PC Principal V: What The Fuck Am I Reading

[Niiro]

regardless I take exception to the rather amoral misrepresentation of his views. his thoughts that nuclear deterrence will not work with Islamists and pondering a nightmare scenario which he refers to as insane and absurd and criminal and tragic is not the same as brainstorming a way to justify nuking Muslims. more than anything he wants us to take that possibility seriously and do everything in our power to prevent nuclear proliferation in that region of the world.

My post was never meant to be a scholarly critique of the man, I was mocking a argument he made that set off all the red flags in my head given his broader opinion of Muslims.

The entire hypothetical about ISIS getting a nuke and the ability to launch it but we don't know where it is but we know for sure they have it reads, to me, like an exercise in stoking fear and anxiety, enough to justify the "insane and absurd and criminal and tragic."

My nightmare scenario is someone able to convince the public that ISIS has a nuke without adequate evidence, and people are sufficiently warmed-up to the idea that a first-strike is justified that it happens.

The hypothetical in the abstract was never the problem, but in a world where Sam Harris is Sam Harris and has Sam Harris's opinion of Muslims and we invaded Iraq on false and fabricated evidence; the entire notion becomes gross to me.

[Fiye]

His opinion of the Ground Zero mosque doesn't do him any favors.

https://samharris.org/the-mosque/

What one doesn’t generally hear from Western Muslims is any frank acknowledgment of these unpleasant truths. In response to serious concerns raised over Islamic doctrines related to jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, and blasphemy—along with their incontrovertible link to terrorism, threats of violence, cartoon “controversies,” and the like—one generally meets with petulance, feigned confusion, half-truths, and non sequiturs. Apologists for Islam have even sought to defend their faith from criticism by inventing a psychological disorder known as “Islamophobia.” My friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali is said to be suffering from it. Though she was circumcised as a girl by religious barbarians (as 98 percent of Somali girls still are) has been in constant flight from theocrats ever since, and must retain a bodyguard everywhere she goes, even her criticism of Islam is viewed as a form of “bigotry” and “racism” by many “moderate” Muslims. And yet, moderate Muslims should be the first to observe how obscene Muslim bullying is—and they should be the first to defend the right of public intellectuals, cartoonists, and novelists to criticize the faith.

There is no such thing as Islamophobia. Bigotry and racism exist, of course—and they are evils that all well-intentioned people must oppose. And prejudice against Muslims or Arabs, purely because of the accident of their birth, is despicable. But like all religions, Islam is a system of ideas and practices. And it is not a form of bigotry or racism to observe that the specific tenets of the faith pose a special threat to civil society. Nor is it a sign of intolerance to notice when people are simply not being honest about what they and their co-religionists believe.

[archibaldcrane]

Basically, he tried using science to justify why there is likely to be a superior race, then used statistics to say it's probably white people. This is a super generalization of the topic at the time, but I'm trying to keep it at tweet length here.

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I summed it up even shorter way earlier, when I said he's a "scientific racist".

But even in the quote AG pulled, he freely flips between "Muslim" (a description of over a billion people in the world) and "Islamist" and that's not, ya know, cool.

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[Koul]

His opinion of the Ground Zero mosque doesn't do him any favors.

https://samharris.org/the-mosque/

Careful, now. That was from 8 yrs ago. A lot of ideas and opinions can change in 8 yrs. Being slightly facetious

[Krandor]

he freely flips between "Muslim" (a description of over a billion people in the world) and "Islamist" and that's not, ya know, cool.

What's the difference? I honestly don't know and am wondering how this is offensive.

[Andalusian girls]

Islamic fundamentalist, supports a literal interpretation of the Qur'an and the establishment of Sharia-based Islamic states. all Islamists are Muslim but not all Muslims are Islamist.

[Krandor]

So like how all Nazis are on the right but not everyone on the right is a Nazi, thanks.

[Andalusian girls]

His opinion of the Ground Zero mosque doesn't do him any favors.

https://samharris.org/the-mosque/

I'll freely admit to not reading the article because honestly I'm sick of reading Sam Harris's words and don't feel many here are engaging with them in good faith anyways, but what do you object about from the excerpt you quoted? Islam is a wretched barbarian ideology, as are all the Abrahamic religions, and literal applications of them have no place in modern society. the great advantage we in the West have is very few Christians or Jews engage with their faith literally anymore, whereas Islam is prominent in a less developed part of the world and concomitantly seduces the ignorant to literal adherence in far greater numbers. that does not mean we hate Muslims or Christians or Jews but any humane society should reject and condemn fundamentalist tenets born of ignorant illiterate women-hating slave-owning bronze-age desert prudes.

So like how all Nazis are on the right but not everyone on the right is a Nazi, thanks.

excuse yourself kran Nazis are socialists it's right in their name

[Niiro]

Smug, condescending atheism solves nothing and is perpetually co-opted as ammunition for actual bigotry.

I say this as a smug, condescending atheist.

"Islam is a wretched barbarian ideology, as are all the Abrahamic religions" is a fine and true statement but people are mindful of what is being heard as much as what is being said, and what is being heard is frequently unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst.

[Andalusian girls]

you have not yet begun to be smugly condescended to

[Andalusian girls]

I guess I'm just not chickenshit enough to engage in self-censorship of the truth for sake of the delicate fuckin sensibilities of the religious majorities

[Andalusian girls]

ok now you've been smugly condescended to

[Niiro]

That was more edgy than smug but it's a fine line so I'll take it.

[Niiro]

Also:

[Andalusian girls]

dang knew I should've gone with the i guess I'm just not as comfortable with tacitly endorsing slavery and pedophilia as you are angle

[mallister]

i lived most of my life in the south, in texas, with a couple of year stint in georgia. my home town has more churches than convenience stores. i was a fairly tolerant, if indifferent, agnostic leaning towards atheist because religion had really never done much aside from inconvenience me and made me roll my eyes at adults that believe in literal magic at family gatherings.

then i spent three years in afghanistan, and my opinion on the matter changed to something close to 'kill all religions with fire, but particularly militant islam because it's a fucking cancer.' not pointing this at anyone here in particular, but, most americans simply do not understand how foul this shit is, and how close our own home grown christian fundamentalists come to their attitudes and beliefs in general.

[Dimmauk]

Also:

I never knew that's all it took to become a Muslim. Luckily I was bitten by a catholic years ago. Does getting circumcised make me Jewish?

[Niiro]

dang knew I should've gone with the i guess I'm just not as comfortable with tacitly endorsing slavery and pedophilia as you are angle

Wouldn't have made any sense, I'm not a libertarian.

[Krandor]

Wouldn't firing him be a religious matter, and not race related?

[Fiye]

I guess I'm just not chickenshit enough to engage in self-censorship of the truth for sake of the delicate fuckin sensibilities of the religious majorities

TBH it wouldn't be Islamophobia if he applied the same logic to Christianity and Mormonism but alas here we are.

I'm not gonna advocate for Athesism because I swear to god people herald it like its an actual fucking religion but if someone needs a little bit of the blood of jesus christ to set themselves right then more power to them.