Episode 86 – Show Notes
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Click Here to buy your copy of Steve Well’s Strange Flesh: The Bible and Homosexuality
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Click Here to check out the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible online
Headline Links:
Ben Affleck is an idiot: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/its-gross-its-racist-ben-affleck-and-bill-maher-clash-over-criticizing-islam/
‘Marriage’ still defined as ‘marriage’ instead of ‘straight marriage’ in 11 more states: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/religious-right-reacts-scotus-gay-marriage-decision-unconscionable-unconstitutional-and-un-a
More Amish Kidnapping: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/influential-religious-right-donor-indicted-his-role-lisa-miller-kidnapping-case
NC Public Schools teach 7 day creation as literal fact: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/ffrf-church-funded-bible-class-in-nc-public-schools-teaches-kids-7-day-creation-is-literal-fact/
More Godwin’s Law – This time it’s abortion: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/05/newly-elected-texas-state-senator-compares-roe-v-wade-to-holocaust
This Week in Misogyny:
GOP to women: Voting is like picking a wedding dress: http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/10/01/3574672/say-yes-to-the-candidate/
Tea Party Leader: Women shouldn’t serve in combat because… wacky bullshit: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/tea-party-leader-women-shouldnt-serve-combat-because-men-should-be-taught-treat-them-queens
John Stossel: Women are always worried about shit like Ebola and climate change: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/john-stossel-ebola-is-being-overhyped-like-climate-change-by-especially-you-women/
The Scathing Atheist 
Hi, my name is Mike and I am currently working on a book called, ‘How to Debate Atheists.’ I have completed the first three chapters and would appreciate any feedback.
Dear Noah, Lucinda and Heath.
Let me start by saying two things:
1) I fucking HATE Islam
2) I fucking LOVE your podcast
That being said I must take issue with your taking sides with Bill Mahr and Sam Harris in that debate with the actor who played Larry Gigli. No, criticisng Islam isn’t racist and if you lived in NYC during September 11th then you have every right to be Islamophobic. But consider this: Muslims make up less than 2% of the US population and it should be no secret to you that greater than 75% identify as Christian. It should also be no secret that the GOP are always on the lookout for some powerless group to demonize like the homos, the ‘Messicans’, teenage girls who got knocked up on prom night, et al. I think Mahr and Harris did some of the GOP’s dirty work and their nuance was hijacked by schadenfreude.
Now both Mahr and Harris have been able to effectively employ nuance, for example: in ‘Religulous’ Bill Mahr congratulates the truckers at the Trucker Chapel for being ‘Christlike and not merely Christian’. Sam Harris uses the horror of September 11th to simultaneously ring a note of solidarity with Christian Americans and then hold them accountable for their own globalist, christianist devices. That was the Bill Mahr and Sam Harris the world needed but an opportunity was squandered.
Again, I love your show and look forward to next Thursday.
Joe Monte
Philly
I really don’t see how any of that amounts to a criticism of what we said. Yes, Republicans demonize Muslims. So what? Does that change the content of what Harris or Maher was arguing? If it does, I’m curious what mechanism allows for that and if it doesn’t I’m curious how it relates to what we were talking about. The fact that legitimate criticisms of Islam are often couched in less legitimate xenophobia doesn’t diminish the validity of those criticisms. In the same way, I don’t see how the percentage of US Muslims relates to the argument.
I also don’t think it’s fair to criticize Harris for lacking nuance when a self-righteous asshole is interrupting him every minute and a half to call him a racist. Do you think it’s fair to say that Harris was making every effort to add nuance to his point? I thought the “concentric circle” analogy would have put everything in perspective had he been allowed to get through it.
For the record, I’m not dismissing your argument so much as trying to understand it.
Thanks for the feedback,
Noah
You are exemplifying exactly what Sam Harris was talking about. Just as Ben Affleck did, you are ignoring the words that made up the argument being Harris (and then Noah) concerning variois aspects of the religion of Islam.
Instead you (like Affleck) respond by arguing against what seems (I say “seems” because we can only speculate on the contents of this …phantom argument) an racist rant that might you might have previously heard on the Rush Limbaugh show.
As Noah stated above, all the points you bring up have… no actual relevance to the argument that was made.
They might have relevance and would likely be excellent rebuttals to the phantom argument. My impression is that this argument which is being assigned to Harris is something along the lines of:
ALL people who are of ethnicities normally associated with the Islamic Faith are violent and dangerous people, and we should not allow them into this country. Additionally, we should consider using a nuclear weapon on their home country.
…this is seriously like a conversation on mushrooms. Regardless of how many times Harris and his defenders say “PLEASE. Slow down and reread or re listen to what I said. If you are going to shout me down, please refute my argument. Stop assigning your own ridiculously bigoted straw man argument and shouting me down as if I had said that.”
And then when the next thing said is simply “how dare you say all Arabs are violent awful people, that’s utterly racist and disgusting” this is the point where I face palm, pinch myself to check that I’m not sleeping, then recall the last several hours to assure myself that I hadn’t taken acid or eaten an eighth of shrooms.
Weirdest, weirdest drawn-out ever. It’s like an absurdist play, except not funny.
Lol… Maybe we need to take a different tact. Clearly the “whoa whoa whoa you are totally not understanding what I just said” defense and the “wtf please stop assigning bigoted straw men arguments to me and pretending that’s what I said” gambit are falling woefully short.
I’m thinking perhaps a fire with fire style tactic.
…ok after spending a few minutes trying to come up with something funny, I think I understand why Noah and Heath are the hosts and I’m the listener.
So here’s a suggestion for a top ten sometime: pretending-Ben-affleck-made-an -even-more-ridiculous-argument-than- he- already-did comebacks?
The best I could come up with is an adaptation of an old Heath enwright line “Ben Ben ben… hockey players are NOT always better than basketball players at water polo… you’re just making conjecture about new racist stereotypes, you ignorant slut.”
Maybe ten of those would be a bit much… Oh well just an idea.