The problem for your opening remarks is the statistics and polls do not paint illiberal practices or beliefs as definitely minorities in Islam.
Because there are always more people just following along without actually taking action.
How many people are actually trying to kill abortion doctors? Maybe a dozen.
How many people would generally agree with such measures? Thousands, tens of thousands.
More so in the Eastern world, thankfully a lot of the troublesome behaviour is simply stamped out by Western governments being prochoice, free speech, freedom of religion and in favour of gay marriage.
Does that say anything about Islam? A similar socio economic environment with a predominant christian/atheist/hindu/whatever population would react in exactly the same way.
Christianity and Catholicism have largely gone through reform, and extremists in said groups have been getting marginalised. However Christianity in America is still widely criticised so don't play that down. Many of Harris' videos on religion, and books, are aimed right down the scope at Christianity.
And that cristicism is just as misguided. He is mistaking religion for bigotry, which initself, is bigotry. Thats the reason why I, as an atheist, hate the new atheist movement. They're hiding their bigotry behind science and reason or even worse, they're trying to abuse science as a tool to justify their bigotry.
The criticism of Islam is simply the headliner however as we are at a stage where it's hard to retain the ability to freely critique it in the West as easily as it is to critique Christianity and Catholicism.
Oh come one. You will be called out if you publicly say something ignorant. Don't spin it like that is somehow an infringement on you're free speech or freedom.
Harris can say whatevr he wants, but if its something stupid he has to live with the consequences of saying something stupid while pretending to be smart and reasonable.
You know, you have to actually argue in a discussion. You can't just shrug counter arguments off without justifying it.
Tell me why Harris' views aren't generalisations based on the false assumption of causation between Islam and extremism.
Pro Tip: Him saying he isn't generalizing isn't proof that he isn't generalizing.
His BA is on philosophy. That's relevant. His PhD is on neuroscience, and his work was on how belief affects the human mind. He is absolutely qualified to speak about matters of faith.
I don't see why philosophy would be relevant here. The only philosophical question we face is whether or not the West should throw its own core values under the bus in order to be able to act out its xenophobia. And thats not a hard one.
His work says nothing about a connection between religious teachings and a formation of a particularly violent society.
In fact, history has show that similar societies fromed all over the world under all kinds of religions and even during absence of religion. One obvious thing we see is that advanced technology allows for advanced violence. People can fly planes into building or kill hundreds with guns or bombs now. Is killing hundreds with a bomb more violent than killing 5 with a sword? No, the motivation is the same, but advanced means allow for more efficient violence.
Well, actually, I wouldn't be against claiming that Christianity is a motherload of bad ideas
I'm sure he isn't either. Thatswhy I said his views are borderline fascist.
Unless you can show similar percentages of Christians who hold the beliefs that homosexuality should be punishable by death compared to Islam
Take christians and muslims from similar socio economic backgrounds and you'll get the same percentages.
Comparing groups from different socio economic backgrounds just shows you that there are differences between groups of different socio econimic backgrounds, duh. You'd also find that westerners are generally better at math than Iraqis, does that mean Islam has a negative effects on peoples math abilities, while christianity doesn't because it went through enlightenment 300 years ago?
