I LOVE Waking Up and all of its content.

Sam Harris is kind of a dick, though.

Not Crap - LOTS of waffles.

I used to listen to his podcast regularly, then his fragile ego started getting on my nerves. As stated a few posts earlier, he doesn’t respond well to criticism. I’ll give him a NC with a waffle factor of 9. He wastes entirely too much time fuming about his critics.

Both of the above are spot on. Waking Up is easily the best product of its kind and within that “world” he seems a very articulate and compassionate guy.

Outside of it he seems to be his own worst enemy. But Trump seems to have shocked him into detaching himself from the worst of his bickering on the margins. He’s incredibly reluctant to admit his mistakes but recently spoke about how all the IDW people are loons and that quitting Twitter was the best decision he’d made in twenty years… he really could help himself by “Doing a Steve” and mea culpa-ing some of his past appalling judgement.

Hex wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2024 2:08 am “concerned” transphobes who lack understanding of science and the philosophy of gender for example

this is typical
i'm 45 and i understand women less each year
still trying though!

The world really needed another fascist guru from the internet. Crap.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2024 9:04 pm

boilermaker wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2024 5:16 pm

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2024 2:43 pm He's a prick and a shithouse.

Why?

I linked to a reasonable summary of all that.

I don't know about that other stuff he is accused of, but the whole Islamophobia is such a weird term to me. When I think of the word phobia I think of discrimination based on something you are born as, something you can't change. Like sex, race, nationality, sexuality etc.No one is born a Muslim. Just like all the religions, it's an evil cult from the dark ages that is pushed on to the little children. And it should be called out. It's not called out enough. I find it strange that a big chunk of today's liberals, people who should think rationally, are the ones that are screaming Islamophobia, instead of calling out Islam on their stance on women, gays and so on. Instead of pushing for science, education, reasoning, not defending evil fairy tale believes. And these same people have no problem shiting on Christianity, Scientology or any other cult. Because in their minds Muslim=non white person. So if you are critical of Islam, you are automatically a racist. When it's a belief that has nothing to do with a race.
As I said, I don't know about the other stuff from that link, but I do know that he is boring as hell. I tried to watch a video with him on the subject of AI, and the guy is painfully dull. He can make a subject, which was very interesting when other guests were discussing it, seem like the most boring thing on the planet. Same with atheism, religious discussion, evolution...things that people like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens make interesting to listen to, he turns into a chore

boilermaker wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2024 6:31 am As I said, I don't know about the other stuff from that link...

Worth knowing then.

Calling out any religion as varying shades of dangerous and abhorrent should always be fair game, agreed.

When you get into Harris core philosophy around “being” then a lot of his problematic, perceived or not, views fall into place. From the non-woo Buddhist point of view religions like the Abrahamics and especially Islam in the context of a modern world are basically absolutely abhorrent. What they say about the nature of existence is pretty horrendous.

In my early twenties I got on board with the whole New Atheist thing, from a leftist perspective because being a leftist used mean being critical of patriarchal religious dogmas. But over the years I basically stopped caring… until recently when I realised that Islam has become untouchable for criticism in the U.K., primarily not out of politeness or inclusion but out of fear of deadly violence. That should be completely unacceptable.

The problem with Harris in that perspective is his thin skin and lack of self awareness/criticism. He really dislikes anyone being shut down for expressing their opinions hence some shitty platforming. But that’s a poor excuse for people like Murray.

boilermaker wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2024 6:31 amNo one is born a Muslim.

Bruh. Where do you think Muslims, Jews, Hindus or Christians come from? Do you think kids pick their religion in grade school at a Scholastic book fair? We are all literally born into our religion based on our geographic location and the religion of our parents, which they had no choice over either.

ChudFusk wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2024 7:30 am

boilermaker wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2024 6:31 amNo one is born a Muslim.

Bruh. Where do you think Muslims, Jews, Hindus or Christians come from? Do you think kids pick their religion in grade school at a Scholastic book fair? We are all literally born into our religion based on our geographic location and the religion of our parents, which they had no choice over either.

The key is to separate the person and the belief.

Despite thinking a majority of religious belief is at best… a bad idea. I would never discriminate against anyone, including Muslims, as long as they aren’t projecting their personal “rules” onto society as a whole.

That’s called tolerance. But it’s a two way street. No one has the right to threaten violence on anyone for criticism or even mocking a belief, even if they see that as an intrinsic part of their identity. People say stupid offensive shit all the time, I’d never threaten them for this. In the UK this is a real problem. British newspapers didn’t publish images of the cartoons of Mohammad that resulted in mass executions in France, they didn’t publish a legitimate news story out of fear of being murdered.

That’s chilling.

Much like how the first country the Nazis invaded was Germany, the true victims of religion are the people in it.