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.

@nealdee1755

2 ай бұрын

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.

@joejohnson6327

2 ай бұрын

And pretending that he is unaware of that is disingenuous af.

@chrishaughton_1963

2 ай бұрын

Subconscious fear of Islam affects us all

@tom80

2 ай бұрын

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.

@parkerlincoln49

2 ай бұрын

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.

Rory has a degree of status in the UK that he would never jeopardize by seriously confronting this issue.

@nvna1111

2 ай бұрын

That's just bad faith of you

@Xyz19781i

2 ай бұрын

True

@NigelPickering

2 ай бұрын

It is true, and Rory is the epitome of weasel politician.

@tom80

2 ай бұрын

He is compromised from being truthful. A pox on him.

@liambishop9888

2 ай бұрын

Rory's career in UK politics would probably have been more successful if he had embraced islamophobia

Sam Harris is a rare example of intellectual honesty.

@bertrandrussell894

2 ай бұрын

The world would be poorer for lack of him. I know it would for me.

@bigm317

2 ай бұрын

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

@user-zt6uu5tw9j

2 ай бұрын

You must be Sapiosexual.

@Bailiol

2 ай бұрын

​@@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.

@Self-Care-Embodiment-Coach

2 ай бұрын

Not really.

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.

@theinngu5560

2 ай бұрын

He should watch the Nabi Asli videos on KZread…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.

@theinngu5560

2 ай бұрын

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

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

@swayp5715

2 ай бұрын

What an amazing comment from you and I really appreciate it and it has helped me a lot ❤

@itskarl79

2 ай бұрын

Amazing comment. It gives me hope for humanity

@Reno_Slim

2 ай бұрын

The main problem with your religion is the same problem with all religions. None of them appear to align with reality.

@nikolayangelov7763

2 ай бұрын

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.

@troy3456789

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

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.

@Koyaanis

2 ай бұрын

This is a really good point.

@economist737

2 ай бұрын

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.

@thunderstreet78

2 ай бұрын

^^^^ This. Thank you.

@kg356

2 ай бұрын

I think the point he was making was that neither of them are experts on the faith itself or what it preaches.

@catspeakegroove

2 ай бұрын

This.

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

@infidelheretic923

2 ай бұрын

The difference between Nazis and Muslims is that Nazis don't use human shields.

@warbler1984

2 ай бұрын

Then later in the conversation realises that's silly and walks being friends with extremists back

@illyriandescendant7963

2 ай бұрын

Meh, Those are just details, they don't matter very much. 😅

@Shreddercon

2 ай бұрын

He’s Rory the Tory lol, the only bad people in his world are working class people that disagree with him.

@moneymayhem2000

2 ай бұрын

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.

Rory started with an apology, but ended up as an apologist. A strange character arc.

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.

@tangerinetangerine4400

2 ай бұрын

So does christianity and judaism. Why special focus on islam?

@d.lav.2198

2 ай бұрын

@@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)?

@astackzson8066

2 ай бұрын

@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.

@polybian_bicycle

2 ай бұрын

Terms like "islamophobic" are retarded buzzwords to make you stop thinking.

@warnaoh

2 ай бұрын

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.

"All my defenses of Islam require ignoring all the texts of Islam"

@user-zt6uu5tw9j

2 ай бұрын

The dogma of Islam has nothing to do with Islam.

@bobblue_west

2 ай бұрын

You logic is almost complete: Islam has nothing to do with islam. @@user-zt6uu5tw9j

@joshuagharis9017

2 ай бұрын

Could you cite examples?

@Borg434

2 ай бұрын

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm very interested to hear what Rory would say in response to this charge.

@Borg434

2 ай бұрын

@@joshuagharis9017 many such examples here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_in_the_Quran

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!

@jeremybiggs8413

2 ай бұрын

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.

@nunbenson552

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@jeremybiggs8413

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@nunbenson552

2 ай бұрын

@@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

@thunderstreet78

2 ай бұрын

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.

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.

@NarimanKarimi

2 ай бұрын

Well said.. totaly agree.

@marks7321

2 ай бұрын

Agreed. It was everything after the apology that was insufferable.

@acslater017

2 ай бұрын

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.

@NoamNoLast

2 ай бұрын

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.

@colingenge9999

2 ай бұрын

@@acslater017 Strong demonstration on how beliefs trump logic.

Rory’s arguments: “Not all” “I have friends” “All humans are like this” “It’s not a big deal”

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.

@SolarisBali

2 ай бұрын

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

@Benboy1980

2 ай бұрын

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

@user-ow5ud4ik1j

2 ай бұрын

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.

@raina4732

2 ай бұрын

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.

@mljh11

2 ай бұрын

@@raina4732 Thanks. Those appear to be textbook No True Scotsman and whataboutism fallacies; really disappointing given Rory's supposed pedigree.

This guy is thoroughly outmatched by sam .

@elanbair4571

2 ай бұрын

by Sam and truth

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

​@elanbair4571 Sam Harris doesn't really care about truth. Can you name me a fascist who speaks most honestly about Islam?

@KanakarisGeorge

2 ай бұрын

Nope

@lukemcadie6984

Ай бұрын

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.

Rory, you are experiencing the intellectual turmoil that comes from rejecting reason ... don't fight it, you are a smart guy.

@ghostofdayinperson

2 ай бұрын

I honestly don’t think Rory is smart. I think it’s an illusion brought on by his voice and mannerisms.

@BradJonesus

2 ай бұрын

@@ghostofdayinperson I was being facetious 😉

@martinj.malliet2218

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@lukemcadie6984

Ай бұрын

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.

@martinj.malliet2218

Ай бұрын

@@lukemcadie6984 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.

When he tried to talk about meditation instead of Islam you could tell where this one was going. The deflections and distractions were embarrassing.

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. 😂

Sam has patience of true zen master. I genuinely admire this kind of patience having the same conversation for over 10 years and people still not grasping basic arguments over and over again.

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.

@englishunveiled7357

2 ай бұрын

As a fellow Arab, I can't agree more with your last two sentences

@laca103

2 ай бұрын

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?

@RobertBaur-pp9kj

2 ай бұрын

Sam pretty much has said this and it doesn't go well. No one has ever accused him of being TOO easy on it

@uncleam1069

2 ай бұрын

​@@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.

@VitaSineLibertatenih

2 ай бұрын

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

I'm picking up on some real stockholm syndrome from Rory. Good god man.

@cinemar

2 ай бұрын

Yes he's been spending way too much time with muslims.

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.

@sennsita01

2 ай бұрын

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.

@wade2bosh

2 ай бұрын

Diluted versions are versions

@kunikloy477

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@shrimpie202

2 ай бұрын

That’s very insightful

@cordyone

2 ай бұрын

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.

Psychologist George Weinberg coined the term "homophobia" in the late 1960s to describe an irrational prejudice against homosexual persons. The term really took off in the 1980s while I was in graduate school studying clinical psychology. I and some of my peers had qualms about pathologizing bigotry as if it was something akin to a visceral fear of snakes or germs, but subsequent research on disgust sensitivity and negative reactions to homosexuality persuaded me that there was something at least clinically plausible about the use of the term. I do think that in using the term phobia, one is suggesting a visceral negative reaction such as disgust or raw fear. Phobias are not cognitively mediated at all. That's why you can't simply talk people out of them. Therapies must address the visceral reaction. For example, exposure therapy overcomes the negative visceral phobic response. I think that collectively, as a culture, we've overcome a great deal of homophobia because so many lgbt people are out and all of us know gay people toward whom we have positive feelings. Collective exposure therapy has greatly reduced homophobia in Western societies. I don't think that fear of Islam is primarily visceral. I think it's very much cognitively mediated. It's arises from beliefs about Islam, whether correct or incorrect, not from some direct visceral reaction. So I do think phobia is a misleading use of a clinical term when applied to fear of Islam, and something of an ad hominem to discredit anyone who suggests that there are dangers posed by present-day Islamic ideologies. I'm also struck by the irony of hijacking a term used to describe disgust and fear of homosexulity and creating a comparable term to describe a fear of a religious ideology that is widely supportive of homophobia. I see it as a mind-fucking attempt to suggest a false moral equivalence between homophobia and Islamaphobia with a liberal audience that has largely rejected homophobia. "I'm not homophobic, so I certainly don't want to be Islamophobic." But there's a moral and clinical equivocation in play that seems meant to deceive and confuse those with cognitively mediated reasons for their concerns about the impact of Islam in our world.

@greganderson9618

2 ай бұрын

Very interesting comment… thanks for that.

@dawnkeyy

2 ай бұрын

I think this is spot on. From experience, talking to homophobic people, their line of argument usually ends up at "it's disgusting, you'd be okay with watching two guys have sex?" (yet lesbian sex is in a different category). Also interesting is that most of the homophobic people I know are secular, and some are even left leaning. It doesn't seem to be an ideological issue at core. Of course religion breeds more homophobia, in the context of what you're saying, probably because there's less exposure therapy because of religious ideology permits it (while secular doesn't).

@adityakunchur6209

Ай бұрын

I usually don't drop comments on YT, but this deserved a response. That is an interesting nuance that I plan on fully using in future debates with my friends on this topic. Thanks

@OmniversalInsect

24 күн бұрын

Beautifully said.

@joecurran2811

24 күн бұрын

I agree

Sam absolutely nails it here.

@anneoconnor5907

2 ай бұрын

Not in my opinion. He should have asked Stewart about demographics (in Marseille, for example or Vienna).

@paulheydarian1281

2 ай бұрын

Do you reckon he enjoys nailing 'other' things? 🤔

I only wish I could express logic and truth like Sam Harris does.

@d.lav.2198

2 ай бұрын

Aaaand you can...for only £12.99 a month you too can be....

@unclepete100

2 ай бұрын

..and be as articulate as Sam….

@Saunajallu

2 ай бұрын

Indeed, or Rory. Both are excellent

@willdon.1279

2 ай бұрын

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 love when Sam Harris has someone who disagrees with him on the podcast. Great to see how two intelligent minds with different beliefs make sense of and resolve their differences.

@jakeroper1096

2 ай бұрын

These make me feel like I have no choice but to become a member. This one finally got me, too interesting not to finish.

@clivespendlove5993

2 ай бұрын

yes, I feel exactly the same thing@@jakeroper1096

@ErikMajorna

2 ай бұрын

Nobody loves Sam any longer, his narcissistic low energy has been destroyed by Real men like Trump

@jakeherter

2 ай бұрын

Too bad the world is controlled massively by people born too far too much money and nothing like this will take shape on world stage without massive change to our species.

@chuwabba10

2 ай бұрын

@@jakeroper1096it’s good! Listening now ;)

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.

Rory is a politician and as such is comfortable in the world of anecdote and narrative.

@classica1fungus

2 ай бұрын

Yep

@AnAn___

2 ай бұрын

This is unfair. I understand where Rory is coming from.

@nealdee1755

2 ай бұрын

Yes, exactly. He's less of a proper intellectual, and more of a humanist (which can sound nice but ignores reality)

@wasneeplus

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@AnAn___

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

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.

@martinj.malliet2218

2 ай бұрын

"... 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.

@yesufabdulhakim9326

2 ай бұрын

Yes sir I saw the video..that young lady were almost lynched in public if it wasn't for the brave police lady

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.

@codynoel1721

2 ай бұрын

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.

@AnAn___

2 ай бұрын

I don't think you understand Rory. I am a huge fan of his. Love Sam Harris too.

@nealdee1755

2 ай бұрын

Yes, his set of friends would be a certain kind, not a proper representation of the whole community.

@AnAn___

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@nealdee1755

2 ай бұрын

@@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

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?

@soysaucehairdye7869

2 ай бұрын

Don’t tell that to Antwan Kumiya!

@Vince01

2 ай бұрын

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.

@anovosedlik

2 ай бұрын

@@Vince01agreed

@TheDPgamer

2 ай бұрын

youre all stupid for attacking a religion intentionally, almost wishng to antagonise elements within it@@Vince01

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.

@zoyboy1914

2 ай бұрын

As a politician, he doesn‘t want to denounce problematic ideas if the demographic group holds voting potential.

@JamesMarshall-bc9nn

2 ай бұрын

Good point

@lonzo61

2 ай бұрын

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.

@Saunajallu

2 ай бұрын

Harris was interrupting a lot more than Stewart. ​@lonzo61

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

@@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?

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.

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

Was Humza Yousef subjected to Islamaphobia?

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.

@lonzo61

2 ай бұрын

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.

@Hannibal953able

2 ай бұрын

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.

@operandexpanse

2 ай бұрын

@@Hannibal953able totally agree

@leenieledejo6849

2 ай бұрын

Can you list the "many great things about Islam"?

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.

@AllanCaetano_SP

2 ай бұрын

Exactly. Even though his apologies seemed sincere, they were still of the "I'm sorry I got caught" sort.

I feel for Rory and his determination to be kind and see the good in people, but it's coming at a cost

@Benboy1980

2 ай бұрын

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

Sam's patience with what seems like willful obtuseness is extraordinary.

Rory, rather like lynchings, the penalty for apostasy does not have to be executed very often for it to be effective.

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.

@radscorpion8

2 ай бұрын

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

@solehthesandmonkey

2 ай бұрын

​@@radscorpion8care to list some of those polls?

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

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.

@cjgoeson

2 ай бұрын

This is the way

Thank you for exposing Mr. Stewart as a master of obfuscation. He is smooth as a snake.

@Theactivepsychos

2 ай бұрын

Obfuscation is exactly the word I had in my head.

@ThePaulaon1

2 ай бұрын

Indeed

@unclepete100

2 ай бұрын

👍

@bobblue_west

2 ай бұрын

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.

I am hearing this and I am subscribed to the podcast feed. You rock Sam Harris!

Yet again, I realize that I give people with British accents much more credit than they deserve

Thank you sam, i'm from saudi and you are 100% correct.

Rory's argument is 90% whataboutism and red herrings... But at least he's polite

Rory didn’t really put up much of an argument if we are being honest here

Rory is being dishonest here. Islamophobia is used almost as a synonym for racism in the UK too.

When you confuse race with belief.

@d.lav.2198

2 ай бұрын

Indeed!

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

...you end up sounding like Sam Harris.

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.

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?

@debbielondon1809

19 күн бұрын

Quite...

You tried, Sam. Instead of addressing the substance of your claims, your guest kept moving the goalposts: - Well, in the UK, we use Islamaphobia differently. - Well, Islam is not really one religion but varies across the world. None of the above is relevant to the claim that Islam contains a set of ideas that intentionally spreads suffering on a massive scale. I have doubts about the intellectual acumen of this guest.

@radscorpion8

2 ай бұрын

That's completely absurd lol. In fact it is rather more the case that Sam is using Islamophobia wrong. The word itself means irrational fear of Islam, not of brown people, and I know no one in the US or Canada who uses it as a proxy for racism. And it has nothing to do with shifting the goalposts?? Do you even know what that means? They are simply disagreeing on the definition of the word before they start discussing it. That's what normal people do in a debate on complex topics, agree on definitions. And pointing out that Islam varies across the world DIRECTLY CHALLENGES Sam's view that Islam can be generally criticized as promoting violence. Everything in your post is wrong and confused, and then on top of that you have the gall to question someone else's "intellectual acumen" good god

@DigitalGnosis

2 ай бұрын

How is that moving goalposts? Those are rebuttals

@georgekleinfelter7041

2 ай бұрын

⁠@@DigitalGnosisThey are intellectually ineffective rebuttals. I have listened to the full podcast and I seriously do not believe that, if Rory Stewart listened to it himself, he would argue that Sam Harris didn’t absolutely obliterate (what passed for) his arguments. Stewart embarrassed himself here and it began when he said, at the beginning of the interview, that he would prefer to talk about meditation or anything else other than the main issue at hand. Of course he would. If I came to this conversation armed with his very intellectually weak points, I would feel that way, too.

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.

Thank you Sam for exposing these pseudo intellectual hypocrites.

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 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.)

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.

@lesleytaylor3825

2 ай бұрын

Another Chris Hedges!

@drcrocodile1

2 ай бұрын

Exactly. The Pew polling results don't lie.

@HandgunSafe

2 ай бұрын

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.

@nergismeurer7070

2 ай бұрын

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.

@troy3456789

2 ай бұрын

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.

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.

The proportion being higher is huge, when there are 2 billion people following the religion

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.

@jhibbitt1

2 ай бұрын

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."

@martinj.malliet2218

2 ай бұрын

Was it failure? Or just his way of conceding the debate without saying so openly?

@martinj.malliet2218

2 ай бұрын

@@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.

@interloc1290

2 ай бұрын

He also relied on quite a bit of what about *other bad things * style deflection. It was a bit disappointing

@TheSunlight74

2 ай бұрын

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.

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.

@martinj.malliet2218

2 ай бұрын

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'.

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 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.

“My experience in Muslim majority countries [as a male, straight, white, wealthy, well educated, well connected, agnostic Brit] was very good.”

Thanks Sam!

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.

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.

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.

@gordonstrong5232

2 ай бұрын

*intellectual *sciolist

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 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.

Rory Stewart's life ambition was to reach the top of the heap in UK politics. He wants his name to be mentioned alongside Churchill. It would probably have happened but for the fact his political career coincided with the birth of social media and the rise of RW populism which pushed out "civilised" and "nuanced" voices..... That said, hes only 51 and if the opportunity arises, he could still make a return to politics in some guise. For that reason, he could never engage with Sam in a fully honest and open discussion about Islam because it would torpedo any future election hopes. As a reddit poster astutely observed, he is also of a class of British elites that has a benign view of foreign cultures simply by dint of them being, in his own mind, primitive, less developed and in need of sympathy and guidance. It's easy to be benevolent about Islam when you only mix with the 1 percenters, live in a country house in Scotland and spend most of your time flying around the world attending charity events and talks. Not so easy if you live in a poor area that has been ghettoized in recent decades and someone has beem stabbed by a fundamentalist a mile down the road....

Rory is talking like a Politician running for office trying to please everyone including his Muslim voters

Rory seems like a genuinely good human being agree or disagree with his points. I respect him more for coming back on!

@BackroomCastingCouch-mm3sh

7 күн бұрын

lol

I will be subscribing again just to hear the rest of this. We need more debate type convos from Sam.

Rory Stewart is a walking contradiction. He’s been advocating for everything the party he was an MP for have been tearing down for the last two decades. The more I listen to him the less I understand.

@ZeeL4J8C2

2 ай бұрын

Rory, not Roy

@dermotmeuchner2416

2 ай бұрын

@@ZeeL4J8C2grammar nazi huh?

@bigm317

2 ай бұрын

You have to experience real life too understand, I’ve traveled the world and I’m more social than most so I get exactly what he means this worlds isn’t as black and white as the news portrays

@Theactivepsychos

2 ай бұрын

@@ZeeL4J8C2bad thumbs.

@Theactivepsychos

2 ай бұрын

@@Zenithx3my girlfriend just said she read an article saying that he’s the only politician they’ve ever heard apologise and realise he’d made a mistake and I had to listen to the beginning but again which seems to be a repeat in microcosm of his entire career. Seems like Rory makes bad choices and analyses situations completely wrong. His attitude towards Sam after that first conversation is totally off kilter and then his apology after doesn’t do much to show he understood he was mistaken just that he was sorry he’s upset Sam.

Rory should talk to ex-Muslims.

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

Sam Harris should talk to Muslims and explain why he feels they should be denied their human rights

Good, Sam. Much much respect!

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.

@stefandrechsel

2 ай бұрын

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.

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.

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.

Omgosh these at episodes that should’ve be free!!! I mean we would a benefit so much from these conversations Sam 🙏🙏🙏🙏.

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 doesn't - contra Rory - make sense to say that a religion cannot be unitarily defined. Any religion that cannot be so defined is not - by definition - a religion! So, according to Rory, Islam is not a religion. Reductio ad absurdum!

@BarrySometimes

2 ай бұрын

Agreed. It’s a massive mess. To take the focus off islam & place it on Christianity for instance, we now have self-identified christians defining themselves as much by a) pointing to the bible & asserting the fundamentals of christianity (trinity, Jesus born of virgin, Jesus was resurrected, god created universe etc), b) people who believe none of (a) but consider a sunset to be beautiful & the beauty of a sunset demonstrates the existence of the Christian God, & c) christianity is a useful fiction (someone like Jordan Peterson), a “metaphorical” truth, an intermediate story which derives values from facts. All the while (a) (b) & (c) all give one another credit for being “christian” despite the fact that all three have entirely incompatible definitions. It really is analogous to 3 people saying they all play basketball. One of the three actually plays basketball & is an NBA player. The other defines basketball as enjoying the shape of an inflated sphere but has never bounced a ball, has no understanding of the rules of basketball, & has never thrown a ball into any type of hoop. And one proclaims they are a basketball player because there is utility in exercise, however has never touched a basketball nor has ever stepped on a basketball court. It’s madness.

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

All ideologies have their heterdoxies.

@Sphere723

24 күн бұрын

Why would you say the trinity is fundemental to Christianity? Nicean Christianity only arose after, well, the council of Nicea. It has never been universally accepted.

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.

@silence8806

2 ай бұрын

Nope, anecdotal evidence is not a "valid perspective" when someone shows mass phenomena.

@mljh11

2 ай бұрын

All of Rory's experience does not excuse him from failing to honestly address Sam's questions.

It takes a good amount of courage to apologize. Good on you Rory. Also I so appreciate that when there are disagreements, misunderstandings between two people that they can sit down and talk about it. Good on both of you.

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.

The UK meaning of Islamophobia is the same as the USA. It’s basically calling someone racist. Rory was not being honest.

@renegonzalez6058

2 ай бұрын

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

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.

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!

Rory is fantastic at red herrings

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.

@zoyboy1914

2 ай бұрын

The example would be fitting if the food was poisoned and you can‘t mention it since you aren‘t a chef.

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

​@@zoyboy1914Yet, you would just have to observe the billions of people consuming this food to realise it's not poisoned

@zoyboy1914

2 ай бұрын

@@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

@jmc5335

2 ай бұрын

@@zoyboy1914 Absolutely love how you put emphasis on a sentence that makes you look like an idiot.

Sam politely giving historic and statistics facts and getting back "you can't say that, i have so many islamic friends".

@thomasj.howard2691

2 ай бұрын

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.

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.

Rory is such a weasel of a man. I'm glad Sam confronted him like this.

This podcast was a gift for both Sam and Rory, not to mention for all that listened. One of the best I've heard.

Rory Stewart said at the beginning that he felt he hadn't done a good enough job standing up for Islam and his experience living in the Islamic world. Well, thanks Sam for standing up for 'us'. I can't even say who 'us' means for very obvious reasons. 😉

The problem is that a certain taboo has been created to stifle all challenge to their beliefs. Words, cartoons, symbols, buildings can be found to be blasphemous and subject to retaliation through threats on injury or death. While more moderate people of the belief don't have to explicitly say they agree with this kind of response, they do not condemn or restrain this behavior. It's almost mob like, "While I respect your right to free speech, my crazy friend here doesn't like it and will do something violent about it." As pointed out, many religions throughout history has done this. Likewise, modern autocracies like North Korea, Russia, China also engage in this. In the U.S. with discussions around crime, economics, and meritocracy as it relates to certain races. The "pronoun," 'safe space,' and the "words are violence" communities can be added to the list. The idea is to create these taboos to shut down all debate through shout downs and physical intimidation and threats as these ideas are so fragile than they cannot withstand challenge even by words.

Couldn't have come at a worst time for Rory. Because he had a point or half a point until this week, until the Speaker literally changed parliamentary procedure on a vote on Gaza, SPECIFICALLY because of threats of violence and to life on MPs from pro-Palestinian groups, led mainly by extremist conservative Muslims. So we now this week actually have reached a place in Britain were threats of violence from the Muslim community trump a vote in a democratic country on important foreign policy. And it worked. The vote was nodded through and there will be actual real foreign policy change on Gaza and Israel. And it stems from threats from British Muslims.

What bothers me about Rory's seeming about-face in a subsequent conversation following his with Sam, is that one way or another, he appeared dishonest. Either he was dishonest for the sake of being polite when dialoguing with Sam, or less than honest when speaking with Yousaf. Is he a chameleon in conversation? Rory apologizes now, only after getting caught in a semi-hypocritical situation.