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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26720 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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As to your broader point, I think liberals like Maher and Harris suffer from a misapprehension that I had myself until recently (my beliefs have changed on this one): that Islam is just another religion and that, like Christianity and Judaism and other bronze-age religions that were once full of barbarism and genocidal ideology, the civilizing effects of modern Western liberalism will eventually secularize them until they are just like the rest of us, and we'll have a big joint Christmas/Hannuka/Ramadan holiday season.

I can say for a fact that this is untrue. Sam's entire career has been about arguing with liberals who think this.

I would argue he doesn't just think it's pernicious today (though in normie arguments he'll often focus on that). No, his phrase was "the only problem with Islamic fundamentalism is the fundamentals of Islam"

He had basically the same speech to give to everyone and it was:

  1. Islam says it's the final speech of God with no reformation possible. No fallible prophets you can blame bad words on, God is telling you himself to beat women (Q4:34) so it is what it is.
  2. The problems we see in the Muslim world are the direct result of this faith and its inherent problems, Westerners who believe it's just radicalization cause the West was mean are narcissists fooling themselves The West didn't do it to them, so the West fixing it for them by no longer exploiting Muslims is dubious.
  3. Islam was a religion made by and for a conquering warlord, and thus has no "render unto Caesar" secularizing principle.
  4. Islam has no "out" like Judaism got when the Temple was destroyed and Jews were so demographically overwhelmed they eventually had to reform.

If you want to see him break out the classics he basically hits most of the notes in this one video

Yes, he will say that he thinks Islam should be reformed and we need progressive Muslims. But he will also basically say those are noble lies and the rest of us (or him at least) need to say the truth. And yes, he recognizes this contradiction and has no solution for it.

I'm more familiar with Bill Maher than Sam Harris, so I believe you. I think he's unfortunately correct.

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