@@phantomgamingignt6275Hindu: Your ancestors were Hindus. You are a converted Muslims. Muslim: Yes, they left hinduism because of discrimination and idol worship. Hindu: I am actually atheist Hindu. I also don't believe in those things. Muslim:🤣😂😂
Shame on Minority Report and Michael Brooks to give this serial plagiarist a platform from which to spread his slander and dishonesty. By having him on the show to bolster your arguments shows that you've bet on the wrong horse and are probably on the wrong side of the debate.
Islam is going through a process of modernisation and resistance to it. This happened in Christianity in Europe and the result was centuries of horrific violence and bloodshed. What right do we have to expect them to do it on the hurry when it took us almost 500 years? It is becuase since 1945 or so we have had almost absolute power and we expect others to obey as what's good for us is good for everyone. Functioning economies and democracies take time, they don't spring up like mushrooms after a rain. There will be peace and progress in the Middle East and 3rd world but it will take decades not weeks or months. If we don't want them to hate us we should invest as much time and money into them and their people as we did into trying to control them to exploit their resources.
I think you are missing the point that the west exclusively has single handedly caused the destruction of the Middle East. Countries like Libya, Iraq and Syria had one of the greatest economies in the world only a few decades ago.
"Why Atheists Fail to Understand the 'Islamic Threat'" Talk about being guilty of the same kind of over generalizing bullshit that you accuse Maher/Harris of. Ironic much?
CJ is a blogger? I thought CJ was just an Australian vocaloid program connected to an algorithm that copy pasted actual journalists work*, and then spat out sensationalist word salad headlines. This wasn't just an elaborate Turing test; really? * - www.alternet.org/special-note-readers-alternet-regrets-authors-plagiarism - www.salon.com/about/corrections/
SLRok I haven't had time to check this yet but I am a little confused about how only extremists were polled if they haven't been polled yet? How is one suppose to collect that sample? Anyway, you have made some decent points overall. It's a conversation I'm willing to have. I just don't see that from Sams minions or cenk et al, who seem to be attempting to shame people out of their position. Robert Wright has had the best objections I've heard so far.
CJ, When someone criticises Islam, they are not necessarily declaring the West is perfect and innocent, as you claim. Please stop painting everyone with the same brush, and oversimplifying the issue, as you ironically seem so keen remind critics of Islam.
scottpastry I think you're not exactly getting what CJ is saying, though you aren't wrong in that I doubt Harris feels Western Society is perfect either. CJ is saying that Harris' statements, when it comes to Islam as a religion, unjustly makes it the sole reason behind all violent (or brutal) practices within Middle Eastern culture.
biggydx Just because something isn't a main factor, doesn't mean it can't be a factor at all. My impression is there are plenty of liberals who will criticize US foreign policy, yet very few who would dare to criticize Islam. Maybe Sam feels there is a void for critique of Islam that he feels needs to be addressed. Are you trying to say religion has absolutely no influence in extremist attitudes towards women and minorities? If not, does that mean you're a bigot? Can you also provide sources where Sam Harris says Islam is the MAIN cause of terrorism. For some strange reason, I don't think you will be able to.
floys69 I think it can make for a pretty good scapegoat, especially if there's text within the scripture that says that justifies it. I think that you would find many Liberals criticizing the more barbaric practices of the faith, and there are even Islamic groups in the U.S. (like CAIR) who come out repeatedly against terrorist attacks. As far as religion having an influence when it comes to women and minorities, it can be, but I don't believe it one of the prevailing causes. The institution/government is also important to look at, in addition to socioeconomic aspects. You had Native American tribes, like the Hopi, who allowed for women to have significantly influence not only in their political system, but also other aspects like hunting. Ireland is 80% Roman Catholic, yet 73% of it's people today agree with a Amendment to allow for same-sex marriage. In contrast, you have Russia (75% Orthodox Christian) that has taken a step back in gay rights; due to the actions of their gov't. Turkey is majority Muslim but has gay pride parades like Istanbul pride. I don't want you to think this comment is me defending the religion. I consider myself agnostic, and with some of the polls I've read, it is telling (and appalling) that many believe the way they do. I believe if some of these Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt) had more moderate or secular governments, and there's laws reflected it, then there would be a change in attitude. Also, I'm basing my comments on Sam off his article "The Reality of Islam," and a statement he made on Mediaite saying that Muslims were, "“hostage to the contents of these books.” www.mediaite.com/tv/sam-harris-tells-don-lemon-he-still-thinks-islam-is-motherlode-of-bad-ideas/ www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-reality-of-islam
@Angelo Mathews My point was not which religion has the higher body count. I'm simply asking if you believe religious doctrine, be it Muslim or Christian, has a role in any type of violence. And if so, should it be called out.
Most westerners are ignorant of the Islamic world including this host..simple as that. When you have lived 10 years in the Middle East you can have a informative opinion.
Did they say religion was the root of all evil? No. Oh and money and greed are also not the cause, as many of these islamists will kill themselves and others and get no money out of it. Stop strawmanning.
I can understand where some people would be content with using military end economic power to force countries into the position of industrial colony not only because that’s a way to feel safe and confident that sugar, oil, coffee, semiconducting minerals, etc. will always be available but also because there’s pleasure in displaying strength. I can understand that intuitively. What’s always bugged me is that not only are most people right there behind imperialism in service of commodities, most people seem to be able to not even understand that’s happening in the first place. Why aren’t more people at least uncomfortable being part of the ‘bad guys’ all the time? Shouldn’t the same kind of simplistic understanding drive an impulse to be good somehow - like by voting? It looks like the embarrassing inability of the US to continue to develop and really even effectively govern themselves in the 21st century is a victory of the long, slow assault on education and reliable journalism. You could argue that journalism has never been reliable. That’s reasonable. But the evolution of propaganda in the US has made the unreliability of journalism more of a liability.
CJ Werleman is getting his 15 minutes of fame by going around spewing the same bullshit about a subject he knows nothing about. It's a mystery how an Australian Salon contributor knows the real reasons of terrorism and how misunderstood islam is. Only Reza Aslan can match and surpass this kind of bull because he is an expert islam apologist.
Criticizing misogyny completly ignores the root of the problem. American foreign policy. By saying its wrong to want to force women out of the workplace is ignorant unless you first and only talk about how rich capitalists are against everything good in the world.
It would probably help if the point about the difference between the ideology of Muslim fundamentalists and ordinary Muslims would be supported with something, for example interviews with some outspoken moderate Muslims, where they'd be talking about their take on "crazy Islamic fundamentalists", as well as about secularism, human rights, freedom of speech, education, and about rational approach to solving problems populations in Islamic countries face.
Good to see that, once again, Michael's careful analysis gets the usual response of "lol Harris is more popular, therefore right." from people who probably didn't even watch the video.
I feel like the key thing that isn't understood by many is that if you don't strike the problem at the core, it will re-emerge in another name. To have that to happen, can make you feel good over "solving a problem", but really it just continues a cycle. I guess I take this as something personally offensive because I'd like to stereotype atheist as being intellectuals, and I guess that is a wrong assumption on my part in that the reality is the atheist that see the problem (I want to say the atheist minority because having an online presence does not make one a majority) are just humans with beliefs like everyone else. I guess that is a hard thing to accept because not a lot of people want to accept it as truth, but maybe it is. I don't know, it seems painfully obvious to me that nothing would change in the middle east if these all were atheist countries, that people of ISIS, or Al Qaeda would have found a different way to get people to join them and commit the same travesties (Although their names probably would be different). Fundamentalism is an ideology that can exist outside religion, and we should already know this because we can see it in politics, in nationalism, in entertainment like sports or movies. Even as far as an analysis of Nazism, which had religious ties, but we can look at it and see the beliefs can exist independent of established religions. I guess for me, its painfully obvious. I also feel like Harris knows this, but is merely using this stance as a platform to promote his probably existing beliefs that all religions should be stopped, and to topple one will topple all. I don't know, if that is a bad strategy, it feels like he is basically adapting athelism as/into a religion to consume all other religious beliefs, something you see in basically all evangelical religions. It's malicious, its a bit hypocritical but I can't say it is a wrong strategy as it recognizes the value in community and like-mindedness. I just personally don't like that it feels deceitful and facetious to argue a bad position just because you like the conflict. I also don't like the hatred it propagates, nor do I like that it doesn't actually solve the issue of making others more enlightened or objective, which I thought was a goal of atheism.
SLRok Hard to hide information when it is freely available. I understand how someone with low intellect would have trouble discerning truth from lie though.
He is right to say that Sam Harris doesn't understand the violence and terrorism and what ultimately causes it. For one thing Harris exaggerates the power of Islam, and religion in general, implying that the religion can take control of people's actions and change what the people are inclined to do. The truth is, it can't. The basic mechanics of religion makes that virtually impossible. But more importantly, he flatly denies that geopolitics and economics are at all relevant to what is happening in the Middle East. Harris is on record as saying that without Islam, Saudi's would have no objection to US troop placements in Saudi Arabia, as occurred after the first Gulf War. I can't pinpoint precisely where and when he said it, but it was one of the first few interviews he did on the Point of Inquiry podcast. For him to say that Islam is the only reason Saudis could have to object to the stationing of US troops in their country, is profoundly ignorant, and is as far as I'm concerned, equivalent to the denial of climate change and evolution. If Sam Harris was right about the violence being caused by Islam, then the violence and terrorism we see in the Arab Middle East would be equally prevalent across the entire Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia, from Sudan to Kazakhstan. But we don't see that at all. The violence committed by international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and Islamic State, are concentrated in the Middle East, indicating that whatever is the cause of it must be occurring in that region. So for Harris to deny that politics at all lays a part, is as I said, profoundly ignorant. There's a reason why the 9-11 attacks are acknowledge to be blowback.
9/11 attacks acknowledged to be blowback? by whom? Ron Paul. Micheal Scheuer. Chalmers Johnson. Blowback IS a thing. Blowback does NOT dictate what the response takes the form of. Tell me about Boko Haram. It means 'western education is forbidden' , not 'western foreign policy makes us pissed'. Explain their kidnapping of schoolgirls and Muslim oppression of women around the world. There's an arrogance to think that people around the world can't possibly have their own ideas and thoughts- everything is only a reaction to what the US does. Although I suppose when they look at western values and see scantily clad women it makes them oppress their own women even more. I suppose we should encourage our woman to wear burkas too? yeah, we should limit our freedoms- maybe make it agaisnt the law to draw mohammed. Then they won't get upset.
sausageman Because religion has no agency. Do you want to prove and explain how something that is for the most part immaterial, can wield control over human actions?
Michael Gibb Are you serious? That's ridiculous. Imagine there's a tiger behind your chair.. that's not going to influence your action? "For him to say that Islam is the only reason Saudis could have to object to the stationing of US troops in their country, is profoundly ignorant," That doesn't sound quite right, although I can see where you might have got it wrong, as I'm sure he said something kinda sorta like that. Bin Laden gave as one of the reasons for declaring war on the US the presence of infidels (plus woman not covering their heads of course!) in the Holy Land of Saudi Arabia. I'm sure the Saudi's could and would object if the Americans were not invited, but that wasn't the case. Obviously the Saudi's wanted them there and let them establish a base to conduct the Iraq War. I'm sure they 'could' object over some other issue as humans do in the normal course of events.. "The violence committed by international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and Islamic State, are concentrated in the Middle East," Wrong. Just off the top of my head there's Boko Haram.. There's many more. Basically where ever Islam has taken root. There's so many and so many bombings it's a full time job to keep track of it all.. all throughout north Africa and central and east asia. It's a global phenomenon. Also, Islamic State is attracting fighters from all around the world, first world secular nations included. Believers give up their comfortable lives to go fight and be martyred because of this belief. Not a product of their environments, but a product of their belief. It's that strong.
sausageman Try the 9-11 Commission Report. It described the 9-11 attack as blowback, and bin Laden himself did state in his writings that he was motivated in part by US transgressions in the Middle East, including the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s. The United States, Britain, and other colonial and imperial powers have over the last 100 years done a lot of disgusting things in the Middle East, from the toppling of governments, including secular and democratic ones, supporting Islamist movements to prevent "the spread of communism" in the region during the Cold War, to invading and bombing the nations, and even occupying them. What you do to another person or population shapes their perceptions and treatment of you. Ergo, treating the Muslim populations of the Middle East like pawns, and arming and funding the oppressive autocratic regimes in the area, is going to build resentment amongst those people, towards you. To think that none of this has driven small groups of locals to extreme ends to put a stop to it all, is pure naivete and delusion. By the way, when Sayyid Qutb traveled to the United States and spent two years there, he was left shocked at the loose sexual norms of American society, so much that he firmly believed in preventing that sort of culture from ever becoming established in the Muslim world. So yes, they do look at the West and wish to avoid in their own culture, what they perceive to be the immorality of Western culture. With respect to Boko Haram, they are a product of the decades of civil war and ethnic violence in Nigeria, and the wealth disparity that exists between the more wealthy southern, Christian half of the country and the impoverished northern, mostly Muslim part of Nigeria. So the conditions that created them are different from what created the likes of al Qaeda and ISIS, but is still primarily NOT caused by religion.
I agree with other comments that you guys should get Sam Harris on the show. The problem with that is Sam is ridiculously smart and knows a lot about the subject. Even if Harris is wrong (and he may be) he would be really hard to debate without looking ignorant.
SLRok I'm not interested in debating the pros/cons of religion, or converting thiests.. Its piting progressive/liberal thiest against athiests, and vice versa and turned away from the main talking point on realtime... progressives speaking out against bad ideas (bigotry/sexism).. The non-stop coverage is becoming annoying, especially the tunnel vision/cherry picking of its hosts..
SLRok use whatever justification is necessary for you to sleep at night.. but I stand by my comment. Making this conversation about athiest bashing religion is a strawman argument.
Interesting that Wahabism predates our Middle East foreign policy. You know both things could be a problem, right? The Middle East wasnt exactly a prosperous area lacking a large permanent underclass before Western imperialst adventurism. Does our foreign policy help to allow religious fundamentalism take hold? Sure. Is that the only way it can take hold, and would it go away without our foreign policy? No.
FFS CJ. Western imperialism makes makes a lot of people angry but that doesn't get Islam off the hook. You can't blame economic subjugation when terrorists are usually wealthier and better educated than their peers. There were more books translated into Spanish, by Spain, last year than all the books translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years. That's not the fault of western imperialism.
I would pay to see a debate between: CJ Werleman, Michael Brooks, Matt Binder and Sam Seder VS. Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch. He would utterly destroy them. Truth is on his side.
If your praising Robert Spencer that I'm sorry to tell you he's a clear moron. It was easy to trick people and fear monger back then but not we have many ways to do our research and he was wrong on almost everything. Recently he had a debate and got utterly trashed and became a disgrace to the Christian community.
really bad choice of title for this video. Atheist is a non-belief in theism, that is the only thing that links 'Atheists' together. To say 'Why Atheists fail to understand Islamic threat' is really ridiculous. There is merit in the positions of both Sam Harris and CJ on this issue in my opinion
Being born atheist, from a militant atheist father that lives and would die for his wife, kids, or grandkids. I have never taken enough interest in the occult to have in depth knowledge of all who of the who knows how many thousands worth of them so, yes! I'll admit it. I have no idea what the difference between sheeni or or whatever other derivative from a grander Allah based organised religion. Nor do I really care to fill my head with such nonsense. I try to know the basics. Catholicism/ Christianity/Judaism, and Allah is for god(adults in govt), as Santa clause, tooth fairy /easter Bunnie is for children(for having fun). as chupacabra, bigfoot, loch ness monster, is for LIARS (trying to make money) for example mega churches with pastors that have reality TV show contracts. It actually makes sense that 95% suicide bombers would be secular revenge, driven attacks. Think about it... most people snap after a certain point of humiliation, torture, hunger, death or oppression of loved ones. Especially if they feel that it was done by a corrupt govt fueled with and for indecent, indignant, corrupt, and undeserving people(filthy rich). We (all of us! that includes Black's, Asians Muslims, Hindu, Europeans, etc) except illegals here in the United States are filthy rich... I have seen people at the Salvation Army throw away the delicious, hot free food that is given to them after they are told many times to only "grab what you will eat!!! " I know because me and my family have gone there to eat when we literally had nothing. And some of the people that would go there to eat also were the worst. They would show up drunk, on their Harley motorcycles, with their tattoos, and their piercings, and smelling like 10 packs of lit menthols mixed with vodka. And the black church ladies, With their kids each playing on His own iPad or PSP. With a belt and sagging pants. And their mom... Oh handing out pamphlets for her church to distract people as she steels the free food that the salvation army was distributing to everyone including her. I think we should flip our current tax charges in the USA again so the 1% wealthiest of the u.s. population pays upwards to 85% of tax % where the middle class get charged about 10-15% again. And legalise and heavily tax regulate most drugs and prostitution. This in turn would cripple the black market, lower crime rates, reduce prison population by at least 50%. Create millions of jobs, and massively swell the u.s. economy. While focusing on education instead of war mongering, medical and technological advancements as well as clean renewable energy. And increasing the quality of life for everyone and everything living at a global level
The point: religion is not conducive to human rights. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and any of them leading governments is disastrous. Yeah Turkey is the best case scenario because they are secular. (Indonesia really is not the country Islam apologists think it is) IDK I won't lump all Muslims together if you don't lump atheists together, or Americans for that matter. I am a secular humanist. I want human rights for everyone. I don't want to bomb anyone. I don't want people to be persecuted for any reason, especially when that reason is silly made up stuff. I don't care what you believe a long as it doesn't infringe on my rights and it doesn't cause mass distrust of science, because look at what that has done for climate change opinion.
SLRok 99%? It's actually 97%. 72% if you count out Alevism. Do some research before talking out your ass. Edit: You also obviously don't know the definition of secular. The country could be 99.9999% muslims and still be secular.
SLRok _"but turkey is a democracy with almost 100% muslim population so apparently islam isn't that bad"_ Don't make me laugh. Ataturk secularized the country via force of arms. He essentially murdered the religious leaders who opposed him and he also "translated" the Qur'an to Turkish to disconnect Turkey from Arab fascism. Unfortunately, Ataturk died relatively soon and his successors never completed his vision of secularization. The result of this was that Turkey has been roughly 50/50 muslim and secular. The fact that you can bring up statistics saying it's 99.8% muslim is about as meaningless as the official religious statistics from Scandinavia. You can see from the elections in Turkey where people's allegiances lie. In any case, the muslims in Turkey have been a small majority for a long time and the army has regularly beat down muslim parties who have won the elections. Unfortunately, they were stupid enough to allow Erdogan in a bit over a decade ago and the result of this was that Erdogan managed to arrest all the generals and take control of the army. Turkey is now heading towards a theocracy as a result of this, and have already used the police to attack secular demonstrators This will no doubt get worse and it's hard to see how the country can avoid employing the army to maintain some vague resemblance of order - only this time it will be against the secular faction, not the muslim one. To call Turkey a democracy is ridiculous anyway. The previous secular regime was kept in power by the army for ages and there were huge protests against Erdogan for election fraud and the legal steps he has taken to be able to put himself into an eternal presidency. _"and maybe we should be talking about the socio economic/geopolitical realities of those nations that do have extremist muslisms and terrorist groups instead of making it seem like muslim/islam=violent barbarism."_ No, I think you should read more about the examples you choose, because they are piss poor. What we actually should discuss is the contents of the Qur'an, after you've sat down and read it and tried to understand how it related to the Jihadist mentality.
It is almost like you haven't heard Sam Harris speak at all. I don't agree with everything he has said but you people are building this straw man because you don't even want to point at what is wrong with religion, especially Islam for some reason. I don't think we should alienate the people of Islam that are not fundamentalists but you want to make it to where we cannot say anything about it. Religion has been left to grow for thousands of years without any backlash and now we have some people coming up who have the fortitude to do so and you are trying to block the conversation. Nothing will improve unless it can be discussed.
I wonder if they know how well progressive secularism correlates with atheism. That might help them to understand why they've pissed off their audience so much with this one. There is no reason why their cannot be a problem with US foreign policy and with Islam - they are not mutually exclusive claims. OR the connection between American religious fundamentalism and US foreign policy.
You guys contradicted each other, unless CJ is saying the 9/11 terrorists weren't Muslim at all. He tries to make the argument that their terrorism was not religiously based, but rather a secular, political attack on an occupying force. Michael later pointed out how suicide is haram (sinful) to Muslims, which is true. The only exception to that is martyrdom in service to God, or to Islam in general. So, if they were Muslim, they wouldnt be able to commit suicide for a secular purpose.
That's what not what they interpreted.the terrorists considered that secular reason as something of a justication and interpreted the Quran in a way that made the book look like it was ordering them to kill for a secular reason.they interpreted it as religious matter but the reason they did it is mostly because of a secular reason .
What if they considered suicide for a secular reason as not haram.maybe they wrongly interpreted their holy book as telling them to die for martyrdom .they wrongly interpreted martyrdom as killing themselves for a secular reason.thats what happened.they were religiously motivated but it was a secular reason why they did it as they interpreted (due to their own bias ) that killing themselves for a secular reason like illegal occupation is martyrdom.
Well looking at that bin ladin what he wrote that became so popular recently he says that basically you killed their civilians so we will kill yours. That's not a religious aspect since Islam forbids killing non combatants. Its was driven off vengeance.
I think they're intentionally misrepresenting the views of atheists. They KNOW we understand the geopolitical and economic factors, but they'd rather attack a caricature of atheists than real ones. You can blame them for being wrong, but it's hard to blame them for avoiding conflict with real atheists. Any self-respecting atheist intellectual would humiliate Brooks and Werleman in a debate, so it's easier for them to just set up a strawman instead.
SLRok - I think that is the problem. We are NOT pointing to the Middle East and saying all of the problems are because of Islam. You guys are leaping to that conclusion. We are simply criticizing Islam and rightfully so.
SLRock - Who the hell said it was "all" Muslims or that Islam was the biggest reason for terrorism? No one is saying that! That's why you and Brooks and other liberals are arguing against something Harris and others aren't even saying. Harris said at MOST there is a tiny fraction of extremists and around that Islamists and around that sympathizers. No where has he said all Muslims or even a majority of them hold views like those of the extremists. Of course US foreign policy has more to do with terrorism than Islam. No one is denying that! But what Harris and Maher and others are saying is the beliefs underlying Islam lay the foundation for the fervor and acts of terrorism, the same way the Bible lays the foundation for bigotry and sexism in the United States, for example.
Ronin Dave Mostly, we have a problem with them lying to excuse a death cult that pretty much is the biggest problem humanity has at the moment. People such as them are a huge barrier to dealing with the problem on the part of the west. This should have involved banning Islam and reeducating all young people who have received preliminary brain washing. After that we can discuss to what degree we can live with the muslim world as it is today.
Gnomefro Islam is a death cult? The biggest problem humanity has at the moment? Please, spare me your horrendous exaggerations! The US and European has nukes which if they wanted to driven by your kind of fear could unleash hell upon the area (if we didn't need their resources so badly). It isn't Islam which is currently exploiting much of the developing world's natural and labor resources nor pushing the world to the brink of disaster with destructive environmental policies.
Ronin Dave What do you think will happen if Islamic State get nukes? Mutally assured destruction will make them think twice on using them and there will be a cold war-esqe stand off? Riiiight. When they have beliefs that glorify and encourage death? It might not be today or tomorrow, but eventually the west is going to have to confront Islam head on. It's not going to be pretty. We should all face it right now. Ignoring it or making excuses will only make the problem worse.
The title of this video has to be the worst possible one they could have came up with. It strikes me as ...weird. Like "Why doctors never quite understand womens rights" or something. What on earth does being an atheist have to do with being able to understand there is more to terrorism than a Quran, a sausage fest society and the promise of 40 virgins? Rename this video, as its now elevated to foolish. Most Americans don't understand anything about terrorism beyond what TV news tells them, and see Israel as the victims of Palestine. Don't focus on Atheists with a title that insinuates we're a detached obscure group of idiots while this CJ guy flaps his soup coolers about the lack of understanding among people educated by the MSM. Wow CJ, that's really ground breaking information, here I was thinking that even Joe the Plumber and Honey boo boo would surely have a grasp on the world from a geopolitical standpoint. I mean ive heard that most Americans couldn't find Iraq on a map, and those other things, but hearing how you say it with an accent is an eye opener! I hate when Sam gets "filled in for". Might as well phrase it 'Taking advantage of Sam's absence is:
A few years later CJ Werleman runs journalism for Islamic causes. And his respect for the religion only gets stronger than ever. Nothing but respect
Respect for a cult ? 😹👍
Werleman is a shill and gets paid by gulf states to do his shitty journalism.
@@phantomgamingignt6275 Go off.
@@phantomgamingignt6275Hindu: Your ancestors were Hindus. You are a converted Muslims.
Muslim: Yes, they left hinduism because of discrimination and idol worship.
Hindu: I am actually atheist Hindu. I also don't believe in those things.
Muslim:🤣😂😂
@@vamshishedmakeok pakistani propoganda bot, don't you have better work to do, or your country can't provide you any?
Shame on Minority Report and Michael Brooks to give this serial plagiarist a platform from which to spread his slander and dishonesty. By having him on the show to bolster your arguments shows that you've bet on the wrong horse and are probably on the wrong side of the debate.
Islam is going through a process of modernisation and resistance to it. This happened in Christianity in Europe and the result was centuries of horrific violence and bloodshed. What right do we have to expect them to do it on the hurry when it took us almost 500 years? It is becuase since 1945 or so we have had almost absolute power and we expect others to obey as what's good for us is good for everyone. Functioning economies and democracies take time, they don't spring up like mushrooms after a rain. There will be peace and progress in the Middle East and 3rd world but it will take decades not weeks or months. If we don't want them to hate us we should invest as much time and money into them and their people as we did into trying to control them to exploit their resources.
there is no modernisation, just the creation of sects
I think you are missing the point that the west exclusively has single handedly caused the destruction of the Middle East. Countries like Libya, Iraq and Syria had one of the greatest economies in the world only a few decades ago.
"Why Atheists Fail to Understand the 'Islamic Threat'" Talk about being guilty of the same kind of over generalizing bullshit that you accuse Maher/Harris of. Ironic much?
Never has so much attention been given to a second rate blogger with relevancy issues. Nothing important was said here.
Second rate? That's quite the compliment. ;)
CJ is a blogger? I thought CJ was just an Australian vocaloid program connected to an algorithm that copy pasted actual journalists work*, and then spat out sensationalist word salad headlines.
This wasn't just an elaborate Turing test; really?
* - www.alternet.org/special-note-readers-alternet-regrets-authors-plagiarism
- www.salon.com/about/corrections/
CJ Werleman is to Chris Hedges what VenomFangX is to Kent Hovind.
SLRok That's right. You guys seem to be fucking immune to them.
SLRok Sorry, but it's going to take some work on your part. You could start by looking closely at the latest Pew poll of the Muslim world.
CJFangX
SLRok I haven't had time to check this yet but I am a little confused about how only extremists were polled if they haven't been polled yet? How is one suppose to collect that sample?
Anyway, you have made some decent points overall. It's a conversation I'm willing to have. I just don't see that from Sams minions or cenk et al, who seem to be attempting to shame people out of their position. Robert Wright has had the best objections I've heard so far.
papersplease hedges pet attack dog?
CJ, When someone criticises Islam, they are not necessarily declaring the West is perfect and innocent, as you claim. Please stop painting everyone with the same brush, and oversimplifying the issue, as you ironically seem so keen remind critics of Islam.
scottpastry I think you're not exactly getting what CJ is saying, though you aren't wrong in that I doubt Harris feels Western Society is perfect either. CJ is saying that Harris' statements, when it comes to Islam as a religion, unjustly makes it the sole reason behind all violent (or brutal) practices within Middle Eastern culture.
biggydx Just because something isn't a main factor, doesn't mean it can't be a factor at all. My impression is there are plenty of liberals who will criticize US foreign policy, yet very few who would dare to criticize Islam. Maybe Sam feels there is a void for critique of Islam that he feels needs to be addressed. Are you trying to say religion has absolutely no influence in extremist attitudes towards women and minorities? If not, does that mean you're a bigot? Can you also provide sources where Sam Harris says Islam is the MAIN cause of terrorism. For some strange reason, I don't think you will be able to.
floys69 I think it can make for a pretty good scapegoat, especially if there's text within the scripture that says that justifies it. I think that you would find many Liberals criticizing the more barbaric practices of the faith, and there are even Islamic groups in the U.S. (like CAIR) who come out repeatedly against terrorist attacks. As far as religion having an influence when it comes to women and minorities, it can be, but I don't believe it one of the prevailing causes. The institution/government is also important to look at, in addition to socioeconomic aspects. You had Native American tribes, like the Hopi, who allowed for women to have significantly influence not only in their political system, but also other aspects like hunting. Ireland is 80% Roman Catholic, yet 73% of it's people today agree with a Amendment to allow for same-sex marriage. In contrast, you have Russia (75% Orthodox Christian) that has taken a step back in gay rights; due to the actions of their gov't. Turkey is majority Muslim but has gay pride parades like Istanbul pride.
I don't want you to think this comment is me defending the religion. I consider myself agnostic, and with some of the polls I've read, it is telling (and appalling) that many believe the way they do. I believe if some of these Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt) had more moderate or secular governments, and there's laws reflected it, then there would be a change in attitude.
Also, I'm basing my comments on Sam off his article "The Reality of Islam," and a statement he made on Mediaite saying that Muslims were, "“hostage to the contents of these books.”
www.mediaite.com/tv/sam-harris-tells-don-lemon-he-still-thinks-islam-is-motherlode-of-bad-ideas/
www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-reality-of-islam
@Angelo Mathews My point was not which religion has the higher body count. I'm simply asking if you believe religious doctrine, be it Muslim or Christian, has a role in any type of violence. And if so, should it be called out.
This title is an insult to atheists.. it should read: "Why Sam Harris Fails.." other than that, mb's critique is spot on.
Most westerners are ignorant of the Islamic world including this host..simple as that. When you have lived 10 years in the Middle East you can have a informative opinion.
"this is fundamentally a religious war" - Osama bin Laden
Did they say religion was the root of all evil? No. Oh and money and greed are also not the cause, as many of these islamists will kill themselves and others and get no money out of it. Stop strawmanning.
A guy who doesn't like Sam Harris interviewing another guy who doesn't like Sam Harris. This is incredibly interesting. ...
I see that be-nice-to-Islam-week has been extended.
I can understand where some people would be content with using military end economic power to force countries into the position of industrial colony not only because that’s a way to feel safe and confident that sugar, oil, coffee, semiconducting minerals, etc. will always be available but also because there’s pleasure in displaying strength. I can understand that intuitively.
What’s always bugged me is that not only are most people right there behind imperialism in service of commodities, most people seem to be able to not even understand that’s happening in the first place. Why aren’t more people at least uncomfortable being part of the ‘bad guys’ all the time? Shouldn’t the same kind of simplistic understanding drive an impulse to be good somehow - like by voting?
It looks like the embarrassing inability of the US to continue to develop and really even effectively govern themselves in the 21st century is a victory of the long, slow assault on education and reliable journalism. You could argue that journalism has never been reliable. That’s reasonable. But the evolution of propaganda in the US has made the unreliability of journalism more of a liability.
Sam and CJ really nail it - well done guys!
CJ Werleman is getting his 15 minutes of fame by going around spewing the same bullshit about a subject he knows nothing about. It's a mystery how an Australian Salon contributor knows the real reasons of terrorism and how misunderstood islam is. Only Reza Aslan can match and surpass this kind of bull because he is an expert islam apologist.
Criticizing misogyny completly ignores the root of the problem. American foreign policy. By saying its wrong to want to force women out of the workplace is ignorant unless you first and only talk about how rich capitalists are against everything good in the world.
Islamic extremism is not created by poverty.
It would probably help if the point about the difference between the ideology of Muslim fundamentalists and ordinary Muslims would be supported with something, for example interviews with some outspoken moderate Muslims, where they'd be talking about their take on "crazy Islamic fundamentalists", as well as about secularism, human rights, freedom of speech, education, and about rational approach to solving problems populations in Islamic countries face.
Killing me guys. You're way off base in this debate.
Brethren! Out religious leader is being criticised! Everyone, get your downvotes and straw men and let's go!!!
Good to see that, once again, Michael's careful analysis gets the usual response of "lol Harris is more popular, therefore right." from people who probably didn't even watch the video.
I feel like the key thing that isn't understood by many is that if you don't strike the problem at the core, it will re-emerge in another name. To have that to happen, can make you feel good over "solving a problem", but really it just continues a cycle. I guess I take this as something personally offensive because I'd like to stereotype atheist as being intellectuals, and I guess that is a wrong assumption on my part in that the reality is the atheist that see the problem (I want to say the atheist minority because having an online presence does not make one a majority) are just humans with beliefs like everyone else. I guess that is a hard thing to accept because not a lot of people want to accept it as truth, but maybe it is.
I don't know, it seems painfully obvious to me that nothing would change in the middle east if these all were atheist countries, that people of ISIS, or Al Qaeda would have found a different way to get people to join them and commit the same travesties (Although their names probably would be different). Fundamentalism is an ideology that can exist outside religion, and we should already know this because we can see it in politics, in nationalism, in entertainment like sports or movies. Even as far as an analysis of Nazism, which had religious ties, but we can look at it and see the beliefs can exist independent of established religions. I guess for me, its painfully obvious.
I also feel like Harris knows this, but is merely using this stance as a platform to promote his probably existing beliefs that all religions should be stopped, and to topple one will topple all. I don't know, if that is a bad strategy, it feels like he is basically adapting athelism as/into a religion to consume all other religious beliefs, something you see in basically all evangelical religions. It's malicious, its a bit hypocritical but I can't say it is a wrong strategy as it recognizes the value in community and like-mindedness. I just personally don't like that it feels deceitful and facetious to argue a bad position just because you like the conflict. I also don't like the hatred it propagates, nor do I like that it doesn't actually solve the issue of making others more enlightened or objective, which I thought was a goal of atheism.
But terrorists are historically relatively wealthy people. How do you explain that?
I see CJs opinions are about as popular as they were on TYT. That is, not very.
SLRok
Same with lies and idiocy. Clearly he lies with the latter.
SLRok
Depends on the audience. An audience of idiots will obviously believe lies.
SLRok
Hard to hide information when it is freely available.
I understand how someone with low intellect would have trouble discerning truth from lie though.
He is right to say that Sam Harris doesn't understand the violence and terrorism and what ultimately causes it. For one thing Harris exaggerates the power of Islam, and religion in general, implying that the religion can take control of people's actions and change what the people are inclined to do. The truth is, it can't. The basic mechanics of religion makes that virtually impossible. But more importantly, he flatly denies that geopolitics and economics are at all relevant to what is happening in the Middle East. Harris is on record as saying that without Islam, Saudi's would have no objection to US troop placements in Saudi Arabia, as occurred after the first Gulf War. I can't pinpoint precisely where and when he said it, but it was one of the first few interviews he did on the Point of Inquiry podcast.
For him to say that Islam is the only reason Saudis could have to object to the stationing of US troops in their country, is profoundly ignorant, and is as far as I'm concerned, equivalent to the denial of climate change and evolution.
If Sam Harris was right about the violence being caused by Islam, then the violence and terrorism we see in the Arab Middle East would be equally prevalent across the entire Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia, from Sudan to Kazakhstan. But we don't see that at all. The violence committed by international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and Islamic State, are concentrated in the Middle East, indicating that whatever is the cause of it must be occurring in that region. So for Harris to deny that politics at all lays a part, is as I said, profoundly ignorant.
There's a reason why the 9-11 attacks are acknowledge to be blowback.
It's a religion with powerful and satisfying enough beliefs that adherents willingly blow themselves up. How exactly can that be overestimated?!
9/11 attacks acknowledged to be blowback? by whom? Ron Paul. Micheal Scheuer. Chalmers Johnson.
Blowback IS a thing. Blowback does NOT dictate what the response takes the form of.
Tell me about Boko Haram. It means 'western education is forbidden' , not 'western foreign policy makes us pissed'.
Explain their kidnapping of schoolgirls and Muslim oppression of women around the world. There's an arrogance to think that people around the world can't possibly have their own ideas and thoughts- everything is only a reaction to what the US does. Although I suppose when they look at western values and see scantily clad women it makes them oppress their own women even more. I suppose we should encourage our woman to wear burkas too? yeah, we should limit our freedoms- maybe make it agaisnt the law to draw mohammed. Then they won't get upset.
sausageman Because religion has no agency. Do you want to prove and explain how something that is for the most part immaterial, can wield control over human actions?
Michael Gibb Are you serious? That's ridiculous. Imagine there's a tiger behind your chair.. that's not going to influence your action?
"For him to say that Islam is the only reason Saudis could have to object to the stationing of US troops in their country, is profoundly ignorant,"
That doesn't sound quite right, although I can see where you might have got it wrong, as I'm sure he said something kinda sorta like that.
Bin Laden gave as one of the reasons for declaring war on the US the presence of infidels (plus woman not covering their heads of course!) in the Holy Land of Saudi Arabia.
I'm sure the Saudi's could and would object if the Americans were not invited, but that wasn't the case.
Obviously the Saudi's wanted them there and let them establish a base to conduct the Iraq War.
I'm sure they 'could' object over some other issue as humans do in the normal course of events..
"The violence committed by international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and Islamic State, are concentrated in the Middle East,"
Wrong. Just off the top of my head there's Boko Haram.. There's many more. Basically where ever Islam has taken root. There's so many and so many bombings it's a full time job to keep track of it all.. all throughout north Africa and central and east asia.
It's a global phenomenon. Also, Islamic State is attracting fighters from all around the world, first world secular nations included. Believers give up their comfortable lives to go fight and be martyred because of this belief.
Not a product of their environments, but a product of their belief. It's that strong.
sausageman Try the 9-11 Commission Report. It described the 9-11 attack as blowback, and bin Laden himself did state in his writings that he was motivated in part by US transgressions in the Middle East, including the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s.
The United States, Britain, and other colonial and imperial powers have over the last 100 years done a lot of disgusting things in the Middle East, from the toppling of governments, including secular and democratic ones, supporting Islamist movements to prevent "the spread of communism" in the region during the Cold War, to invading and bombing the nations, and even occupying them. What you do to another person or population shapes their perceptions and treatment of you. Ergo, treating the Muslim populations of the Middle East like pawns, and arming and funding the oppressive autocratic regimes in the area, is going to build resentment amongst those people, towards you. To think that none of this has driven small groups of locals to extreme ends to put a stop to it all, is pure naivete and delusion.
By the way, when Sayyid Qutb traveled to the United States and spent two years there, he was left shocked at the loose sexual norms of American society, so much that he firmly believed in preventing that sort of culture from ever becoming established in the Muslim world. So yes, they do look at the West and wish to avoid in their own culture, what they perceive to be the immorality of Western culture.
With respect to Boko Haram, they are a product of the decades of civil war and ethnic violence in Nigeria, and the wealth disparity that exists between the more wealthy southern, Christian half of the country and the impoverished northern, mostly Muslim part of Nigeria. So the conditions that created them are different from what created the likes of al Qaeda and ISIS, but is still primarily NOT caused by religion.
I agree with other comments that you guys should get Sam Harris on the show. The problem with that is Sam is ridiculously smart and knows a lot about the subject. Even if Harris is wrong (and he may be) he would be really hard to debate without looking ignorant.
This dude is the left wings S.E Cupp lol
Now thats a debate I want to see.
its all those athiests fault... are you even trying anymore, or you just bashing athiests?
SLRok I'm not interested in debating the pros/cons of religion, or converting thiests..
Its piting progressive/liberal thiest against athiests, and vice versa and turned away from the main talking point on realtime... progressives speaking out against bad ideas (bigotry/sexism).. The non-stop coverage is becoming annoying, especially the tunnel vision/cherry picking of its hosts..
SLRok use whatever justification is necessary for you to sleep at night.. but I stand by my comment. Making this conversation about athiest bashing religion is a strawman argument.
Great stuff.
Interesting that Wahabism predates our Middle East foreign policy. You know both things could be a problem, right? The Middle East wasnt exactly a prosperous area lacking a large permanent underclass before Western imperialst adventurism. Does our foreign policy help to allow religious fundamentalism take hold? Sure. Is that the only way it can take hold, and would it go away without our foreign policy? No.
FFS CJ.
Western imperialism makes makes a lot of people angry but that doesn't get Islam off the hook.
You can't blame economic subjugation when terrorists are usually wealthier and better educated than their peers.
There were more books translated into Spanish, by Spain, last year than all the books translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years. That's not the fault of western imperialism.
I would pay to see a debate between: CJ Werleman, Michael Brooks, Matt Binder and Sam Seder VS. Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch. He would utterly destroy them. Truth is on his side.
If your praising Robert Spencer that I'm sorry to tell you he's a clear moron. It was easy to trick people and fear monger back then but not we have many ways to do our research and he was wrong on almost everything. Recently he had a debate and got utterly trashed and became a disgrace to the Christian community.
really bad choice of title for this video. Atheist is a non-belief in theism, that is the only thing that links 'Atheists' together. To say 'Why Atheists fail to understand Islamic threat' is really ridiculous. There is merit in the positions of both Sam Harris and CJ on this issue in my opinion
This video was very interesting to listen to.
Oh Goodness NO. Not CJ.
Being born atheist, from a militant atheist father that lives and would die for his wife, kids, or grandkids. I have never taken enough interest in the occult to have in depth knowledge of all who of the who knows how many thousands worth of them so, yes! I'll admit it.
I have no idea what the difference between sheeni or or whatever other derivative from a grander Allah based organised religion. Nor do I really care to fill my head with such nonsense. I try to know the basics.
Catholicism/ Christianity/Judaism, and Allah is for god(adults in govt), as Santa clause, tooth fairy /easter Bunnie is for children(for having fun). as chupacabra, bigfoot, loch ness monster, is for LIARS (trying to make money) for example mega churches with pastors that have reality TV show contracts.
It actually makes sense that 95% suicide bombers would be secular revenge, driven attacks. Think about it... most people snap after a certain point of humiliation, torture, hunger, death or oppression of loved ones. Especially if they feel that it was done by a corrupt govt fueled with and for indecent, indignant, corrupt, and undeserving people(filthy rich).
We (all of us! that includes Black's, Asians Muslims, Hindu, Europeans, etc) except illegals here in the United States are filthy rich... I have seen people at the Salvation Army throw away the delicious, hot free food that is given to them after they are told many times to only "grab what you will eat!!! "
I know because me and my family have gone there to eat when we literally had nothing. And some of the people that would go there to eat also were the worst. They would show up drunk, on their Harley motorcycles, with their tattoos, and their piercings, and smelling like 10 packs of lit menthols mixed with vodka. And the black church ladies, With their kids each playing on His own iPad or PSP. With a belt and sagging pants. And their mom... Oh handing out pamphlets for her church to distract people as she steels the free food that the salvation army was distributing to everyone including her.
I think we should flip our current tax charges in the USA again so the 1% wealthiest of the u.s. population pays upwards to 85% of tax % where the middle class get charged about 10-15% again. And legalise and heavily tax regulate most drugs and prostitution. This in turn would cripple the black market, lower crime rates, reduce prison population by at least 50%. Create millions of jobs, and massively swell the u.s. economy. While focusing on education instead of war mongering, medical and technological advancements as well as clean renewable energy. And increasing the quality of life for everyone and everything living at a global level
The point: religion is not conducive to human rights. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and any of them leading governments is disastrous. Yeah Turkey is the best case scenario because they are secular. (Indonesia really is not the country Islam apologists think it is) IDK I won't lump all Muslims together if you don't lump atheists together, or Americans for that matter. I am a secular humanist. I want human rights for everyone. I don't want to bomb anyone. I don't want people to be persecuted for any reason, especially when that reason is silly made up stuff. I don't care what you believe a long as it doesn't infringe on my rights and it doesn't cause mass distrust of science, because look at what that has done for climate change opinion.
SLRok
99%?
It's actually 97%.
72% if you count out Alevism. Do some research before talking out your ass.
Edit: You also obviously don't know the definition of secular. The country could be 99.9999% muslims and still be secular.
SLRok
The facts speak for themselves. If muslim countries didn't act this way no one would be claiming they did.
SLRok
_"but turkey is a democracy with almost 100% muslim population so apparently islam isn't that bad"_
Don't make me laugh. Ataturk secularized the country via force of arms. He essentially murdered the religious leaders who opposed him and he also "translated" the Qur'an to Turkish to disconnect Turkey from Arab fascism.
Unfortunately, Ataturk died relatively soon and his successors never completed his vision of secularization. The result of this was that Turkey has been roughly 50/50 muslim and secular. The fact that you can bring up statistics saying it's 99.8% muslim is about as meaningless as the official religious statistics from Scandinavia. You can see from the elections in Turkey where people's allegiances lie.
In any case, the muslims in Turkey have been a small majority for a long time and the army has regularly beat down muslim parties who have won the elections. Unfortunately, they were stupid enough to allow Erdogan in a bit over a decade ago and the result of this was that Erdogan managed to arrest all the generals and take control of the army. Turkey is now heading towards a theocracy as a result of this, and have already used the police to attack secular demonstrators This will no doubt get worse and it's hard to see how the country can avoid employing the army to maintain some vague resemblance of order - only this time it will be against the secular faction, not the muslim one.
To call Turkey a democracy is ridiculous anyway. The previous secular regime was kept in power by the army for ages and there were huge protests against Erdogan for election fraud and the legal steps he has taken to be able to put himself into an eternal presidency.
_"and maybe we should be talking about the socio economic/geopolitical realities of those nations that do have extremist muslisms and terrorist groups instead of making it seem like muslim/islam=violent barbarism."_
No, I think you should read more about the examples you choose, because they are piss poor. What we actually should discuss is the contents of the Qur'an, after you've sat down and read it and tried to understand how it related to the Jihadist mentality.
@@Gnomefro Woah.That's a load of bs, son.
Ya must be from America. lmao
It is almost like you haven't heard Sam Harris speak at all. I don't agree with everything he has said but you people are building this straw man because you don't even want to point at what is wrong with religion, especially Islam for some reason. I don't think we should alienate the people of Islam that are not fundamentalists but you want to make it to where we cannot say anything about it. Religion has been left to grow for thousands of years without any backlash and now we have some people coming up who have the fortitude to do so and you are trying to block the conversation. Nothing will improve unless it can be discussed.
Seems like to a lot of people, seems like just quoting Sam Harris is slandering him.
Why is this guy doing all the talking when he has an invited guest?
that plagiarism scandal doe
I wonder if they know how well progressive secularism correlates with atheism. That might help them to understand why they've pissed off their audience so much with this one. There is no reason why their cannot be a problem with US foreign policy and with Islam - they are not mutually exclusive claims. OR the connection between American religious fundamentalism and US foreign policy.
You guys contradicted each other, unless CJ is saying the 9/11 terrorists weren't Muslim at all. He tries to make the argument that their terrorism was not religiously based, but rather a secular, political attack on an occupying force. Michael later pointed out how suicide is haram (sinful) to Muslims, which is true. The only exception to that is martyrdom in service to God, or to Islam in general. So, if they were Muslim, they wouldnt be able to commit suicide for a secular purpose.
That's what not what they interpreted.the terrorists considered that secular reason as something of a justication and interpreted the Quran in a way that made the book look like it was ordering them to kill for a secular reason.they interpreted it as religious matter but the reason they did it is mostly because of a secular reason .
What if they considered suicide for a secular reason as not haram.maybe they wrongly interpreted their holy book as telling them to die for martyrdom .they wrongly interpreted martyrdom as killing themselves for a secular reason.thats what happened.they were religiously motivated but it was a secular reason why they did it as they interpreted (due to their own bias ) that killing themselves for a secular reason like illegal occupation is martyrdom.
Well looking at that bin ladin what he wrote that became so popular recently he says that basically you killed their civilians so we will kill yours. That's not a religious aspect since Islam forbids killing non combatants. Its was driven off vengeance.
Such a great conversation. RIP MB ❤️
Also according to the logic presented here - the title is bigoted towards atheists. Use a broad much? hypocrites.
We don't "fail to understand" these things. You are being ridiculous with your assertions and mental gymnastics in this whole discussion.
I think they're intentionally misrepresenting the views of atheists. They KNOW we understand the geopolitical and economic factors, but they'd rather attack a caricature of atheists than real ones. You can blame them for being wrong, but it's hard to blame them for avoiding conflict with real atheists. Any self-respecting atheist intellectual would humiliate Brooks and Werleman in a debate, so it's easier for them to just set up a strawman instead.
SLRok - I think that is the problem. We are NOT pointing to the Middle East and saying all of the problems are because of Islam. You guys are leaping to that conclusion. We are simply criticizing Islam and rightfully so.
SLRock - Who the hell said it was "all" Muslims or that Islam was the biggest reason for terrorism? No one is saying that! That's why you and Brooks and other liberals are arguing against something Harris and others aren't even saying. Harris said at MOST there is a tiny fraction of extremists and around that Islamists and around that sympathizers. No where has he said all Muslims or even a majority of them hold views like those of the extremists. Of course US foreign policy has more to do with terrorism than Islam. No one is denying that! But what Harris and Maher and others are saying is the beliefs underlying Islam lay the foundation for the fervor and acts of terrorism, the same way the Bible lays the foundation for bigotry and sexism in the United States, for example.
There are plenty of atheist commenting here, unfortunately not very many of them are skeptics.
Yeah, all the ones who thumbed up the video.
AnxiousObserver you really have a bug up your butt over them criticizing Harris, don't you? Pop a chill pill, son.
Ronin Dave Mostly, we have a problem with them lying to excuse a death cult that pretty much is the biggest problem humanity has at the moment. People such as them are a huge barrier to dealing with the problem on the part of the west. This should have involved banning Islam and reeducating all young people who have received preliminary brain washing.
After that we can discuss to what degree we can live with the muslim world as it is today.
Gnomefro Islam is a death cult? The biggest problem humanity has at the moment? Please, spare me your horrendous exaggerations! The US and European has nukes which if they wanted to driven by your kind of fear could unleash hell upon the area (if we didn't need their resources so badly).
It isn't Islam which is currently exploiting much of the developing world's natural and labor resources nor pushing the world to the brink of disaster with destructive environmental policies.
Ronin Dave What do you think will happen if Islamic State get nukes? Mutally assured destruction will make them think twice on using them and there will be a cold war-esqe stand off? Riiiight. When they have beliefs that glorify and encourage death? It might not be today or tomorrow, but eventually the west is going to have to confront Islam head on. It's not going to be pretty. We should all face it right now. Ignoring it or making excuses will only make the problem worse.
team sam 100%
Atheist in latin is ignoramous
The title of this video has to be the worst possible one they could have came up with. It strikes me as ...weird. Like "Why doctors never quite understand womens rights" or something. What on earth does being an atheist have to do with being able to understand there is more to terrorism than a Quran, a sausage fest society and the promise of 40 virgins? Rename this video, as its now elevated to foolish. Most Americans don't understand anything about terrorism beyond what TV news tells them, and see Israel as the victims of Palestine. Don't focus on Atheists with a title that insinuates we're a detached obscure group of idiots while this CJ guy flaps his soup coolers about the lack of understanding among people educated by the MSM. Wow CJ, that's really ground breaking information, here I was thinking that even Joe the Plumber and Honey boo boo would surely have a grasp on the world from a geopolitical standpoint. I mean ive heard that most Americans couldn't find Iraq on a map, and those other things, but hearing how you say it with an accent is an eye opener!
I hate when Sam gets "filled in for". Might as well phrase it 'Taking advantage of Sam's absence is:
CJ taking rubbish again 😅
Hey, has anyone heard from Ben Affleck?