@lantern53
and you are an apologist,and a tool.

i am not going to even waste my time dissecting your factually challenged and logically twisted comment because it would serve no purpose.

there is no chance of changing your mind,inspiring you to see events with a different perspective,which could lead to new vistas of understanding.

you hold the fundamentalist mindset.
you are convinced of your righteousness.
you are a true believer and any information contrary to your worldview will be deemed "heretical" and shall be automatically deemed "wrong" and dismissed on those grounds.

as evidenced by your commentary.
such a small,and narrow place to reside.
i feel sorry for you lantern.
you have my pity.

i think some here are missing the point of this short video.
while we can all argue the particulars of religion,it's failings and its successes,the fundamental reasons for its existence remains.

the militant atheist will argue holy text with the very same literalism that a fundamentalist exhibits,all the while ignoring the massive contributions to humanity in the realms of:art,philosophy,politics and even science.

while this dynamic of the argument is not necessarily wrong,it is,however,inaccurate.one cannot ignore,nor dismiss the positive contributions of religions,which have been legion.this does not mean that religion is above reproach nor criticism,just that a militants argument is incomplete without acknowledging this vital facet of human history.

the problem gentlemen,is fundamentalism,of ANY flavor.
religion is not going anywhere,much to the chagrin of atheists,but the reasons why humanity gravitates towards religion,or a search for the divine and sacred,remain a very powerful influence.

religion must,and has over the centuries,evolve to incorporate the paradigms that are added daily.the religion that is rigid in its interpretations and implaccable in its philosophy...dies.human history is littered with the remains of lost religions that refused to evolve with humanity.

a good example is the dark ages.which was partially perpetrated by a rigid understanding of christian theology (and an abuse of power and authority)affecting millions.it halted human progress and imposed a suffering and misery that is still remembered to this day.then the church experienced a philisophical shift and the reformation was exacted,ending the dark ages and introducing the 'age of enlightenment"...and human progress was allowed to proceed.

interestingly enough,while this was all happening in europe and human misery was a direct result of religious rigidity,the muslims were carrying the torch for human progress.making such additions as algebra and other huge strides in the sciences.

how is that for irony?

fundamentalism,in any form,must be fought at every level.so on that note i tend to side with atheists who are on a constant vigil in revealing the utter hypocrisy of a fundamentalist theosophy,but i will not ignore the wonderful and fantastic contributions that religion has added to human history.

because the fundamental reason why humanity gravitates toward religion is still there and it is not going anywhere.so religion,like man,must evolve to encompass the new paradigm in order to express our humanity,inspiration and awe in the face of the divine.

i am not an overly religious man.
that form of theosophy is not my path,but i recognize the importance of religion and its positive contributions.the challenge is to allow the more archaic and atrophied theosophy to fall away and dissolve like a vestigal limb.keep the parts that inspire and exalt humanity and allow the unnecessary and irrelevant to die with dignity,to become a footnote in our history.

which is what i gathered this video was attempting to convey and why i found it interesting.

@shinyblurry
thanks for the link buddy,now i am depressed.

@bobknight33
please do not take offense when i say:your last comment is so riddled with contradictions,fallacies and outright ignorance in the understandings of -religious history,politics and philosophy that i cannot even begin to address a singular point.that comment is just one big mess.

i will say this in regards to your comment.
to assert that atheists have no moral compass due to their lack of faith and/or religion is just patently bullshit.unless of course,you secretly wish to murder,steal and bang your neighbors wife and the ONLY thing keeping you from acting out is your fear of god.
or hell..whatever..judgement.

do you see what a facile and inept argument that is? morality is inherent to each individual.we all develop our own moral code.now religion can help clarify that moral code,but if you take religion away? we still will all have a moral code we live by.

we also rationalize.
ah..now there is something we humans excel at..rationalizing.or better put:lying to ourselves in order to justify poor behavior.here is where the atheist and the religious diverge.because the atheist has no holy text to twist and manipulate in order to justify that poor behavior,they have to own it and take responsibility.the religious person,however,can abdicate responsibility onto an ancient text based solely on their own interpretation (or some authority they have given power).human history is burdened with the mass graves of such justifications.

ok..i am rambling.
i love this subject and rarely get to engage in discussions such as this.if you have made it this far..i thank you for your kind patience with my own proclivities towards verbosity.

My understanding is that the song is what ISIS uses in various "here's us doing something incredibly horrible" videos. I've not watched any to confirm.

My take on the video is that it's mocking fundamentalists - if their deity were real and actually cared about people believing, it would make sense for things like in this vid to happen from time to time. "Fuck you, scientist!"

Coming at this from the perspective of academic philosophy I think the truth of the matter is ultimately very simple (however the details can be almost infinitely complex and diverse in how we apply them).

Simply put it appears impossible to demonstrate any kind of ultimate ethical authority or perfect ethical principles objectively.

One can certainly assert them, but they would always be subject to the problem of underdetermination (no facts, only interpretations) and as such subjective.

Even strictly humanist systems of ethics like concequentialism and deontology are at their core based on some arbitrary assumption or rule e.g. minimising harm, maximising pleasure, setting a universal principle, putting the concequences before the intention etc. etc.

As such I think the only honest and objective absolute moral principle is "Nothing is true and everything is permitted" (the law of the strong). All else can only truly be supported by preference and necessity. We do not "Know" moral truth, we only appear to interpret and create it.

This being the case it is the opinion of myself and a great many post modern philosophers that ethics is essentially a specialised branch of aesthetics. An important one still, but none the less it is still a study of preference and beauty rather than one of epistemological truth.

By this logic one could certainly argue that the organic "Humanist" approach to ethics and morality as outlined in this video seems infinitely preferable to any sort of static absolute moral authority.

If morality is at its core just a measure of the degree of thought and extrapolation one applies to maximising preferable outcomes then the "humanist" seems like they would have an inherent advantage in their potential capacity to discover and refine ever more preferable principles and outcomes. A static system by its very nature seems less able to maximise it's own moral preferences when presented by ever changing circumstances.


However I'm about to kind of undermine that very point by suggesting that ultimately what we are calling "humanism" here is universal. i.e. that even the most static and dictatorial ethical system (e.g. Wahhabism or Christian fundamentalism) is still ultimately an expression of aesthetic preference and choice.

It is aesthetically preferable to a fundamentalist to assert the absolute moral authority and command of God and while arguably less developed and adaptable (and thus less preferable by most Humanist standards), it is still at it's core the exercise of a preference and as such covered by humanism in general.

i.e. if you want to be a "humanist" then you should probably be wary of placing ultimate blame for atrocities on specific doctrines, as the core of your own position is that morality is a human condition not a divine one. i.e. religion did not make people condone slavery or start wars, human behaviour did.

We can certainly argue for the empirical superiority of "humanism" vs natural authority by looking at history and the different behaviours of various groups & societies. But really what we are arguing there is simply that a more considered and tolerant approach appears to make most people seem happier and results in less unpleasant things happing.

i.e. a preference supported by consensus & unfortunately that doesn't give us any more moral authority than a fanatic or predator beyond our ability to enforce it and persuade others to conform.

"Nothing is true and everything is permitted", "right" and "wrong" can only be derived from subjective principles ergo "right" and "wrong" should probably instead be replaced with "desirable" and "undesirable" as this seems closer to what one is actually expressing with a moral preference.

I completely agree with the sentiment in the video, more freedom of thought seems to mean more capacity to extrapolate and empathise. The wider your understanding and experience of people and the world the more one appears to recognise and appreciate the shared condition of being human.

But I must never forget that this apparent superiority is ultimately based on an interpretation and preference of my own and not some absolute principle. The only absolute principle I can observe in nature seems to be that chaos & conflict tend towards increasing order and complexity, but by this standard it is only really the conflict itself which is moral or "good/right" and not the various beliefs of the combatants specifically.

During Carter's single term in office, Iran became a fundamentalist terror state, Saddam began his coup that led to the Iran-Iraq war-Hostage crisis?? Hello?? He gave the Sandinista cash for their fun-in-the-sun-OH-He gave away the Panama Canal, right? Claimed that the Soviets were no longer a 'threat' and they marched right on into Afghanistan. He set-up foreign policy for the next wave of presidential failures and shills for the assholes who really run the show, you know them by their smell, the richest gadjillionaires in the world, who have stolen humanity's hope for anything but anarchy or global fascism and world-government control and surveillance-state, in the form of what the world is fast-becoming. Yeah, the old peanut farmer was was a real piece of work.

Wake up people, the United States presidency has been a ruse for close to fifty years.

i am going to go with=0
the whole thing is absurd and ridiculous..and extremely tragic.
i despise rigid fundamentalist thinking and this event has me quite angry.

"you appear,and please correct me if i am wrong,to pigeon hole anybody who claims a religion as being a fundamentalist"

I hereby correct you, I did no such thing, and did not mention fundamentalism.

"to say religion has not produced a single novel or new idea,totally ignores the massive contributions in regards to:philosophy,math,astrology,physics.the list is pretty extensive."

Extensive, huh? I'd like to see that list, in fact, enlighten me, and mention just ONE idea that was actually helped along by religion? Do you mean any idea that comes from a person defined as religious in any way? Can you show, in no uncertain terms, that it was the persons religious beliefs that helped solve a particular problem?

The closest I can think of is someone like Mendel, a monk, because his monastary allowed him to spend lots of time growing and studying pea-plants. But you can hardly call it a result of religious studies. If anything, Mendel must have skipped some biblereading to count all his peas.

What I'm talking about is when a proper good idea or concept has emerged from studying or following religious scripture or teaching.

@BicycleRepairMan
i do not understand what you are arguing against.
you could have stuck with "no" and that would have sufficed,but you went off on a tirade about religion that had very little to do with what NDT was attempting to convey.

simply put:keep science and religion distinctively separate.that you could BE a scientist and still be a religious person.

he didnt get into the details because (and i am assuming here) he is full aware of the complexities of ones personal beliefs,religion being only a single facet.

to say religion has not produced a single novel or new idea,totally ignores the massive contributions in regards to:philosophy,math,astrology,physics.the list is pretty extensive.

you appear,and please correct me if i am wrong,to pigeon hole anybody who claims a religion as being a fundamentalist.this is not only staggeringly inaccurate but reveals a massive lack of understanding.

which is why NDT didnt even mention the fundamentalist,because the chances of a fundamentalist being a scientist hovers around 0%.

so why are you making an argument against fundamentalism when NDT did not even proceed from that assertion?

why do you care if a scientist also happens to hold a religious or spiritual philosophy?
are you suggesting that a scientist who DOES hold to these philosophies can no longer function properly as a scientist?

has it ever occurred to you that an intelligent person may hold a religious philosophy and keep that philosophy separate from their work?

or considered that a religious person may actually view their work as the continuing study of god/creator/universal consciousness? that by unraveling the mysteries of the known physical universe is their way of revealing god?there is a certain poetry to seeking and attempting to understand the mysteries of the universe.

i am totally with you in regards to fundamentalism,which brings a stagnation to the inquisitive mind and hampers the desire to know and seek those answers.the fundamentalist externalizes those questions in the form of scripture and in the process..stops asking the questions.

but to suggest that anybody who adheres to a religious or spiritual philosophy is somehow a fundamentalist,and therefore unworthy of consideration,is just plain inaccurate.

beat me to it!....aaaagain.
i wonder if the new atheists are aware they speak in the very same fundamentalist language they so despise and criticize?
that on a very core level,the epistemology is the same.

oh the delicious irony.....

I've probably made it clear here several times that I'm fairly religious, and that at the moment, I'm not convinced evolution is the correct explanation for our existence as humans. But it certainly doesn't mean I'm ignorant in the subject. I've studied it for many years, both in school and out. Although it's not my area of expertise (physics was my focus), I'm most definitely not uninformed. Now there may come a time in the future that I am sufficiently convinced, and change my viewpoints regarding evolution. Will that be a problem for me? I don't think so. Not everything in the Bible is literal, and my interpretation of certain parts may be off. But for now, I don't believe in evolution.

But my disbelief is certainly no hindrance to my education, my understanding of science, or my contribution to society, and it would be insulting to assume otherwise. There are plenty of other Christians (and other religous folks) that are the same. The issue is that the fundamentalists are causing everyone problems, as they usually do, by refusing to accept the teaching of such material, and I certainly don't agree with that.

As a Christian parent, by all means, let your kid learn about evolution, and if you don't agree with it, explain to them why. (Parents are teachers too.) The child may not grow up agreeing with the viewpoint, but they won't be ignorant of it.

i ran a metaphysical shop for a few years with my ex-girlfriend and this is what the majority of our customers acted like.

this had me laughing so hard i think i peed a little.

this man has it spot on in regards to switching one dogma for another and these people are fucking oblivious to that fact.

just as a fundamentalist is constrained by his own dogmatic absolutist thinking,these people are just as imprisoned by their own lack of imagination,rigid thinking and an over abundance of incuriosity.

the seeker..no matter what flavor..be you religious,agnostic,atheist or spiritual..will always push the bounderies and always ask questions.

we know that we dont know and that is why we seek.
we ask the hard questions and do not rely on others to give us the answers.

these kind of people always had me giggling.usually white and over-privileged but i rarely found a seeker in any of them.they always wanted you to hold their hand and tell them what to do.

and they didnt take bad news well,because they all watched "the secret" and we all know...just like joel olsteen and his bullshit "prosperity gospel" that god/universe wants you to be rich and happy.

bad things happen to other people...not them.
bunch of incurious dipshits.

*promote

I think we agree completely with Sam Harris in that Islam is in desperate need of a reformation. I won't bring Reza Aslan into this as I haven't read him, and it seems to be tangential at best.

But, acknowledge what you just said when you said that Islam is in need of reformation. You are saying what Sam is saying: That Islam contains some horrible ideas, and people are acting on those ideas, and we need to find a way to marginalize those ideas within the canon of Islam.

We could end the disagreement right there, except for where we stand in history at this point. If Christianity had undergone its reformation in a post nuclear arsenals world, who knows where we would be. It is because of this that it behooves everyone to encourage this reformation of Islam, and potentially to limit their access to apocalyptic weaponry until such a reformation has taken place. That's a different discussion though.

I think Sam's position is that one of the potential motivations behind suicide bombing is martyrdom and jihad. Real belief in those particular dogma alone is sufficient to justify suicide attacks. There are definitely plenty of terrorist actions that take place for completely non-religious reasons, and I bet that the bulk of them combine the two. But that doesn't refute Sam's point.

As for your last bit about literal interpretations, I don't agree there either, at least not entirely. How could you possibly explain the inquisition without resorting to what one would now consider to be fundamentalist readings of the texts? The same fundamentals you're saying weren't in vogue until 100 years ago is the very propaganda used to recruit soldiers to the caliphate's armies centuries ago. In any case it seems unrelated to the discussion when scriptural literalism came about, the fact is that it exists, making it more important that some books contain really bad ideas.

@Barbar
what you are speaking of in regards to the 2 religions (judaism/christianity) are the reformations they both experienced.

now there are a myriad of reasons why these reformations occurred:age of enlightenment, renaissance and a new way of thinking=secular philosophy.i could go on but those are the big three.

islam has yet to experience a reformation and reza aslan's book "no god but god" makes the case that islam is in desperate NEED of a reformation,to which harris dishonestly suggests that islam needs while in the same sentence accuses reza of ignoring.the man wrote an entire nook making the case for islamic reformation!

when you are going to criticize belief you have to also ask the "WHY" of that belief.if you strictly confine your arguments to a book then you are ignoring the multitude of factors to the origin of that belief and are actually formulating an argument with the very same absolutist and fundamentalist thinking that you are criticizing.

you are quite literally using fundamentalism to criticize fundamentalism.

example:
harris makes the point that suicide bombers blow themselves up because the quran glorifies martyrdom,with little thought to WHY those young men strapped bombs to their chest in the first place.

when the WHY is the most important question!

and the answer is NOT because the quran demands it of them but rather out of hopelessness brought on by oppression,murder,torture of their friends and family.

the quran offers a rationalization for the suicide bomber.a desperate person will grasp desperately at any thin straw to give their life meaning,but it most certainly not the cause.

this fundamental lack of understanding is why i find harris to be a mediocre atheist thinker.

literalism in regards to scriptural interpretation is a fairly new phenom,(past 100 years),and that includes muslims.

I'm only about 9 minutes in, but I don't agree with how Cenk took Maher and Harris' comments...

He said that Maher (and Harris) are suggesting that ALL Muslims hold the radical, fundamentalist beliefs. But I didn't interpret Maher's statement that way, and whether you do or not they both later suggest that a significant portion, sometimes even a majority in some countries, are the ones that hold those radical beliefs. A significant portion or "sometimes" a majority is NOT all.

I don't take that as painting ALL Muslims with the same brush, and I don't believe that either Harris or Maher intended it that way. They are, however, suggesting that if Islam is promoting these radical ideas such that they are present at (much) higher rates in Muslims than in other people... Well, maybe there is something wrong with Islam.

Cenk's argument about fundie Christians believing in the rapture is a good one. Christians believe that crazy messed up shit at a higher rate than other people of the world, so... Well, maybe something is wrong with Christianity. True.

BUT, Harris saying that Islam is "the mother lode of bad ideas" is still not necessarily meant in a racist/bigoted way (I believe it is not); OK, yes, the rapture is pretty fucked up, and people that buy into it wholeheartedly are capable of some causing a lot of fucked up damage. But I think that Harris would argue that Islam has MORE stuff like that than Christianity (death to those that leave the religion, homosexual hate, violence as a solution to many many "offences" against the religion, etc. etc.), and that unfortunately a greater percentage of Muslims buy into that extreme/damaging stuff than the percentage of Christians that buy into their extreme/damaging stuff.

I don't know that I fully agree with Harris on that point -- watch Fox News polls and you'll see that a LOT of people do unfortunately buy in to a lot of that way -out-there right-wing fundie nonsense. But, I think that Harris and Maher are correct to suggest that the best way to combat that stuff is to bring it out into the open and openly and logically criticize it for the dangerous nonsense that it is.

So, I may be jumping the gun by posting before watching the whole clip here, but I really feel like Cenk is misinterpreting what Maher and Harris were going for.

He's explained several times why he tends to focus on Muslim fundamentalist failings when arguing about good and bad with westerners. That's because if he were to bring up an example of a perhaps damaging dogma from Catholicism, there would be an argument if it were really bad, and that isn't the argument he wants to have. Instead, he talks about something absurd like the death penalty for apostasy, which we can usually accept as 'bad' and move on to the meat of his discussion.

If you consider him a racist, you're likely part of the left's overly active auto-immune disorder regarding racism, or you really haven't listened to or understood him. Criticising a world view is not exactly the same as racism. Especially if that world view is shared by several different races!