In this episode I’m revisiting some of the Islamophobia ideas. This time I’m reading some new articles and blog posts about the subject. Here are some links:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119898/bill-maher-ben-affleck-islam-debate-there-no-muslim-world
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/10/reza-aslan-on-what-the-new-atheists-get-wrong.html
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/on-the-mechanics-of-defamation
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:08 — 52.4MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Yes it is serious, and you need to stop excusing him. No, he didn’t reference them, and no paraphrasing is worse. It’s technically as bad, but adds the appearance that you are trying to avoid being caught by slightly altering the text so searches for a phrase won’t come up when someone is looking for cases where work is being plagiarized. It’s is a typical tactic used by college students attempting to get away with passing off others work as their own.
Also you’re ignoring the fact that CJ made unfounded accusations of plagiarism against Sam Harris in an attempt to take attention off his guilt. He’s a slimebag, who given what we know, likely intentionally, and knowingly stole others work.
The best thing you can do is stop commenting about his guilt, or innocence until you know more. That saves you from having to continuously backpedal as his dishonestly becomes more apparent.
He has referenced them in prior pieces several times. Not sure what you mean. Yes paraphrasing is bad, but he’s not trying to conceal the fact that he is referencing their work. I’m not sure what you mean about backpedaling either. I haven’t backpedaled and I don’t foresee needing to. If there’s new information then I may have a new opinion.
You’re remark about guns not killing people, whether mean sarcastically, or not, was apropos. Of course guns don’t literally kill people, but they make killing, and particularly large scale killing easier. In that same sense an ideology that supports killing apostates, holy war (jihad), and rewards you for sacrificing your life in it’s cause with virgins in paradise, makes suicide bombing easier.
The argument against Maher, and the mafia reference was a bit amusing I thought. “The mafia” also doesn’t do anything, the people in it do, so he score no points with that rebuttal. Like religious tenets, the mafia code makes it’s members more likely to act a certain way, and justifies those actions. Though not nearly as much as proclamations from the creator of the universe.
It’s funny how so many “liberals” will accuse people like Harris with ignoring political, and economic factors, which he doesn’t, while they actually completely ignore religious factors,
I wanted to add that I consider myself a liberal, though lately it’s a term I find somewhat embarrassing, or at least I’m not a proud to use it as I used to be. It once was the case that only the right wing used labels like traitor to demonize anti-war protesters for example. Now liberals throw around words like racist, sexist, bigot, or Islamophobe, to demonize critics, and silence, or stifle debate. It seems we rely less, and less on winning by having the better, or more nuanced argument.
There is some truth to the an extremist is an extremist idea, but I’ve heard the argument that extremist Islam today is like Christianity during the crusades, or inquisition. The problem with that argument is that nothing in the teachings of Jesus justified those actions by Christians. Muhammad on the other hand was a warlord who expanded Islam through conquest, and the Islamic texts justify jihad, and call for the killing of apostates.
Religious apologists will also say “extremists” are abusing religion to achieve their goals. You can honestly say that about the crusades, and the inquisition, I don’t see how you can when you’re talking about jihad, and killing apostates.