Just to clarify, Sam Harris said that Muslims are the solution and the “civilized” Muslims need to revolt against the Jihadi Muslims. That’s what I understood that Sam Harris was saying. Also I think he was saying in terms of stats that if only 5% of 2 billion Muslims believed in Jihad, that’s still a lot of Muslims that potentially create havoc in the world. How do you fight against people who are not afraid of dying, but feel that you will get rewarded in the afterlife?

@asshowl

2 ай бұрын

How do you fight against an imperial power that started every major war since the 1990s, has slaughtered millions of innocent civilians during those wars, toppled democratically elected leaders in every continent for not "playing ball", arms and props up the most vicious war hungry regime in the middle east, and ignores it's own citizens that oppose their imperial methods?

@iwinyoulose9427

2 ай бұрын

Do you think that “civilized” Americans should start revolting against MAGA Americans?

@KryMoore

2 ай бұрын

America first.

Hatem, of course Noam’s Muslim friends and acquaintances are a self-selecting group. This is true of every person on the planet; we cluster with people who share our interests and/or values. That’s not to say Harris is right that they’re secretly antisemitic. We do, however, have a lot of testimony from ex-Muslims (women in particular) about how widespread antisemitism is in their ex communities, including in schools and mosques. Harris’s whole schtick is how bad religion is for society, which is why he comes at the problem from that angle. He very clearly said, if this is not endemic to Islam, where are they millions of Muslims saying so? Where is the mass condemnation of Hamas and other Muslim terrorist groups? At a certain point, you have to look inward and ask why Islamic countries produce these groups in far greater numbers than other religions. Islam is in need of an enlightenment.

While I wholly believe Hatem is a kind and decent person, and means well, Hatem's bias against Sam as a person clouded his response. Sam's interview and arguments are firmly based on skepticism, logic, and reason, whereas Hatem is defending himself and others like him. Hatem should be doing what Sam suggests, making strong statements against Muslims who pervert their religion to justify violence. Sorry, but this is such a false equivalence. Hatem is not on the same intellectual level to fairly debate as Sam Harris. It's like having a naturopath debate a medical doctor on how to perform surgery. He thinks he understands it, but he just doesn't.

@sartajaziz5930

2 ай бұрын

You're wrong.Your own personal bias combined with your lack of understanding about Islam and Islamic extremism is why you find Sam's arguments to be valid. Not only are Sam's arguments not rational, he flat out lies. I don't have the time or patience to respond to every single one of Sam's arguments, but you should read professor Robert Pape's book called "Dying to Win" to better understand Islamic extremism. He's one of the most well renowned researchers of terrorism unlike Sam who has no academic credentials to speak on a topic he claims to be an expert on.

Just a bunch of ad hominin and slurs - and whining. That, after all these years of Sam speaking and writing on the subject you can still assert he's just a racist and he should probably go educated himself says everything about you, and not much about Sam's positions. You added nothing to the conversation I'm afraid.

@sartajaziz5930

2 ай бұрын

Wrong. The reason why you agree with Sam is due to your personal bias and lack of understanding about Islam and Islamic extremism. Not only are Sam's arguments not rational and valid, he flat out lies. Neither he or I have the time or patience to respond to every single one of Sam's arguments because they're factually inaccurate. But you should read a book by professor Robert Pape called "Dying to Win" if you want to understand this issue. He's one of the most well renowned researchers of terrorism in the academic world unlike Sam who has zero credentials to speak on a topic he claims to be an expert on. Sam Harris is a bigot who tries to frame his arguments in an "intellectual" way to seem credible, but in reality he regurgitates the same arguments that a normal ignorant bigot would say.

Come on Noam. This is the best response you could find?? Absolutely zero substance. Rambling and incoherent with no actual response to any of Sam’s argument. No denouncement of Jihadism either. Where is the good faith, rigorous and considered response to Sam’s critique? Why can’t it be found?? He says “Sam just doesn’t get it.” Ok. So tell us what he gets wrong. What he’s missing. Some of us actually want to know and this response did nothing to that end. He dodged the question about aid?? What do you do when asked about something you are not fully informed on?? Spew nonsense? Oh, right… that is what you do. Guess we all should then.

There can be no compromise with people who seek world domination

Hello Team at Live From The Table, I hope this message finds you well. I so appreciate how this podcast features people with different opinions. I listened to the Sam Harris episode and Haten Gabr and in this case felt compelled to send a short message. Sam Harris has maintained fame for 23 years not because he says controversial things (countless people make controversial claims and are forgotten moments later) but because of his commitment to reason and logic. Although what he says is uncomfortable, it is not unreasonable or illogical. Hatem on the other hand reacted to Sam based on feelings of offense. Hatem makes a good point about Jihadists attacking Mecca, a point I would love to hear Sam respond to (although Jihadists might claim their actions were based on their belief in practicing "real" Islam and the rest of Muslim society failing to do so- if thats the case, then Sam's arguments remain valid). The rest is Hatem not liking and being offended by Sam's tone and word choices. If you've listened to Sam in interviews unrelated to Islam (of which there are hundreds of hours available) his tone is the same. This is actually just how he talks. I appreciate offering a rebuttal to Sam but as far as logic and reason go, Hatem did not succeed in countering the Sam's arguments. In fact I think this is a good example of what secular societies are up against in Islam as a way of life- no matter how grotesque a person or group acts in the name of Islam, what must be countered FIRST is how secular people respond; instead of first reacting to the barbarity and ostracizing Jihadists. What appears a higher priority is condemning cartoons and speech against their prophet/the religion. Secular leftists appease this impulse on the belief that Western way of life is no better than anyone else's and to say so is racist. Rational, reasonable arguments are scorned as racism which completely sidelines the conversation and detaches it from reality making further progress toward solutions impossible. In this way, progressive leftist ideology undermine Western values (free speech) and pave the way for Jihadist apologetics and political Islam.

@CargoCrew-kx8sv

2 ай бұрын

Great comment. Although the issue is that mslems acquire this mentality from their law manuals via the msque, and ‘community’. They are obligated to lie to defend, slander to cover up and only care about winning a debate. Its part laughable part sad

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion but the idea here, it seems to me, was to engage with the substance of Sam Harris’ argument (laid out in countless OpEds, podcasts and interviews over the years). Instead, Harris is accused of a lack of empathy, talking down to people and not knowing what he’s talking about. Woe is the misunderstood Muslim. I respect your feelings, man, but that’s a conversation you can have with your family if you’re so inclined. Sam Harris deserves a different response.

@anujshah6597

2 ай бұрын

The “substance” of Sam Harris’s argument is that Islam is evil, and the genocide in Gaza is justified. Full Stop.

The beauty of this podcast is shown by the fact it gives responses and different viewpoints. I love Hatem and Sam. I think they might be talking from two different vantage points or two different levels of threat assessment: Sam's main concern is violent Islamic Jihadism in a volatile world full of nuclear/chemical/biological weapons, and Hatem's main concern is how Sam's focus on Islam and Jihadi violence will affect the lives of everyday Muslims and how many eggs Sam is willing to break to "make the omelet", i.e. eliminate militant Islamic fundamentalism and violent Jihadism. Sam argues that the problem is there's an intolerable number of "everyday" or "ordinary" Muslims who support, sympathize, or are indifferent to violent Jihad. Sam argues that (1) since Muslims claim religious kinship/brotherhood/sisterhood and (2) to the extent that Muslims are connected by Islam (a system of beliefs), they shoulder much of the responsibility to show the world that they're rooting out the violent actors who are distorting Islam in the same way that Christians would be on the hook if Christianity were at issue. Sam thinks that many people have deluded themselves into (1) minimizing the amount of Muslims who support a militant reading of Islam and (2) ignoring the associations between sincere belief and behavior, and the possibility that a group of violent Jihadis who love their ideology more than the world itself might be able to have access to dangerous weapons is intolerable to him. In this way, Sam's a proponent of Huntington's "clash of civilizations", which I think Benny Morris is also a proponent of. To a lesser degree, Sam is also worried about the anti-enlightenment undertones of ancient religions and their dead weight on society. Basically, Sam is concerned about the effects of primitive ideas in a modern world, and to whatever degree religions have helped humans become civilizational in the past, religions are now anti-civilization. Also, if religious belief (especially religious rapture) influences behavior and religions have different beliefs, then it follows that different religions will influence behaviors in different ways (e.g. Jainism will cause less violent behavior than Islam). Sam argues that people who criticize him for ignoring/discounting the role of history (e.g. foreign policy) in shaping Islamic Jihadi violence are themselves guilty of ignoring/discounting the role of history in understanding Islamic violence. For example, though most major religions have violent clauses in their holy books, the warlord phase of Muhammad abrogates the more peaceful phase of Muhammad. Sam argues that Islam conquered Arabia by "sword" and points to the violent passages in the Quran and Hadiths, and argues many people take those passages seriously. In sum and in Sam's own words, "Religion is the devil's masterpiece." But just as Sam is concerned with the connection between Islamic belief and violent behavior, Hatem is concerned about the connection between Sam's beliefs (in a less cosmic sense of the word) and violent/oppressive behavior, i.e. people's negative intuitions about Islam can harm (physically/socially) Muslims who are just Muslim like Christians are just Christian. In other words, religion isn't the only important aspect of a person's identity. Imagine how fucked up it would be if a bigot hurt someone like Hatem, whom we all love and know is a good man, because he believes all Muslims are on the hook for the violence committed by "their people". Hatem also thinks Sam (1) overstates the connection between Islam and violence and (2) understates the role of other factors behind the violence (historical, political, and socioeconomic factors), and so mono-causally focusing on Islam is a misdiagnosis of the problem, which at best keeps the problem as it is and at worst makes the problem even worse. In this way, Hatem is more a proponent of Karen Armstrong or Tariq Ramadan's school of thought. When Sam points to the fact that many violent Islamic Jihadis aren't poor or oppressed, Hatem points to the many who are poor and feel oppressed and lost. Hatem would also point to a collective sense of oppression and sense of religious/ethnic kinship that could explain the phenomenon of the wealthy/educated violent Islamic Jihadi who wants to avenge Muslims/Islam (in the same way that many American Christians care about the fate of other Christians in other parts of the world). When Sam points to surveys/polls that suggest an intolerable number of Muslims support violent Jihadis as an indictment on Islam itself, Hatem would say that the surveys/polls don't tell the entire story and Sam just doesn't understand Muslim societies, culture (e.g. honor based), motivations, and grievances. Hatem argues that both critics of Islam like Sam AND violent Islamic Jihadis are cherry picking the same parts of Islamic text to take literally, and so they are selectively choosing the parts that justify their particular goals. If violent Jihadis were truly fundamentalists who actually took the text literally, then they'd also take the peaceful parts literally. Hatem argues that Sam wants to paint Islam as violent, which is why he agrees that violent Islamic Jihadis have the most faithful reading of the text, ignoring the hundreds of millions of Muslims who choose a more peaceful reading of the text. Generally, Hatem thinks Sam is ignorant of the relevant historical details and nuances of the conflicts between Muslims. When Sam points to Muslims being violent about religious symbols as evidence of their fanaticism/radicalism, Hatem points to the fact that some Muslims don't actually care about Islamic symbols because they destroy some Islamic symbols---and even though this doesn't take away from Sam's arguments about Islam and symbols (e.g. depiction of Muhammad), it should at least show that there are conflicting motivations, ulterior motives, and ad hoc rationalizations that animate violent Jihadis given that they pick and choose what they want to destroy. How complicated is life?

@mannyshouse3708

2 ай бұрын

Nice

@HatemGabr

2 ай бұрын

@Vegaa1 👍👍👍 Excellent summary, and just to add, He believes Islam and Muslims can only be looked at as the problem while I think the majority are the solutions, how many men and women serve in the US Army, FBI, CIA how many Muslims help catching the terrorists and part of the fight, how many Muslims sacrifice their lives for the right cause, we need to make it a better World TOGETHER

@chrishaughton_1963

2 ай бұрын

If most Muslims were openly denouncing violent jihadism and saying it does not represent Islam then we would have a very different world. Unfortunately we don't have that.

@dmoneythatbigdude

2 ай бұрын

I like a lot of this. Responding to just one piece, I often find myself frustrated by how soft we are on people when they say the sort of things that Hatem is saying. We lend way too much credence to any idea that plays on our emotions regarding hurting someone’s feelings and how we should not do that. We are terrified of hurting the feelings of a Muslim. That’s no way of treating people. When Hatem perfectly demonstrates what an ad hominem attack is, we don’t call him out. He literally said about Sam Harris, among other things, “it really says a lot about the kind of person he is”. We should not tolerate this. Good faith, respect, pursuit of truth, and love have to be the norm. (Yes I think Hatem has contributed to a potentially fruitful conversation. But it’s poisoned! by the ad hominem).

@dmoneythatbigdude

2 ай бұрын

To be more succinct: When Hatem takes offense to someone criticizing IDEAS, and attacks the man, we should criticize both counts. He should not take offense, and he should not attack the man. Why do we lend so much credence to people who take offense?

I really think you should read his book “The End of Faith” from cover to cover and then try to have a more coherent rebuttal

This video makes me respect Noam, although I agree on virtually no point with him.

Pitiful, inarticulate blabbering. Harris was spot on.

Where's the self-accountability from Muslims though? There's zero, it's exclusive grievance and a sense of victimhood. I'm sorry, but the sentiment in this video is all I see. There is no sense of "not in our name" no responsibility. It seems very immature. If he speaks for the majority being on the right path he would have a reaponse that wasn't pure grievance.

Hatem, this is a very bad take on Sam Harris. I don’t need to listen to the podcast to think this. For over twenty years he’s said things like “Muslims are the biggest victims of jihadism, and, wrt the solution to the problem, “the doors have to open from the inside”, meaning Muslims themselves need to lead the way. You also twice called him (or something he said) racist. This is embarrassing. What are you talking about? Race has nothing to do with it and that should be obvious. There’s a lot more to criticize you for here but I’ll leave it alone. I think you’re great on LFA and you’re obviously a good man. God bless.

@HatemGabr

2 ай бұрын

Thank you, and thank you for the kind word, I always appreciate feedback , I was responding specifically to this interview, the way he was talking and the points he made in this interview is what I was responding to. Thank you I truly appreciate you took the time to watch.

@Lohensteinio

2 ай бұрын

Indeed, one of Hatem’s main criticisms, namely that Sam excludes Muslims as a part of the solution to the problem of eradicating jihadism, is the opposite of what Sam argues, namely that internal reform and rejection of radicalism by Muslims is essential.

@dmoneythatbigdude

2 ай бұрын

@@HatemGabr of course, and thank you too. I will listen to his conversation with Noam. The idea of Sam “talking down” to someone or to a whole group of people would be unthinkable to anyone acquainted with him. I can promise that. However, I would totally understand how someone unacquainted with him WOULD interpret him that way. Perhaps he deserves some criticism for that.

I don’t even know where to begin. What a terrible take. You’ve smashed all his arguments into an incoherent and jumbled mess.

Thank you, Noam and Hatem, Love Live From America

The Taliban destroyed the huge Buddha statues in Afghanistan.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

if you cant criticise your own faiths shortcomings or individuals interpretation of it to the extreme its not a faith its a dictatorship there isn't anyone condemning this from the world leader or high office academic side and those that do are ousted from the public eye and threatened with death an imprisonment

💪💪

👏👏👏👏

If I were Sam Harris, I would never speak to you again. As it is: unsubscribe.

Thank you Noam.

@rtam9894

2 ай бұрын

For what? Giving platforn to a bigot?

@weilinwang1989

2 ай бұрын

@@rtam9894 No, for having this KZread channel.

Not all Muslims are ji hadis. But the other Muslims definitely aren't doing enough about the ji hadis. The world is running out of time waiting for them to fix this. Pride and empathy will only go so far.

This man just demonstrated his obvious ignorance for 10 full minutes…will he ask for it to be deleted after realizing the lies he’s spreading? If not, this character assassination of a video will stay online forever. Is Norm doing some form of performative theater of fairness? Genuine rebuttals are great, but he must know this is slanderous to Sam…

You should talk to Sam, If Noam could organise it. I have listened to Sam for years and while he has missed the mark alot and spoken very abruptly at times he honestly believes everything you believe. He has spoken so many times on so many provocative culturally and personally provocative points, and clearly spent 100 times more mental energy processing that and condensing that into concise language, weighing the dangers of not speaking out or being character assassinated that its easy to believe he doesnt care. The point you made about Muslims is wrong, Sam talks about the problems with radical islam for modernity but believes it is actually Muslims that have to solve it - not the other way round. He doesnt have any solutions to islams internal calibration just that the west not accept the worst parts, and certainly not revere its worst virtues. He is brave in media market place that applogises for some of the outdated ideas in Islam, using rhetoric as a sword to vilify the excesses of the west (only possible to critiscise anything in liberal societies) and a shield the poor, maligned, mistreated, sufferers of western policies and bigotry of the western societies. Id love to see a discussion where you two could find some common ground.

My first impulse is to just tell you how wrong you are, but I think by how you are answering criticism that you mean well. You are incurring in fallacies like the strawman fallacy by critisizing a point you interpreted or understood one way, and Sam never made that point. This can be just missunderstanding, or lack of self critisism towards your currentbposition on a subject. Everyone falls for these things constantly even if they are aware of them, but yeah, I think if you listened to more of what Sam has said and published and got more familiar with logical fallacies and debates in general, you would totally see what I mean. But, as I said, I am almost sure you mean well, so yeah, I did good in not go with my forst impulse, you seem like a nice guy.

Excellent response, I think u need to listen to the original interview to appreciate this response

If you watch the full interview first, you will appreciate this response..Good Job

Yeah violent Islam is a problem So is secular indifferent bombing

@mc80466

Ай бұрын

let me guess, you're super sad about Palestinians who are totally peaceful, and to the extent that they aren't has nothing to do with Islam?

You guys all realize that Noam agrees in essence with everything Sam says, right? And Sam isn't wrong.

@anujshah6597

2 ай бұрын

He’s not wrong? Justifying the apartheid state and genocide in Gaza isn’t wrong? You cant be this stupid

Sam Harris is against religiosity. He's anti MAGA in part because of its connection to Christian Nationalism. He's against Putin's use of Christian nationalism to foment hate for the west (and Ukraine in particular). He's against Modi's Hindu nationalism in India. And he's against Islamic nationalism. I don't think he has a very nuanced view of Israel as a jewish nationalist state and that's a valid criticism. For instance, in the interview he said he would condemn Jewish fundamentalists but then failed to mention the violence committed by some settler communities in Israel. So he has some holes in his thinking, but his main critic of islam is that it, as a religion that preaches simple absolutes, is demonstrably incorrect (just as Christianity, Hinduism, and Judaism are demonstrably incorrect in their absolutist beliefs). His goal is a secular society where religion plays no part in politics. Hence his critique of Hamas.

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It has gone out of hand for Sam Harris, good reponse Hatem !!

fair critique, you seem like a good guy

@HatemGabr

2 ай бұрын

🙏🙏🙏🙏

Thank you for a more balanced and logically consistent response. He lacked so much actual logical consistency - such as how he says Muslims need to be responsible for their extremists, while apparently the Israelis don’t (the ‘river to the river’ crowd, or the ones that want the Palestinians gone by any means necessary are just examples).

@eric1020

2 ай бұрын

This is the tu quoque fallacy, perfectly executed. Well done.

You're absolutely wrong.

I don't get why we still take seriously Sam Harris about Islam or even religions. It seems that any litterate guy in the US nowadays can say any bullshit about any subject and get away with it.

@HatemGabr

2 ай бұрын

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

@eric1020

2 ай бұрын

Ah, a useless ad hominem addition. Why engage with his substantive points when you can just insult him? Oh, right, because you have no valid response.