Looks like Sam Harris feels the sting of false accusations as well: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-chapel-hill-murders-and-militant-atheism
I wonder if Harris feels like a minority or "the white man"?
I bet it depends on whats most convenient for him at the time.
So, did you just read the headline? I haven't listened to it, but The Friendly Atheist quoted large sections of it. It is a well thought out, direct response to people like Reza Aslan who take his words out of context and don't understand the concept of being intolerant of intolerance. I think Harris feels anyone in history who speaks up against the common beliefs in his culture that are harmful and misguided. People like that often end up being remembered well by history, but they also often end up getting killed.
From Harris:
And what we’re seeing is that people like Glenn Greenwald and Reza Aslan, the usual suspects, the bevy of apologists for theocracy in the Muslim world, are using this very real tragedy in Chapel Hill to try to stoke a kind of mob mentality around an imagined atheist campaign of bigotry against Muslims. It’s an incredibly cynical and tendentious and opportunistic and ultimately dangerous thing to do.
Of course people like Glenn Greenwald and Reza Aslan are alleging that there is some kind of double standard here – that atheists are so quick to detect a religious motivation in the misbehavior of Muslims worldwide, [but] when it comes to their own, well, then they discount the role played by atheism. But this is just a total misrepresentation of how an atheist like myself thinks about human violence.
Looks like Sam Harris feels the sting of false accusations as well: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-chapel-hill-murders-and-militant-atheism
I wonder if Harris feels like a minority or "the white man"?
I bet it depends on whats most convenient for him at the time.
So, did you just read the headline? I haven't listened to it, but The Friendly Atheist quoted large sections of it. It is a well thought out, direct response to people like Reza Aslan who take his words out of context and don't understand the concept of being intolerant of intolerance. I think Harris feels anyone in history who speaks up against the common beliefs in his culture that are harmful and misguided. People like that often end up being remembered well by history, but they also often end up getting killed.
From Harris:
And what we’re seeing is that people like Glenn Greenwald and Reza Aslan, the usual suspects, the bevy of apologists for theocracy in the Muslim world, are using this very real tragedy in Chapel Hill to try to stoke a kind of mob mentality around an imagined atheist campaign of bigotry against Muslims. It’s an incredibly cynical and tendentious and opportunistic and ultimately dangerous thing to do.
Of course people like Glenn Greenwald and Reza Aslan are alleging that there is some kind of double standard here – that atheists are so quick to detect a religious motivation in the misbehavior of Muslims worldwide, [but] when it comes to their own, well, then they discount the role played by atheism. But this is just a total misrepresentation of how an atheist like myself thinks about human violence.
I don't like Sam Harris, so I'm not planning on listening to the show. My comment is about whether Harris thinks of himself as a minority because he's an atheist (and a Jew), or does he think of himself as the establishment because he has "white privilege", and has been criticized for oppressing Muslims and women?
I don't like Sam Harris, so I'm not planning on listening to the show. My comment is about whether Harris thinks of himself as a minority because he's an atheist (and a Jew), or does he think of himself as the establishment because he has "white privilege", and has been criticized for oppressing Muslims and women?
He doesn't think in those terms at all. But since you aren't interested in him it won't help for me to try to explain that.