Yea, I’d be surprised if Nawaaz had done that from what I’ve seen of him.

As for Knight, I don’t think this example is nearly as bad as the race card that gets played on Harris. Harris wants to criticise Islamic dogma as a set of ideas and goes out of his way to make it not about the race of the people who adhere to Islam. Despite this, he gets called racist by people who offer no real rationale for doing so, but just assume that the correlation that most Muslims are non-white means that criticism of Islam=racism.

Knight notes that without even reading the book, Lean disses Nawaaz as a white person’s (Harris) lapdog. So Lean has quite specifically brought race into it already. At minimum, what he said is outrageous, and Knight proposes that it is “a form of anti-Muslim bigotry” and offers a case as to why.

I don’t find his case convincing. I would say Lean is again just trying to avoid discussing the specifics of Islam, and Knight should have focussed on that. So technically I guess you are right, though I don’t find the two examples very comparable.

Stephen Knight accusing Nathan Lean of being a racist by saying that Nathan Lean thinks “that a brown-skinned Muslim critical of Islamism can’t possibly be thinking for themselves, but must be a puppet of the evil (and smarter) white man.”

http://www.gspellchecker.com/2015/09/book-review-the-new-atheist-threat-by-cj-werleman/

Can’t find the link to the Nawaaz and Murtaza Hussain one, it is quite possible Nawaaz didn’t accuse of him being a racist and I wrongly thought he was suggesting that, so I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt unless I can find evidence that he did accuse him of being racist.

Seems like Zara is just having a bit of fun.

Here’s another argument starting up today between Sam Harris and Steve Zara (I don’t know who he is). I think Harris’s response is hilarious. https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/650122636916326400?t=1&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&sig=2c8ff357469027d44f52bb2a0dd640a0ee82618e&al=1&refsrc=email&iid=58452d39be264d57b15c66ebd28125da&autoactions=1443837181&uid=872343469&nid=244+1489

Got some links? Not sure I know Hussain. I’m aware of the hatchet job Lean did on Harris last year, but not the others’ criticism of Lean.

“I’m sure you know the “conversation” between Harris and Obeidallah, better than I, Ken, and I don’t doubt that you are right.”

I’d never heard of Obeidallah before that clip, so know only as much as you do about it.

“I’ll just say that in what I’ve read and listened to, it was Harris who hurled most of the insults such as “smirking liar”, “shamefully dishonest” displaying a “total lack of moral and intellectual seriousness”….Why can’t they both make their arguments without resorting to personal insults?”

Agreed. You could tell it wasn’t going to go well when it was revealed at the beginning that Obeidallah had called Sam a racist on twitter and immediately offered to do so again on tv. Sam is rarely the first to take the gloves off.

“Isn’t that saying “that they are not speaking with reason and therefore do not need to be listened to.”

Quite possibly.

“Is that less of an insult than for Obeidallah to call Harris a bigot?”

Only if it also isn’t true.

“A bigot is “a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions”.”

With that definition, you could think a charge of racism wasn’t even part of the issue, yet racism is the entire issue here.

“Well, isn’t Harris pretty intolerant of those who believe in Islam? I know there is a lot of splitting hairs between (to use a religious term) hating the sin and not the sinner, but in practice it often amounts to the same thing.”

I don’t think so, but then I don’t think it amounts to the same thing.

I don’t disagree with too much of what you say about bias, except to say this goes beyond biases and that we admit to having biases doesn’t release us from needing to use evidence and reason when arguing – in fact the existence of biases is a big reason we need to show evidence and reason to support our positions, as you seem to understand. You shouldn’t be able to get away with saying anything at all just by rationalising it away as just a bias.

“I have great respect for the New Atheists in exposing religion to evidentiary and rational criticism. When they go beyond that, to claim that religion is the cause of this or that, or that one religion is “the mother of bad ideas”, they fail to separate their biases from their reason. It is then just opinion entitled to no special deference due to the author’s expertise. When does bias become bigotry? Hard to draw the line.”

I don’t think the line is always that hard to draw and this is one of the cases that it isn’t. And if it makes any difference, Sam retracted his line that “Islam is the mother load of bad ideas”. He felt he overstated it, which of course doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still think it one source of some pretty bad ideas.

Nope, push back is one thing, but calling someone a racist is to shut them down completely

Yet Stephen Knight (Godless Spellchecker) and Maajid Nawaaz are happy to go around smearing Nathan Lean and Murtaza Hussain as racists respectively…

I’m sure you know the “conversation” between Harris and Obeidallah, better than I, Ken, and I don’t doubt that you are right. I’ll just say that in what I’ve read and listened to, it was Harris who hurled most of the insults such as “smirking liar”, “shamefully dishonest” displaying a “total lack of moral and intellectual seriousness”. Isn’t that saying “that they are not speaking with reason and therefore do not need to be listened to.” Is that less of an insult than for Obeidallah to call Harris a bigot? Why can’t they both make their arguments without resorting to personal insults?

A bigot is “a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions”. Well, isn’t Harris pretty intolerant of those who believe in Islam? I know there is a lot of splitting hairs between (to use a religious term) hating the sin and not the sinner, but in practice it often amounts to the same thing.

We are all biased in favor or against a whole variety of things and people. We may be scientists wedded to evidence as the only basis of truth. We may be philosophers saying true assertions can only be arrived at by reason and logic. Enlightened people subscribe to both propositions. But in forming our opinions and directing our actions, aren’t evidence and reason at best constraining factors on our conclusions?

Biases are the result of how our unconscious brain organizes information. It allows for quick decisions on “fight” or “flight” or “embrace”. Bias results from pleasant or unpleasant personal experiences. Clearly H and O have negative personal biases against one another. Bias also results from cultural conditioning. H and O have opposite biases regarding Islam because they were raised differently, in different traditions.

We can’t eliminate these biases. In experimental studies we can try to control for them. In logic, we can explicitly address them and try to counter them. But when scientists and philosophers step outside of controlled investigations, their opinions are likely to be as biased as the next persons. People who think they are being rational are usually rationalizing. People who insult others for their biases are usually covering their own.

I have great respect for the New Atheists in exposing religion to evidentiary and rational criticism. When they go beyond that, to claim that religion is the cause of this or that, or that one religion is “the mother of bad ideas”, they fail to separate their biases from their reason. It is then just opinion entitled to no special deference due to the author’s expertise. When does bias become bigotry? Hard to draw the line.

The hardest person to proofread is yourself. I’m quite versed in that area… 🙂

Thanks Diane – fixed. I’d missed a word with the primary thing, and the “vilification of immigrants” bit was my fault too. By the time it comes to the final edit I’m so tired, I always miss things. I need someone else to check things before I post them!