Disgusting! She’s anonymous because of multiple death threats!!!

Sounds great — thanks, Heather and Ken!

Thanks for that. Seems like they’re starting to believe their own hype.

I’ve asked Ken to write a post so we can have a proper discussion about this in a new forum. He’s very busy at work, but has agreed to do it as soon as he can. There’s a lot to digest here, and we’ll be able to get into it better in a new post I think.

Sorry for all this ranting…. SIWOTI…. Just looked at twitter. Now Rubin is also attacking Eiynah, saying that he and Saad are putting their lives on the line while she is being anonymous in Canada.

I hadn’t kept up at all with what Rubin was up to until found out that he was presenting the Pegida movement as an “acceptable reaction to problems with immigration”, (which is a bit like saying Milli Vanilli was an acceptable reaction to punk rock).

Saad has a few differences with Sam H, in my opinion. Sam far more aware of the dangers of treating Muslims as a homogeneous group, despite at times making annoyingly unclear comments on the subject. He has very clearly disavowed the right wing nuts he attracted as followers and often said how shocked and upset he was to discover they had taken his message as supporting them.

He is also far better informed and reflective than Saad in general, and way smarter. Saad clearly didn’t realize how far out of his intellectual depth he was when interviewing Cohen, and kept trying to make the same point again and again, without even realizing that Cohen was already several steps ahead of him and had already demolished the point he was hoping to make. I just can’t imagine Sam being such a dumbass.

I think what bothers me the most in cases like this, is not so much ideas that might sound bigoted, but the level of stupidity involved in it, and the appalling behavior of some. I disagree with some things that Sam Harris says about immigration, for example, or even more so, Douglas Murray, but both of them present their ideas clearly and are up for a debate. Though, as of now, no one should be criticising Islam unless they have already spent twice as long kicking the so called alt-right as hard as they can.

(I understand that Saad has been flirting happily with some of them, and obviously Rubin too. Sam hasn’t been, and his recent podcasts, including one with Eiynah, he has been very clear about his total opposition to them.)

…Still not done…. I must say I would find it hard to pin down Sam’s positions on some things, but that is partly because I get bored with them sometimes — I don’t know exactly what he thinks about profiling or torture or immigration, because he is very convoluted sometimes and says one thing and then takes it back, etc. But temperamentally and from his behavior, I don’t think he is anything close to a bigot, and in areas where do think I understand his views quite clearly (spirituality/meditation especially) he doesn’t talk like an intolerant or incurious person.

This is difficult territory, and it’s hard to know when to write off and ignore someone, to pay attention and learn and disagree, and when to vocally oppose without getting sucked into some petty bunfight….

Cheers, Yakaru. Because of your comments, I have finally realised that Eiynah was the one who tipped off Coyne to the video and is of course mentioned in his post! I honestly didn’t pay any attention to who it was when I read it, so really didn’t know who she was when I asked Paxton. Things make more sense now 🙂

Your comment on Harris/Rubin/Saad is interesting too as I’ve not seen anything that suggests much difference between them. Certainly in this video, I didn’t spot anything Saad says that I think Harris would disagree with. And while I stopped watching Rubin at least six months ago (except for his recent interview with Larry Krauss), he seemed entirely of the same ilk as Harris then. Is there more to it than Saad’s name calling, which I agree seems pretty bad?

Thanks for commenting on this, Ken — I am happy to agree with you entirely on this. And while I still thinnk it is important to deal with Islamic extremism and to criticise the doctrines from which it arises, I also think that since the US election a greater and more immanent threat is right wing extremism/stupidity and its attendant Putinism.

As far as I understand Jerry Coyne’s perspective, I also assume he would entirely agree with Eiynah on this too, and I suspect he already had a good idea that he would agree, when he decided to give her opinions prominence on his blog. I was very pleased to see him support her like that. He’s supported her for sometime.

She has Pakistani parents, and grew up in Saudi Arabia, and now lives in Canada. I’ve listened to many of her podcasts. She is happy to talk to people she disagrees with, and I think, deals with disagreements very calmly and sensibly, while also stating her positions clearly. She’s been criticising Rubin et al for sometime and of course gets attacked from all sides in the most ridiculous ways.

(I think it’s unfair to count Harris in with Rubin and Saad BTW — regardless of occasions where he seems to make the same mistake Saad makes of lumping all Muslims in with extremists, he does have a level of intellectual honesty that Saad & Rubin entirely lack. And he had a very amicable interview with Eiynah, which *didn’t* wind up with him calling her a Jew-hater like Saad is doing!)

Eiynah’s podcasts are here.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5BiXCGHjmkXjbzP3MJg77w

Thanks, will have a look. I think I have heard of her now that you describe her.

Nice Mangoes is a Canadian Blogger. She’s a former Muslim atheist who writes under the name Eiynah because she receives death threats etc for her apostasy. She often advises Muslims re sexual stuff too, which gets a lot of conservative Muslims very upset with her. She wrote a children’s book called ‘My Chacha [Pakistan – uncle] is Gay’ which has received a lot of criticism from the Muslim community too. She recently started an excellent podcast as well. Here’s her blog, where you can find links to the rest of her stuff: http://nicemangos.blogspot.co.nz/