I wish the audience had more time to ask questions. It was a good listen, though. Thanks!

Agreed. Very interesting listen. However, Reza was arguing a "spiritual experience" at the end, and not religion. He picked religion apart so far that it wasn't the dogmatic, bible believing, intelligent design pushing crap that is what religion has become. I don't care that religion is "supposed to be" based on the golden rule. It hardly is anymore, and it interferes with my life everyday, which is the "religion" i have a problem with.

i really dont understand reza aslan here. isnt religion without the dogma simply philosophy? philosophy can try to describe and/or explain non-materialist phenomenon (reza seemed to be suggesting that the atheist point of view is flawed for only focusing on that which is provable, and therefore material) without having the impediment of certainty or absolutism. religions do evolve just as philosophies do, but the only way religions evolve is by breaking their own rules, so they evolve very slowly.

about the debate, it was pretty interesting, but a bit dissapointing. why was there some third guy there, always interrupting conversation and changing the subject?

Did Sam Harris actually claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is a jihadist organization?

gbfoi, I think that seems about right. Aslan seems to be taking out the metaphysical aspect to religion in a sense to talk about a "moral of the story" but this is not how religion is often seen. Moreover, the morality derived from interpretation can be flawed even when looking at it from a metaphorical perspective. The argument simply does not hold water.

It is nothing more than a philosophy. Atheists are atheist with respect to their belief in a higher power. To suggest that atheists can't or don't participate in the how we think things ought to be, the ethical questions is obviously absurd. The theist has a rule based ethical system whereas a person using reason works out what is good in human terms by logically comparing, contrasting, and examining different options. There is nothing supernatural about the process. Reza's religion as he describes it requires no God and seems to use the idea of a God simply to add authority to his philosophy.

Exactly! I would even go further in saying that the Bible's "philosophy" is rather poor. We could get superior philosophical insights from, say, classical American literature than from the Bible. For the most part the Bible consists of feeble and morally unstable parables, horrid stories, and divine commands that lend nothing profound to a philosophical conversation because that “morality” is given as an absolutist order (with threat of punishment even!) and not concerned with explaining why certain ethical claims are morally respectable.

Moreover, the morality that we do find in scripture tends to be either plagiarized, like the Golden Rule, and/or not especially profound. Sam Harris has given the Golden Rule a rather high status than it actually deserves, in my view. Not everyone wishes to be treated the way one treats him/herself. Would an atheist like to be treated the way a Christian treats him/herself? Would a Christian like to be treated the way an atheist treats him/herself? These tensions of conflict are incredibly visible when examining at the social conflicts here in America and in other parts of the world.

An excellent discussion, which, among other things makes it painfully obvious that an hour and a half is a negligible amount of time to address even a fraction of issues that are raised by this discourse. I have read No God, but God and found Aslan to be an eloquent, highly intelligent, and passionate author on the subject of Islam. Of course, at no point in his book does he address the validity of religious texts, or the validity of belief in existence of God. I think the disagreement between Aslan and Harris arises from their respective framing of the issues. Harris injects a healthy dose of cynicism into the religious discourse. Aslan finds himself in a position that is similar to one I occasionally find myself in. As a person for whom the study of Islam and the religion itself has formed a major person of his life, spirituality or correctness of belief aside, he feels a sense of loyalty to other adherents of Islam and is ashamed and pained by the violence in its name. At the same time, Aslan, to an extent, is a realist. He understand that causes of unconditional belief, religious or otherwise, are not likely to go away any time soon, and will persist in one form or another. Indeed, Aslan acknowledges the follies of dogmatism, whether it's religious or secular in nature.

Where I disagree with him, is in the comparison that he, perhaps negligently, makes by juxtaposing religion and science. The atrocities in the name or enable by science are a result of dogma, not the cause thereof. Religious and non-religious dogma is perfectly capable of utilizing the fruits of scientific discovery to intimidate and kill, or, alternatively to misconstrue the scientific principles to its advantage. Science on the other hand is contrary to and separate from utilizing religion to its advantage, short of telling people it's God's will to conduct more experiments. For all the good and bad that faith incites, that good or bad is capable of existing independently of religion, with a probable increase in the "good" area. When one looks at the exponentially accelerating progress of discoveries in every field of science and the expediency with which some of the more inhumane occurrences in science were either eliminated or quickly condemned by the rest of the scientific community. Those who enable the creation of nuclear weapons lament and condemn their use, despite the infinite beneficial applications of their discoveries. The maker of the hammer is not to blame if the hammer is used to kill someone, and will certainly disagree with such a use. On the other side of the spectrum, Islam in particular (I apologize for singling it, as there are numerous other examples) has a tendency to supress open condemnation of atrocities in its name even on the moderate level. Religious progress is in stark contrast to the self-correcting, both substantively and ethically, expedient qualities of the scientific method. It is, and has been, jarringly slow at self-correcting. Part of it is the natural tendency to suppress the opposing views that sufficiently endanger the orthodoxy, and without a mechanism to analyze the validity of the belief, even if it is wrong or harmful, it takes a different kind of catalyst.

Anyways, I can talk about this issue for hours, and i don't have nearly the same amount of expertise and knowledge than the panelists. My quarrel with the religious and non-religious dogma transcends the criticism of actions that are generally regarded as impermissible by the "civilized" society. Just like racism, although no longer acceptable in U.S. as an open declaration, is currently much more damaging when supressed in people's thoughts.

It is interesting to hear the argument that the reformation somehow moderated Christianity and Judaism, a greater crock of rubbish I have never heard. What has made Christianity and Judaism 'moderate' is the social context in which it exists. Osama Bin Laden would get nowhere, except jail, in western society as we have moved away from the religious basing of views and morals to a point now where, those who are religious, simply choose what sounds good while leaving child stoning, wife beating and slavery as a sour aftertaste of historic thought. Unfortunately in the Muslim world, but most specificly in the middle east, there is no such moderation, schools are still religiously based and the Imams and Zealots are still held as speakers of unquestionable truth.

Until the societies in which Islam is prevalent go through an 'enlightenment' equivalent we, as innocent bystanders, are doomed to feel the effects of religious nuttery.

Here's a link to the video (RealPlayer) version of it, from the C-SPAN site:

http://www.booktv.org/feature/index.asp?segID=7890&schedID=474

"Did Sam Harris actually claim that the Muslim Brotherhood is a jihadist organization?"

I'm about to listen to it (I'm heavily looking forward to this, as I immensely enjoy both of these guys but have only read Reza's book), so I can't answer you question. However, the Muslim Brotherhood is indeed the root of all Jihadists today from Morocco to the Philippines.

1 - Hamas was a splinter of their Gaza branch.

2 - Khomeinism is a Shi'ite variation ("tainted" with non-sectarian global revolution jagoff idealism that Iran quickly abandoned)

3 - The main terror group that formed out of Khomeinism was Hezbollah, heavily influenced by Muslim Brotherhood Islamism.

4 - Egyptian Islamic Jihad (al-Zawahiri's organization) and the Islamic Group (jamaat-i islami) were outgrowth factions that became ultraviolent when the Egyptian govt. tried to reign in the Brotherhood. Ended in Sadat's assassination and horrifying bloodshed throughout the 80's and 90's in the slums.

5 - When Nasser exiled Ikhwan out of Egypt they found asylum in Saudi Arabia, a fellow Salafist nation who took to their common predecessor (Ibn Taimiyyah). The radicalism of the Muslim Brothers imbued with their uncompromising arch-traditionalism to create a newer, uglier more fanatic and politically pro-active beast. The result was the transnational jihad in Afghanistan against the Russians, al-Qaeda, 3/4ths of the 9-11 hijackers, and the backbone of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq today.

6 - The Chechen Resistence during the first Chechen war was mostly irredentist, secular and nationalist, but as time dragged on, and after the arrival of al-Khattab and others, it took on a Wahhabi-Salafist face. By the second Chechen war it was mostly Jihadi by nature. Their literature of choice is Qutb's Milestones.

7 - The Deobandi movement in Pakistan has been heavily financed and imbued with Wahhabi-Salafist evangelism from Saudi Imams and Sheikhs. After the rule of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan has become a massive hotbed of extremist ideology.

8 - Pakistani intelligence has wielded an extremely powerful religious-guerilla hand in Afghanistan with the cooperation of Saudi finance that culminated in the Taliban.

9 - Veterans from the Afghan Jihad against the Soviets who returned to Algeria created the various Salafist organizations there that took part in their bloody decade long civil war and operate in the Maghreb and France to this day.

So yes, the Muslim Brotherhood are responsible for the transnational jihad, even though their surface political elements (that aren't banned throughout the Middle East) pretend to play nice ... until they get power. Then you'll see all the 'right' people hanging from the lightpoles.

interesting discussion. i was very impressed by harriss' ability to hunker down and stick to his points in the face of aslans' hysterical equivicating on the relationship of islamic dogma to muslim violence. i wish there had been a buzzer that would go off and indicate a fine or penalty every time aslan used the word "profound" as a weapon or a sheild. he sounds like a victim of stockholm syndrome, and i think erick and norm are right, if i understand them correctly, that in his desperate twisting and turning to separate islam from the stain of violence, he actually wound up removing god from the equation-which is also what harris is trying to do, so they ended on a nice note of unity. :)

regarding the point about the destructiveness of the jewish dogma which claims that god gave the jews that "little strip of desert", i just wanted to point out that this is also part of both muslim and christian dogma. the muslims and the christians didn't feel threatened by the inclusion of gods' little deal with the jews in their respective religions because they both assumed, at the beginning, that the jews would "see the light" and convert, either to christianity or islam. it was only after it became clear the jews weren't going to cooperate that they "lost their rights".

i also thought it was interesting how the moderater tried at the beginning to equate jewish violence with muslim and christian violence by mentioning both yigal amir and baruch goldstien- two of the best examples of "the exception proving the rule" i can think of. it was a dishonorable move and the panelists were right to stay away from the subject.

and thanks, dionysis, for handling the muslim brotherhood issue. i was shocked at aslans attempt to deny the jihadist connection, but didn't want to make my post any longer than it already was.

Sam Harris: painfully rational in the face of religious apologetics.

Reza Aslan: disappointing loyalist to religious lunacy hiding behind a haze of ambiguity and nonsense. strikes me as being deathly afraid of admitting that his life is a lie. still a nice guy.

Jonathan Kirsch: Insufferable, pompous schmuck. Presence not required or desired.

This "debate" was illustrative of the fact that religion's sanctity is fiercely guarded by the religious. not a surprise, but a point missed by both kirsch and aslan.

The Koran and the Bible are comic books. But Aslan insists on playing in the weeds, completely avoiding the logic of religion in general. Aslan says that the way to combat irrational views of religion is with a rational view of religion. WHAT rational view of religion?? oh, wait, we can't ask that question. let's move on, shall we?

Did it ever occur to Aslan that cartoons like The Simpsons might prove to be a better philosophy than Christianity?

Check out this old link Norm posted about The Simpsons as a philosophy.

The satirical cartoon world is essentially a philosophical one because it reflects reality by abstracting it, distilling it and presenting it back to us, illuminating it more brightly than realist fiction can.

Who doesn't Azlan or other defenders of Islam in USA use examples of Malaysia and Indonesis as examples of peaceful democractic examples of both democracy and moderate Islam?

Jonathan Kirsch makes these good observations on the gulf between the books by Rezal and Harris.

On Sam Harris' book, Jonathan Kirsch notes:

Either the Bible is just an ordinary book written by mortals or it isn't.

Either Christ was divine, he was not.

If the Bible is an ordinary book and Christ an ordinary man, the basic doctrine of Christianity is false.

And the history of Christian theology is the story of bookish men passing collective delusion.

=== Rezal’s case is much more complex ====

Jonathan Kirsch notes

"Rezal writes that religion is not concerned with genuine history but sacred history, which does not course through time like a river...like a hallowed tree that reaches deep into primordial time with little concerns of the boundaries of space and time... ...It is precisely those moments when religious and sacred history collide, they form religions....

....Whatever truths they convey has little to do with historical fact.

To ask if Moses parted the Red Sea ior whetehr Jesus raised Lazarus from the death or whether the word of God poured through the mouth of Muhammad is to ask totally irrelevant questions"

"The only question that matter with regards to religion and its mythology is what do these stories mean.

After all religions are by definition interpretations and by definition all intepretations are valid."

[Rezal adds this later as a reference to religious experience that is subject to a host of religious interpretations]

"But some interpretations are more reasonable than others. And that is important to note. The idea that reason has no role to play in religion in the way we interprete religion is an absurd notion"

The ways we experience scripture... or divine presence… is subject to a host of religious interpretations. But not all Christians read the Bible and interprete it in any shape or form that Christ is divine…. or agree that the Bible is the word of God.

To simply create these false dichotomies that you either believe that the Bible is the word of God or it’s not and therefore its 4000-5000 years of history on which the Bible is not necessarily the best way to think about religion.

Sam Harris provides a reasoned defense. Here’s a gist of his opening points.

Kindly note that the context of Sam Harris’ book takes place during modern times where many, if not most, Christians spread their faith on absolute and extreme definitions i.e. Christ died to save us all (religious writings reveal otherwise), Christ is God (Islam and Judaism do think so) and that if you don’t convert to Christianity, you will go to Hell.

Sam Harris pokes the big hole in Rezal’s moderate defence of religion:

“that there are millions of people who believe in extremist versions of religions i.e. extremely stupid. And that these extreme examples are hardly rare examples.

Harping on the difference between religious and mythology claims misrepresents representations of millions of faithful whose decision making is of consequence to us.

The other problem is that it is playing by a double standard that you would be immediately hostile to every areas of your life. These beliefs are claims about the world is… Trying to move through the situation in a way compatible happiness and religion is a strategy to achieve this. It just happens to be a strategy that is built to a remarkable degree on lies and self-deception.

Sam Harris thus sees religion as a wrong tool to do this.

Post-post-modernist intellectuals aren't trying to take over the school board in Kansas (And neither are hair-splitting, pin-dancing, razor-wielding medieval scholastics. How far we've fallen since those "dark" ages!).

(Funny how close Literalism is to Illiteralism.

And how consequential for the real world are those who refuse to live in it.)

Hell-

-o?

Nature hell-p us (and Luck).

Is it just me oversimplifying things to say that Aslan tried as hard as he could to avoid the rationale Harris provides to the debate?

I was disappointed by Aslan at the end there. I thought he did the best job of criticizing Harris's views on the middle east that I've heard from anyone. But, I want to know HOW the Bible and the Koran create a language for describing the transcendental. All I know of either book is that they are more about the afterlife and the path to the afterlife, along with some basic philosophy. I can't think of anything that is very useful in describing what Harris talks about as mystical experiences.

abel, in a thousand years of rabbinic literature theres plenty about the afterlife and mystical concepts. but you might find it interesting (as do i) that in the original torah, the 5 books of moses, it's not mentioned. at ALL.