So people like you, you mean.
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CNN fires Reza Aslan after he tweeted Trump is a piece of shit.
- Thread starter RustyNails
- Start date
So people like you, you mean.
The Artisan
Member
i want to know more about this too. why would he do that?
not sure if beer is his best choice of brew, breh
Muffdraul
Member
So i suggest you to read this book:
Especially the part about fanaticism, political islam and the future of Islam, and then tell me that Aslan is just a muslim apologist who refuse to see the current issues.
And also, he place himself above every doctrinal school (there is no such thing as the Doctrine of Islam) and have a very free interpretation of the practices and beliefs of Islam. I don't adhere with his interpretations, but he is not saying that the muslim world follow his views. He even said that if Isis consider itself muslims, they are muslims. (i won't say that for instance, but it's coherent with sociology of religions). This is not in contradiction with him saying that ISIS actions are in direct contradiction with Islam teachings, since he is speaking from his own faith and what he understand of the faith. I don't believe he would claim otherwise, like to be a kind of Islamic pope who can define what is Islam for everyone.
He is pretty outspoken about the current issues in the muslim world. Just read his book with an open mind and then decide if he is shying away from reformism and criticism of the actual practices of muslims and how Islam is currently teached.
I admit I've never read any of his books, I promise to check that one out, thanks. What I know of him comes from what I've seen in interviews, panel discussions and debates over the last 10 years or so. A LOT of them. I know him by the foot be puts forward into the public sphere. I've seen him shut down a lot of conversations, or at least try to. It seems like "It's OK when *I* criticize Islam [appeal to authority], but I don't want to hear it from anyone else!" I'm certainly not a credentialed expert, but I've actually put forth a lot of time and energy over the last 15 years learning what I can. Read the Quran, two volumes of Hadith, and the Sira. Bought two additional translations of the Quran for cross referencing. Countless hours of watching lectures etc. I'm probably not quite as ignorant as some folks in here assume I am.
The Artisan
Member
oh damn, I had to look up this Kathy Griffin thing coz I didn't know she was a CNN personality also fired coz of Trump
Which ever brings in more viewers, they don't really care
What does professionalism have to do with it? He wasn't in the workplace. He was voicing his personal disdain for Trump on a public forum.
IIRC, he gripped the reporter by the wrist and moved them forcefully out of the way. It left bruising on the reporter.
Even if it hadn't left any bruising, you can't put your hands on people like that.
He's a scholar of religion.
The Artisan
Member
if you say something like that publicly I don't think it matters whether you're in the workplace or not.
Krombopulos_Michael
Banned
Personally, I don't think this is a fireable offense. He said it in a tweet, not on his show so it just seems like an over reaction. /i guess CNN is trying to preserve their image as an unbiased, professional news organization, but it's not like this will make Trump supporters like CNN. They will be seen as biased liberal media no matter what they do. But I can respect that they hold their people to professionalism, regardless of their political views.
entremet
Member
Trump is garbage but there is still a decorum that the office of the Presidency commands if you are a media member.
Besides throwing profanity around lacks creativity. We know hes a POS. Thats nothing radical or revolutionary about saying that. Any rando on social media can do that. As a pundit youre paid for lucid and nuanced critiques.
Olbermann is an example of how to do this while still retaining prophetic wrath.
Besides throwing profanity around lacks creativity. We know hes a POS. Thats nothing radical or revolutionary about saying that. Any rando on social media can do that. As a pundit youre paid for lucid and nuanced critiques.
Olbermann is an example of how to do this while still retaining prophetic wrath.
WrenchNinja
Member
We are past the point where decorum matters to Americans
The religious aspect of your post is beside the point for me. He's just intellectually dishonest to a degree that is indefensible. I wouldn't trust that he'd be honest in talking about any topic.
entremet
Member
Id rather media not get debased to juvenile name calling. You can criticize Trump as a paid pundit without resorting to profanity.
Im not talking about private citizens. Have at it.
metalslimer
Member
You know speaking which it is very weird to me that fareed zakaria somehow had a job because he called Trump a bullshit artist and more importantly plagiarized work.
gutter_trash
Banned
The decorum argument goes both ways, Trump doesn't respect freedom of the press
entremet
Member
I agree. Many journalists have pushed back hard as well, but at a level beyond a teenage tantrum. You dont debase yourself to the level of your adversary, especially a child like Trump.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
Olbermann has always called Trump a piece of shit on Twitter, which is an honest a reaction one should be able to relay on that platform. I mean, it's Twitter, 'lucid and nuanced' critique exists elsewhere, rightfully so. It's a joke to expect people to be the classiest of robots 24/7 with the most classless administration of all time. Outrage either comes from 'moderates' being their usual annoying, hand-ringing selves, or right-wing morons being as hypocritical as humanly possible, both sides coming together to form like Voltron.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I admit that i don't watch a ton of US T.V so you probably saw more Reza Aslan (the tv version) than me, however i believe that a scholar is better judged by his books, where he can organize his ideas extensively than in debates or interviews, where, as you certainly know, is about the search of polemics and heated discussion who can lead to the worst kind of intellectual discourse.
We have the same phenomena in Europe with Tariq Ramadan, which is known as a firebrand and a dishonest scholar since all the shows he went are basically a big brawl against him, throwing at him everything that could heat the discussion and make him uncomfortable, from stoning to FMG. Yet, very few non-muslims actually read his books, and know that he is a pure modernist reformist in rupture with the traditional muslim view, and he have actually have a very interesting political discourse about being a muslim european citizen.
I had the opportunity to speak about Islam on TV and it was a really, REALLY, stressful experience when you know that hundreds of thousands people will see you and have a very negative view of your and your faith beforehand... And i was very lucky since the interviewer was sympathetic. I can't imagine the amount of stress and pression one could feel when it's not the case and you're implicitly accused to support (via taqiyya) this or this horrendous practice. I am not saying it's justify bad intellectual rhetorics, but it certainly favor them.
I commend you for your reading of the Quran and hadiths and Sira. However you should know that it's not an islamic education. All those are raw material from what scholars have established the islamic doctrine (aqida) and practice (fiqh). It's like learning catholicism from reading the Bible. You would need to read somebody like Saint Thomas to understand catholic doctrine. In the same way, you would need to read Al Ghazali to understand mainstream classical sunni doctrine.
Especially the Sira books is particularly bad and the original author of the first sira, Ibn Ishaq, is known for his fabrications and he is not respected at all in the islamic tradition. Sadly, he had a great influence on the western scholarly tradition about Islam and the Prophet ﷺ life. And i'm sure a lot of people buy this book to "know about what Islam is about" and get this horrendous image. Studying Islam without a proper methodology is not very useful since you'll be constantly bombarded by texts that contradict each others. I know i started to understand a way more my religion when i started studying under a proper teacher.
Do you know the amount of work that goes into a PhD? I assure you it involves significantly more reading, with relevant methodological work, than that.
Why? You should look into the origins of the free political press. Few things that go on now match the vitriol of 17th and 18th century English, Scottish, and later British presses.
I think American political culture is far too self-serious.
The Artisan
Member
https://youtu.be/HL6E4eMX-4k?t=16m20s
this interview pretty much defines my belief these days. but i still like seeing when muslims make it like cottonmouth, zayn, etc.
this interview pretty much defines my belief these days. but i still like seeing when muslims make it like cottonmouth, zayn, etc.
It was on that CNN religion show he does. He was visiting some Hindu cannibals and ate human brains. Obviously Hindu's were pissed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...us-cannibals-in-india/?utm_term=.a9143a5666ea
PabloBolivar
Banned
I hope CNN has arranged him with the help he needs. He's obviously sick.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
No offense, but it sounds like fluffy pap to me.
Aslan, by sheer will, is trying to make religion out to be mere "food coloring". Like it's a completely benign non-ideology, one of many, all being perfectly equal and valid.
You can see from this personal worldview why he chooses to attack people who actually investigate and weigh the ideologies of different religions differently. They're the enemies of his little safe worldview where all religion is lovely and equal and meaningless.
Very much agree with this. I think his way of thinking is actually dangerous. As I pointed out, he literally tried to humanize cannibals. He takes "you can't judge" to the extreme.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Let's be clear, Aslan has a Ph.D in sociology.
Not religious studies. Not history.
And Scientology!
Talk about being intellectually dishonest. This fact in particular, a community (that do originate from Africa) of a few thousand in a country of 300 million, it would be a shock to anyone marrying into a community to see this horrid practice conducted on their potential wife. Yet its being cited as a common practice in muslim majority country. I mean this is where your knowledge is obvious, this is why authors (such as the one quoted) & their followers come across as misinformed and quite frankly out of thier depth, your doing no good to the people who are really affected. Your going after religion but in this case its not practiced by the significant majority that subscribe to the same religion who are appalled by its practice, Muslims locally would combat this theologically and from a perspective of basic human rights, it would be deemed unislamic. This is an alien practice in south asian communities but is understood to be cultural prior to islam.
The Artisan
Member
ugh. no two ways about it, cannibalism is wrong. this was an indefensible action
i'll meet you halfway. i agree with him that religion is a means of connecting with god, if you wish to do so, but there is no denying that there is an ugly side to religion.
so for me personally - i just choose to question it and not believe in it. unless there is a reasonable answer or explanation for such things.
He has a masters of theological studies from Harvard, and his dissertation was entitled "Global Jihadism as a Transnational Social Movement: A Theoretical Framework". I'm sure that required relevant theoretical work as well.
Let's be clear, he's almost certainly more qualified to talk about these issues than everyone in this thread.
You can disagree with him if you want, but chances are even if you're right you aren't going to be making particularly convincing arguments. Laymen will lack the requisite reading, and professionals will have already heard and dealt with the most common and obvious arguments.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Very nice attempt to set Aslan up as an unquestionable authority.
Meanwhile his authority on certain subjects has been questioned by academics in the fields of history and religious studies.
https://www.thenation.com/article/reza-aslan-historian/
There are lots of weird things going on here. I'll start with the fact you aren't actually addressing my point about his qualifications. You dismissed them out of hand, and then didn't acknowledge my counter point here. Regardless of how you feel about sociology PhDs (why do you even have feelings about this?), he is more qualified to talk about these issues than almost certainly the vast majority of people in this thread.
Secondly you'll find I wasn't trying to make him an unquestionable authority. I don't really care much about him in particular. What I am interested in here is GAF's community's tendency towards anti-intellectualism and sophomoric understandings of religion. To that end, I was pointing out it's incredibly unlikely for laymen to make particuarly convincing arguments against intellectuals in a particular field. I wasn't setting him up to be unquestionable, I was setting him up to be questionable by the people who are most likely able to question him, academics.
The irony here of course is that you immediately defaulted to drawing on an intellectual to argue against me, which is exactly what I was getting at should, if anything, be done. Even then I would question if you read the article. She's only tangentially talking about his qualifications, and as a historian the irony of a professor of religion talking about who gets to qualify as a historian is palpable. Her main argument is that his arguments on this matter in particular are problematic because they rest on outdated, or maybe just not currently in vogue, scholarship. Her focus isn't even his position as an academic, it's saying that his argument on this front is problematic. This is incredibly common among academics, and doesn't really say anything about him. It's a statement about his argument here in particular. You aren't really saying anything meaningful by bringing this up.
I'm sure you could find an academic that thinks my take on industrialization is problematic. That doesn't mean that the average lay person is just as qualified as me to talk about it, and it certainly doesn't draw into question my qualifications more generally.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Sociology is a litany of inherently debateable theories about how society operates. It's a useful dimension to approach societal processes, but a PhD in sociology does not lend any authority to be talking about the facts of religion or history.
No, he is not more qualified to speak about these religious issues than those in this thread. Issues in sociology, perhaps.
The idea that Aslan is the academic who knows about religion in the real, academic, intellectual sense more than the unlearned masses is a facade (a facade that liberals would really want to believe: a liberal Muslim scholar who tells us everything is okay and negative views of religion all stem from misunderstanding). I shared one example of a professor who specifically believes Aslan represents himself falsely in the public sphere, speaking directly to the point that he simply isn't the authority on history and religion to whom the masses should defer.
I don't think he's utterly discredited or anything. I liked his books. They give enough evidence that he has spent time wading through history to deliver popular mainstream books. But even people on the level of this thread can and should question his positions and his description of the religious sphere. Many people within and without academia have.
I take you seriously that you are less concerned with Aslan than in academic vs anti-intellectual attitudes, but Aslan is not the person to hang this argument on. He says a lot of very debateable things that have been roundly criticized. https://youtu.be/E9RmAo6XVAA
All disciplines are limited, and all in the social sciences involve inherenetly debatable theories about how society operates. A PhD in sociology, especially on topic relevant to either religion or history, does indeed lend one authority to talk on both subjects. One of the most important figures in the history of science is a sociologist for instance.
Again why? You're just stating this, apparently without being aware of how common interdisciplinary work is in the social sciences and the allied humanistic fields.
Again you didn't really argue this, you're just saying this.
I'm fairly sure that's not really what she's saying. Moreover I'm going to stand by the point that I find it ironic that a professor of religion is trying to weigh in on who is and who is not able to call themselves a historian is.
I have a problem with pop history generally. I find it far more tolerable when someone in an allied field is writing a book directed towards the public though.
Maybe, but I'm not seeing any discourse on that level. I'm seeing him getting dismissed out of hand, much like your dismissed his PhD out of hand for reasons I'm still not clear on.
Sure, and people would be better off reading and citing academic criticisms than making their own facile points on the topic. Saying you've read 6 books isn't a way to establish that you are enough of an authority on the subject to determine who is and who is not being intellectually dishonest. If someone has any sort of well thought out counterargument on the logic in his arguments than that's one thing. I didn't really see that in the thread though.
I'm not hanging it on him. I'm taking issue with the arguments I'm seeing in this thread directly. They can be arguing for a thesis that is right, I don't really care, but that doesn't make them good arguments.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Yeah totally. Some ahadith were invented to justify FGM though, but it's clear that if it was an islamic thing, it would be a common practice in Iraq, Arabia, Iran, Yemen... But in the place where this practice is common, it concern every religious community like in Egypt or in many Sub Saharan african countries. It's not rocket science.
Monocle
Member
Same difference, in a lot of cases.
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