We liberals
Sam Harris searches his anti-Muslim heart
October 5, 2008 7 comments
I have noted before on this blog the interesting coincidence whereby the snazzy nu-atheism promulgated by Sam Harris devolves so often to an attack on Muslims in particular, eg as vectors for a horrible disease. Now at edge.org, there is an interesting discussion by Jonathan Haidt of “Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion“, to which a bunch of nu-atheists give varyingly hysterical answers. One of them is our old friend Sam Harris, and a particular part of his “response” jumped out at me:
When I search my heart, I discover that I want to keep the barbarians beyond the city walls as much as my conservative neighbors do, and I recognize that sacrifices of my own freedom may be warranted for this purpose. I even expect that conservative epiphanies of this sort could well multiply in the coming years just imagine how we liberals will be disposed to think about Islam after an incident of nuclear terrorism.
Um, wouldn’t it depend first on whether the incident of nuclear terrorism had in fact been committed by “Islam”? The unexamined assumption that an incident of “nuclear terrorism”, when it happens (again), will be committed by Muslims, let alone the fault somehow of one whole religion in particular, nicely betrays Harris’s lowbrow bigotry.
Well, Sam is rather pre-supposing Islamic terrorism for the purposes of making his point, never mind the statistical liklihood or otherwise of a Muslim group being responsible. It would stand if he was referring to Hindu fundamentalists, wouldn’t it?
Yes he is!
Funnily enough, I can’t recall ever reading a nu-atheist extrapolating from the violent actions of some Hindu individuals to a general claim about the evilness of Hinduism. But perhaps I haven’t been looking in the right places.
I was under the impression that the New Atheists disapprove greatly of sentences that begin like this.
And from such pre-rational discourse, Harris then indulges in outright mediaevalism:
Also:
I’ve got a feeling that it’s mainly other people of certain ethnic groups who will required to actually sacrifice their freedom in this scheme.
But since Harris is bravely offering his own personal freedom to the US government, I wonder if we could make some sort of bargain.
If Harris sacrifices more than his fair share of freedom, maybe even an exceptional amount, could other people keep some of theirs?
Oh, and nice to see you back, Steven!
You must have written that book by now…
Thanks, Alex!
Well, sort of. But it’s proving to be a recalcitrant bugger.
Hindu fanaticism draws little concern in the US and UK presumably because their chief targets are Muslims and Valentine’s Day (here and here). In New York, they have formed an alliance with anti-Muslim Jewish groups, as the New York Times has reported from time to time.
The links in my comment do not work for some reason. Here are the URL’s sans html:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/d.....005_pg4_20
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6358531.stm