"At this moment" -- the most important phrase -- Islam can be redeemed as moderate Islamist reclaim it.

...wtf is this bullshit. This man is spewing diarrhea out of his mouth. He is basing his argument solely on what little he knows about his own little world. I highly doubt this man has ever done any professional research over these matters, not even data collection. He's just conjuring up a theory solely based on what he has read and heard over the news media sitting in his own living room.

What he said towards the end really bothered me the most. "some religions have never had these extremists", what sources does he have?

It's a very tricky thing he's doing here... he wants to sound like the voice of reason while promoting something unreasonable. His unstated premise is that people who practice Islam as a religion are more likely to commit violence or cause misery to others than those who practice other religions--and that there is in fact something inherent in Islam that causes this. As others have pointed out he offers no evidence to support this position. His "support" instead consists of making false analogies (between the Amish and Islamic extremists, for instance) and anecdotes. For Chrissakes, you're a scientist, Sam! If you don't have any empirical support for your claims, conduct some research!

This is really my biggest pet peeve with the so-called New Atheists--they claim to be the voice of reason and yet I often find that their arguments are as wholly flawed, illogical, and based on conjecture as their fundamentalist religious opponents.

>> ^legacy0100:

...wtf is this bullshit. This man is spewing diarrhea out of his mouth. He is basing his argument solely on what little he knows about his own little world. I highly doubt this man has ever done any professional research over these matters, not even data collection. He's just conjuring up a theory solely based on what he has read and heard over the news media sitting in his own living room.
What he said towards the end really bothered me the most. "some religions have never had these extremists", what sources does he have?


You, sir or madam, are the one who apparently knows little to nothing about both Islam and Sam Harris. May I suggest you read "The End of Faith", or any of Harris' excellent (and researched) books, before "spewing diarrhea"-like criticisms without knowing what you're talking about.

As for Islam, look up one or many of the following effects of Islam in the world today: honour killing, fgm, suicide attacks, stoning, hate crimes, hate speech, punishments for "adultery", etc...

@bareboards2: yes, "at this moment" is a key phrase; when Christianity had Islam's age it was still all about the Inquisition and inter-faith massacres (oh, and witch-burning). But there can be no "redemption" for any religion whose core fundamentals are flawed, there can only be a watering down of its craziness with secular morality.

On the false problem of fundamentalists: http://videosift.com/video/The-problem-is-not-fundamentalists-but-the-fundamentals

>> ^SDGundamX:

It's a very tricky thing he's doing here... he wants to sound like the voice of reason while promoting something unreasonable. His unstated premise is that people who practice Islam as a religion are more likely to commit violence or cause misery to others than those who practice other religions--and that there is in fact something inherent in Islam that causes this. As others have pointed out he offers no evidence to support this position. His "support" instead consists of making false analogies (between the Amish and Islamic extremists, for instance) and anecdotes. For Chrissakes, you're a scientist, Sam! If you don't have any empirical support for your claims, conduct some research!
This is really my biggest pet peeve with the so-called New Atheists--they claim to be the voice of reason and yet I often find that their arguments are as wholly flawed, illogical, and based on conjecture as their fundamentalist religious opponents.


What is unreasonable about stating the facts?

Let me correct this for you: "people who practice Islam as a religion are more likely to commit violence or cause misery to others in the name of religion than those who practice other religions." Not only is this true today (especially in countries that are entirely Islamic, less in the "West"), but there is something inherent in Islam and the Qur'an that causes this.

Before taking the defense of what seems to be the "underdog" in "western" countries, you might want to look up the core fundamentals of Islam and the effects it has on those who live it. And before accusing Harris and Co. of conjecturing, you might want to read some of their books (it's not as if one can cite all one's sources in a short talk).

@hpqp

You repeated his speaking points and provided no evidence to support them and then insinuated that I know nothing of Islam's teachings to boot. You've clearly learned from your teachers (Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens) quite well.

Show me some evidence please that shows that Islamic followers are more likely to cause harm to fellow human beings than others. By evidence I mean an empirical study that controls for other factors that include but are not limited to: education, income, regional cultural factors (other than religion), and local political systems (or lack thereof as the case may be, for example in countries such as Somalia).

And no, you didn't correct that for me. It doesn't matter their stated reasons for committing the violence. People who resort to violence do so for a complex array of reasons. I dispute the notion that people commit violence soley "because of their religion" any more than school shootings occur "because kids play violent video games."

@hpqp

Thought you might be interested in reading this book on the myth of Islam causing violence, one that actually uses empirical data to support its points:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Shattering_the_myth.html?id=dNmdQgAACAAJ

Preview available here.

sudan, egypt, indonesia

muslims killing natives and christians in the name of god....need links? just ask.

the whole narrative of islam is for god to punish (read kill) the unbelievers while Muhammad's followers survive alone.

in christianity, we know that Jesus will judge you.

In islam, those outside islam are ALREADY judged. How could you even have sympathy for someone god is going to destroy in short order?

Say: "O People of the Book! ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord." It is the revelation that cometh to thee from thy Lord, that increaseth in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. But sorrow thou not over (these) people without Faith.
(surah 5:68)

>> ^marinara:

the whole narrative of islam is for god to punish (read kill) the unbelievers while Muhammad's followers survive alone.
in christianity, we know that Jesus will judge you.
In islam, those outside islam are ALREADY judged. How could you even have sympathy for someone god is going to destroy in short order?

Say: "O People of the Book! ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord." It is the revelation that cometh to thee from thy Lord, that increaseth in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. But sorrow thou not over (these) people without Faith.
(surah 5:68)

A collection of verses from the Qur'an about unbelievers

A person's beliefs about life (and afterlife) have a huge effect on how they live and perceive the value of other people's lives; it is nothing like blaming school shootings on violent video games, unless you assume that the shooters actually believed they lived inside a videogame.

The Qur'an, Islam's founding text, makes it quite clear that
a) The unbeliever will burn in hellfire forever (e.g. 4:56)
(nothing new here, M's recycling the holy texts already in existence)
and b) the unbeliever must be killed if he does not accept Islam (4:89), either by God or "or at our hands" (9:52); only Islam can exist on earth (2:193).
See this article on the history of Jihad and martyrdom in Islam.

Of course, the majority of muslims, like any other group of human beings, aspire to live their peaceful lives, etc. The difference between Islam and Christianity or Judaism, apart from its youth, is that it is founded upon a character and his book that are highly impervious to the effects of secularization. While the Bible is an edited compilation of transcripts written by several authors over centuries, the Qur'an was written by one warrior general in the space of his lifetime; questioning any part of the book's infallibility puts the whole faith in question, a risky thing when you read what the book in question has to say about non-believers. (I could go on, but really, Harris says it so much better than me in "The End of Faith" ...for free!).

But you want evidence, so here are a few things to ponder, in relation to what the Qur'an, and thus Islam, has to say about the topics in question. (Keeping in mind that Mohamed did not invent the barbarities that the book contains; they were contemporaneous, he simply enshrined them as the "infallible" word of God. Also: Mohamed's life, as transcribed in the Hadith, is considered a role model).

Honour killing: women considered property of men (see s.4:34) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling_2.html
Honour killing: adulterers should be killed anyway, no?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/07/24/2003180222

Because of sharia law's stance on adultery, it remains a crime in several Islamic countries
(sharia law is for the most part copied from the Torah/OT; in Islam, adultery is one of the worst sins/crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_(Arabic) ):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery#Criminal_penalties

Also, denouncing rape can get you jailed... for adultery:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7943698

homosexuality: illegal in 75/195 countries; 32/48 Muslim countries. In 8 countries it is punishable by death... under sharia law, of course (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Sudan, Nigeria, la Mauritania and Somalia).

Condoning slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_slavery#Slavery_in_the_contemporary_Muslim_world

forced marriage of minors: what Islamic doctrine/scholars say: http://muslim-quotes.netfirms.com/childbrides.html
women protest age limit laws: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88589
more statistics on child brides (once again, the problem did not stem from Islam, but is upheld by it... Mo+Aisha): http://marriage.about.com/od/arrangedmarriages/a/childbride.htm

Apostasy and human rights: http://www.iheu.org/node/1541

Of the 126 designated terrorist organisations, 73 (60%) are religious, 65 (51%) are Islamic extremists. To compare, the second highest ranking terrorist-fueling ideology, communism, has only 21 (17%) groups. Jihad anyone?

Government report on link between Koranic schools and terrorism: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21654.pdf

Of the 17 "Significant Ongoing Armed Conflicts of 2010", only 5 are not marked by religious ideologies (only 2 if communism is counted as a religious ideology). Eleven of these conflicts involve Islamists, who are either trying to instate an Islamic theocracy (in accordance with the teachings of the Qur'an), or they are fighting Muslim governments that are considered not "Muslim" enough.

edit: html's not working, so this looks like crap. sorry, i'm too tired to rearrange right now.


>> ^SDGundamX:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/hpqp" title="member since July 25th, 2009" class="profilelink">hpqp
You repeated his speaking points and provided no evidence to support them and then insinuated that I know nothing of Islam's teachings to boot. You've clearly learned from your teachers (Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens) quite well.
Show me some evidence please that shows that Islamic followers are more likely to cause harm to fellow human beings than others. By evidence I mean an empirical study that controls for other factors that include but are not limited to: education, income, regional cultural factors (other than religion), and local political systems (or lack thereof as the case may be, for example in countries such as Somalia).
And no, you didn't correct that for me. It doesn't matter their stated reasons for committing the violence. People who resort to violence do so for a complex array of reasons. I dispute the notion that people commit violence soley "because of their religion" any more than school shootings occur "because kids play violent video games."

@SDGundamX

(just so you know, I do not agree with everything Harris says, but he makes quite a few good points).

Interesting extract from this article (bold=added): http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/holy-terror


Of course, the Bible is not the only ancient text that casts a shadow over the present. The social policy that can be derived from the Koran currently poses even greater dangers. According to this text, it is the duty of every Muslim man to make war on unbelievers (Koran 9:73 and 9:123), and such men are promised eternal happiness after death. It is true that many Muslims seem inclined to ignore the Koran’s solicitations to martyrdom and jihad, but we cannot overlook the fact that many are not so inclined, and they now regularly murder innocent noncombatants for religious reasons. The phrase “the war on terrorism” is a dangerous euphemism that obscures the true cause of our troubles in the world, because we are currently at war with precisely the vision of life prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran. Anyone who reads this text will find non-Muslims vilified on nearly every page. How can we possibly expect devout Muslims to happily share power with “the friends of Satan”? How can we expect the faithful to feel about people who God himself is in the process of “mocking,” “cursing,” “shaming,” “punishing,” “scourging,” “judging,” “burning,” “annihilating,” “not forgiving,” and “not reprieving”? While there are many charges that can be fairly leveled at men like Osama bin Laden, perverting the teachings of the Koran is not among them. Why did nineteen well-educated, middle-class men trade their lives in this world for the privilege of killing thousands of our neighbors? Because they believed that they would go straight to Paradise for doing so. It is rare to find the behavior of human beings so fully and satisfactorily explained. And yet, many of us are reluctant to accept this explanation.

Religious faith is always, and everywhere, exonerated. It is now taboo in every corner of our culture to criticize a person’s religious beliefs. Consequently, we are unable to even name, much less oppose, one of the most pervasive causes of human conflict. And the fact that there are very real and consequential differences between our religious traditions is simply never discussed. Anyone who thinks that terrestrial concerns are the principal source of Muslim violence must explain why there are no Palestinian Christian suicide bombers. They, too, suffer the daily indignity of the Israeli occupation. Where, for that matter, are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal. Where are the throngs of Tibetans ready to perpetrate suicidal atrocities against the Chinese? They do not exist. What is the difference that makes the difference? The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam.

This is all true. Islam is worse than most major religions around right now. It actively promotes war and terrorism, like Christianity did 500 years ago, and parts of Christianity still does. Islam is the worst, but Christianity isn't far behind.

Religion in general is still a blight on mankind. Getting rid of it is like getting rid of cancer - hard!

@hpqp
@marinara (because it indirectly addresses your post)

First, did you even read the book?

Second, quoting the Koran is not evidence--hard, empirical, data. You can quote-mine any religious text--including Buddhist sutras--for passages that can be interpreted out of context in quite a negative way. Where is the empirical data that shows all Muslims not only literally believe this but actively act on those beliefs? Hell, how many Muslims have you personally talked to and asked about those passages? I would consider that as "action-research" and be willing to hear the evidence you came up with.

Third, those links you posted are not evidence. They are reports of particular instances of violence whose causes are far more complex than simply "Islam made them do it." If Islam causes this kind of behavior, why aren't they stoning women in Malaysia, Tunisia, Algeria, Indonesia, or a host of other Muslim countries? How is it that the actions of a relatively few individuals within an enormous group can damn the entire group? How is it that Harris can ignore cultural, educational, and socio-economic factors involved in these incidents and claim with certainty that Islam is to blame when he doesn't seem to have any evidence to support his case?

The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam.

Again, I ask you to show me the evidence of that. He can claim violence is caused by the specific tenets of Islam all he likes but I've never seen him show any empirical evidence that proves his point. And you know why? Because he can't. Such evidence doesn't exist. Sam Harris may be a brilliant scientist but he is a gobsmackingly awful anthropologist/historian/philosopher/theologian.

In conclusion, Sam Harris doesn't make good points at all. He spouts opinions unsupported by empirical data with a clear intent to espouse fear and hatred against one particular religious group. He is no better than a KKK member standing up there telling us how dangerous black people are and using pseudo-data like the number of black people currently in jail or anecdotal evidence of a white woman raped by a black man to prove his case. He lumps all members of a religious group (diverse in nationalities, ethnicity, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, education, etc.) into one category and pretends they're all the same. His actions are detestable, all the more so because he is not some uneducated hick but a respected scientist who should know better than to claim things without having the evidence to back them up.

@SDGundamX

You really don't seem to get it; you keep saying that Harris (and myself) are speaking of Muslims as a group, when what is being discussed, what you so blithely discard, is the motivation that the ideology of Islam provides for violent and unethical action. Where does sharia law come from? Islam. Why do certain populations fight to keep it in place? Because of their religious faith. Why is terrorism and suicide bombing depicted as religious martyrdom by certain religious leaders and a percentage of muslims? Because it has basis in the Qur'an.
Harris is not saying "be afraid of muslims", he's saying "beware the content and effects of Islamic ideology when put into practice".

I should have known that you would not be content with the evidence, because what you want me to show is something I do not argue (nor does Harris), i.e. that muslims are more prone to violence than non-muslims. Just because the effects of an ideology and its doctrines are not universally put into action by its adherents does not mean that it bears no effect. In Uganda, the MP responsible for the "Kill the gays" bill makes it very clear that his motivations are religious, but according to your (il)logic, because other countries with Christian populations do not punish homosexuality with the death penalty, this bill has nothing to do with Christianity.

Nobody is saying that religion is the only cause or aggravating circumstance in all these cases of violence and unethical behaviour, but it is definitely one to be reckoned with; and Islam, in this day and age, is the religious ideology that causes the most harm around the world. If you can't see that, fine, remain willfully oblivious to what is happening around the world, but don't think for a minute that the millions of muslims suffering because of Islam (yes, the majority of its victims are muslims themselves) are going to thank you for your culturally relativistic "respect".

>> ^gwiz665:

This is all true. Islam is worse than most major religions around right now. It actively promotes war and terrorism, like Christianity did 500 years ago, and parts of Christianity still does. Islam is the worst, but Christianity isn't far behind.
Religion in general is still a blight on mankind. Getting rid of it is like getting rid of cancer - hard!


I know arguing on the Internet is pointless in most cases, but most people here on the Sift seem at least willing to consider other ideas, so here goes:

Don't you think it's possible that it's not Islam that is promoting war and terrorism but particular political groups (Taliban, Hamas, Al-Querida, Sunni/Shiite militant groups struggling for power in Iraq, etc.) that have decided on an interpretation of Islam that most suits their aims?

Isn't it at all possible that the reason violence in some Islamic countries is similar to that perpetrated by not just Christians but all peoples 500+ years ago has something to do with the fact that the majority of people in those countries live in socioeconomic conditions and with educations comparable to people from 500+ years ago?

Aren't these things in fact more plausible than Islam causing violence considering that the overwhelming majority of Muslim people never engage in jihad or terrorism or stone their daughters or any of the other things that Islam is often blamed for?

@hpqp

Did you read the book??? Even reading the foreward and the first chapter should be enough to show that what Harris (and you) are proposing is nothing but--in the author's own words--"a slur."

No, I don't think you are the one who gets it. You can't attack the religion without attacking the people who believe in that religion. If you say, for example, a particular religion is stupid then by default you imply that the people who practice said religion are also stupid (after all, they're following a stupid religion... doesn't seem like something a smart person would do). By the way, you are also backtracking now. When you "fixed" my quote earlier you said:

people who practice Islam as a religion are more likely to commit violence or cause misery to others in the name of religion than those who practice other religions

Either Islam causes its followers to be violent or it doesn't. If it doesn't, why is Harris making so much noise? If it does, where's the evidence of that? I keep bolding it because you keep misunderstanding it. A newspaper article is not empirical evidence. A quote from the Koran is not empirical evidence. A study of domestic violence that breaks down rates of domestic violence between religious beliefs and finds that there is a statistically significant higher chance of it occurring in a Muslim home--now THAT might be evidence (depending on a lot of factors, such as the methodology used, whether other factors such as education and income were controlled for, whether the study found causation and not just correlation, etc.). But neither your nor Harris provides such evidence, which is what I need before I go off and decide that millions of people around the world are a potential threat to me and themselves due to their beliefs and I should campaign actively against those beliefs.

Now, if Harris's (and your) argument is that maybe Islam might cause some people to be violent then that is something else entirely. We have to ask under what conditions does that happen? We also need to ask which Islamic interpretation we are talking about, because just as the term Christianity refers to an incredibly diverse group of faiths (everything from 7th Day Adventists to Unitarians), Islam refers to an incredibly diverse group of people who have some similar core beliefs but differ greatly in the details of how the faith is practiced. Neither Harris nor you are taking that third option though. Your statements in this thread and his statements in this and other videos on the topic are categorical.

Therefore, I am asking you to prove to me that Islam is the religious ideology causing the most harm in the world. No, it isn't obvious, any more than God's existence is obvious because of the vast variety of animal life that lives on earth. Stats? Figures? Studies that support your view? You don't have them, do you? You believe what you believe without evidence and given that you are a follower of Harris, Dawkins, etc. that is just plain ironic.

This has nothing to do with cultural relativistic respect. This has to do with the truth--which according to Harris and Dawkins and the rest can only be found by science. So I'm saying to Harris--do some goddamned science and prove what you are saying. Prove that people in Islamic countries are suffering because of Islam and not because we colonized them, used them as pawns in our own political games, got overthrown or kicked out, then either left them to rot or turned them into our oil suppliers while funding autocratic regimes and looking the other way as they tortured and killed their own people. Prove that it's Islam and not the appalling lack of medical care, education, political access, or access to a reliable legal system that accounts for the violence. Prove that the tenets of Islam are a significant factor in the violence and not just lipservice paid to justify it. Then I will be more inclined to listen to what you have to say. Until then, it's just speculation and fearmongering.

Here is a great article that says in far better words than I could why Sam Harris is just plain wrong--on a lot of things but particularly his stances on Islam:

http://www.thenation.com/article/160236/same-old-new-atheism-sam-harris

You'll need to register to view the article and be warned it is very long but worth reading in its entirety.

@SDGundamX

Wow, where to start. Your reply to my latest comment illustrates how you (willingly or ignorantly?) continue to misconstrue the issue, building up strawman after strawman, putting words and notions in Harris' mouth and mine, while ignoring everything I post. And then you post an article that maliciously distorts the views of Harris and Hitchens, depicting them as solely intent on vilifying Islam. If that article really describes what you think than I should probably stop arguing with you and spend my time better, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

Yes, I read the book you linked, or at least what the preview offered, which was more than enough to show that it does not go against anything Harris or I argue, only against the strawmen you prop up. A few comments on the book nonetheless:

The introduction (the one not by the book's author) is full of wishy-washy 'everything-and-its-contraire' platitudes, and ironically refers to Muslims as a unified whole, which is exactly what you accuse H. and I of... that's a good start; it's okay to make sweeping generalizations if they're positive? But even this text recognises that the secular influence of the "West" upon Muslim modernists forces them away from the core tenets of Islam and it's sacred text, which then sees the rise of fundamentalist backlash. And then there's this tidbit in the conclusion:

"Muslims, we often forget, do not always act as Muslims or members of a religious community; rather, they respond to economic, social and political needs that may direct conduct more than ideological signposts do."

Well hello captain Obvious! Either he's trying to address Christian right white trash, in which case he should use a bilboard instead of a book (I kid, I kid), or he takes his projected audience for fools. Or maybe he's building up to the sort of strawmen you seem so fond of attacking.

Now to the actual book: the author suggests that the world concentrates on "Arab" Islam, and ignores the rest. Not only is that false (at least where H. and I are concerned), not only does it carry racist undertones (yes, "Arab" is, for lack of a better word, a "race"; "Muslim" is not), but it purposefully ignores that the Middle East is Islam's birthplace, and still regarded as it's "Mecca" (haha). It's fine and dandy to put the blame that it deserves on European colonialism, but the author seems to forget that the spread of Islam is mostly due to, hey, Arabo-Islamic colonisation (and/or military conquest, sometimes with a healthy sprinkling of "cleansing", i.e. persecution of non-muslims 'till there were none left). But hey, Christianity did the same.
A really weird part is when the author somehow turns our quasi-universal use of the "Christian" calender into an illustration of Euro-American "structural violence and hegemony". Wow.
All in all, I learned nothing new whatsoever from what I read of that book, and cannot recommend it.

So there are modern/accomodationist interpretations of the Qur'an and Islamic doctrine? So not all Muslims are crazy male Saladins (I'm not making this up)? No one here is disputing that. So there are also other factors at work here? Not being denied either.

Neither are we arguing that muslims are more likely to commit violence than anyone else. By taking away the bold when citing me, you changed the meaning of the citation, creating one of the strawmen you also use to attack Harris: the key words are "in the name of" (or, to paraphrase "with the justification/motivation" of religion).

What is being argued is that Islam, i.e. the doctrines found in the Qur'an and Hadith, justify - render moral even - actions that are unethical, harmful, violent (the same is true of the Bible, from which Sharia law stems, but it is much less practiced than under Islam). That is why I quote the Qur'an, which - whether you like it or not - constitutes the core of the religion called "Islam" ("submission", btw... a pretty bad start). Nor can you deny that said religion demands that its holy text be considered the infallible and ultimate word of God (33:36). Many Muslims ignore the worser parts? Yay hooray! Doesn't change that some do not.

As for evidence (of which the book you cite, at least the parts accessible to me, contained none), you will never get it from me because you want evidence that supports the strawman arguments you put in H.'s mouth and mine, and there's no way you're getting that from either. What you do get, from the small sample of examples above (in a mess of html, i admit), is evidence that Islam today, more than any other religion, is at the source of (e.g. application of Sharia law) or aggravates (e.g. honour killing, fgm) acts of violence, discrimination and barbarity.

Is the fact that more than half of the active terrorist groups in existence today wear their Islamist agenda proudly, often including it in their name, not "evidency" enough for you?

Is the fact that unethical practices are condoned by Islamic (and almost only Islamic) regimes, even enshrined in civil law (which is also religious law), not evidence of Islam's virulence?

What more do you want? You say "You can't attack the religion without attacking the people who believe in that religion". You, and the author of that pathetic excuse of an article you just linked to, are trying to project a generalising, hate and fear-mongering view on people like Harris and myself, something I find both ignorant and insulting. Of course I can criticise an ideology, warn against its potential (and existing) negative consequences, without targeting every one of its adherents, or even the majority thereof. When Hitchens points out that the idea of vicarious redemption, central to Christianity, is unethical, and the Christian God's treatment of Abraham disgusting, is he saying that all Christian's are unethical and disgusting?

You say: Prove that people in Islamic countries are suffering because of Islam and not because we colonized them, used them as pawns in our own political games, got overthrown or kicked out, then either left them to rot or turned them into our oil suppliers while funding autocratic regimes and looking the other way as they tortured and killed their own people. Prove that it's Islam and not the appalling lack of medical care, education, political access, or access to a reliable legal system that accounts for the violence. Prove that the tenets of Islam are a significant factor in the violence and not just lipservice paid to justify it.

Quite simple really: compare pre-Islamic revolution Iran with post-Islamic revolution Iran. Compare the twin fates of Pakistan and India, the former being "created" as an Islamic nation. Which of the two bears the record for honour killings (the Sihks and Hindus try hard to catch up, I know)? Which of the two was hiding the world's most famous terrorist and Islamic fundamentalist? Which of the two has one of the lowest rates of literacy for women? In which of these two countries, whose post-colonial fate is practically identical, do you have 7/10 chances to be sexually abused in a police station if you are a women? I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Colonialism and its modern forms (globalisation, etc.) have a lot of blame to shoulder, no doubt whatsoever. But that does not diminish in any way the import and effect of Islam's doctrines. Did colonialists invent sharia law, for example, or demand it be enforced? No. Mohamed and his ideology did.
Blaming everything on colonialism and "western" influence is a twisted form of pretentiousness, as if only the "west" could come up with bad stuff. Arabs, Asians, Africans, etc. are people too, they too can be atrocious, it's not just reserved for the whiteys! It's as wrong as blaming slavery entirely on Europe and the American colonies. The slave trade in Africa and the Middle East was going on long before "westerners" became buyers, and guess who was doing the trading?

As long as you insist on blinding yourself to the influence of Islam in the world today, or at least to its negative aspects, you will have a skewed and prejudiced view, exactly what you are accusing others of. Of course it is only one factor among many, but it is an important factor, whether that suits your guilt-by-association-ridden conscience or not.

@hpqp

First off, thank you for taking the time to track down all of those links. And thank you for at least looking at the link I posted (though I hesitate to you say you actually "read" it as I explain below).

The title of the book is "Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence." The author states explicitly on page 4 the main premise of the book: "Islam is not violence, nor are Muslims intrinsically prone to violence." He then fills the rest of the book with economic, anthropological, and historical evidence to support his case.

And yet you are claiming the book doesn't go against anything you or Harris are saying... okay.

Next, you have mined all those quotes completely out of context and twisted their meaning to fit your agenda while completely ignoring the bulk of the work. To give just one example:

"Muslims, we often forget, do not always act as Muslims or members of a religious community; rather, they respond to economic, social and political needs that may direct conduct more than ideological signposts do."

This statement was directly addressing violence in the Islamic world--that Islam does not completely prevent people from being human and acting in violent ways when under extreme economic, social, and political pressures. Yet the Western media--and Harris in particular--would have us believe that these pressures are irrelevant... that there is something inherent within Islam that causes this violence. The rest of Lawrence's book shows this is not the case, and provides ample evidence to support the opinion. Yet, I've not seen Harris nor you provide ANY evidence for Harris's position.

Throughout our conversation, I have been asking you in good faith to make your case to me and for my part I was willing to change my mind if you were to provide some evidence that your position is correct.

You have not.

In your last post, you did finally start to list some statistics (with no sources given, I notice), but they don't really provide evidence of anything other than it is really shitty to live in a 3rd world country. I see no smoking gun there to show me Islam itself is the cause of these problems or that these problems are somehow unique to Islam. There are many other possible and indeed probable explanations (which clearly neither Harris nor you--having made up your minds already--seem willing to explore) for why, for instance, Pakistan is so fucked up other than "Islam made it that way." But even assuming for the sake of argument there weren't any other explanations, science demands evidence--as do I--because of a little problem known as "correlation versus causation." The fact that Pakistan is fucked up and is an Islamic nation does not suddenly make Islam the culprit.

You clearly feel very passionate about this. And I understand why. You genuinely believe Islam (but somehow not Muslims) is a threat to everybody (believer and non-believer alike). Did I finally state your argument correctly that time? What I still don't understand in spite of all you've written is how you came to that conclusion. From what you've written in these posts, all I can see is a lot of "correlation vs causation" fallacies mixed in with scary anecdotes followed by a bit of emphasizing the negative aspects of Islam (for example, verses calling for violence in the Koran) while ignoring the positive (verses extolling the benefits of reason, compassion, and love--including towards non-believers). Like I said before, I don't see the smoking gun and I don't understand why you do apparently see it.

Are there problems with certain interpretations of Islam? Yeah, absolutely. Radical fundamentalist Islam most certainly causes its followers to not just condone violence, but believe that violence is the only way to achieve the political aims for which radical Islam was created to achieve. But Harris isn't arguing against radical fundamentalist Islam, is he? He's arguing against the totality. He's arguing there is something inherently wrong with Islam. Okay, great. Make the argument. But for the love of science, please provide some proof. Reading selected passages from the Koran is not proof of how real Muslims in the real world interpret those passages and apply them to their daily lives (if they even do so at all). The actions of a unbelievably few individuals who choose to embrace radical fundamentalist Islam are not proof. The misadventures of nation-states which happen to be Islam are not proof. Proof will only be found through science--his argument is clearly empirically testable so I am still dumbfounded as to why he repeats the same talking points without actually taking the time to find the proof that would make his case convincing.

@SDGundamX

There's clearly no point in arguing with you; you insist on attacking strawmen that you project as Harris' arguments and mine, disregard the statistical evidence (some of which could already be found in my html-mess post), refuse to comprehend that an ideology that regards women as only half as worthy of men - and that puts such high stakes on "purity" - will result in violence towards them, and continue to see things in an all-or-nothing way while accusing your opponents thereof and, cherry on the cake, provide the answer to your own arguments within them; I quote:

Radical fundamentalist Islam most certainly causes its followers to not just condone violence, but believe that violence is the only way to achieve the political aims for which radical Islam was created to achieve.

See this video on how it is not the fundamentalists that are a problem, but the fundamentals (thus the Qur'an quoting you keep disregarding). You keep trying to make it about some sort of homogeneous group called "the Muslims" that we are - according to you - unilaterally vilifying, but that only shows that the person who has a problem generalising is yourself.

If we were 700 years ago, Harris and the other "gnu atheists" would be arguing strongly against Christianity's effects on people's lives, not Islam's (not that Islam was any better, but it was hardly much worse).

You want evidence so badly? Why don't you go ask the Pakistani cops why they feel they have the right to rape and physical abuse their female visitors, see where that gets you.

The Pakistan vs. India stats come from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Pakistan

@hpqp

I’d like to ask you to bear with me a little longer. I'm trying to understand your point of view. I am very interested in the basis of your beliefs--basically, how you came to your conclusion. I would ask you tone down the condescension a bit so we can have a reasonable discussion.

So let's try approaching this from a different angle... what exactly does Harris (and I'm assuming you as well) hope to accomplish with all this? What's the endgame? And how does he/you propose we get there?

By the way, this debate reminds me of the academic debate over whether violence is inherent to the ideology of Communism. There have volumes written on the topic and to date it hasn’t been settled (as far as I know). The evidence presented by those who believe violence is inherent in Communism parallels the evidence you have presented to me—they raise the original writings of both Marx and the Bolsheviks as well as Stalin’s atrocities, Tiananmen Square, etc. Opponents of this view point out that the violence in the writings was to be interpreted as only to be used against oppressors: the subsequent acts of violence that continued after the revolution was complete (for example, Lenin’s use of terror against his own people) was not what the original visionaries had in mind.

See here for an example analysis:

http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/twentiethcenturycommunism/articles/2whorley.html

Not trying to prove anything with that link. Just found the argument fascinatingly similar.

(a copy of the messy comment above)

A collection of verses from the Qur'an about unbelievers

A person's beliefs about life (and afterlife) have a huge effect on how they live and perceive the value of other people's lives; it is nothing like blaming school shootings on violent video games, unless you assume that the shooters actually believed they lived inside a videogame.

The Qur'an, Islam's founding text, makes it quite clear that
a) The unbeliever will burn in hellfire forever (e.g. 4:56)
(nothing new here, M's recycling the holy texts already in existence)
and b) the unbeliever must be killed if he does not accept Islam (4:89), either by God or "or at our hands" (9:52); only Islam can exist on earth (2:193).
See this article on the history of Jihad and martyrdom in Islam.

Of course, the majority of muslims, like any other group of human beings, aspire to live their peaceful lives, etc. The difference between Islam and Christianity or Judaism, apart from its youth, is that it is founded upon a character and his book that are highly impervious to the effects of secularization. While the Bible is an edited compilation of transcripts written by several authors over centuries, the Qur'an was written by one warrior general in the space of his lifetime; questioning any part of the book's infallibility puts the whole faith in question, a risky thing when you read what the book in question has to say about non-believers. (I could go on, but really, Harris says it so much better than me in "The End of Faith" ...for free!).

But you want evidence, so here are a few things to ponder, in relation to what the Qur'an, and thus Islam, has to say about the topics in question. (Keeping in mind that Mohamed did not invent the barbarities that the book contains; they were contemporaneous, he simply enshrined them as the "infallible" word of God. Also: Mohamed's life, as transcribed in the Hadith, is considered a role model).

Honour killing: women considered property of men (see s.4:34) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_hon
orkilling_2.html
Honour killing: adulterers should be killed anyway, no?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/07/24/2003180222

Because of sharia law's stance on adultery, it remains a crime in several Islamic countries
(sharia law is for the most part copied from the Torah/OT; in Islam, adultery is one of the worst sins/crimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_(Arabic) ):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery#Criminal_penalties

Also, denouncing rape can get you jailed... for adultery:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7943698

homosexuality: illegal in 75/195 countries; 32/48 Muslim countries. In 8 countries it is punishable by death... under sharia law, of course (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Sudan, Nigeria, la Mauritania and Somalia).

Condoning slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_slavery#Slavery_
in_the_contemporary_Muslim_world

forced marriage of minors: what Islamic doctrine/scholars say: http://muslim-quotes.netfirms.com/childbrides.html
women protest age limit laws: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88589
more statistics on child brides (once again, the problem did not stem from Islam, but is upheld by it... Mo+Aisha): http://marriage.about.com/od/arrangedmarriages/a/childbride.htm

Apostasy and human rights: http://www.iheu.org/node/1541

Of the 126 designated terrorist organisations, 73 (60%) are religious, 65 (51%) are Islamic extremists. To compare, the second highest ranking terrorist-fueling ideology, communism, has only 21 (17%) groups. Jihad anyone?

Government report on link between Koranic schools and terrorism: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21654.pdf

Of the 17 "Significant Ongoing Armed Conflicts of 2010", only 5 are not marked by religious ideologies (only 2 if communism is counted as a religious ideology). Eleven of these conflicts involve Islamists, who are either trying to instate an Islamic theocracy (in accordance with the teachings of the Qur'an), or they are fighting Muslim governments that are considered not "Muslim" enough.

Wow, we've got some pretty hardcore anti-Muslims here. This is some scary shit....

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