Steve Shives puts out excellent commentary, I wish I had the time and strength to watch all of his output. This takedown of Sam Harris is particularly well done. But it is rather long, so I recommend having it in the background to some work, like doing dishes.
I was never a fan of Sam Harris as such. I thought originally he made some good points, even about Islam, and I thought that the metaphor about us striving to reach higher grounds on an imaginary “moral landscape” was very good from didactic standpoint.
Then I learned more about Islam, and I modified my beliefs accordingly. Sam Harris AFAIK did not. I still think that the moral landscape is a good metaphor for moral progress, but that is all.
Luckily Sam Harris, unlike Dawkins outed himself as an asshole before I spent a lot of money on his books.
Content warning: transphobia from 26:25-29:22 (there is also content warning in the video itself, but it is only textual so if you are only listening, you might miss it).
That sounds like the beginning of a Kafka story.
“When he awoke Gregor Samsa realized he was being lectured by Sam Harris. The sheets were holding him down so he could not move to escape.”
You are creating a false equivalency. There is a fundamental difference between Islamic terrorist and White Nationalists. Both are ass holes, but White Nationalism isn’t an existentially based ideology, Islamic Terrorism is, at least not to the same degree. That is, graying whites are afraid of losing their territory, where the religious are fearful of losing their “extended lives”. Both are capable of killing and do so on a regular basis, but in Harris’s defense, only one of these groups would be willing to blow us all up for a better world beyond.
I am not an Islamophobe, as in, I don’t believe that all religious people are evil but I do believe that religion is a platform for the sane and the insane alike. The insanity of religion doesn’t help. Both exist across a spectrum, so the problem is with the platform, not those who necessarily use it.
normdbloom
Let me guess, you’re white. White Nationalism is certainly not confined to greying whites, witness the ages of the men committing terrorist attacks. It is also an existential issue by defintition for those involved who are convinced that the very existence of the ‘white race’ is under threat. Those with a religion may abandon it, but those who are white will continue to be so as there is no way of changing.
Uh, actually, it is.
Even if that’s the case, does the amount of people each group would be willing to blow up really matter?
normdbloom
Graying whites are afraid of losing more than their territory. They view multiculturalism as evil and are afraid of dilution of their race and eventual loss of existance. Islam has been subjected to a lot of existential threats from America and Isreal. Do you know about the Samson Option?
The other just wants to blow us all up on principle. Totally different.