*related

I'm here for the potential discussion this video may bring about. Also think the description is a bit much.

Bill Maher and Ben Affleck go at it over Islam has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

I disagree that it's racist to make a factual statement that a large portion of a religion's followers agree with and support the religion's sexism and homophobia.

What's blatantly racist about that?


(disclaimer: i haven't watched this breakdown; i'm just commenting on what i've seen of the original discussion and the video description above.)

yea... because there are no sexist or homophobic christians.

How many female presidents ? Hmmm.... 0

Same-sex marriage anyone ? No ? That's fuck up ! Invade

Strictly speaking, I'm still not following your line of logic.

First, Islam is a religion, not a race, so anything regarding the religion by definition can not validly be called racist. But that may just be semantics.

Second, the discussion is about Islam's sexism and homophobia because the majority of people who follow the religion are on board with sexism and homophobia and encourage it as a group activity, but more importantly, people within the religion who are actually against sexism and homophobia are deemed heretics and worthy of execution.

Homophobia and sexism in Christianity is not worthy of the same type of discussion not because most Christians have paler skin than most Muslims (hearkening back to your "racist" claim), but because like the good Christians they are, most (except fringe groups like Westboro Baptist Church) ignore what the bible and their god told them to think and they tend never to preach about encouraging homophobia and enslaving women.

(You really seem to be unflinchingly practicing exactly what Sam Harris described and treating any even totally valid, objective mention of indisputable issues in the Islamic religion as racism. The facts seem very cut and dry to me, so I can't help feeling like I must be missing something. I mean does this scan... at all?)

Let me spell it out.

This whole "your religon is worse" argument is bullshit and merely a disguise for racism.

clear ?

Cenk: "You know he meant bigoted[not racist], stop nitpicking stuff like that.."

NO, thats a crucial fucking point. Its not bigotry nor racism, it is criticism of a RELIGION, not a race, not a people, not a population, not a country, not a skin color , not a sex, , not a language, not a philia, not a fuckin skull shape. A religion. There is a crucial difference. If you cant see the difference, then I'm sorry: Try again.

The thing is, criticizing a bad idea, or a collection of bad ideas can never be racist nor bigoted.

That not to say that some people aren't irrationally hating and bigoted towards muslims, or people who look like they might be muslims, but that is a COMPLETELY different thing.

Everyone understands this in politics: if you think the republican party sucks, that doesnt mean you hate people with a texan accent. Still, I'm sure some people think people with a thick texan accent are automatically to be considered as racist hillbillies who vote republican. That's stereotyping and bigotry. Being anti-republican is not.

BTW, anyone bamboozled by Reza Aslans fantasies about islamic countries being equality paradises shoud read Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haiders dismantling of his distortions right here : http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/05/reza-aslan-is-wrong-about-islam-and-this-is-why/

Well at least now I'm starting to understand how your brain works. And it's fascinating.

Me: "80% of Muslims believe women should have no rights, homosexuals should be murdered, and any Muslim who speaks to the contrary should also be murdered. Something should be done to turn that around."
You: "You're racist."

So the rationale is: "Muslims should be left alone to keep oppressing and killing one another because to suggest it should stop is racist." Got it. Crystal clear. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it would not be racist if a Muslim person were to say that [before getting stoned to death].)

The debate is not over a matter of "your religion is worse." They aren't making a comparison of Islam to any other religion. They're discussing the archaic practices of a religion that objectively are considered primeval and flat out wrong by the majority of modern civilization.

If there's any comparison being made it's between most Muslims versus most civilized human beings.

Not a 1:1 comparison, but it makes me think of North Korea and the horrible torture the government has put its people through for generations, oppressing, starving, and torturing so many. If someone were to say something should be done to help the victims of that regime, would that be a racist notion because it'd be comparing Koreans to Americans? Or does that not count because the oppression is not being performed within the confines of a religion?


Really is truly fascinating stuff.

Does anyone else find it strange that Cenk is calling some one out for being a bigot, while he named his show after a revolutionary movement with a history of racism and bigotry being carried to its most extreme?

I never understood why one would choose "The Young Turks".

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.

The rest of the video and Cenk's comments were great, but I still disagree with his interpretation of what Maher and Harris were suggesting.

Regarding the distinction between cultural "bad ideas" and religious "bad ideas": yes, we need to be careful what institution or establishment gets the blame for radical beliefs and bad ideas / practices. As Cenk suggests, it would be wrong to entirely blame Islam for stuff like female genital mutilation in the places where non-Muslim people also practice it. But if you ask Sam Harris about that, I'm pretty sure he'd say the same thing. Maher also, although he'd probably be a little more flippant about it.


But anyway, I liked this video a lot and thought it was very good food for thought. Even though I think the core of Cenk's dispute with the other guys is based on (in my opinion) an incorrect read on what they were saying, he makes a lot of very good points.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/same-sex-marriage-is-now-legal-for-a-majority-of-the-u-s/

^Get your facts straight.

On TYT's thumbnail, Affleck's facial expression bears a striking resemblence to that of David Silverman (aka WTF-guy) when O'Reilly made his point about "tide goes in, tide goes out -- you can't explain that".

Intent or coincidence?

Also, anyone else miss Hitchens right now?

I'm on the exact same page as @MilkmanDan

I very seriously doubt you'd have either one of these guys (Harris or Maher) using the term "shifty jew" ever, but they'd probably, without hesitation, be against the idea that during a circumcision the Mohel (jewish priest who pretty much is trained in the art of cutting and sucking baby penis) should put his dirty old man mouth on a freshly cut newborn cock.

I'm using some blunt terms here, but, again, I don't have any problems with jewish people, but I'm unashamed about criticism towards their religion's stupid ideas.

Religion = idea
Race = genetics

You = I hope your dick flies off.

Bill and Sam specifically acknowledged that criticism of Islam often gets conflated with racism. But if it's ok to criticize Christianity (as we often do here on the sift) then it's ok to criticize Islam.

Just because racists don't know the difference between dark skinned people and a religion doesn't mean we don't

Lantern53 just recently tried to pull the same stunt and claimed that "police officer" is a race and thus criticizing them was racism.

It's the same thing with political parties. I think parties should be abolished, they needlessly divide the nation, but that doesn't mean I think they're equal in any way. One party is less bad the other. I'm not "racist" towards the party I don't like.

To be fair, I understand where you're coming from. criticizing Islam CAN be a disguise for racism. But that's not where Bill or Sam are coming from. There is a huge difference between making legitimate criticisms and simply bashing Islam because many dark skinned people practice it.

We are fully aware that there are plenty of people who practice Islam and are peaceful. There are plenty of peaceful Christians too. Does that mean I can't criticize Christianity?

This is about the religion, not the people.

In an odd way, The conservatives are right. They often complain that we criticize Christianity, but Islam gets a free pass. Well in that regard, sometimes they're right. (of course there is a reason for that. Americans by and large are not affected by Islam as they are by Christianity simply because Christianity is the predominate religion in America)

And to be fair, after 9/11 there was a lot of hate crimes committed against peaceful Muslim Americans and I think the only reason the crimes were committed were because the victims were dark-skinned I doubt there were many white Muslims attacked.

So because of that phenomenon, I think people are afraid to criticize Islam because they don't want to be conflated with the racist rednecks

Guess what, they were right, Bill and Sam are being conflated with the racist rednecks.

But it doesn't get more simple than this: If it's ok to criticize the bad parts of Christianity despite the fact there are many peaceful Christians out there that don't hold those particular beliefs. Then it's ok to criticize Islam in the same way.

Does he have a gluten allergy?


for reference: http://southpark.cc.com/clips/da0n0b/it-will-make-your-dick-fly-off

@lucky760 The issue I take with what Harris is doing is that whenever he wants to use an example of something that is 'bad', he tends to use an example of something done in the 'muslim world'. There's no argument that there are plenty of bad ideas coming from Islam (which Cenk states several times), but Harris is biased in how he uses his examples (he always seems to dip from the same well), so it seems very clear that he has an agenda. Whether that agenda is to sell books, or for some other reason I don't know.

To understand him better, I would recommend watching more of his video's, you will see what I mean.

The other thing going on here is that Maher has already made up his mind about Islam/Muslims being extrememists before anything is said. You can easily tell this by watching who he interrupts. Ben gets constantly interrupted whenever he tries to say anything - Harris does not - it's just like watching Fox. He's not interesting in listening to reason, he has decided what he believes and if any guest tries to disagree with him then good luck trying to get a full sentence out.

@JiggaJonson are you sure about your definitions? Try reading article 4 of the United Nations Human Rights "International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination". I'll put the important part of their definition of racial descrimination here for you.

it includes "all propaganda and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin"

The important part there is that it includes ethnicity, and there is no distinction between the two. So in essence, those trying to call out @billpayer for using the term incorrectly... have not educated themselves on what the term means.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CERD.aspx

Horrible analysis by Cenk.

Why doesn't it count when the US invades someone? Because we're talking about religious problems. I hate the US policy of invasion and nation building and whatnot. But that doesn't mean I think it's being done for religious reasons to conquer lands for christendom. Christianity gave up that mentality some centuries ago. If you want to denigrate American interventionism go at it, but don't pretend that it is anywhere near as religiously motivated.

The Islam is the motherlode of bad of ideas statement was clearly leading into an explanation that Harris was unable to provide because of interruptions. I expect he would have pointed out particularly odious articles of belief held to varying degrees across the muslim world as evidence to back up his claim. In any case it was obviously hyperbolic, and never meant to stand on it's own.

So much of Cenk's argument is straw man. Maher did not say that all 1.5B muslims believe the batshit extremist stuff. He refuted the claim that 1.0B (later upped to 1.5B) muslims want nothing to do with the more grotesque portions of Islamic beliefs. They then went on to mention the 20% number, which seems to directly refute Cenk's position without further conversation needed. But Cenk refuses to acknowledge the number, despite his own graph roughly supporting it.

Serious failing in objectivity and logic on the part of Cenk. A bit disappointing, really.

As a Canadian I don't know TYT or know of Cenk other than video clips I come across... We probably exist at the same end of the political spectrum, but, his arguments are often so full of fuzzy logic and bizarre interpretations that I end up disagreeing totally with him.
Here his comments are contradictory, he makes up 'facts' which are simply his opinion, etc, etc.

at 4:06 in the video Cenk actually says the following about Harris' opinions: "When you say muslims are particularly bad..."

THATS NOT WHAT HE SAYS

Jesus, how hard is this, Harris says ISLAM is particularly bad. See, thats fundamentally different from saying "muslims are particularly bad", it is even pointed out by both Maher and Harris that they are NOT talking about muslims, but about islam. How hard can it be to get this idea into Cenks head? You see "muslims" are the people who are following or assumed from birth to be following islam. Islam is the religion.

Saying islam sucks, does not equal saying "all muslims suck" it just measn that those who consider themselves followers of islam (muslims) are following a religion that sucks.

Honestly, how hard is it to grasp this concept?

I'm fine with people disagreeing with Harris, but can we please discuss the actual ideas that he's promoting, instead of putting words in his mouth?

Same Harris' response to the whole affair: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/can-liberalism-be-saved-from-itself

Thanks to @RFlagg for this link

@eric3579 And thanks for posting it, it was a good read and a nice rounding off of the discussion here for me. I will always think of Hitchens as a hero who I can channel when I'm feeling like swashbuckling with idiots. But the more cool/calm head of Harris is something that is better conveyed in writing.

Each discussion method (Harris vs Hitchens) has its own place. Here, I think Hitch would have slapped Benny Boy down, and Harris' calm was taken for weakness because he was letting himself be interrupted by Affleck.

It's sad that the discussion turned into "IF I TALK LIKE THIS I CAN MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE THE BAD GUY" But Harris shouldn't have been so complacent.

It does mention ethnicity. Let me grab the definition of that for you. "An ethnicity, or ethnic group, is a socially-defined category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural, or national experience."

Please take a moment to notice that it doesn't mention people who identify with each other based on RELIGION. You cannot define a person's ethnic background with a religion, you simply can't. Muslim people are not a race, nor are they in any way an ethnicity. From the mouth of one of their own religious leaders from the 1200's "A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God..."

You can call him Anti-Islamic, but you can't call him racist. Well, you can, but you would be wrong.

Moving this video to billpayer's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.