https://youtu.be/vln9D81eO60

Because its the only religion that acts like the mafia if you speak out.

Ben equates anti Muslim criticism with racism and homophobia.
Its against ideas and people who belief in those beliefs.
We shouldn't criticize Islam because Muslims are non white?

Is the opposite true of Mormonism? Its fair to criticize them because they are white and non-violent?
So Anti-Mormon parodies win more awards than any other play on Broadway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2019 12:04AM by schrodingerscat.

I'm not going to watch the Maher clip because I find him about as inspiring as a Big Mac without the special sauce.

I will, however, point out that Islam is not anti-White. In fact, there are few religions that are less raciocentric. Islam comprises masses of Semitic Arabs, lots of black Africans, a huge population of Southeast Asians, a significant number of Chinese in Xinjiang, tens of millions of subcontinental Pakistanis and Central Asians, and Caucasians throughout the Caucasus and Southeastern Europe. Then there are the tens of millions of Iranians who genetically and linguistically represent the closest population on earth to the original Aryan/Indo-Europeans.

I don't know how that fits into the Maher show, but the remarkably ecumenical nature of Islam deserves mention. There are lots of things to criticize in the extreme forms of that faith, but racism isn't high on the list.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2019 06:49PM by Lot's Wife.

I don't care for Maher's opinion either on this issue, but he is predictably VERY Politically Incorrect, but he is on SAMs side here against those defending Islam as a religion of peace.
Keep in mind I was Muslim and technically still am until a fellow Muslim fulfills his obligation and beheads me for being an apostate.
Which is why Mormon suicide never phased me. At least in Mormonism you only promise to slit your throat and stomach, but in Islam, its a serious expectation in much of the Muslim world, if you turn your back on Islam, expect to die.
But the debate he sets up here is interesting. If only as a PR stunt for Batman to get his career back on track, by virtue signaling to woke America that he stands up for blacks, gays AND Muslims.
Sam isnt trying to be politically correct. He is concerned, rightfully, about the existential threat of allowing Muslims to have nukes when they believe apostates and infidels should die?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2019 06:56PM by schrodingerscat.

Perhaps.

But Maher's opinions are only politically incorrect relative to average American sensibilities. He hews tightly to the line that is dominant in West Hollywood and its satellite communities around the country, which is why he is popular.

A friend made me watch a segment the other day in which Maher and that self-promoter Michael Moore stroked each other. It was excruciating.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perhaps.
>
> But Maher's opinions are only politically
> incorrect relative to average American
> sensibilities. He hews tightly to the line that
> is dominant in West Hollywood and its satellite
> communities around the country, which is why he is
> popular.
>
> A friend made me watch a segment the other day in
> which Maher and that self-promoter Michael Moore
> stroked each other. It was excruciating.

I'm not going to defend Maher, he's intentionally offensive to both ends of the political spectrum. But SAM I am going to defend. He is not trying to be offensive. He tries to say its not bigoted because its about the beliefs, not the people, but Maher jumps in and says, "Its about the people who believe the beliefs!"
It's a tough line, like Aflek points out, "What ate you going to do, round up 1.6 billion Muslims and send them on cattle cars to concentration camps?"
I like Sam's response, "No. It is about ideas and Islam is the Motherload of bad ideas."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2019 09:46PM by schrodingerscat.

Ben couldn't understand the difference . . . .

Sam I am.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are lots of things to
> criticize in the extreme forms of that faith, but
> racism isn't high on the list.

Muslims started the African slave trade, which Europe continued, and which shames both groups. Islam's hands are dripping with the blood od African slaves... even Mohammed himself kept African slaves.

But you're right, the disgusting Muslim slave trade wasn't racist. They regularly raided Europe and Asia to procure plural wives (sex slaves) and slaves for the Muslim aristocracy. So they treated whites like cattle too. Great going Islam!

Hmm. I'm not sure I ever defended Islamic involvement in the slave trade. Nor is that a topic that is likely to emerge in a discussion of contemporary Islam, which has plenty of other things to answer for.

But hey, if Che Guaverra and Islamic history float your boat, who am I to point out that your bathtub is empty?

“They regularly raided Europe and Asia to procure plural wives (sex slaves) and slaves for the Muslim aristocracy. So they treated whites like cattle too.”

No wonder Joseph fancied himself a modern day Muhammad. It’s interesting that Mormonism is closer to Islam in religious intensity than just about anything else. It’s also overwhelmingly white, misogynistic, and bigoted, making it fair game for ridicule.

Also, like the “religion of peace”, Mormonism has a history of violence and a God who will back it up. You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re toting?

Thanks for pointing this out. I was going to say the same thing. Islam is NOT a "non-white" religion, but is all-encompassing, as you say. It is every bit as welcoming and does as much good or more as Christianity, using a premise that both religions are operating as the New Testament or Qur'an specify. I happen to love Islam from my time in Pakistan and Indonesia, and in the states off and on have had good friends who were Muslim. I enjoy going to their events, and find Islamic centers very enjoyable and welcoming.

But I look at it from yet another perspective as retired military and federal service, and I like to point this out: I retired in 2017 from a job at Ft. Gordon, GA, where I worked as an intelligence analyst, cheek-by-jowl with military from all four branches, as well as from Canadian and British military. Since the "target area" covered by the Ft. Gordon operation is largely Middle East, the government has a large cadre of military and civilians who are proficient in Arabic, Farsi, etc. Many of the military and civilian linguists are immigrants from those areas, and speak Arabic at home. One or two are Christian, but they are mostly Muslim. Most of the junior personnel whom I mentored are made up of uniformed Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel, many of whom have deployed to the usual problem areas. They are proud Americans who happen to be Arabic-speaking Muslims.

Thanks for this, cludgie.

My experience is that the Westerners who lived in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran in the 1960s and early 1970s loved their time there. Military families, diplomats' families, business people's families: they speak of the experience in glowing terms. There is no question that the combination of Deobandi extremism spreading north from India and funded by Wahabi sympathizers in the Gulf; the revolution in Iran; and the militarization of Afghanistan under Russian control; and of Afghanistan and Pakistan with the massive influx of American military power and money transformed that region's Islam into a much less tolerant and much more dangerous force.

But both Islams, that before the 1980s and that after the 1980s, are Islam. To characterize the religion as the latter while ignoring the former is as incorrect as it is ahistorical.

The irony, as someone in your situation would know, is that the people of Iran disproportionately dislike their government and would love to establish something like the old relationship with the United States. The Iranian government is a major impediment to such a rapprochement, but it is in (almost) everyone's interests to get past the present impasse and reform a relationship between two countries with overwhelmingly similar geopolitical and cultural interests.

Islam, like Christianity, has changed many times and will change again. It would be a mistake to paint the world as, in Samuel Huntington's misguided terms, an enduring clash between civilizations. It could be that, but it needn't be.

Maher is an obvious Creep and a bit of a bigot... however, he is partly right about Islam. A Lot of people in the west give A hall pass to Islam for doing all the things they criticize in Christianity. Or Mormonism.

It's hip to be accepting of Islam.

Christianity? The warts are in our face.

The first step towards reality is recognizing that blanket statements about huge bodies of people are silly. Islam spans the range from terrorists to enlightened moderates. The same is true of Christians.

The key is recognizing the complexity of the categories and speaking of specific groups with some degree of specificity. It's the generalizations, pro and con, that are misguided.

“The first step towards reality is recognizing that blanket statements about huge bodies of people are silly.“

Islam makes blanket statements about huge bodies of people.

What does that tell us?

Sorry if this conundrum rubbed you the wrong way. :)

You act as if Islam is monolithic. It is not.

Your statement is as false as saying that Christianity makes sweeping generalizations about large groups of people. The Bible certainly does that, but only some subsets of Christians do that.

The conundrum therefore only arises if you mischaracterize nearly two billion people.

Lynx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maher is an obvious Creep and a bit of a bigot...

How is he a creep?
Bigot? I think you got the wrong side of the aisle. You think he is obstinate and refuses to look at the evidence and change his opinions?
I don't. He is a champion of science, for the most part. I disagree with his anti vaxing position and his support of PETA. Not a fan.

> however, he is partly right about Islam. A Lot of
> people in the west give A hall pass to Islam for
> doing all the things they criticize in
> Christianity. Or Mormonism.

I think they give Islam a pass mainly because people are afraid of the predictable outcomes of insulting Islam.

Insult Islam and get ready to die.
Insult Mormonism and come collect your numerous Tony Awards and Grammy.

Who cares about Ben Afleck. Actors live in the land of make believe. Now if you want to learn how to be an actor then I’m sure Ben could give some good advice. As far as world affairs go Ben isn’t much of an expert. Maybe he should spend some time in Pakistan or Somalia and return and report.

I believe it was Anthony Hopkins who once said, "the only time you should listen to an actor is when he is speaking someone else's lines."

why Anthony Hopkins is one of the few actors I still admire.

Ironically, I'm willing to listen to him when he says,"the only time you should listen to an actor is when he is speaking someone else's lines."

It's the exception that proves the rule.

Another exception would be if Scarlett Johansson were to approach me and say, "I'll pay you $2,000 cash right now for that cheeseburger you're holding in your hand." I think I would listen, even if she was being entirely spontaneous.

If Kate Beckinsdale screwed me in a parachute, I’d lose my marbles too.

Geez! I'm just doing a horrible job at keeping up with pop culture.

The last time I remember Kate and Ben doing anything together was that Pearl Harbor movie in 2001. But I don't remember anything about screwing in parachutes and losing marbles. It has been a long time since I watched the movie.

That’s the movie. The parachute love scene stuck in my mind because I did a little jumping myself. Not jumping Kate of course.

. . . but this thread sure is fun reading :-D




SC comes up with the best schtöff

We aim to entertain.

I live in a community where I interact with Muslims daily. The majority have the same attitude toward their religion as I did back when I was a True Believer in Mormonism -- my religion is wonderful and we really don't believe those bad things that some people say. I know my religion is good and wonderful because the people of my religion are good people. I was in denial for many years. I couldn't see the problems. Eventually, I was forced to face up to the fact that cruelty naturally accompanies being a True Believer, and the Cognitive Dissonance finally fractured my Belief System. I've learned a great deal about Islam over the years. One book is a Must-read: it's by a former True Believer and is titled "Why I am Not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq.

From the frontispiece of the book "Muslims are the first victims of Islam..."

From the Preface: "Many of my postwar generation have wondered how we personally would have stood in the ideologically charged atmosphere of the 1930s--For those who regret not beling alive in the 1930s to be able to show their commitment...there is a war taking place...a war whose principle victims are Muslims, Muslim women, Muslim intellectuals, writers, ordinary, decent people. This book is my war effort. Each time I have doubted the wisdom of writing such a book, new murders in the name of God and Islam are committed..."

This author goes through the Holy Writ of Islam and shows WHY it is so very dangerous, deadly and refusing of critical thinking. This writere makes it clear the very survival of the world is at stake.
An Islamic-ideological country just this weekend launched cruise missles at the infrastructure of another Islamic country. It is not very far off before they will be launching NUKES.

Anyone who does not understand the danger PLEASE READ the BOOK!

Abba Alexander Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I live in a community where I interact with
> Muslims daily. The majority have the same attitude
> toward their religion as I did back when I was a
> True Believer in Mormonism

That is the key, right? Islam is no different than other extremist religions.


-----------------
> From the frontispiece of the book "Muslims are the
> first victims of Islam..."

You could say the same of Mormons, correct? And Christians?



---------------
> This author goes through the Holy Writ of Islam
> and shows WHY it is so very dangerous, deadly and
> refusing of critical thinking.

Just like those who read the Old Testament, I presume, with its divinely ordered genocides.


-----------------------
> An Islamic-ideological country just this weekend
> launched cruise missles at the infrastructure of
> another Islamic country.

Much like the 30 Years War, when French, Austrians, Swedes and Poles used their state-of-the-art weaponry to slaughter each other and, literally, 1/3 of all Germans.

As for the present conflict in Saudi Arabia, why reach for Islam to explain what is a plain vanilla geopolitical war? Iran and Saudi Arabia are already killing each other's allies, and each other's trainers and even foot soldiers, in Yemen. And Riyadh has enlisted an overly eager US government to starve Iran by cutting off oil sales, which gives Teheran every incentive to strike back at Saudi facilities. How is that different from the threat of war between Pakistan and India?


--------------
> It is not very far off
> before they will be launching NUKES.

Perhaps. But that militates in favor of maintaining a scheme whereby Iran doesn't develop those weapons; and boycotting the provision of nuclear technology to Riyadh. Why is that not happening? And again, how does that differ from the present conflict over Kashmir and Jammu, which conjures up the danger of nuclear war between Pakistan and India?


-----------------
> Anyone who does not understand the danger PLEASE
> READ the BOOK!

I have mixed feelings in this regard. On the one hand, the 1995 book does nothing to explain the geopolitics that are threatening regional and global peace now. On the other, he is explicitly imitating Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not Christian.

I'm willing to entertainment his argument on the latter score, but it has no bearing on a war between governments in Teheran and Riyadh that are, in their foreign policies, strict geo-politicians. Not all wars between religious countries stem from religion.

So islam is above criticism ?

I see both sides of coin. I understand where Afleck is coming, but I also see where Maher is too.

I am just guessing, but Maher is probably referring to the fact that Islam is a huge religion, with roughly 1.8 billion or 25% of the worlds popluation. In terms of intolerance, research seems to suggest that 10-30% of Muslims seem "intolerant".

A 2017 Pew study showed that about 10% of Muslims agree with Isis. The same research showed in the same study that another 20% refused to comment, which is interesting.

Another 2013 Pew poll asked Muslims around the world whether suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians are justified to defend Islam. About 14% of Muslims in the nations surveyed (and 8% of Muslims in the US) said violence against civilians is "often" or "sometimes" justified.

In another 2007 poll conducted by PolicyExchange, a think tank in Britain, found that 36% of 16- to 24-year-olds British Muslims believed that those converting to another religion should be executed.

There does seem to be a signficant amount of muslims that tend to be intolerant. Maybe this is where the OP and folks like Maher are coming from?

I want to express my thanks for this sort of analysis, which strikes me as just right. We can argue about the methodology and the specific findings, but you have taken the debate from generalizations to specifics--and that is where it should be.

Heh.

Sometimes it seems RfM is the place for last ditch efforts to rehabilitate the New Atheists. Thankfully, the rest of the Internet has moved on.

My elementary school aged kid told me most of the kids at his school are atheists. I was shocked.

I think the recent debate on RfM was far more interesting and substantive than the debate on Bill Maher's show:

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2241572,2241676#msg-2241676

But then we are not celebrities so what do we know?

I'm so relieved, I've been waiting for a celebrity to tell me

what I should think. Whew.

SAM is the Seattle Art Museum ... How is the Seattle Art Museum is bigot?

As my favorite local radio talk show host once said: "Religion is the most suppressive/oppressive force on the planet."
IMO, religious organizations are all man-made, usually by one or a few individuals for the purpose of monetary gain, power, and easy sex, primarily for them.
Anyone who is feeling down for whatever reason, those who have been through difficult events in life, or those who haven't been able to have self-esteem are vulnerable to the false promises and the lure of these organizations, many of which, are in reality, nothing more than cults.

Based on a 2013 Pew Research Center report, 88% of Muslims in Egypt and 62% of Muslims in Pakistan favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion.

Sorry, but when there are that many bad apples, there is something wrong with the orchard....just like with the Mormons; although to their credit, they no longer execute you for leaving their stupid religion.

There are many orchards in Islam, and you just chose two of the nastiest--places I've been and truly dislike. But why didn't you explore the orchard of Muslims in Malaysia or Turkey or Bosnia or Los Angeles or the greater Washington, DC area? You are intentionally cherry-picking the rotten fruit.

One can do that with Hindus or Jews or Christians or atheists as well. Why do you single out Islam for your distorted and misleading analysis?

Ben seems like the type of person that would say this. He lives in California, why wouldn't he say it?

The only thing more impressive than your ignorance is your certainty. The combination is appalling.


----------------
"[T]he slave kidnapping. No white European man would do it, ever!"

That statement speaks for itself.


-----------------
[T]he Muslims would perform certain surgeries to make Eunuchs."

And the Europeans routinely bought those eunuchs to use in their palaces and to perform in operas as castrata. But paying for people to be castrated isn't as bad as castrating them, right?


-------------------
"Europeans never ever ever banded together as a group and kidnapped foreigners or children or Africans."

You should read what the Europeans did to the American Indians. Remember? Squanto, for instance, was kidnapped, taken to Europe, and sold twice before finally being allowed to return to America, where he discovered that his entire tribe had been wiped out. I have already recommended contemporary books by European authors to you--the History of the Five Nations--mainly historians commissioned by the European governments committing the atrocities, but you didn't read them. Why not? Are you lazy or unwilling to test your ideas in the fire of facts?


-------------------
"[Europeans] never banded as a group and society and raped innocent people."

Read up on what the Europeans did in the Americas, what the Dutch did in Indonesia, what the Belgians did in the Congo. Or consider the fact that virtually all African Americans who descended from slaves are partly Caucasian. How did that happen? Courtship, Christian weddings, lawful marriage or rapes of chattel slaves by their "owners?"


--------------
"But Muslims on the other hand, have and were doing this up until 1900."

ETA: I got this wrong. Muslims did not stop in 1900. There was the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by Turkey in the early 1920s; and there is something approaching that sporadically occurring in Sudan quite recently. Against this, however, one must consider the German genocides against Jews, Poles, and others; and the anti-Islamic pogroms in Bosnia in the 1990s, which involved the use of rape as a weapon of war. The point being that both Islam and Europeans have never stopped committing such atrocities.


--------------
"If Catholics in Brazil were killing anyone leaving the faith, we would certainly be offended."

You realize that the Conquistadors did that, right? People were given the choice of conversion or death. And I presume you know the Spaniards did that to Jews and Muslims in EUROPE during the Inquisition, and the Austrian Empire did it to the Muslims in the southern Slavic lands during the wars against the Ottomans. How do those acts conform to your statement that white people would never do that?


---------------
"Muslims are a degraded group of people. As a culture we are entitled to pass judgement on them using western tradition."

We are only entitled to do that if we apply the same standard to Western civilization. And the first step in that process is learning what the Europeans actually did. If you do not seriously research those questions, there is no hope of escaping the impulsive racism that informs your thinking from Manifest Destiny, to European superiority, to the quadratic equation.

If you remain willfully uninformed, your rants expose nothing more than your ignorance.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2019 03:48PM by Lot's Wife.

Meanwhile, baaaak in the 21st C.....
What This discussion is about is bigotry as it relates to Islam and Mormonism and the difference between bigotry and not tollerating intolerant ideas.

I have nothing but tolerance and goodwill toward those who have tolerance and goodwill toward me.

So I guess that means I'm not a bigot.

And while we're on the subject, can we do something about all the hate speech out there targeting bigots?

OK, I'm lost here. Unless you are responding to a deleted post, this is the greatest non sequitur ever.

[|] Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> OK, I'm lost here. Unless you are responding to a
> deleted post, this is the greatest non sequitur
> ever.
It is a response to the charge of "bigot" being applied to those of us who are intolerant of intolerant ideologies.

+1

It was a response to a post by macaRomney (see my reference to his nemesis, the quadratic equation). All the quotes are from his rant.

I don't know how my reply remained when the original post was removed--never seen that before--but that is what apparently happened.

It's fascinating, actually. Looking at the placement of my post, it appears that the admins removed macaRomney's, then stuck mine in as a stand-alone statement. I'm glad they did that. There is plenty to criticize in some forms of Islam but the place to start is facts and not ethnocentric lies.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2019 03:29PM by Lot's Wife.

OK. Then it now makes sense. Your post was quoting a bunch of things that don't appear anywhere else in the thread which was confusing.

Yeah, sometime I'll give you a non sequitur that will make your head spin.

But this time it was a reply, with precise quotations, to one of the most ill-informed and bigoted posts ever to grace these pages.



ETA: I repeat what I said above. There is plenty to criticize in Islam but the place to start is with facts, not with brain stem convulsions misrepresented as the product of thought.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2019 05:31PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> brain stem convulsions
> misrepresented as the product of thought.

Sounds political to me! ;)

Tongue in cheek, but the point is germane. A lot of prejudice is hard wired, or implanted in childhood, and arises from emotional impulse. The remedy is education/self-education and logical consideration.

Virtually all generalizations contain some truth, and that truth deserves to be examined in all its aspects. But again, that evaluation must arise from rational scrutiny of facts. The process very much requires moving beyond visceral impulse and engaging one's higher critical faculties.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The process very
> much requires moving beyond visceral impulse and
> engaging one's higher critical faculties.

Where does religion do this? Teach this? I don't know that they teach that. I think they sustain higher critical faculties as such.

I didn't see macaRomney's post, so it looked like you created an army of strawmen to go into combat with. But if he posted that, it was a monument to ignorance. I am glad they left your post up in the hope that he reads it and learns something - although I'm not optimistic.

Did macaRomney used to post as poopstone? Because alot of what he posts is very similar to poopstone's views.

I think he did. That was followed by AnonoThisWeek or something like that. That's when his obscurantism drove Hie away.

I get the sense macaRomney is a well-meaning man--that seems to come through sometimes--but he doesn't reflect on his thoughts, certainly, and he shows few signs of learning.

Regarding my post, I would never create a strawman like that. My experience is that there are plenty of people on the board who will present those unbidden.

>Regarding my post, I would never create a strawman like that

I know. That's what confused me in the first place.

I do it just for you, because you don't know anything but are very smart! I'm sorry you've never read a book before or learned any history of Islam. But there is still time.

Actually (responding to Lot's wife) Your probably right, saying that Islam is more degenerated than western European tradition is a stretch. And Yes White people have done many many bad things over the centuries that are comparable to Muslims. I wrote my opinion (up higher on the post) last night after a 13 hour day at work and was very tired.

But calling me ignorant is a bit of a stretch, especially when you haven't even watched the clip.

Not at all. You have demonstrated many times that you don't know much about American history let alone Islam or the world. Moreover, you have celebrated your ignorance by describing algebra and history as a waste of time that should be replaced by instruction in mythology like Manifest Destiny and the glories of how the Europeans enlightened the Native Americans.

And watching a clip by Bill Maher doesn't teach anyone a damn thing about Islam or history. He is an entertainer. That he teaches next to nothing is evident in the fact that you could watch him and then proceed to write what you did.

Your words speak for themselves.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2019 12:45PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not at all. You have demonstrated many times that
> you don't know much about American history let
> alone Islam or the world. Moreover, you have
> celebrated your ignorance by describing algebra
> and history as a waste of time that should be
> replaced by instruction in mythology like Manifest
> Destiny and the glories of how the Europeans
> enlightened the Native Americans.
>
> And watching a clip by Bill Maher doesn't teach
> anyone a damn thing about Islam or history. He is
> an entertainer. That he teaches next to nothing
> is evident in the fact that you could watch him
> and then proceed to write what you did.
>
> Your words speak for themselves.

If you had listened to the debate, you might have learned something from Sam Harris, who's not an entertainer, he's an author, philosopher, scientist, who has a lot of interesting things to say about human consciousness and the role of religion in society and human evolution.
He doesn't discount the role of religion in the past to help us survive and prevail over other species of humans, by organizing in large groups, and uniting to realize a particular purpose. but just thinks it has become one of the greatest threats to humanity, due to the fact it's the most extreme form of tribalism, which, when combined with weapons of mass destruction, creates the very real potential to self fulfill the doomsday prophecies of Judeo Christian narrative.

I have watched enough Maher to know what he does in those interviews, which is to hop from point to point in a way that allows no exploration of anything in depth. It's like a roller coaster or a carousel: you get lots of excitement but end up precisely where you started.

A question for you, Kori. Do you think non-religious humans are any less susceptible to tribalism and violent destruction than religious ones are? And how do Nazism, Soviet Communism, Chinese Communism, and Khmer Rouge Communism fit into your paradigm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2019 11:32PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have watched enough Maher to know what he does
> in those interviews, which is to hop from point to
> point in a way that allows no exploration of
> anything in depth. It's like a roller coaster or
> a carousel: you get lots of excitement but end up
> precisely where you started.

You might be surprised.

>
> A question for you, Kori. Do you think
> non-religious humans are any less susceptible to
> tribalism and violent destruction than religious
> ones are?

No, but they don't have narratives that end in Doomsday and destruction of non-believers.

And how do Nazism, Soviet Communism,
> Chinese Communism, and Khmer Rouge Communism fit
> into your paradigm.

They are all different forms of tribalism based upon rigid authoritarian dogmatic ideologies, that unite large groups of people by artificially dividing them from "others".

Its this and other forms of tribalism we must evolve beyond in order to survive another decade.