Islam & Freedom: A Conversation with Rory Stewart (Episode
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Sam Harris and Rory Stewart debate whether Islam poses a unique threat to open societies.
Rory Stewart is a leading thinker on international affairs and development currently serving as Special Advisor to GiveDirectly, which delivers cash directly to the world’s poorest households. Stewart was a member of the British Parliament for almost a decade, where he served as secretary of state for international development, prisons minister, minister for Africa, development minister for the Middle East and Asia, and minister for the environment. In addition to his work with GiveDirectly, Rory Stewart is also the co-host of The Rest is Politics podcast and author of How Not to Be a Politician.
Website: www.givedirect...
Twitter: @RoryStewartUK
February 28, 2024
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This guy starts off saying he could never be friebds with a Nazi.
Then, by the end, he's acknowledging that he's friends with people who would demand the murder of apostates
The difference between Nazis and Muslims is that Nazis don't use human shields.
Then later in the conversation realises that's silly and walks being friends with extremists back
Meh, Those are just details, they don't matter very much. 😅
He’s Rory the Tory lol, the only bad people in his world are working class people that disagree with him.
why ya'll gotta be so polarising on this. these two have completely different views on these issues and that is fine, the truth is somewhere between.
Wow that was explosive! As an exmuslim I found Rory’s apologism to be based in his own self interests rather than examining what it actually being said about Islam.
Rory cares about Rory first and foremost he doesn’t want to disavow dangerous aspects of Islam as he benefits from visiting the Islamic world perhaps to do business or other endeavours!
In any case I really appreciate you shedding light on our plight as exmuslims: we’re one of the most invisible yet targeted groups on earth we need all the support we can get!
The chances are, he knows a lot of Muslims in relatively safe, developed Muslim countries who are normal decent people who, not subject to the various internecine ethnic conflicts, extremist ideologies and not in the areas that see the worst aspects of the ideology. This knowledge influences his view of Islam and Muslims. You don’t need to be a mind reader to entertain the idea he holds his views genuinely and not motivated out of self interest.
@@jeremybiggs8413 I disagree. There’s a lot of wealth & power concentrated in the Islamic world and beyond even, Muslims have the power to cancel you especially if you’re involved in UK politics which Rory is.
I too know many great Muslims namely my family and friends:- ofcourse not all Muslims hold extremist views but what Sam was talking about was ideological objections and Rory was pushing back very hard on those imo bc he didn’t want to upset his Muslim friends rather than him actually being at odds with Sam’s stance in fact he never even allowed him to land his point. As an exmuslim I’ve seen many Rory’s in the West who object to criticism of Islam not bc they even understand what is being objected to rather that they do not want to come under fire by Muslims- which I can empathise with though I don’t respect it.
@@nunbenson552 some people tend to believe first that ideas are less important than the context in which those ideas operate. Consider the plight of the Rohingya suffering under a majority Buddhist country, it’s unthinkable to believe there is anything within Buddhism which permits this kind of oppression, yet here we are.
My point is that believing Rory’s objections to Harris are motivated out of self interest is shutting yourself off from what Rory no doubt believes about his own beliefs. It’s mind reading, and, somewhat hypocritical considering the objection to Rory mind reading Harris’ motives. To be consistent, you have to take on the substance of Rory’s statements and not an assumption about his beliefs, otherwise you’re acting exactly like Rory. His motives aren’t important wrt to the discourse, only the substance is.
@@jeremybiggs8413 to be consistent I actually don’t have to take on anything Rory said I don’t know if you missed my repeated comments about being an exmuslim and having my own “lived experience” lol 🤦🏽♀️
Mentioning the Rohingya situation in Burma to compare to criticisms about islamism says to me you nothing about either topic- the Asia region or even Islam and frankly I don’t care about yours or Rory’s thoughts on either topic!
I came here for @Samharris podcast he is a true ally to us exmuslims and that’s it
This is what I keep trying to explain to my leftist acquaintances. By being apologists for Islam (and Hamas at this point), they are putting all ex-Muslims who have managed to escape in danger. It is shocking to see how little they understand about the consequences of supporting extremism.
Sam Harris is not bigoted at all and as Muslim I am very grateful that he cares so much about our religion and I say he is trying to show what is the problem with our religion so he is in a way trying to just diagnose what is the problem in our religion and not a person attacking a civilization but rather trying to help
What an amazing comment from you and I really appreciate it and it has helped me a lot ❤
Amazing comment. It gives me hope for humanity
The main problem with your religion is the same problem with all religions. None of them appear to align with reality.
Thank you for writing this, as an eastern European, easily to get slandered for "racist" whenever I preface the same arguments to muslims. Thankful there are bright people that are willing to understand that it's not an attack, more of an inquiry on the subject.
@@Reno_Slim The main problem with Islam is that it still jails and kills apostates, outlaws all other religions (or no religion) and it enjoys protection from *progressives* that staunchly defend it for the west.
It is Islamophobic to say that all Muslims are pro-Jihad/terrorism (which, of course, they are not). But it is NOT Islamophobic to say that Islam, as a religion of millions, has - in certain specific quarters - a deep problem of intolerance, violence and terror. That is what Sam is saying.
So does christianity and judaism. Why special focus on islam?
@@tangerinetangerine4400 Ok, so, just remind me of when a major city's central infrastructure was blasted out of existence by a group of Christians or Jews (and I don't mean Israel's heavy-handed reaction to Hamas' attacks)?
@inetangerine4400 The other part of that, I believe, is that Islam contains fundamental principles and teachings that have not been relatively worked out to the extent of other major religions. That's to say that many religious teachings are outdated and even harmful, but some of the Islam faithful seem to be practicing and citing these teachings in their malicious activity with higher degrees of adherence and more frequently than other major religions. That seems to be the claim, at least.
Terms like "islamophobic" are retarded buzzwords to make you stop thinking.
I mean we would need to be in parallel universe but if somehow Jews were poorer and their country of origins was bombed for decades by the west, I'm not convinced they would behave that much better than the muslims tbh. And I just need to watch the blood thirst they're showing in this current war where the only goal seems to be revenge.
Sam Harris is a rare example of intellectual honesty.
The world would be poorer for lack of him. I know it would for me.
He’s ignorant and clearly has ego he was wrong in the past and instead of looking at the bigger picture of what makes people do things he wants to protect his own image by tearing down others by forcing a image that is clearly wrong if you look deeper into any Muslim issue humans are more complicated than what he’s making out
@@bigm317It's a huge stretch to call Sam Harris ignorant. I agree with you he excessively weighs the ideological causal factor (re Islam > violence) contra other cross-cutting and material factors, but he's right to push the ideological factor harder home in the context of this conversation with this particular guest.
Not really.
Sam is a World Champion Pseudo intellectual.
Sammy The Pseudo Harris.
Decent people lived in Nazi Germany. Most people in Stalin's USSR were decent. Because most Muslims are decent doesn't mean Islam is not a truly awful doctrine in the round.
He should watch the Nabi Asli videos on UA-cam…they are referenced by the Qu’aran and Hadiths and show how the prophet ( the ideal man 😳) lived from Medina onwards and what he proscribed.
We can try to live from a place of love ..and it takes work, but to say that Islam doesn’t advocate violence and subjugation and not take harsh measures to prevent the manifestation of radical Islam is to pretend that there isn’t a threat to non Muslims is to bury our head in the sand and to in some cases of denial to advocate compassion without wisdom
The difference is that very few of those other systems, Nazism or USSR intruded so violently and terroristiscally if that is word on the individual. In Palestine, children see miseray, pain, abuse ... they see how life is, and they also see what happens to complainers, and what their fellow citizens are capable of. It is a low-tech Orwellian nightmare that even the Nazis or Russians did not approach.
@@theinngu5560 read or listen to the Quran in its entirety, why speak hatred on something you don’t know? Muslims believe in Jesus as a prophet and his teachings. Hatred is from men/women not Islam. I hope you have a nice day and sincerely read or listen to the book and form your own opinions
@@theinngu5560brother I just looked at Nabi Asli videos this is propaganda. Please form your own opinions on Islam and all topics
"All my defenses of Islam require ignoring all the texts of Islam"
You logic is almost complete: Islam has nothing to do with islam. @user-zt6uu5tw9j
Could you cite examples?
Pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm very interested to hear what Rory would say in response to this charge.
@@joshuagharis9017 many such examples here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_in_the_Quran
The verse where Allah advises men to strike their wives if they exhibit arrogance. The texts claim that domestic abuse is warranted if wife disagrees with husband.@@joshuagharis9017
The logic of "neither you nor I are Muslims, therefore we don't have the right to criticise Islam" is quite funny to me because, guess what? When I was a Muslim-as a native Arabic speaker-I didn't have the right to criticise Islam either. You know why? Because that could've cost me my life. So it seems like even Muslims themselves aren't allowed to do so.
This is a really good point.
Yeah, good point and the crux of the matter. It also underlines the fact that Islam, like other religuons, is and always has been essentially a political construct used for control.
^^^^ This. Thank you.
I think the point he was making was that neither of them are experts on the faith itself or what it preaches.
This.
Rory started with an apology, but ended up as an apologist. A strange character arc.
Rory’s arguments:
“Not all”
“I have friends”
“All humans are like this”
“It’s not a big deal”
He is so disgustingly dishonest and inhuman - a complete rejection of rationality and logic.
@@justgivemethetruth right and he has lived in Afghanistan whereas Sam is going off on Zionist brainwashing as a child and hasn't been able to take a critical view of it as an adult.
Kudos to Rory for having the guts to come back on and apologize in the way that he did. That was tremendous and an example of how we should all strive to behave.
Well said.. totaly agree.
Agreed. It was everything after the apology that was insufferable.
Yes. The first 2% and last 2% of what he said was quite rational and civil. It was the middle 96 that was rude, irrational, obfuscating, and condescending.
Still, it felt he did it out of shame. He was very disingenuous at the conversation. Very weak arguments. A sad sad testimony of how much there's still to go.
@@acslater017 Strong demonstration on how beliefs trump logic.
I'm in SE Asia. I don't know if Rory eventually answers Sam's question in the paid version of this podcast, but here he clearly dodges talking about how apostates might be treated in Indonesia and Malaysia because he knows they will be unsafe: at the very least any ex-Muslims who dare renounce the religion will be ostracized by family and friends, and potentially lose their jobs and livelihoods, and in the worst case they will be in fear for their very lives.
I am also living here…punishment for blasphemy is real and enforced. Ask Rory how homosexuals are treated here, etc etc etc etc. he is ignorant af
He doesn’t. Rory basically insists that you must basically be more familiar with the Muslim community before you can be as critical of it (like Sam is) and that there are ‘many Muslims’ etc
It's the way it always is. People who differ in opinion stemming from different intuitions rarely if ever resolve it in dialogue. Resolving it means one of them has to die and be reborn having cut that arm of poisoned knowledge off himself voluntarily. Rory can't cut that arm off. Clearly nothing should be off limits to real critique especially religion. And clearly we are having a problem now with Islam and not as much with Christianity and it doesn't matter how bloody the history was for what religion lf we are getting millions of Muslims migrating in the country yearly.
In the longer paid version he doesn’t really address the apostate issue either. I just listened to it now. He says several times that there are many different Islams, and his friends in those countries were very nice to him so he believes they are mostly good people. And then he says “what about Christianity in the Middle Ages” “what about Russia.” He said he worried for certain vulnerable people, but that every community has dangerous people or extremists who are outliers, but it isn’t unique to Islam and there isn’t any threat that Islam poses to the world.
@@raina4732 Thanks. Those appear to be textbook No True Scotsman and whataboutism fallacies; really disappointing given Rory's supposed pedigree.
Rory really needs to grow out of his Lawrence of Arabia fantasy. I'm now going to have to sign up to finish the rest of this one. You finally got me Sam. 😂
Ahhhh that's what happened to it dammit!
As an Arab I want to say as much as I think Sam is more accurate than most of the ignorant westerners he's still giving too much credit to Islam and Muslims.
The issue that differentiates islam Islam is it is inherently a much more horrible ideology coming from the scripture itself. But it's really difficult to make this claim to a believing Muslim. otherwise as the guy kept claiming there are different "islams" so you can't claim that Islam holds a terrible set of ideas.
You can cherry pick Islam to fit with western countries. the issue is that Islam has very few cherrys to pick and A LOT of poison that is very hard to ignore.
As a fellow Arab, I can't agree more with your last two sentences
As an ex-Christian, I think the same could be said even about Christianity. But the concept of "revelation" in Christianity gives much more space to change,/adapt,/develop. In ecology, a system's "health/toxicity" (like a pond or river), can be well assessed by its bio-diversity. E.g. the most polluted pond (lake Karachay) has only two kind of bacteria as living thing in it... I have an idea that a religion's healthiness might be assessed similarly. Buddhism has uncountable denomination. Christianity has a couple dozen. Islam has two or three? For a world religion?
Sam pretty much has said this and it doesn't go well. No one has ever accused him of being TOO easy on it
@@laca103nobody cares about christianity, so drop the comparisons and look the devil directly in the eye. Whataboutisms and self-inserting narratives in a conversation about another religion is pointless and harmful to an honest discussion about what islam is.
If you compare Christianity to Islam you either know nothing about one of these or both or, in the worst case, is straight up apologist
There's a saying...''when someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them'...11 minutes in, after issuing a fair apology, he basically states that he will prefer to speak on anything except the complexity of seperating Islam from Islamophobia with the armour that he's lived in Muslim majority countries. The very example of a person who should be more than ecstatic about breaking down misunderstandings for that very reason. Not off to a great start.
Sam absolutely nails it here.
Not in my opinion. He should have asked Stewart about demographics (in Marseille, for example or Vienna).
Do you reckon he enjoys nailing 'other' things? 🤔
Rory says that only Muslim scholars should be allowed to criticise Islam but that's actually the root of the problem: IT'S NOT ALLOWED.
According to Rory, everyone can say positive things about Islam without understanding Arabic, but only an Islamic scholar can say negative things lol. In the words of Sam Harris, this is how you play tennis with no net.
Further, I have nice Muslim friends is not an argument. Rory is a western educated liberal so his friends would be of similar kind. They wouldn't be a true representation of the ummah.
And pretending that he is unaware of that is disingenuous af.
Subconscious fear of Islam affects us all
Rory is quite typical of western apologists for Islam. It starts with "I have some Muslim friends."
With this type of flawed logic it's amazing he was ever anybody in the UK. Personal anecdotes are not general rules or in any way really contribute much more than confusion to any discussion. He is amazingly illogical and confident at the same time.
My German relatives were all quite nice back in the day. But that didn't stop them from being swept up in the German war machine which killed millions of people. How much they believe in the mission only they know but the results of the mission were catastrophic. Islam is also on a mission and there are already a lot of dead.
Doesn’t he literally say here that his objection is to say that you can’t really say there is this thing called islam and it is the thing muslims believe and so it isn’t very helpful to say outright and in a blanketed way that islam is bad? That seems like a pretty mild point and not at all the same thing as “only muslims can criticize islam.” I feel like your criticism of him would be especially ineffective for him because he would literally be able to point out that some muslims criticize the islam of others and that you only take a single version of islam into account when saying it’s not allowed. You aren’t really doing his view justice here.
The only reason that a lot of Muslims are not as violent as the extremest is because they diluted their faith liberal value, not because there is a more benevolent version of it.
Or they simply don't have the conviction or courage to follow through with what their religion demands but are quite happy and sympathetic towards the extremists who do.
Diluted versions are versions
@@sennsita01 I would say they have the morals they get from liberal values to not commit atrocity themselves, but the morals are not enough to stop them from supporting such acts.
That’s very insightful
I think western liberal values are more influenced by Islam than the other way around. Sadly. Because that would be possible point of reform that Islam needs.
I only wish I could express logic and truth like Sam Harris does.
Aaaand you can...for only £12.99 a month you too can be....
..and be as articulate as Sam….
Indeed, or Rory. Both are excellent
It's not easy for the average person. My nephew has a PHD and can make mincemeat of all my arguments if he disagreed. Mostly doesn't, except over Israel There his logic is unshakable - and wrong!
”Not all muslims” was his major defense point. A defense that has nothing to do with Sam’s arguments. Fascinating discussion.
I feel for Rory and his determination to be kind and see the good in people, but it's coming at a cost
I totally understand where he’s coming from. If I view this through my 18 year old self (1998), yes I’m quite black and white with a lot of issues, but I do believe in the good of most ordinary people (Muslims included). But as a middle aged man with two young girls in the uk, I view even the most moderate versions of the Muslim faith as a potential risk to the stability of our modern society. It is not a community that readily mixes with secular or other faith based communities and in my experience is prone to violence
Men are only 10% more disagreeable than women on average, and yet they make up the vast majority of criminal populations because this population is represented in the edges of the probability distribution. Yet nobody says "we are waging war against men" for that reason. Your entire experience might be informed by meeting the best men, but that doesn't change the above-stated statistical reality. I think Rory's misunderstanding boils down to the same fallacy.
As a politician, he doesn‘t want to denounce problematic ideas if the demographic group holds voting potential.
Good point
And Harris was obviously unable to disabuse Stewart of his closely held beliefs. People tend to put a lot of stock in their personal experiences, of which Stewart has had many.
This discussion was very frustrating to listen to nearly the whole way through. I will admit this about Harris: for years, there has been a part of me that has allowed doubt about Harris' seeming obsession with Islam. I've followed the guy since 2007 after reading Letter to a Christian Nation. I've been a subscriber to his podcast for years. But his arguments remain sound, it seems--so much so that I feel that Harris' claims were better than Stewart's. Frankly, there were times that I grew very tired of Stewart's interrupting Harris, and doing so with poor or fallacious arguments.
Harris is a powerful intellectual force, and he seems to rarely, if ever, make intellectually dishonest claims. It's why he's so often vilified by those on the right and the left. And it's why there are those of us who think so highly of him. I don't know if he's always right. But I recognize his brilliance and genuine interest in sifting out what is true in a very complex world.
Harris was interrupting a lot more than Stewart. @lonzo61
@@zoyboy1914 His party has been quite happy to tolerate Islamaphobia.
Also, I would lay good money on his not running in the forthcoming election. Nevertheless, what demographic do you think he is trying to appeal to within his constituency?
This guy is thoroughly outmatched by sam .
by Sam and truth
@elanbair4571 Sam Harris doesn't really care about truth.
Can you name me a fascist who speaks most honestly about Islam?
Nope
I think they broadly agree on most of the issues, just as sam said they have a different philosophy of mind when approaching the problem. Rory who has lived in many islamic countries feels unsettled and skeptical that attacking islam in the way sam does will create any genuine change for good. additionally, Rory also points out that much of it is contextual and given the same situations around the world with different faiths, equally immoral acts are committed. ultimately both a true to some extent.
“My experience in Muslim majority countries [as a male, straight, white, wealthy, well educated, well connected, agnostic Brit] was very good.”
Just two days ago, a woman wearing a top with some Arabic words on it was surrounded by a mob of 300 in Pakistan and was threatened... while she cowered in a corner in terror. She was finally rescued by a brave police officer who argued and pleaded with the crowd (hats off to her!). The point is, not one of these 300 could read Arabic but assumed the words were blasphemous and not one of them could 'see' a terrified lone woman. It turned out the Arabic word printed on her dress was 'harmless' and had nothing to do with Quran (lucky for her because who knows what would have happened otherwise). In what world is this reality not fundamentalist? This takes nothing away from Muslims who don't subscribe to these ideas and practices, but to ignore this reality is to bury your head in sand.
"... not one of them could 'see' a terrified lone woman." They didn't touch on it at all, the sexual abuse that seems to be rather pervasive in these violent Muslim societies. Mosab Hassan Yousef in one of his interviews admits that as a 12-year old he was buggered by his uncle and suggests without explaining much that this practice goes a long way to explain the violence-proneness in Palestinian society. And then they hug their kids without end, like Yahya Sinwar with his young son dressed up as a martyr. All these Afghan police commanders holding young boys in their offices for regular abuse Rory Stewart himself talks about in the first podcast with Sam Harris and about which the Americans couldn't do anything. Here in Europe, too, in the Muslim quarters they expect you to be on the look out for little boys. So all in all we have youth bulges, sexual abuse and Islam that all contribute to make societies violent. And then there are the other half of the population.
Yes sir I saw the video..that young lady were almost lynched in public if it wasn't for the brave police lady
Yes. I am phobic towards belief systems that are sexist and violent. Is that a bad thing? Is it bad to be phobic of violence?
Don’t tell that to Antwan Kumiya!
A phobia is an irrational fear. That's what makes the term Islamophobia so fucking stupid, because the fear is there but it isn't irrational at all.
@@Vince01agreed
youre all stupid for attacking a religion intentionally, almost wishng to antagonise elements within it@@Vince01
Rory is a politician and as such is comfortable in the world of anecdote and narrative.
Yep
This is unfair. I understand where Rory is coming from.
Yes, exactly. He's less of a proper intellectual, and more of a humanist (which can sound nice but ignores reality)
@@AnAn___ I also understand where he is coming from, even if I disagree, but the enormous number of whataboutisms in this discussion did get on my nerves.
@@wasneeplus There are many different islams. Many of them are very similar to Sam Harris and practice meditation and believe in nonduality (muraqabah irfan sufis)
A ton of muslims vote for Trump in the USA, the nonleft in India and conservatives in other parts of the world.
There isn't a clear binary between liberal muslims and islamists. There is a deep spectrum in between. And people live in this spectrum and fluid ambiguity. Most people believe many seemingly contradictory things at the same time and are constantly changing and evolving.
This deep understanding and nimbleness is needed to dismantle islamism around the world.
Rory has also lived in many different muslim countries for a long time. And what Rory believes is right for the places he has lived. They are not right for the UK which might have the most conservative islamist muslims in the world.
Thank you for exposing Mr. Stewart as a master of obfuscation. He is smooth as a snake.
Obfuscation is exactly the word I had in my head.
Indeed
👍
Rory is an islam fan boy. He's spent years of his life in islamic nations (as he said). He should def' talk with ex-Muslims.
Rory, you are experiencing the intellectual turmoil that comes from rejecting reason ... don't fight it, you are a smart guy.
I honestly don’t think Rory is smart. I think it’s an illusion brought on by his voice and mannerisms.
@@ghostofdayinperson I was being facetious 😉
@@BradJonesus Really? But your comment is much, much better when it is not meant ironically, for Rory should indeed understand that the intellectual turmoil he's experiencing comes from his conscience rebelling against his rejecting reason.
I don't think Rory rejects sam reasons, just his own humanity, and intuition is telling him that ultimately we are all human and that confuting an ideology so deep routed into a society and its people as innately bad, isn't the way to address the issue.
@@Llooktook If that were true, why doesn't Rory say so and explain how he would address Sam's legitimate concerns? - No, Rory is a true islamophobe, sincerely afraid of offending Muslims, because he cannot separate anymore the Muslim sinner from the Muslim supremacist sin. And that is a truly dangerous position, because it means that he has stopped recognising his own humanity in the other side (the Muslims). When you cannot tell your brother anymore why he is seriously wrong, you stopped being his brother, full stop. - The islamists have invented the accusation of islamophobia for their own Muslim supremacist reasons, and the West, like Rory Stewart, out of sincere islamophobia, has largely taken it to heart, which in the eyes of Muslims makes Westerners look devious and insincere. Because it would indeed be far more honest to respond to the charge of islamophobia straightforwardly with a declaration of war against ALL Muslims who do not renounce Muslim supremacism, as we cannot tolerate Muslim intolerance if we want to keep our open and free societies open and free. - When Muslims do not express revulsion at the idea of avenging the Prophet's honour by murdering the entire editorial board of Charlie Hebdo, how can they be surprised at being met with the same revulsion? But surprised they are. And therefore profoundly despised. - In the West we're all far more islamophobic than we care to admit. And not admitting it, even to ourselves, is a profound mistake. Because it reveals that we do not understand ourselves and our so called universal values we keep talking about without knowing how to embody and demonstrate them. And there can be no doubt about who's benefiting most from that confusion, when the West is clearly weakened by it.
Love the appology in the beginning, a true example to follow! Then he just avoids the points and duck the questions as if everything is fine and dandy just because his experience is excellent, ignoring the fact many others repeatable have a another experience as we know. No urge to listen to the rest because of that.
Yeah I just finished and Sam’s outro that says “want to listen to the rest of this? Please subscribe.” Nah, man. I’ll pay not to have to listen to any more of that none-sense from Roy.
I don't think you understand Rory. I am a huge fan of his.
Love Sam Harris too.
Yes, his set of friends would be a certain kind, not a proper representation of the whole community.
@@nealdee1755 There is a lot more to it than that.
Most muslims have not studied the Koran or Hadiths and know little about their religion from a scholarly point of view. They might be into meditation and personal transformation and have liberal femnist lbgtq+ friendly views.
Islam in much of asia is syncretic and their views are similar to eastern philosophy. Believing in all religions is common among Asian syncretic muslims.
@@AnAn___ yes, in southeast countries which were previously Hindu/Buddhist such as Indonesia/Malaysia, but this is not the case in Middle East/West Asia where most don't have any interaction with eastern religions
Rory should look at the polls that show the extreme viewpoints that the muslim community holds, rather than using his anecdotal experiences. Science 101. Anecdotal experiences are not representative of reality. Most muslim majority countries have very harsh laws and this is easy to understand if you can see that majority of the muslim population is far less liberal than what Rory likes to believe.
lol YOU should look at the polls. Have you done so recently? Just look at the pew polls from country to country about what the Islamic community supports. Rory is not making arguments based on pure anecdote, he is saying that there are entire countries that behave differently than what Sam is stereotyping them as, and it is supported by the polling data. That is why there are no professional scholars who take Sam's view on this because it is one-sided and overly simplistic...it treats all of Islam as a single group prone to violence. Its an incredibly harmful way to view a religion and its people
@@radscorpion8care to list some of those polls?
I have spent much time in Malaysia. I know people from Malaysia and Indonesia who have considered apostasy, and people who have apostatised. While they may not be murdered for doing so, the consequences are severe. My brother in laws wife was denounced by her family for denouncing Islam. She had to do it for immigration reasons, so that she could live with her child and husband in Malaysia, as he is not Muslim and we told him he must not convert. The cruelty her family displayed when she was in utter distress was shocking. The religion is more important than your own family, even in the most moderate of countries.
I agree with Rory that many Muslims are wonderful people and that there are many great things about Islam, but it does not excuse the fact that there is a rot at the centre of Islam that can emerge at any time, and until that rot is dealt with appropriately, Islam will be a threat to humanity.
Sam Harris is doing the great work of exposing the rot. I think it all really boils down to Muslims being able to admit that Mohammed was not perfect, and not everything he said was the word of God.
Harris is not exposing "rot" within Islam, but rather he's been consistent in exposing Islam for what it is by virtue of its tenets and the adherence by Muslims of those tenets. It's all written in the Quran and Hadith. The problem is he religion itself. He has called Islam "the mother lode of bad ideas". And Harris admitted to Stewart, and has said as much in the past, that not all Muslims are jihadists. But Islam makes it normal and desirable to be a jihadist and the doctrine spells it all out!
If Islam can essentially get with the times as other religions have, it will not pose a threat to western ideals. And by the way, as you know, Harris has been consistently critical of Christianity. But he elegantly spelled out to Stewart the important differences between Islam and all the other religions, contemporaneously speaking and in terms of the horrors they committed in the past.
If they admit that Muhammad was actually a vicious warlord who plagerised his religion and was making up revelations to suit his needs (which is obviously true), then Islam falls apart.
@@Hannibal953able totally agree
Can you list the "many great things about Islam"?
Yet again, I realize that I give people with British accents much more credit than they deserve
When you confuse race with belief.
Indeed!
...you end up sounding like Sam Harris.
Rory, rather like lynchings, the penalty for apostasy does not have to be executed very often for it to be effective.
Rory is revealing his own moral failings. I do believe that Nazi ideology is unspeakably toxic, AND... I’m not prejudice against people who were indoctrinated and I’m certainly not prejudiced against Germans. The fact that Rory cannot distinguish between people and ideas is concerning. The fact that Rory cannot understand how good people can be convinced to do bad things is also concerning.
Rory was not talking about people who were "brainwashed since birth" into following the religion, he was talking about the general population who believe because they found it persuasive
He's not much of an intellectual so he can't understand this.
@@radscorpion8what % are 1st generation believes vs following their parents? is there a study on this somewhere?
@rpion8 You should invest some time studying developmental trajectories. Innocent people vary in levels of susceptibility to manipulation throughout their lifespans. There is no hard cut off point where we start holding someone accountable for being indoctrinated. There is no off and on switch or binary split between being an adult or a child, only in our dualistic minds, not in reality. We need to perceive on a case by case basis and lay our hatred only on the ideas themselves.
@t6uu5tw9j Because he admitted to being incapable of not hating Nazis for what their ideology made them do, implying that he must also hate jihadists as people for what their ideology makes them do. Thus he is unable to accept that a stunningly large number of Muslims sympathize with the extremists, for that would cause him to become prejudice against them as people too.
Sam is able to understand that the worst miseries perpetrated by extremists are examples of supreme confusion, indoctrination and mental illness. Since Sam can maintain compassion he is able to face the reality of the Islam problem without hating. Rory needs some therapy to treat his black and white thinking.
Rory is being dishonest here. Islamophobia is used almost as a synonym for racism in the UK too.
Rorys entire argument is "your large view analysis is wrong because I have muslim friends that are nice"
Im sure there were many confederate racists that were good hosts, yet most agree their ideology correlates heavily with violence.
Another Chris Hedges!
Exactly. The Pew polling results don't lie.
Yep, you nailed it. I think Sam wasted time doing this to show Rory's problem. He can't admit that Islam poses distinct problems as an ideology.
Absolutely! Those who are nice - I also have muslim friends 😅- mostly either western educated or kept their original culture and values while keeping islam only as an identity or/and a utopia.
It is [actually] dangerous to criticize Islam out loud. The threats are credible, and Islam has demonstrated its willingness to kill those that criticize it.
Thank you sam, i'm from saudi and you are 100% correct.
A phobia is only a phobia if the fear is irrational. If you feel fear or are concerned in the presence of an aggressive venomous spider that is not arachnophobia. Having a negative reaction to all spiders irrespective of their species or behaviors is. The same can be applied to a lot of what is discussed in this conversation. If people are motivated by rational fears and concerns, and are free to talk about them, they will produce, on the most part, sane and measured solutions to problems. Bigotry is only compounded by not being able to think and discuss the specific of the issues here.
Was Humza Yousef subjected to Islamaphobia?
as an afghan practicing muslim, i hold that islamophobia is a very flawed term. i feel pateronized and infantalized when somone says "criticizing islam is islamophobia." we are capable of having a rational debate. plz dont think of us as explosive oversensitive childish creatures
Even though Rory's apologies seem genuine, I'm still very disappointed. I gained a high opinion of him during various interviews about Brexit. He struck me as a mature, level-headed politician on the conservative spectrum. Him so easily act as a genuine intellectual on the podcast and then turn around and flip the entire character of the conversation vis a vis a third party is a significant breach of trust.
Exactly. Even though his apologies seemed sincere, they were still of the "I'm sorry I got caught" sort.
When he tried to talk about meditation instead of Islam you could tell where this one was going. The deflections and distractions were embarrassing.
Great conversation. Also, in some ways, kinda... devastating to the pro-Islamic view. Rory is about as gentle, intelligent, well-spoken, patient and honest a interlocutor that Sam could find to take up the opposite position... and he (Rory) failed absolutely miserably. He just basically kept coming back to "but not ALL Muslims" defense. Great guy, great intentions, but shockingly little in the way of actual counterpoints to Sam's arguments.
that argument always frustrates me. imagine it being night and you're gonna walk home alone and you think about cutting a shortcut through a town. but your friend says "no don't go through there at night, there's a lot of crime there and a high rate of muggings, you'll get mugged walking alone there at night" and you respond with "how dare you insult the people of that town. i'm sure most people there are normal decent people. how dare you call them muggers because of a few rotten apples" then it misses the point. i guess whenever someone says "but not ALL Muslims" the response should be "okay, so i'm talking about the ones that DO."
Was it failure? Or just his way of conceding the debate without saying so openly?
@@jhibbitt1 What is frustrating and astonishing is that the 'you cannot generalize in this way' defense is still used so routinely, when it is nothing but a red herring. When I say 'Muslims this or that' I don't mean to say 'all Muslims ...' (or I would be saying it) nor 'a negligible number of Muslims ...' (or I wouldn't be talking about them), I mean to say 'too many Muslims ...' for me not to talk about them.
He also relied on quite a bit of what about *other bad things * style deflection.
It was a bit disappointing
I'm from the UK and presumably this was recorded before another devastating blow to Rory's argument that Islam is not a threat to open society in the UK - when a vote on Gaza in Parliament was thrown into chaos because the Labour Party feared some of their MPs would face physical threats if they didn't vote for a ceasefire. The Speaker (in charge of the House of Commons) had to change the terms of the vote in light of this threat, causing uproar.
Rory's personal experiences in Muslim countries and his consequent takeaways about the culture simply would never have happened if he were a female.
If you had tried to do what he did as a female, he would have been raped, stoned, dismembered, murdered, etc.
This is why I have to take everything he says with skepticism. It's simply not important for him to consider that fact, when he's considering what he thinks of Islam and Muslims. He has the luxury of not thinking about that.
So he can't understand his own experiences because he's a man?
Thank you Sam for exposing these pseudo intellectual hypocrites.
Rory didn’t really put up much of an argument if we are being honest here
I am hearing this and I am subscribed to the podcast feed. You rock Sam Harris!
The Religion of Peace - The Quran:
"When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them" (Quran 9:5).
"When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads" (Sura 47:4).
"Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate" (Quran Sura 9:73).
"The true believers fight for the cause of God, but the infidels fight for the devil. Fight then against the friends of Satan" (Quran Sura 4:76).
"Who are these idolaters and unbelievers and infidels? Those who are not strict Muslims. Muhammad is God's Apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another" (Quran Sura 48:29).
Exactly. Give me the 'lay down arms and turn the other cheek' approach of Christianity any day.
All the Qu'ran does is encourage escalation. Christ offers an alternative way of resolving potentially escalating conflict. JC all the way.
lol Christian’s have killed more people than Islam ever will.
@@d.lav.2198 Just because Islam is the worst of the world religions doesn‘t mean Christianity is therefor true. All of it is non evidence based literature about Gods. You can believe in Zeus for all I care, but it is a close to reality as Lord of the Rings.
@@zoyboy1914How dare you compare that drivel to the sacred word!? For Frodo!
I CANNOT wait to hear the full thing tonight when I go to sleep.
Then, re-listen on my way to work because I fell asleep 5 min into the night session.
This is the way
I think Rory Stewart is an interlectual lightweight and siolist. That's bad enough but I am also skeptical of his willingness to engage in good faith, he seems to have more faces than a clock tower.
*intellectual
*sciolist
I love Sam, and listen to all his podcasts. I consider him to be one of the most level-headed, rational people around. Plus he's the one person who's successfully introduced meditation to me. In this conversation, I found myself agreeing more with Rory's perspective. Sam's view on Islam, while courageous and well-thought out, is very one-sided, and it was fantastic to hear him debating with someone with a strong, alternative perspective.
Rory's argument is 90% whataboutism and red herrings... But at least he's polite
If you have to constantly interrupt someone when speaking then you’re not listening to what they’re saying… if you’re not listening then how can you comprehend what they’re saying to even have a rebuttal.
Rory is wrong about apostasy and criticism of the religion in Indonesia. People are jailed or worse under actively enforced blasphemy laws instituted by a single religion. He is wrong in saying otherwise. Full stop.
Sam is criticizing a system of ideas. Criticizing beliefs isn't the same as racism or attacking people personally. This is the same glitch that has bedeviled countless Dawkins/Shermer/Krauss/Hitchens/Harris/etc. debates about religion. (I think Sam is 100 percent right that many pro-religious debaters of all types encourage this confusion as a tactic to make it harder to talk clearly about religion.)
Without religion we will be left with Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Sam harris, Steven Pinker etc. They teach us the good ideas such as treasuring every moment OF THIS LIFE. Let us also then appareciate liberalism that has provided us with the fastest methodology for peace and prosperity.
I tend to think that this 'secular' misunderstanding of religion in the West is a major weakness when dealing with Islam and Muslims. Simply put: faith isn't science, we are all agnostic, i.e. unable to know anything about a transcendent God, and therefore we are all reduced to have faith, even when we do not recognize it as a religion. The question isn't whether you believe in God, the question is what it is you believe in. Religious doctrines are never more than signposts, they aren't the road itself, which leads to Rome even without the signposts. And the doctrines have normally arisen to guard against error, and are not meant to be taken as positive instructions for anything else. I only understood this after discovering Eric Voegelin, a not very well known German-American philosopher of history. Pope Benedict's thinking is close to Voegelin, and I still believe that the pope's Regensburg lecture of 2006 on 'Faith and Reason', in which he criticized both Islamic absolutism and Western scientism as rationally deficient, was the pope's honest and personal attempt to see whether a dialogue with Islam was possible. He was, of course, quickly deterred by the offended and violent reactions coming from the Islamic world, with Erdogan in the lead. In a similar vein, there is Frank van Dun, a not very well known Belgian philosopher of natural law, who has a convincing article on the Decalogue as the 'Perfect Law of Freedom'.
Rory comes on and apologizes, and you think there's going to be a good convo, and immediately he goes to the racist card.
I honestly don't understand why Sam Harris has to continually make the differentiation between Islam and Muslims.
He literally wrote an entire book eviscerating Christianity and not one peep about racism. Muslims are as diverse as Christians, yet Muslims are seen as "brown people."
I think Rory's opinion is incredibly biased by his time spent in Muslim countries where I'm sure the vast majority of his time was spent with great people, who want what everybody else wants, which is just to live a good, decent life.
The fact religion, and specifically Islam, is seen as untouchable in terms of criticism is why we can not have productive conversations.
It seems they agree on all but two things:
1. How much is doctrine and how much is historical contingency
2. How big is the threat and how much should you emphasise this issue.
I can only presume this was recorded BEFORE the events in the UK Parliament last week, which would have further eviscerated Rory's claim that the UK is not under threat as an open society from Islam. For those who don't know - a vote on Gaza in Parliament was thrown into chaos because the Labour Party feared some of their MPs would face physical threats if they didn't vote for a ceasefire. The Speaker (in charge of the House of Commons) had to change the terms of the vote in light of this threat, causing uproar.
I just wish Sam had had this fact to hand or it had come to light before the recording. Rory's claims look ridiculous in light of it. Rory also chose (knowingly, i presume) to omit the killing of David Amess MP in his ledger of the threat posed by Islam, and the fact that a teacher in Leeds had to go into hiding because of threats to his life, after showing a picture of Mohammed in class. Rory knows all this and relied on Sam's lack of UK current affairs to even the score. Sam focussed on Mike Freer which was a good case study, but the events in Parliament really do put the cherry on it.
Born in one of the colonies, on to Eton, then Balliol and... yihaa! - straight into the Diplomatic Service, followed by cabinet post under Cameron. Lives in Kensington and a country house in Cumbria.
Honestly, Rory, how often do you visit Blackburn?
Quite...
The UK meaning of Islamophobia is the same as the USA. It’s basically calling someone racist. Rory was not being honest.
this was one of the biggest issues I had with rory's excuses... he's being deliberately obtuse about the term to "win" a silly point, it's completely dishonest
Thanks Sam!
A day after October 7th, I entered a grocery store in Haifa (mixed city in Israel), I was afraid the Arab worker would stab me or something. A day later we started talking and got to know each other. He admitted that the Arabs are "barbaric" (his own words, I would never suggest that). I'm a left wing Israeli. Today, my opinions would be considered extreme left maybe. To suggest that there is nothing wrong with Islam is blindness, ignorance, and wishful thinking.
But - Islam won't go away, so the only option is reform. Let's not forget there are many gems in Islam, along with much ugliness and cruelty, some of it has roots in the Quran. How is it to be done, I have no idea.
Rory is talking like a Politician running for office trying to please everyone including his Muslim voters
This was a great episode! And it gave me a lot to think about. I love how both parties were so respectful of each other. Would love to see more people like Rory on your show, as in people who are willing to discuss about topics which you have a different view on in such a respectful manner.
Sam's patience with what seems like willful obtuseness is extraordinary.
There's a problem with what Rory is saying, which is: If you criticize Islam and find certain beliefs unacceptable, you are to some extent inevitably looking at Muslims as being unacceptable. I don't buy it, but even if I did...what? Because of that, we can't criticize Islam at all ever? We just have to agree at every turn? Rubbish, we're not buying. It's still unacceptable to hide behind the lame shield of "Islamophobia" everytime beliefs are brought into question.
Rory is such a sweet, honest to goodness guy that it’s hard to be mad even! Specially since just yesterday, there was an incident in Lahore Pakistan where I m from where a lady was about to lynched by a mob because they felt the dress she is wearing has Quran verses and the mob deemed it indecent to wear it on your body! It was just Arabic word meaning sweet…”halwa” the ignorance and yet violence is unparalleled in Islamic countries and glossing over it is not helping specially the residents of these countries
Reminds me of what happened to Farkhunda Malikzada.
Yes, and as long as women cannot talk men out of it, we're stuck I'm afraid. The same goes for the youth-bulge problems, which also contribute to the violence in a major way.
Do you mean "unparalleled in nonIslamic countries"???
Rory seems like a genuinely good human being agree or disagree with his points. I respect him more for coming back on!
lol
Good, Sam. Much much respect!
I think it’s obvious this conversation was done before the ends that transpired in parliament last week whereby Islamist groups altered proceedings… I think Rory made good points overall, especially regarding that when you take a poll it may present views worse than they are in conversation, but he seems really naive about the threat Islamists (I.e. the extreme) are having on the UK. I suppose this is because he talks fondly of Islam, which I understand and already pointed out is valid. But it doesn’t change the fact, and he never gave a good answer to this, why there is only one group that you can’t stand up and criticize without genuine fear for your life.
Rory should talk to ex-Muslims.
Sam Harris should talk to Muslims and explain why he feels they should be denied their human rights
Only scholars being allowed to criticize Islam is like saying you have to be a chef to criticize food. If I taste something and don’t like it, that’s a valid opinion and I should be able to say it. Chefs/scholars can get into the nuances but they aren’t the purveyors of truth.
The example would be fitting if the food was poisoned and you can‘t mention it since you aren‘t a chef.
@@zoyboy1914Yet, you would just have to observe the billions of people consuming this food to realise it's not poisoned
@@jmc5335 sure, Pakistan and Yemen and the other Islamic countries are awesome for homosexuals, human rights, women, and ex-muslims 👍🏼
NO PROBLEMS AT ALL, NOTHING TOO SEE HERE 😂
Bruh nobody is blind but do what you want
@@zoyboy1914 Absolutely love how you put emphasis on a sentence that makes you look like an idiot.
Thanks Sam for speaking the truth about this violent religion and there's too many dead people to prove this man wrong.
François-Xavier Bellamy, the French MEP, has this fine counter-argument: "Islamophobia mostly kills those who are accused of it."
Rory is fantastic at red herrings
Wow, Rory Stewart is a highly skilled equivocator. I would like to see if it is possible to hear from him again if he were to do a one month trial of vociferously speaking out against Islam. I propose we would never have to suffer listening to him again.
This was absolutely painful.
Sam Harris has been pretty vociferous against Islam for several years now, and it's evidently still possible to hear from him, as demonstrated by the fact that you're commenting under the 356th episode of his podcast.
@@gordonstrong5232 The actual teaching of the book makes Sam's concerns perfectly justified. Who the hell cares about personal beliefs if the book justifies terrorism.
I learned that word today from watching a clip of Destiny pointing out Piers Morgan misused it. Equivocation
@@hokiturmixHilarious how you missed the point.
It was quite perceptive of Sam to compare Rory to T.E. Lawrence. It would be cruel to say Rory was the perfect example of one of those members of the British diplomatic corps who had 'gone native'. Happened all the time during the heyday of the Empire.
Real shame how Rory threw you under the bus during his interview with Hamza.
In this context the term 'under the bus' is quite apt.
All/none claims aren't useful, since there's always a counterexample. The main point Sam should've made much quicker here is that Islam has a *critical mass* of followers who are either very violent themselves, supportive of violence, or indifferent to it. This violence is expressly encouraged by the religious texts. There is an inverse relationship between the level of Islamic piety and respect for human rights in both individuals and countries with Islamic governments alike.
Rory just doing the jordan peterson special justyfing religion where he blurs his thoughts and stands up for things that arent reasonable to avoid alienating his audience
That's what I don't want to believe, but fear, to be true.
Exactly, always funny when people can‘t critizice Islam rightously with the arguement in the back of their head being: But then we would also have to say „Christianity is made up and potentially dangerous“ YES YOU FINALLY GOT IT religions are all made up stories about gods can we finally move on we have bigger fish to fry as a society
One of the best podcasts in the series. A master class in sincere and productive exchange of ideas. Kudos to Sam for inviting a guest who has an opposing view and kudos to Rory for demonstrating the etiquette of respectful discord. Whatever one may think of the content, we can learn a lot from the styles and techniques of the long-forgotten craft of sincere debate. A welcome break from the echo chambers..thank you for this.
Completely agree, brave of both. Rory is a great figure I have been following for some time over here, I love the podcast Rest is Politics and Leading. I felt Sam was dominating this debate with his arguments though, also taking long speech time before allowing Rory to respond.
Rory utterly embarrasses himself
Even if you grant Rory's apologia that extremism, repressive views and violent intolerance in Islam are purely circumstantial, it is frankly laughable to deny that its a real problem when the overwhelming majority of recognised terrorist organisations in the world are explicitly adherent to Islamic ideology. The solution, according to these people, is not to force change through criticism but to tolerate and outright validate them in the name of inclusivity.
Christopher Hitchens was SPOT ON about Islam and nothing that’s happened since 1989 has changed my mind
Sam politely giving historic and statistics facts and getting back "you can't say that, i have so many islamic friends".
Actually I think Rory put a lot of historical facts and statistics that completely rocked Sam back onto his heels and a way he rarely encounters.
Commending Rory for such humility! In a world dominated by ego bot many people would offer a genuine apology. I wish people would learn from this behavior. Something to instill in children. The art of apologizing with dignity is really a skill everyone should practice.
I've not listened to the full thing because I'm not (yet) a subscriber but what I've heard strikes me as a likely example of both perspectives having validity because each has come from a different experience: Sam primarily from focus on the ideas and awareness of both their potential and actual practice in the real world, Rory from the point of view of lived experience with other human beings who happen to share some or all of those dreadful ideas whereas neither he personally nor his loved ones have suffered as a result of, say, the expected punishment for apostasy.
Someone very close to me has what I would call some appallingly intolerant ideas towards some sections of society, which I find disturbing and wrong, yet is still a warm and loving human being to me and to many others. However, I think I would feel differently toward her were I to be in the group she hates.
Nope, anecdotal evidence is not a "valid perspective" when someone shows mass phenomena.
All of Rory's experience does not excuse him from failing to honestly address Sam's questions.
Oh, wow. I didn't expect this so soon. What happened after the initial conversation was unfortunate. Listening now with the hope that this second conversation is as civil and informative as the first one.
How can any one deny the connection between Islam and suicide bombers? In all honesty?
Rory repeatedly brings up his own anecdotal experiences, which may or may not be true, while I can pick up a copy of the NYTimes on any given day and see that insane mass violence is a routine practice of Islam, from Morocco to Malaysia.
Yes, but none of Rory’s friends were involved in that violence, or at least they didn’t support it, or at least they didn’t tell Rory they supported it. So stop being so negative about Islam. Seriously, that is what his “arguments” came down to. It’s another use of the “lived experience” argument, which is basically immune to any contradiction.
My ancestry is from the former Yugoslavia (Mother Serbian, Father Bosnian). For me, Islam never felt right, for starters most of my fathers side of the family were closet drinkers, so I would not call them real muslims. I grew up in Australia and going to the mosque there was weird, it was mostly Pakistani's and us Bosnians. All of us kids hated learning Arabic to read the Quaran, so we would go out in the back yard and play cricket, Pakistani kids love cricket and Australians love cricket, so that was it for us. When I moved to Ukraine a decade ago, I was baptised into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, thus correcting a mistake my father's ancestors made in the Balkans hundreds of years ago because of the Ottoman Turks. Anyway, thanks for the scholarship Mr. Harris and I hope this comment helps as a kind of "value add" to your quite lively discussion with Mr. Stewart!
Omgosh these at episodes that should’ve be free!!! I mean we would a benefit so much from these conversations Sam 🙏🙏🙏🙏.
before oct 7 i would have agreed with rory that sam was falling for a broad generalization fallacy of muslims. I still want to believe muslims are largely peaceful but we have seen an almost complete failure of the muslim world to condemn oct 7 without equivocation. that american muslims would side with hamas against joe biden's mostly middle road approach terrifies me and i dont' know how to reconcile this
Yes, very disturbing, when you listen to someone like Omar Suleiman and his huge following, who is with the Muslim Brotherhood I believe, and a gentle but relentless holy war against the West propagandist. (He has been interviewed by Lex Fridman, not by Sam Harris, unfortunately.) [Copy of my earlier Comment:] Jihad, and more generally the easy justification of violence, as if it were a legitimate substitute for negotiation, are one aspect of the problem. But more disturbing even is this supreme idea of Islamic justice that seems to go without even the notion of impartiality. As if Muslim suffering by itself were enough to prove injustice and hold the unbelievers to account. In Palestine under the British mandate, as the majority in the country they fought against Jewish immigration for their exclusive right of national self-determination in Palestine (or more exactly: Muslim supremacy), discounting diaspora Jews and refusing compromise, and then very quickly resorted to violence as if it were nothing. Since then they complain about the Nakbah without even mentioning the war that led to it, as if the Zionists were to blame for both the war and the Nakbah.
Rory Stewart on another podcast next month: "Sam Harris literally murdered me on his podcast again. I literally died and I'm literally dead now. 😢 Praise Allah and long live Islam the only one true religion of peace."
Why are these people always so predictably two-faced?
😅very true and very well put
I won't be told what not to be afraid of. Not all dogs bite but I approach all dogs with caution.
man was once afraid of his own shadow, but eventually we learned that our shadow does not harm us
Surely if you draw a cartoon, or write a book and someone feels they have the right to take your life. And you fear that, or need to speak out against that.
That’s not islamophobia. Which doesn’t actually exist.That’s the fault of radicalised Islam.
We should be free criticise radicals no matter who they are.
As someone raised in the Islamic faith, I believe in the importance of scrutinising all ideas. However, it's counterproductive to stigmatise an entire religion instead of focusing on specific ideas. Islam, like any other belief system, has beautiful concepts such as human equality, while other aspects, like apostasy, may be more contentious.
If we criticise specific ideas irrespective of who holds them, I think we will get lot better response. However, by making such claims against a whole religion makes everyone defensive and force them to play identity politics.
I’ve met thousands of Muslims because of my job and was never afraid of one of them. However, because of the sheer population of Muslims and the intensity of their beliefs even a small percentage of them supporting violence in the name of their religion is a major problem. And Sam is right. There are a LOT of people who have to go through life pretending to believe in something in order to keep their head attached to their shoulders.
I appreciate this conversation a lot. It’s rare that Sam’s guests disagree with him so vehemently so it was great to hear a well expressed opposing view. I could actually see where Rory was coming from although I cannot agree with his mild opinion about Islam. I think we’d be blindsided in the West soon if we took his position so i fully support sharp responses to Islamic extremism and attempts of altering our secular laws
Sam Harris has rarely ever had anyone on his podcast who is likely to disagree with him. I think having a conservative on his show who would conclude he was Islamophobic was a real shock, as he would never have expected such a guest would draw that conclusion. Sam manages to show why Rory's first conclusion was correct though, and that the apology was a mistake.
@@Hercules_the_Great i think we listened to different podcasts. Sam clearly admitted their understanding of Islamophobia is different but also Rory failed to admit Islam is a problem due to lack of lot moderate voices. He kept saying it’s just about the people, not bad ideas which is so painfully untrue
@@miszcz, well I think their understanding of what islamophobia means was pretty much the same. I think it is fair to say Rory did not draw the line to racism which others might.
Otherwise you heard what Sam wants you to hear, because he would never let the conversation go outside of his narrow focus. Sam will never countenance the idea that there is more to extremism than the mere ideas. Whenever he is drawn to look at the historical, political or economic context, he diverts back to his narrative about how backward Islam is. As if every other religion was not also capable of such backwardness. Starkly, he doesn't do the same with other types of extremism, such as the with the Christchurch massacre.
@@Hercules_the_Great Sam is the most honest and consistent person you can debate so what you’re implying is strange. He actually admits all other religions are similarly dumb, especially he agreed Hinduism is a rising cause for concern. Still he just thinks Islam is just a much more immediate and dangerous threat. And the thing with extremism is that there are bad people everywhere but it’s bad ideas like religions, that will make good people do evil things. That’s the whole point why Rory’s position is just so frustratingly naive. He just refuses to see the reality for what it is
@@miszcz I agree Sam Harris is consistent, I have been listening to him for a long time. What is consistent is he does not accept, as I have said a few times now, that there are historical, political, and economic factors which affect why people act the way they do. He started off on religion, and he started saying these things about Islam after 9/11, understandably. He has not interrogated the context of Islamic extremism. He may be dishonest, or he just does not see his inconsistency. If he does start to talk about Hinduism, will he consider the far right movement within India, will he consider the history which has shaped the country, will he consider the very (and increasingly) desperate economic situation in India? Or will he just say Hinduism is the motherload of bad ideas, and leave it at that, because that is what he does with Islam.
The dangerous thing about what Sam concentrates on is that religion doesn't change on its own. It changes because it has to catch up with the political reality. You can do that through effective political movements. He thinks you can do it by changing the religion first, a solution which has no historical precedent.