UPDATE 10/23/2014 13:52 EST: As promised, here is the free version of Sam and Cenk’s debate:
Whohoo, free!
If you’re a member of The Young Turks’ premium page, you are in for an intense livestream discussion between Cenk Uygur and noted author Sam Harris. Harris was most lately notable for being a part of that heated debate involving Ben Affleck on Real Time with Bill Maher. He’s also a neuroscientist and founder of Project Reason, a non-profit foundation devoted to spreading logical thinking (they say “scientific thinking”; I was just boldly editorializing) and secular views.
Harris, who has advanced the theory that Jihadists are “the norm for Muslims,” has also been at odds with another recent TYT guest, author and professor Reza Aslan, so tonight’s livestream should be an intense and incendiary look at the politics and religion (often the same thing) in the Middle East.
If you’re not a member of TYT’s premium channel yet, it’s not too late to join and witness this powerful discourse go down in real time. Of course, if you’re a cheapskate who doesn’t want to pay for aforementioned membership, certainly clips will be made available after the fact. But you’ll be the one person at the watercooler tomorrow not talking about this dynamic media moment … so there’s that.
The debate happens live at 6pm PST tonight. You can join The Young Turks’ premium page by going here.
“Controversial atheist”. Well, I guess not up until abouuuuut….oh that’s right, 3 weeks ago, when that Ben Affleck thing happened…
Can’t wait for the Michael Shermer/Matt Damon showdown.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
I’d love to see that!
I thought it was a great discussion. I tend to gravitate to Sam’s thesis that Islamic theology is the main factor contributing to today’s violence even though I do think that Sam evolved his heretofore absolutist position because of Cenk’s points.
I think that Cenk is unwilling to completely agree with Sam’s thesis because Cenk holds to things sacred: his muslim family and American liberalism. Cenk has family members that muslim Americans and he has first hand knowledge of people who live in harmony within American society. Also as a committed liberal he believes that liberalism is the ideology that makes America unique for it protect and welcome into this society.
I think this debate was fruitful in that it got Sam to be less of a rhetorical bomb thrower that just offends instead of explains. Conversely it did challenge Cenk to confront that Islam is easily utilized to foment violence.
The fundamental question that should have been asked was how does Harris determine the casual Connection between a specific idea or proposition (or doctrine) and a behaviour either as an effect or a consequence?
Apologies if I’m wrong, but I assume it’s a typo and you meant “causal”. From what I actually heard him say, he’s positing that the doctrine of Islam is pretty overt in its invocation of all the things that we coincidentally see being exacted under the banner of fundamentalism. This includes the ease with which its followers will flock to jihad and for what cause. (Compared with other religions.) He does say that there are situations when Muslims will do things independent of their beliefs, partly motivated by them, as well as completely motivated by them. I think he draws the threshold for causality to be their direct proclamation that it IS their religion that is calling upon them to enact specific behaviours. The degrees to which and multiple backgrounds against which this is continually associated with Islam makes it a more serious problem than most think. i.e., people don’t believe that others actually believe in the promise of Paradise, and that this is not merely a confluence of geo-politics — Islam has a direct prescription for world domination. He does 100% suggest that a reformation is possible and absolutely necessary. This is why he’s doing all this in the first place — to have the discussions. (I look forward to reading the work he’s doing with Maajid Nawaz.)
Thanks for the reply. I think still the fundamental question remains that the Connection between an idea and a specific phenomenon such as violence is ambiguous and not easily reducible to verifiable propositions. Since there could always be a discrepancy between what (a person or) people say and what (he/she or) they do, there is no easy way to establish a cause-effect relation based on what the people themselves say or by depicting a logical correlation between an idea or a doctrine and specific situations. Social scientists or researcher tried to deal with this problem by contextualizing a doctrine or ideas and the associated practice/phenomenon by uncovering wider socio historical and cultural processes. Still some others include in this the workings of power relationship. Yet again, this hasn’t easily solved the problem of causation in the social and political field, nevertheless, often gives a much better insight about an apparently obvious but rather a much more complicated phenomenon associated with violence in Islam or other religions.
People are making a name for themselves by intentionally misrepresenting Harris and then basking in the attention created by their “controversy” with somebody who is more recognizable than them. It is cheap and disingenuous.
So, Cenk just issued an apology a few days ago for misrepresenting Harris argument. And here it is again. If the intellectual dishonesty and slander of Harris is this annoying to me I can’t imagine what Harris feels like. Jesus!
“Jihadists are the norm for Muslims” -You’ve obviously not read or heard Sam’s own word if you think that’s what he said. That’s a big part of the problem with the “controversy”: people are hearing his word summarised by reactive, politically correct, Post Modern & Modernist thinkers who are skeptical of science & clarity, & so you get these bogus summaries like, “Sam argues that jihadists are the norm for Muslims.” He has specifically said that Jihadists & Islamists (who don’t themselves commit violence directly, but support extremist Islam) are 20% of Muslims, based on Pew & Gallup research… not “It’s the norm.”
I find the mischaracterizations the most frustrating. When we bring up doctrines that clearly state grotesque acts of violence and oppression from the Qur’an and the Hadith, we are told by critics that followers really don’t believe these things except on the fringes. When we show by polling that significant sometimes massive numbers of Muslims believe these horrific doctrines, critics say we are attacking Muslims and are racist. When a position cannot be falsified, it is by definition, false.
Also, is it the position of critics that the reason massive numbers of Muslims, even in relatively moderate nations, like Turkey and Indonesia believe in:
Killing adulterers
Killing those who leave Islam
Cutting off the hands of thieves
Making Sharia the law of the land
Making Sharia apply to non-Muslims
Is because the U.S. and some other western nations have bombed largely Muslim nations? Are they serious?
I found Sam’s analogies particularly fascinating:
1. If we gave a primitive people on an island people the Quran, the Hadith and the biographies of Muhammad, we would have no shock if we came back in a thousand years and they looked like ISIS. We just can’t say that if we gave them the canon of the Buddha.
2. Critics acknowledge that we could make Islam worse by taking away passages like “no compulsion in religion” or adding ones like kill the homosexuals in the footnotes of Qur’an. We could eve make it better by adding passages about let’s say science of mathematics. But for some reason, taken as it is, the Qur’an is somehow supposed to be irrelevant?
“Harris, who has advanced the theory that Jihadists are “the norm for Muslims”…
That is a demonstrably false and inflammatory mischaracterization and strawman of what Sam Harris has ACTUALLY said.
Harris states, as all the data from numerous surveys and polls conducted by reputable organizations like Gallup, etc. have shown, that violent and barbaric beliefs such as death for apostasy and blasphemy are widely held and accepted beliefs across the majority of Muslims in the Muslim world. And there are many, many other such beliefs that are equally as medieval that are widespread and uncontroversial within the Muslim world that we Westerners can’t seem to accept or believe is true because it sounds too barbarous, so we sweep it under the rug of multiculturalism and blame politics or economics for them, rather than the actual culprit – bad religious ideology.
They REALLY DO believe that they are going to get 72 virgins in paradise if they martyr themselves by blow themselves up or going on a killing spree as part of their jihad.
The majority believe in these despicable ideals, and significant minority actually carry them out. It’s the majority of so called moderates – the ones that share the ideals of the extremists and sympathize with them, that give aid and cover to them.
Nowhere has Sam Harris said that the majority of Muslims ARE jihadists, but nice try.
Thanks for playing.
Then TYT should’ve probably re-characterized the Harris argument in what they sent to us.
We reported the information given to us in the way it was characterized. If you’ve got a problem with that (mis)representation, take it up with Cenk.
Thanks for your wall of text.
Yeah and that was exactly the point Harris was trying to make in the conversation regarding (internet) journalism anno 2014: no one really checks and/or is taking the effort and time in representing someone’s true views.
This isn’t reporting ‘the way it was charactarized’, the author was stating as fact:
“Harris, who has advanced the theory that Jihadists are “the norm for Muslims”
It’s pretty easy to blame TYT alone, this author also has a certain responsibility in characterizing Harris’ views in a fair manner. And a journalistic responsibility in checking information they get.
Regurgitating “what they sent to us” without taking the time to check the information is not “reporting” Logan. I’m not sure how an intelligent person could be comfortable with this as a defence let alone be so smug about it.
A lack of fact checking and journalistic integrity is not a good defense for blindly publishing what is essentially defamatory and sensationalist disinformational propaganda.
Yup.
“Telephone” is the new journalism. Which is to say it isn’t journalism at all, just children with shitty attitudes helping to spread misinformation.
Ahhhh… deregulation and the annihilation of standards! Ain’t it grand?
Wow. Nice temper tantrum.
And “journalists” wonder why they are increasingly hated by society.
But not to worry, few drugs are as addicting as hyperbole and hate, of which nearly every media source are the biggest peddlers.
I came to that sentence and immediately scrolled down to comment. Glad I’m not the only one aware of the utter garbage on this page.
Nailed it.
I was a fan and subscriber of TYT but after this episode I realized that Cenk and crew have all become seduced by the cult of their own personalities. Their journalistic integrity has been suffering as a result.
Harris is also right in pointing out that real journalism is dying. Sad to see that TYT is helping to dig that grave.
They seemed to be so much better than that.