I wish there was a text transcript for it. It was very etaucdional. I like the concept of seeking to present the truth of the Christian gospel from within the needs and expectations of the culture, which, of course, requires studying the culture first. Is there a text list of the 24 contradictions available, or can they be made available?

That’s my impression from what little I know. 🙂

You’ll find a lot of atheists among Reform Jews as well. 🙂

Hi! Always great to have new people commenting. 🙂

I don’t know much about Judaism, but reform Judaism seems to be way ahead of evangelical Christianity on this one – they read the Bible like a history book, and are deeply offended when anyone suggests, for example, that if the Exodus happened it didn’t involve more than a couple of hundred people. As a group they’re very supporting of Jews in general – I wish they’d look at the Torah at least the way most Jews seem to i.e. sensibly!

This comment is very much secondary to the issue here that you handled very ably, Heather. The thing is when talking about violence in holy books people who very often were Christians but are now atheists persist with this Christian notion/propaganda that there’s something unusually violent and horrible about the Jewish Bible. I read this constantly. And every time I do I think “well yeah but half of it is history and history of wars”. Big hunks of it are were propaganda like Shakespeare plays. Not every word of any of these “holy” books is telling people how to live. I’m not sure what Christians are taught about the history sections of the Jewish Bible but in Judaism only the Torah was ever considered to be “holy”. With all the magical crap that that implies. It had its holiness taken away from it in Reform Judaism during the Enlightenment. Describing wars that are part of the politics in your country is not the same thing is saying all the things done in the wars are required to please God. Another thing that always bugs my ass when I hear the “eye for an eye” thing. It’s held up as THE metanym for extreme horrible violence. But the actual bits about an eye for an eye is an evocation of something called tallion, ritual vengeance. The Jewish Bible/OT is not advocating that. It’s scene setting for the story and this is completely unambiguous if you read the actual bit. It’s laying out that tallion says if somebody kills a member of your clan you get to kill ONE of theirs. Not seven. For real. That’s all it’s doing. Also this is from the story about Cain and Abel. And as we all know after Cain killed Abel god killed Cain right? Eye for an eye? Oh wait, he didn’t. Because the message of the story is mercy. Something worth keeping in mind. 🙂

On #2 I disagree. Isis is Islamic like the westboro baptists are Christians, and the fact that most Christians don’t agree with them doesn’t change that. We shouldn’t wage war against Islam but we shouldn’t make excuses for Muslims doing bad things either.

Hi Heather,

Thanks for your response, and I will try and be a bit more concise in future.

1) I am not misinterpreting the Brandeis incident. Coyne says: “How could Brandeis not know? Ali has been speaking out against Islam for years, especially its marginalization and oppression of women, and for that her life has been repeatedly threatened”.

But Brandeis never said they were unaware that Ali has criticised Islam. Not at all. They knew perfectly well that Ali has spoken how Muslims are using Islam to persecute women and minorities. And that’s ok, there isn’t anything wrong with saying that. What they didn’t know was that Ali had made statements like we need to declare war on all of Islam, and she made it clear that she didn’t mean radical Islam, but ALL of Islam. That’s a very extreme view – one of intolerance and bigotry, and hence they withdrew their offer.

2) Just because someone says ISIS isn’t Islamic, it doesn’t mean they’re pandering to Muslims. It simply means that they see the majority of Muslims not supporting ISIS, and as the Islam of the majority of Muslims is in opposition to the Islam of ISIS, it means it is wrong to say ISIS is Islamic, and we should instead say ISIS is radical Islamist.

Thanks.

Hi AU. This is a really long comment. I completely understand the need to get all your thoughts out – it’s one of the reasons I started this site. However, please try to keep comments a bit shorter in future.

I consider the positions of those you say are thought to be Islamophobic are misrepresented. They do not make sweeping statements and their positions are quite nuanced. Coyne, Harris and Dawkins have all been subject to this. There is a problem with many within Islam calling any criticism of Islam Islamophobia. They are much more sensitive to criticism than Crhistianity or Judaism, for example. When a cartoon that makes a joke about God or Jesus is created, Christians don’t like it, but there are no death threats let alone murders. That is not the case in Islam. People who criticize Islam, especially from within the faith or former members of the faith, are often often putting their life on the line. It is very difficult for a religion to reform in this climate. There is no doubt that the OT in particular is an extremely violent book. Most Christians and Jews these days cherry pick that book and largely ignore the bad stuff. Many in Islam still teach that the bad parts of the Qur’an are essential parts of Islam. There are sects within Judaism and Christianity that still teach some awful stuff, but by and large they don’t go around trying to force the rest of the world to join them, or kill them when they won’t.

Obama, Cameron and Ki-moon have all said, “IS is not Islamic”. That is more than making a distinction between Islam and radical Islam. However, I understand why they did it. It was politically expedient when they are trying to form a coalition that includes Muslim countries.

I consider you are misrepresenting the Brandeis incident, but I haven’t got time to go into it now. Jerry Coyne wrote a great piece about it: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/brandeis-university-cancels-plans-to-give-ayaan-hirsi-ali-an-honorary-degree/

@Heather,

Thank you for your response.

I think you misunderstand why people like Maher, Coyne, Harris etc are called Islamophobic by liberals like Glenn Greenwald. It isn’t because these people think any criticism of Islam is Islamophobic. I mean, take Glenn – he is an atheist gay – do you really think he doesn’t have criticisms of fundamentalist Islam? Of course he does.

Islamophobia means an “irrational” fear of Islam. It doesn’t mean a “rational” fear. So if someone says they are worried that Salafi Islam is being funded by the Saudis, and that this might create more extreme Muslims, that isn’t Islamophobia at all. If someone says certain Muslims are being driven to terrorism because certain mosques are preaching intolerance, then that isn’t Islamophobia. No one I know on the liberal left has ever argued that – ever.
However, if someone is willing to overlook the complex reasons that are often behind things, and make blanket statements that everything bad that is happening in the Muslim world is primarily because of Islam, that IS Islamophobia, because the person’s fear has stopped them from thinking rationally. And that is why Glenn Greenwald calls Bill Maher an Islamophobe – it isn’t because he criticises Islam, but it is because he wants to downplay political grievances of Muslims and overplay Islam.
Sam Harris is considered an Islamophobe not because he criticises Islam, but because his criticism of Islam is unfair. For example, he chooses the most extreme Muslim interpretations, and passes them off as “normal Muslims”, and any other Muslims who are not as extreme are not considered to be normal Muslims bit nominal Muslims, even though those Muslims classify themselves as orthodox practising Muslims. Is this right? Would it be right to choose the most extreme elements of say the National Party in New Zealand, and pass off their views as being the views of the National Party? Of course it wouldn’t. Harris also has a different criteria when it comes to Buddhism – he claims he criticises all religions, and sure enough, he has written that Buddhists should do away with the dogmatic aspects of the religion – however, he still doesn’t criticise the teachings of Buddha that state that killing unbelievers is ok, on the contrary, he goes around saying we can all learn from the teachings of Buddha!
As for Jerry Coyne, the atheist Neil Godfrey, who posted in your comments section in the Reza Aslan post, has had a debate with Coyne, and you can go to his site and find out the reasons why Coyne is considered an Islamophobe.

So, yes, there are reasons why liberals call these people Islamophobes, and none of the reasons are because they criticise Islam, but because their criticism is one sided and unbalanced.

You are wrong to suggest Glenn has ever suggested that religion plays no part in terrorist attacks. He has never once said that, and I should know as I have been reading him since 2009. What he does say is that the majority of Islamic terrorism is “driven” by political grievances – sure, there are some whose terrorism is driven by religion, but these people are in the minority according to Glenn.
I think you have got Glenn completely wrong to be honest – if you read about his life, you will see he is someone who loves to argue and who has an attitude of “I don’t give a f*** what anyone else thinks of me” – so if you think Glenn is worried of being called an Islamophobe, you really really do not know him at all.

I also find it quite strange that you should say that one of the biggest differences between The Bible and Qur’an is that Jesus didn’t go around beheading people and declaring war. Maybe you mean the differences between The New Testament and Qur’an, because the Old Testament (which is part of the Bible) is a LOT more violent than the Qur’an and contains verses of stoning women because they’re not virgins and smashing heads of babies against rocks.
As for the New Testament, it contains some pretty warlike verses. Corinthians states: “For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet”. And the below, which is some New Testament commentary, states that Jesus will utterly destruct his enemies.

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/gill/revelation/19.htm

And do Christians ignore it? Definitely not the evangelists in America – in fact, a lot of them think of Mohammed as the anti-Christ and see American adventures in the Middle East as justified because they are fighting the enemies of Christ!

@Diane G,

I think you are quite confused. Brandeis were not inviting Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak – they were offering her an honorary degree. They then withdrew this offer, because they said that some of her past comments are inconsistent with the universities core values. I assume the core values of the university include tolerance for all other beliefs, and not making generalisations, something which Ayaan Hirsi Ali has failed in miserably. She has said that we must defeat Islam – when she was asked if she meant radical Islam, she said no, all of Islam. She also said all Muslim schools should be closed – had she said all faith schools should be closed, no one would have complained, but the fact she is only calling for Muslim schools to be closed, is bigotry.
Furthermore, the university did not “disinvite” her on the basis that “her free speech might offend some Muslims” – you have just made that up. On the contrary, the statement released by the university said that “Ali is welcome to join us on campus in the future to engage in a dialogue about these important issues”.

As for Obama and other politicians “bending over backwards” to try and say Islam had no links to terrorism, that is just wrong. Obama correctly makes a distinction between Islam and radical Islam – after all, to suggest that there is only one type of Islam, and call radical Islam that type of Islam is just disingenuous. And Obama says Islam is a good religion, and isn’t responsible for terrorism, and radical Islam is. And Obama has said that problems in the Middle East emanate from the “perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam”.

I think everyone has the right to criticise practices of Islam that they find abhorrent. I have yet to meet a liberal who thinks otherwise. But any criticism should be done in an honest manner.

Thanks.