And just on a pragmatic note, do you not see how insanely counter-productive your entire argument is? Religion is never going to go away as much as we might want it to, it's just a fact of life, so surely the goal would be to get as many theists as possible to be moderates and move away from fundamentalism. But here we have a guy shouting, "You're not a real Muslim if you are a moderate, only you radicals are "real" Muslims". Yeah, great strategy bro, I'm sure if you spread your message it won't at all make the world a worse place...

​@@Oners82 *"We do it ALL THE TIME."* Yeah, and tell me how many people does this "we" consist of? More like 10-20 people to me. *"Get out of your echo chamber, bro!"* You dont know what an echo chamber is... bro. Your assertion that the left criticises Islam all the time has very little basis in reality. And I have numerous examples to prove otherwise. *"Just because we don't assume every Muslim is a terrorist that doesn't mean we don't criticise their bad ideas."* Your "WE" is a minority in the left. It seems like you're just trying to save your own political party rather than coming to terms with the actual truth, echo chamber on your part for sure. *"Of course it is disputable because what you are saying is not true."* Then prove why it isn't true, you have yet to show anything. Whereas I have debated and conversed with leftists on the net, watched debates with leftists and right-wingers on the topic of Islam, seen left-leaning major media outlets rushing to Islam's defence after a terrorist attack. And I can tell you, I have rarely seen anyone on the left actually criticising Islam. *"It is true of some lefties for sure (mainly younger, naive ones)"* Not "some", its definitely most that I've seen and argued with. *"but lefties at large? Nope."* LOL! So why don't you show me a single poll/survey/or statements from the left showing that more than 50% of them are critical of the faith without labelling any critique or mockery as Islamophobia and racism? If youre able to successfully prove it, I'll retract my statements. I'll wait. *"Then they are wrong too."* LOL! Then you have your head stuck in the sand. Show me why they're wrong. Are you telling me, ex-muslims who have more knowledge of the faith than you and I, are wrong on this subject? So their observations and experiences are invalid, and only leftists like you are correct? Cant wait to see how you explain that. *"Nonsense. I can link you to countless scholars saying otherwise,"* LOL! Way to miss the point. You dont even understand what I mean by one interpretation, I clearly explained it in the following sentence "and that is the interpretation of Allah, Muhammad and the first 3 generations of Muslims." The interpretation of these figures are superior to any scholar you can link me. Also, your countless "scholars" are modern scholars, not the classic renowned scholars like Ibn Kathir, Ibn Abbas, Ibn Ishaq, al-Jalalayn, al-Bukhari etc... They all back up my claim. *"and not only that but the Quran itself (Qur'an 3:7) says that there are many verses open to interpretation"* LOL! You just made your biggest mistake yet, it is clear that you haven't read the entire verse. And I know exactly how you ended up with that interpretation, because you only haphazardly read the Sahih International translation of the passage. Here's Pickthall's edition: *He it is Who hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture wherein are clear revelations - they are the substance of the Book - and others (which are) allegorical. But those in whose hearts is doubt pursue, forsooth, that which is allegorical seeking (to cause) dissension by seeking to explain it. None knoweth its explanation save Allah. And those who are of sound instruction say: We believe therein; the whole is from our Lord; but only men of understanding really heed."* So there are verses which are clear and plain, and others which are allegorical. Verses like 4:34 and 9:29-30 aren't allegorical or open to interpretation. The four Sunni schools of jurisprudence all unanimously agree that Verse 9:29 of the Quran promotes offensive warfare towards Christians and Jews for their beliefs. So, i'm sorry, quoting 3:7 doesn't support your argument. The verse actually makes it clear that only Allah knows the true explanation, which is exactly what I stated. So if Allah's interpretation is the only valid one, that means only ONE interpretation is valid, and who upholds this interpretation? Muhammad. The Yusuf Ali translation makes it clearer for those seeking the hidden meanings of the metaphorical verses: *"But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah."* So, it is clear that Verse 3:7 has nothing to do with verses being open to interpretation, it's talking about passages which reach beyond human understanding, its basically saying that it's pointless for mortal humans to search for the hidden meanings with vague passages as only Allah knows them. This is irrelevant to verses which extremists are following, like warfare, disbelievers and wife beating. The verses which people have a problem with, fall under the "clear" category.

That doesn't even make sense to do, Harris and Seder have closer views than Harris and Shapiro. Why would Harris want to team with someone who has vastly different views?

From Wikipedia, "LGBT history in Iran" page: "Persia was conquered by the Arabs in A.D. 637, when Islam took over as the predominant faith. The Arabs were only superficially intolerant of homosexuality, and certainly the Koran specified no earthly punishment for homosexual behavior. Nevertheless, the devout Muslim was expected to know that God would be displeased. The outcome was a toleration and even celebration of pederasty in classical Islam, and much of the Arab poetry of this time is devoted to boys and their beauty. There is a significant amount of literature in Persian that explicitly illustrates the ancient existence of homosexuality among Iranians. As a result, over a period of time the people of Persia once again moderated or reversed their earlier position." Do you remember the Munich olimpics terrorist attack perpetrated by Palestinians? Did you know the perpetrators were Christians? We have a lot of misconceptions about Islam today, even Muslims do, unfortunately. And Sam Harris is an asshole. As a true philosopher he sounds like he knows what he is talking about but is actually quite full of shit.

Did you here the beginning? "FUNDAMENTALISM" it is in all religion including Muslim. They are also not all fundamentalists.

The need from a lot on the left to "bash" people for what they believe is one of the reasons our country has become to divisive. I see so many people who feel just because they're atheist, they're some how mentally superior to someone who isn't. Calling out specific problems with a religion is one thing, but a lot of people have taken to blanket painting people who subscribe to any region as being homophobic science rejecting low information traditionalist. Trump labeling illegal immigrants as rapist and criminals is just as bad labeling all Muslims as jihadist or even believe/supporting the jihadist mindset.

SilverMenace100 secularism isnt about bashing religion... if this is your approach or what you think it is about being secular then i dont know what to tell you. this is about us policy driving terrorism in oil producing states and the fact that the us can get away with it as long as they label it purely terrorism or fundamentalist muslims....

Oh sod off, you stupid git!

Niamh .O'Gorman false dichotomy. Which Harris knows he is using.

Which part is a false dichotomy?

+sinbad77 _Riiight..._ because doing nothing always results in a better outcome. You anti-interventionists are nothing but moral cowards hiding behind your weak and completely unhelpful "war is bad, m'kay" non-arguments.

+Fatima Zahra Oh, there's plenty of mental illness, drugs, prostitution, alcoholism, and STDs in Islamic countries. They simply refuse to acknowledge that the problems exist. Also, if you _really_ want to talk about massive numbers of Iraqi civilian casualties, why not mention the *millions* who were killed by the Ba'athist regime during their decades-long authoritarian rule of the country?

Allin7days Considering Fox News is the biggest news station in America my guess is, not many!

+ferrozm Typical Sam Harris fanboy right there, everyone.

Sam Harris asleep is intellectualy Superior to Sam Seder awake.

SLRok The straw man is what you just said "that european fascist and christian fundamentalist are the only people with a sane view of the threat that muslims pose." Harris nor Maher have ever sided with the Christian Right and have said before that conservatives are right for the wrong reasons when it comes to Islam (meaning they don't have a sane view). The other straw man is that somehow the argument that Islam has terrible ideas necessarily leads to discriminatory policy against Muslims.

Did you you read the last part? To say that he sides with or praises the Right is a straw man. He only said that (and he's said it before) they're right for the wrong reasons. I'll quote Harris:"The whole purpose of that essay (written in 2006) was to express my concern that the political correctness of the Left has made it taboo to even notice the menace of political Islam, leaving only right-wing fanatics to do the job. Such fanatics are, as I thought I made clear, the wrong people to do this, being nearly as bad as jihadists themselves. I was not praising fascists: I was arguing that liberal confusion and cowardice was empowering them." This should have been clear from the article you're quoting from, but somehow you're connecting Harris with the far Right. The whole thing about prophecy being as troubling as the ideology of our enemy should have made this clear and any straw man very difficult to make (that is, for a rational person).

SLRok "whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies' Nearly? umm... no actually most christians aren't going around cutting people's heads off, raping infidel women, etc. Nearly? lol... you're NEARLY smart about this conversation.

Justin Beagley listen to AIPAC or any political Zionist. Deep in their bullshit you can see their evil.

racist mediocre scientist and wanna be dadddy sam harris who has no grasp over theology, arabic, history or even philosophy.

Thank you. Sam really doesn’t understand religion.