Comments by "" (@A86) on "The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder"
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Batman _ - He said "looks reasonably Muslim". There is no way to look "reasonably Muslim" other than be Arab (which is racial profiling) or wear a Middle-Eastern-looking headdress or hijab (which is religious profiling). With whites he only suggested very specific whites, but said anyone who looks Muslim, which equates to anyone who looks Arabic. Not to mention he's trusting TSA agents to be able to tell the difference between Indians, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Hispanics, SE Asians, Sikhs and Hindus. TSA agents are morons for the most part.
He's also suggesting something that is inefficient, unconstitutional, and authoritarian. Fuck what his goal is. The ends do not justify the means. Bush and tons of other horrible leaders (Stalin, Hitler) had what they believed were good goals too, doesn't justify what they did one bit.
Give up trying to defend this shit. You can't. It's undemocratic, paranoid, bigoted and just plain inefficient. It's like trying to defend the Patriot Act. Or Citizens United.
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@wvu05 Exactly. Weak, agnostic atheism is the easiest form to defend, so some strong, gnostic atheists retreat to that definition when pressed even though they previously made a strident claim. I think it's because they realize making a positive or strident claim (like "No gods exist") would put some burden of proof on them even though it's a statement of rejection. Like if I said "Japan does not exist". Even though it's a statement of negation it's still asserting positive knowledge, so I would need to back that statement up. So they retreat to a safer, more defensible position like weak agnostic atheism to squirm out of the burden of proof. Whether they know it or not, that's a weasely tactic known as "Motte and Bailey". The first sentence of your second paragraph sums up New Atheists almost perfectly! I'm not religious myself, but I've always noticed there is huge overlap in the mentality of New Atheists and religious fundamentalists. They share the same exclusionary and hypervigilant ideological gatekeeping, obsession with perfection and lack of error or falliabilty (New Atheists can't understand why religious people would value a flawed or imperfect text), the lack of ability to wrap their minds around nuance or relativism, and the insistence on absolutism and "the one true" interpretation of everything. Everything must have "the objective, one true" way or interpretation of reading or understanding something. I think it's no coincide that a lot of New Atheists sound like they tend to come from religious fundamentalist or theologically conservative households and upbringing when they describe their background. They lost the religion but not the fundamentalist mindset or psychological framework. They also tend to not be much more knowledgeable about Christian history than religious fundamentalists either. Like being unaware that this interpretation of scripture has only been a widespread thing for about 250 years and many denominations and sects predate fundamentalism, like you said.
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Batman _ - It really depends on which group of religious people you're talking about. If you're referring to religious conservatives and especially religious fundamentalists (sometimes even some religious moderates) I definitely agree with you 110%. There is absolutely no reason why you should fear for your safety for criticizing an idea you don't agree with and religious people have no right to threaten harm or attempt to harm people for disagreeing or criticizing them (or even making fun of them, being teased is not an excuse to kill). But, there are also tons of religious moderates and religious liberals who handle criticism, skepticism and dialogue quite well and are able to carry on a mature and thoughtful conversation with nonbelievers or people from different faiths. I've seen it many times (though admittedly not nearly often enough). There are even schools and academic groups of religious people dedicated to analyzing, criticizing and being skeptical of their own religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_skepticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism#Islam
While Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris are all soft-spoken and outwardly affable people (Hitchens, despite being the most caustic and acerbic-tongued of the three, I always found him to be the most endearing, sentimental and open-minded), their mindsets can be rigid, uncompromising, lacking self-insight, lacking knowledge of relevant topics related to religion and religious history, and at times dangerous. All 3 of them have been apologists for war crimes, unnecessary wars, authoritarianism (Harris defended torture, extra-judicial imprisonment and racial profiling of Arabs). Just because they're not personally violent themselves doesn't mean their words are any less despicable. That's exactly why Harris in this case is being taken to task by so many people. He's not a violent man himself, but he's a public apologist for violence and horrible things. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, etc. aren't personally violent either. That doesn't make their ideas any less despicable and sickening or their defenses of atrocities, authoritarianism, violation of human rights and malicious ideas any less contemptible. There are atheists much worse than the New Atheist authors and celebs (like Stalin, Mao, etc.) just like there are theists much worse than Born Again televangelists and pastors. Doesn't make the former okay, though.
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***** - Sorry if I came across as sounding a little flippant, I think it's because I was a in rush earlier and didn't get to put all my thoughts together in as long-winded a fashion as I was able to just now. So I sounded relatively terse. I'm very aware many if not most atheists aren't like these people. Several of my friends are atheists in real life, so I know people who aren't like that. My position is that atheists like that are just plentiful online but largely absent in real life (at least in the Western world) while religious fundamentalists are relatively underrepresented online but overly abundant and dangerous in the real offline world. Lol
*I speak about atheists in third person because I don't consider myself one. I don't consider myself a theist either, though. I identify as Ignostic, similar to Noam Chomsky. Which I don't see my views as fitting neatly into either theism or atheism. I think Apatheist best describes my religious position other than Ignostic. If pressed, my personal view is that if a "God" does "exist", He/She/It is probably so far beyond human comprehension that trying to define it is kind of a wasted exercise (like a single cell trying to comprehend a human body) and confining it to things like existence or nonexistence is probably a mistake. Sort of like some things in Quantum Mechanics like Time, Heat, strings, the difference between the 4 fundamental forces or the difference between potential and kinetic energy (in Quantum Mechanics these things break down after a certain point and whether they're "real", or if they "exist" or are separate becomes something of a pointless question, kind of like Schrodinger's cat). I guess that attitude/mindset could be called "Transtheism".
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