dogma wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

He is wrong because he outright lies.

Whether or not a person is telling a lie turns on intent, and I'm not sure Aslan intended to promulgate incorrect information.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I agree with Harris and Maher. There are parts of Islam that are deplorable and need to be called out. Yet we do not.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I agree with Harris and Maher. There are parts of Islam that are deplorable and need to be called out. Yet we do not.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

In your opinion what was Aslan doing?

 dogma wrote:
Whether or not a person is telling a lie turns on intent, and I'm not sure Aslan intended to promulgate incorrect information.

 dogma wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

In your opinion what was Aslan doing?

An interview on a show he was invited to.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, you can find a few "liberals" saying stupid stuff about how "it's their culture and we can't criticize them" or whatever, but they're a minority that doesn't get anywhere near as much attention or respect as the culture war conservatives seem to think.

 dogma wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, you can find a few "liberals" saying stupid stuff about how "it's their culture and we can't criticize them" or whatever, but they're a minority that doesn't get anywhere near as much attention or respect as the culture war conservatives seem to think.

Despite the bald-faced attempt to turn "liberal" into a brand.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, you can find a few "liberals" saying stupid stuff about how "it's their culture and we can't criticize them" or whatever, but they're a minority that doesn't get anywhere near as much attention or respect as the culture war conservatives seem to think.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
I wholeheartedly disagree with you assessment of Aslan.

 dogma wrote:
And what would that assessment be? I never assessed the man.

 dogma wrote:
I'm not sure Aslan intended to promulgate incorrect information.

 dogma wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

In your opinion what was Aslan doing?

An interview on a show he was invited to.

 dogma wrote:
Whether or not a person is telling a lie turns on intent, and I'm not sure Aslan intended to promulgate incorrect information.

 Peregrine wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I agree with Harris and Maher. There are parts of Islam that are deplorable and need to be called out. Yet we do not.

I have to wonder what kind of sheltered life you live, because Islam is constantly called out.

 cincydooley wrote:
By the right, who are then called bigots by the left.... Which is the point Maher is trying to make. Liberals (using Maher's nomenclature) are just fine "calling out" Christians like Phil Robertson, but they're (seemingly) unwilling to denounce the same when it comes to Islam.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

. That, and the Muslim identity have been overblown. People are not considered Egyptians, Arabs, Pashtun, etc, they are just considered Muslims now, and this is always presented as a fundamental part of their identity that they have no control about rather than an opinion they hold.

 Peregrine wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
By the right, who are then called bigots by the left.... Which is the point Maher is trying to make. Liberals (using Maher's nomenclature) are just fine "calling out" Christians like Phil Robertson, but they're (seemingly) unwilling to denounce the same when it comes to Islam.

And "the left" has a lot of people saying the same things about Islam. Does their criticism tend to focus on Christianity? Yes, but that's what happens when Christianity is the majority religion in their country and has far more influence than Islam. But focusing on domestic issues over foreign ones is not at all the same thing as excusing the offenses committed by Islam, which is something very few people are doing.

 Talizvar wrote:
I read the Koran quite a few times (English translation which could be argued as not being a "true" experience all it's own) a core clear "command" I just cannot wrap my head around fanatics ignoring is: " [026:113] “My Lord alone has the prerogative to judge them, if only you could realize." Most statements point to Allah as being the only true proper judge it is pointed out that many forms of assumption is sin. To presume to judge others is to start placing oneself at the level of Allah and is guilty of extreme pride and bordering on blasphemy.

Sam Harris wrote:My recent collision with Ben Affleck on Bill Maher’s show, Real Time, has provoked an extraordinary amount of controversy. It seems a postmortem is in order.

So what happened there?

I admit that I was a little thrown by Affleck’s animosity. I don’t know where it came from, because we hadn’t met before I joined the panel. And it was clear from our conversation after the show that he is totally unfamiliar with my work. I suspect that among his handlers there is a fan of Glenn Greenwald who prepared him for his appearance by simply telling him that I am a racist and a warmonger.

Whatever the reason, if you watch the full video of our exchange (which actually begins before the above clip), you will see that Affleck was gunning for me from the start. What many viewers probably don’t realize is that the mid-show interview is supposed be a protected five-to-seven-minute conversation between Maher and the new guest—and all the panelists know this. To ignore this structure and encroach on this space is a little rude; to jump in with criticism, as Affleck did, is pretty hostile. He tried to land his first blow a mere 90 seconds after I took my seat, before the topic of Islam even came up.

Although I was aware that I wasn’t getting much love from Affleck, I didn’t realize how unfriendly he had been on the show until I watched it on television the next day. This was by no means a normal encounter between strangers. For instance: I said that liberalism was failing us on the topic of Islamic theocracy, and Affleck snidely remarked, “Thank God you’re here!” (This was his second interruption of my interview.) I then said, “We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people,” and Affleck jumped in for the third time, more or less declaring the mid-show interview over: “Now hold on—are you the person who understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam? You’re the interpreter of that?”

As many have since pointed out, Affleck and Nicholas Kristof then promptly demonstrated my thesis by mistaking everything Maher and I said about Islam for bigotry toward Muslims. Our statements were “gross,” “racist,” “ugly,” “like saying you’re a shifty Jew” (Affleck), and a “caricature” that has “the tinge (a little bit) of how white racists talk about African Americans” (Kristof).

The most controversial thing I said was: “We have to be able to criticize bad ideas, and Islam is the Mother lode of bad ideas.” This statement has been met with countless charges of “bigotry” and “racism” online and in the media. But imagine that the year is 1970, and I said: “Communism is the Mother lode of bad ideas.” How reasonable would it be to attack me as a “racist” or as someone who harbors an irrational hatred of Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, etc. This is precisely the situation I am in. My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences—but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people.

And the tension on the panel only grew. At one point Affleck sought to cut me off by saying, “Okay, let him [Kristof] talk for a second.” As I finished my sentence, he made a gesture of impatience with his hand, suggesting that I had been droning on for ages. Watching this exchange on television (his body language and tone are less clear online), I find Affleck’s contempt for me fairly amazing.

I want to make one thing clear, however. I did not take Affleck’s hostility personally. This is the kind of thing I now regularly encounter from people who believe the lies about my work that have been sedulously manufactured by Reza Aslan, Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, and many others. If I were seated across the table from someone I “knew” to be a racist and a warmonger, how would I behave? I don’t honestly know.

Kristof made the point that there are brave Muslims who are risking their lives to condemn “extremism” in the Muslim community. Of course there are, and I celebrate these people too. But he seemed completely unaware that he was making my point for me—the point being, of course, that these people are now risking their lives by advocating for basic human rights in the Muslim world.

When I told Affleck that he didn’t understand my argument, he said, “I don’t understand it? Your argument is ‘You know, black people, we know they shoot each other, they’re blacks!” What did he expect me to say to this—“I stand corrected”?

Although I clearly stated that I wasn’t claiming that all Muslims adhere to the dogmas I was criticizing; distinguished between jihadists, Islamists, conservatives, and the rest of the Muslim community; and explicitly exempted hundreds of millions of Muslims who don’t take the doctrines about blasphemy, apostasy, jihad, and martyrdom seriously, Affleck and Kristof both insisted that I was disparaging all Muslims as a group. Unfortunately, I misspoke slightly at this point, saying that hundreds of millions of Muslims don’t take their “faith” seriously. This led many people to think that I was referring to Muslim atheists (who surely don’t exist in those numbers) and suggesting that the only people who could reform the faith are those who have lost it. I don’t know how many times one must deny that one is referring to an entire group, or cite specific poll results to justify the percentages one is talking about, but no amount of clarification appears sufficient to forestall charges of bigotry and lack of “nuance.”

One of the most depressing things in the aftermath of this exchange is the way Affleck is now being lauded for having exposed my and Maher’s “racism,” “bigotry,” and “hatred of Muslims.” This is yet another sign that simply accusing someone of these sins, however illogically, is sufficient to establish them as facts in the minds of many viewers. It certainly does not help that unscrupulous people like Reza Aslan and Glenn Greenwald have been spinning the conversation this way.

Of course, Affleck is also being widely reviled as an imbecile. But much of this criticism, too, is unfair. Those who describe him as a mere “actor” who was out of his depth are no better than those who dismiss me as a “neuroscientist” who cannot, therefore, know anything about religion. And Affleck isn’t merely an actor: He’s a director, a producer, a screenwriter, a philanthropist, and may one day be a politician. Even if he were nothing more than an actor, there would be no reason to assume that he’s not smart. In fact, I think he probably is quite smart, and that makes our encounter all the more disheartening.

The important point is that a person’s CV is immaterial as long as he or she is making sense. Unfortunately, Affleck wasn’t—but neither was Kristof, who really is an expert in this area, particularly where the plight of women in the developing world is concerned. His failure to recognize and celebrate the heroism of my friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali remains a journalistic embarrassment and a moral scandal (and I told him so backstage).

After the show, a few things became clear about Affleck’s and Kristof’s views. Rather than trust poll results and the testimony of jihadists and Islamists, they trust the feeling that they get from the dozens of Muslims they have known personally. As a method of gauging Muslim opinion worldwide, this preference is obviously crazy. It is nevertheless understandable. On the basis of their life experiences, they believe that the success of a group like ISIS, despite its ability to recruit people by the thousands from free societies, says nothing about the role that Islamic doctrines play in inspiring global jihad. Rather, they imagine that ISIS is functioning like a bug light for psychopaths—attracting “disaffected young men” who would do terrible things to someone, somewhere, in any case. For some strange reason these disturbed individuals can’t resist an invitation to travel to a foreign desert for the privilege of decapitating journalists and aid workers. I await an entry in the DSM-VI that describes this troubling condition.

Contrary to what many liberals believe, those bad boys who are getting off the bus in Syria at this moment to join ISIS are not all psychopaths, nor are they simply depressed people who have gone to the desert to die. Most of them are profoundly motivated by their beliefs. Many surely feel like spiritual James Bonds, fighting a cosmic war against evil. After all, they are spreading the one true faith to the ends of the earth—or they will die trying, and be martyred, and then spend eternity in Paradise. Secular liberals seem unable to grasp how psychologically rewarding this worldview must be.

As I try to make clear in Waking Up, many positive states of mind, such as ecstasy, are ethically neutral. Which is to say that it really matters what you think the feeling of ecstasy means. If you think it means that the Creator of the Universe is rewarding you for having purged your village of Christians, you are ISIS material. Other bearded young men go to Burning Man, find themselves surrounded by naked women in Day-Glo body paint, and experience a similar state of mind.

After the show, Kristof, Affleck, Maher, and I continued our discussion. At one point, Kristof reiterated the claim that Maher and I had failed to acknowledge the existence of all the good Muslims who condemn ISIS, citing the popular hashtag #NotInOurName. In response, I said: “Yes, I agree that all condemnation of ISIS is good. But what do you think would happen if we had burned a copy of the Koran on tonight’s show? There would be riots in scores of countries. Embassies would fall. In response to our mistreating a book, millions of Muslims would take to the streets, and we would spend the rest of our lives fending off credible threats of murder. But when ISIS crucifies people, buries children alive, and rapes and tortures women by the thousands—all in the name of Islam—the response is a few small demonstrations in Europe and a hashtag.” I don’t think I’m being uncharitable when I say that neither Affleck nor Kristof had an intelligent response to this. Nor did they pretend to doubt the truth of what I said.

I genuinely believe that both Affleck and Kristof mean well. They are very worried about American xenophobia and the prospects of future military adventures. But they are confused about Islam. Like many secular liberals, they refuse to accept the abundant evidence that vast numbers of Muslims believe dangerous things about infidels, apostasy, blasphemy, jihad, and martyrdom. And they do not realize that these doctrines are about as controversial under Islam as the resurrection of Jesus is under Christianity.

However, others in this debate are not so innocent. Our conversation on Real Time was provoked by an interview that Reza Aslan gave on CNN, in which he castigated Maher for the remarks he had made about Islam on the previous show. I have always considered Aslan a comical figure. His thoughts about religion in general are a jumble of pretentious nonsense—yet he speaks with an air of self-importance that would have been embarrassing in Genghis Khan at the height of his power. On the topic of Islam, however, Aslan has begun to seem more sinister. He cannot possibly believe what he says, because nearly everything he says is a lie or a half-truth calibrated to mislead a liberal audience. If he claims something isn’t in the Koran, it probably is. I don’t know what his agenda is, beyond riding a jet stream of white guilt from interview to interview, but he is manipulating liberal biases for the purpose of shutting down conversation on important topics. Given what he surely knows about the contents of the Koran and the hadith, the state of public opinion in the Muslim world, the suffering of women and other disempowered groups, and the real-world effects of deeply held religious beliefs, I find his deception on these issues unconscionable.

As I tried to make clear on Maher’s show, what we need is honest talk about the link between belief and behavior. And no one is suffering the consequences of what Muslim “extremists” believe more than other Muslims are. The civil war between Sunni and Shia, the murder of apostates, the oppression of women—these evils have nothing to do with U.S. bombs or Israeli settlements. Yes, the war in Iraq was a catastrophe—just as Affleck and Kristof suggest. But take a moment to appreciate how bleak it is to admit that the world would be better off if we had left Saddam Hussein in power. Here was one of the most evil men who ever lived, holding an entire country hostage. And yet his tyranny was also preventing a religious war between Shia and Sunni, the massacre of Christians, and other sectarian horrors. To say that we should have left Saddam Hussein alone says some very depressing things about the Muslim world.

Whatever the prospects are for moving Islam out of the Middle Ages, hope lies not with obscurantists like Reza Aslan but with reformers like Maajid Nawaz. The litmus test for intellectual honesty on this point—which so many liberals fail—is to admit that one can draw a straight line from specific doctrines in Islam to the intolerance and violence we see in the Muslim world. Nawaz admits this. I don’t want to give the impression that he and I view Islam exactly the same. In fact, we are now having a written exchange that we will publish as an ebook in the coming months—and I am learning a lot from it. But Nawaz admits that the extent of radicalization in the Muslim community is an enormous problem. Unlike Aslan, he insists that his fellow Muslims must find some way to reinterpret and reform the faith. He believes that Islam has the intellectual resources to do this. I certainly hope he’s right. One thing is clear, however: Muslims must be obliged to do the work of reinterpretation—and for this we need honest conversation.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
You don't think he intended to deliberately spread false information.

 dogma wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
You don't think he intended to deliberately spread false information.

No, I do not. I am also not entirely convinced all of the information Aslan presented was false.

Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider wrote:Maher stated (among other things) that “if vast numbers of Muslims across the world believe, and they do, that humans deserve to die for merely holding a different idea or drawing a cartoon or writing a book or eloping with the wrong person, not only does the Muslim world have something in common with ISIS, it has too much in common with ISIS.” Maher implied a connection between FGM and violence against women with the Islamic faith, to which the charming Aslan seems to be providing a nuanced counterbalance, calling Maher “unsophisticated” and his arguments “facile.” His comments were lauded by many media outlets, including Salon and the Huffington Post.

Although we have become accustomed to the agenda-driven narrative from Aslan, we were blown away by how his undeniably appealing but patently misleading arguments were cheered on by many, with the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple going so far as to advise show producers not to put a show-host against Aslan “unless your people are schooled in religion, politics and geopolitics of the Muslim world.”

Only those who themselves aren’t very “schooled” in Islam and Muslim affairs would imply that Aslan does anything but misinform by cherry-picking and distorting facts.

Nearly everything Aslan stated during his segment was either wrong, or technically-correct-but-actually-wrong. We will explain by going through each of his statements in the hopes that Aslan was just misinformed (although it’s hard for us to imagine that a “scholar” such as Aslan wouldn’t be aware of all this).

Aslan contends that while some Muslim countries have problems with violence and women’s rights, in others like “Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men” and it is therefore incorrect to imply that such issues are a problem with Islam and “facile” to imply that women are “somehow mistreated in the Muslim world.”

Let us be clear here: No one in their right mind would claim that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are a “free and open society for women.” Happily, a few of them have enshrined laws that have done much to bring about some progress in equality between the sexes. But this progress is hindered or even eroded by the creeping strength of the notoriously anti-woman Sharia courts.

For example:

Indonesia has increasingly become more conservative. (Notoriously anti-women) Sharia courts that were “optional” have risen to equal status with regular courts in family matters. The conservative Aceh province even legislates criminal matters via Sharia courts, which has been said to violate fundamental human rights.

Malaysia has a dual-system of law which mandates sharia law for Muslims. These allow men to have multiple wives (polygyny) and discriminate against women in inheritance (as mandated by Islamic scripture). It also prohibits wives from disobeying the “lawful orders” of their husbands.

Bangladesh, which according to feminist Tahmima Anam made real advancements towards equality in its inception, also “created a barrier to women’s advancement.” This barrier? An article in the otherwise progressive constitution which states that “women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the state and of the public life” but in the realm of private affairs (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody), “it acknowledges Islam as the state religion and effectively enshrines the application of Islamic law in family affairs. The Constitution thus does nothing to enforce equality in private life.”

And finally we come to Turkey, a country oft-cited by apologists due to its relative stability, liberalism, and gender equality. What they consistently choose to ignore is that historically, Turkey was militantly secular. We mean this literally: The country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, created a secular state and pushed Islam out of the public sphere (outlawing polygamy, child marriages, and giving divorce rights to women) through (at times, military) force. He even banned the headscarf in various public sectors and is believed by some to have been an atheist.

Only apologists would ignore the circumstances that led to Turkey’s incredible progress and success relative to the Muslim world, and hold it up as an example of “Islamic” advancement of women’s rights. In fact, child marriages (which continue to be widespread in rural Turkey), are often hidden due to the practice of “religious” marriages (Nikah) being performed without informing secular authorities. Turkey was recently forced to pass a law banning religious marriages with penalties imposed on imams for violations.

Aslan’s claim that Muslim countries “have elected seven women as their heads of state” is an example of “technically true, actually false” — a tactic we have often noted among religious apologists.

It is true that there have been seven female heads of state in Muslim-majority countries, but a closer inspection would reveal this has little to do with female empowerment and often has much more to do with the political power of certain families in under-developed parts of the world.

It is well-known that Benazir Bhutto, a woman, was democratically elected in Pakistan. What is not as well-known is that her advancement had much to do with her family’s power in her party (Pakistan People’s Party) and little to do with female empowerment. Her father was once Prime Minister of Pakistan, and she was elected to the position fresh from her exile in the West with little political experience of her own. After her assassination, her nineteen year old son assumed leadership of her political party — as was expected by many familiar with the power their family continued to hold.

Similarly, Sheikh Hasina (the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh) is the daughter of the founding father of the country, Sheikh Mujibur-Rehman. Khaleda Zia, the predecessor of Sheikh Hasina, assumed power over her party after the assassination of her husband — the second Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

In addition, Megawati Sukarnopotri, former President of Indonesia, was the daughter of Sukarno, the founding father of Indonesia.

To anyone familiar with women’s rights around the world, neither Pakistan, Bangladesh, nor Indonesia can be considered states with a stellar track record. It is likely that in these cases, the power of political dynasties was the key factor in their success.

Furthermore, female heads of state were elected democratically in Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Kosovo. But, as before, a closer inspection reveals a complicated reality. All three states are secular, where religion was forcibly uprooted from the government — due to Atatürk (in the case of Turkey) or Communism (in the cases of Kyrgyzstan and Kosovo).

Predictably, Aslan fails to mention any of this.

Finally, we get to Aslan’s claim that it is “actually, empirically, factually incorrect” that female genital mutilation (FGM) is a “Muslim-country problem.” Rather, he believes it is a “central African problem.” He continues to state that “nowhere else in the Muslim, Muslim-majority states is female genital mutilation an issue.”

This is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

The idea that FGM is concentrated solely in Africa is a huge misconception and bandied about by apologists with citations of an Africa-focused UNICEF report which showed high rates of FGM in African countries. Apologists have taken that to mean that it is *only* Africa that has an FGM problem — even though FGM rates have not been studied in most of the Middle East or South and East Asia. Is it an academically sound practice to take a lack of study as proof of the non-existence of the practice? Especially when there is record of FGM common in Asian countries like Indonesia (study) and Malaysia? It is also present in the Bohra Muslim community in India and Pakistan, as well as in the Kurdish community in Iraq — Are they to be discounted as “African problems” as well?

We do not yet have the large scale data to confirm the rates of FGM around the world, but we can safely assume that it is quite a bit more than just an “African problem.” It is very likely that FGM *did* originate in the Middle East or North Africa, but its extensive prevalence in Muslim-majority countries should give us pause. We are not attempting to paint FGM as only an Islamic problem but rather that Islam does bear some responsibility for its spread beyond the Middle East-North Africa region and for its modern prevalence.

So is there any credence to the claim that Islam supports FGM? In fact, there is. To name two, the major collections of the Hadith Sahih Muslim 3:684 and Abu Dawud 41:5251 support the practice. Of the four major schools of thought in Sunni Islam, two mandate FGM while two merely recommend it. Unsurprisingly, in the Muslim-majority countries dominated by the schools which mandate the practice, there is evidence of widespread female circumcision. Of particular note: None of the major schools condemn the practice.

This isn’t the first time Reza has stated half-truths in defense of his agenda. In his book No God But God, he misleads readers about many issues including the age of Muhammad’s child-bride Aisha. Scripture unanimously cites Aisha’s betrothal at age 6 or 7 and consummation at 9. Similarly, he quotes Mariya the Copt as being a wife of the prophet when overwhelming evidence points to her being Muhammad’s concubine.

We believe that Islam badly needs to be reformed, and it is only Muslims who can truly make it into a modern religion. But it is the likes of Reza Aslan who act as a deterrent to change by refusing to acknowledge real complications within the scripture and by actively promoting half-truths. Bigotry against Muslims is a real and pressing problem, but one can criticize the Islamic ideology without treating Muslims as themselves problematic or incapable of reform.

There are true Muslim reformists who are willing to call a spade a spade while working for the true betterment of their peoples — but their voices are drowned out by the noise of apologists who are all-too-often aided by the Western left. Those who accept distortions in order to hold on to a comforting dream-world where Islamic fundamentalism is merely an aberration are harming reform by encouraging apologists.

 jasper76 wrote:
I think their (Harris and Maher) point was that liberals tend to give a pass to non-Christian groups on human rights abuses, because of a conflict in the liberal mind between liberal values, such as equal rights, and multi-culturalism, PC, etc. I think they're correct, and I think Aflack puts this conflict on plain display.

However, its pretty clear Aflack was high on something or sick (have a look at him). He was rudely interrupting, and countering by arguing against points that nobody even made.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

I am curious if you don't think he was intending to lie, yet his information is incorrect, what do you think that means?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Is he just misinformed (which again, someone with his education and career focus shouldn't be), or is he not representing the full truth aka lying as Scooty is claiming?

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

This tells me you didn't read the article that shows, in plain English, that Aslan was wrong.

 dogma wrote:
Again, being "wrong" and being a "liar" are not the same things.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 dogma wrote:
Again, being "wrong" and being a "liar" are not the same things.

Not when you deliberately lie and are wrong, which he does often.

 dogma wrote:
I don't think people can lie absent intent.

 dogma wrote:
Stuff