The full debate is up
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20070617_religion _politics_and_the_end_of_the_world/

Noam Chomsky And Gilbert Achcar’s New Book: Perilous Power

By Stephen Lendman

Chapter 2 - Fundamentalism

The discussion begins with the importance of fundamentalism as a source of unrest in the world.  For Chomsky, its Islamic version is mainly a reaction to those forces. He explained for many years “there was strong secular nationalism all over the Arab and Muslim world.” It was true in Egypt under Gamal Abdel-Nasser who was a secular nationalist, in Iraq over the past century, and in Iran for half a century until the CIA-instigated coup ousted Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. 

Achcar agrees and stresses the US assault against secular nationalist leaders led to the doctrine’s failure in these countries and left a vacuum filled by Islamic fundamentalism based on the most reactionary brand of it practiced by the US’s oldest client state in the region - Saudi Arabia.  The US used the Saudis and its extremist model to counter communism and all forms of progressive movements. 

Achcar also points out that fundamentalist nongovernmental terrorism is miniscule compared to the state-sponsored kind practiced mainly by the US and Israel and is a direct outgrowth of those policies. The US even supported the Taliban when it assumed power in 1996 believing their authoritarian rule would bring stability to the country without which planned pipelines from the landlocked Caspian Basin to warm water ports in the south would be in jeopardy. Unlike the propaganda used against them in 2001, their religious extremism, harsh treatment of women, and overall human rights abuses were of no concern at first despite any pious rhetoric about them to the contrary later on.

Chomsky then commented that the Reagan administration helped Pakistan move toward fundamentalism and even pretended it didn’t know the country was developing nuclear weapons. It’s now the only known Muslim country to have them. Israel also wanted to destroy the secular nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a move that led to the rise of Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist groups to challenge its supremacy. Israel followed the same strategy in Lebanon with its 1982 invasion and 18 year occupation of the country from which Hezbollah emerged as a resistance group that finally succeeded in forcing the Israelis to withdraw from the country in May, 2000 and humiliated the vaunted Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the summer, 2006 Lebanon war.

Achcar notes that in its zeal to destroy secular nationalism in the region, the US let the “genie out of the bottle” called Islamic fundamentalism it now can’t control. It turned against both the US and Israel as a resistance force against oppression.

Chomsky also observes that fundamentalism isn’t just a Muslim phenomenon. A powerful Christian strain of it exists in the US that has enormous influence over right wing Republican-led governments as it did during the Reagan years and especially now under George Bush who believes his agenda is a God-directed messianic mission.

Achcar goes further stressing fundamentalism is a global phenomenon with strains of it in all the major religions - Judaism, Christianity (Protestant and Catholic), Hinduism, Islam and others with all of them having arisen over the last 25 years or so as a “remarkable....synchronized worldwide” phenomenon. It represents the only remaining ideological counterweight expression of mass resentment and resistance against the socially and economically destructive elements of predatory neoliberal capitalism now dominant in the West and throughout most of the world.

Part Two:

I can give you more examples; are all these then just due to “other” circumstances or accidents or stupidity in your mind?  Of course not, they are due to a conscious effort to kill (and some times to disregard the lives of) as many people as possible, and to aid this effort in the often total infrastructure destruction noncombatants rely on to live.

ALL of America’s wars since WWII have purposely included killing noncombatants, and Israel deliberately kills non-combatants (including women and children) in their apartheid nation all the time! Jews in Israel know more about this sad truth than Jews or others in America because these stories are not told here. Watch the documentary “Peace and Propaganda in the Promised Land” for starters - http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaRaceAndRepresentati on/PeacePropaganda. 

And look what happened to the Lebanese noncombatants when Hezbullah captured and killed a few Israelie COMBATANTS! They called that “collective punishment,” for your information.

Neither America or Israel have the moral ground over Hezbullah or Hamas (which was bolstered and supported in its early days BY ISRAEL against the secular PLO), Sam Harris is, again, living in his ivory tower.

(Wavelength): This idea of “blowback”—that somehow this is our own damn fault—is the most bizarre masochism imaginable.  Our current meddling in the Middle East began well after 9/11.

1) Read my comments above, and the books or authors I suggested (and add Chomsky and Achcar to that list), and…

2) Western meddling in the Middle East began over a century ago; look up just the history of our meddling in Iran starting with our overthrowing of the secular, elected government of Iran as we decided it was better for U.S. captitalist interests if we we replaced that government with the Shah… a move which had its own blowback and led to the Ayatollah and the current people in power.

(Wavelength): To think our enemies in the Muslim world will largely evaporate if we spread wealth to them is pure silliness. 

Of course I never said that this was my solution.  we must be much more systemic in our efforts than just tossing money at the problem… and anyone left of liberal should know that.

I thank Wavelength for his kind words and continued polite debate. I too do not have time for anything in-depth here, and I am sure other readers would begin to get bored of long exposes from either of us anyway, so here are a few quickies..

Sam Harris (via essay): “Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.”

This strikes me as odd because Sam seems to think the “depravity” in the Muslim world (which really does not mean all Muslims, but Arab Muslims, to get Sam straight), comes from mainly religion, and via completely internal mechanisms. The story is far more complex and of course, much of the crisis the Arab world is in does indeed stem to western imperialism and colonialism.  Wavelength (and Sam Harris) ought to read the work of British journalist Robert Fisk to get a better understanding of the history here. They should also read Robert Dreyfuss’ “Devil’s Game’ to learn how the Middle East became Islamized and what happened to the secular, socialistic and nationalistic Arabs whom all held the Islamisists at arms length because of their fanaticism. 

And finally, about the so-called depravity of the Islamic world, what is Sam comparing this world with? Perhaps he ought to read Michael Neumann’s essay “Has Islam Failed?” which can be found here:  http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann05132003.html

Sam Harris (again): “In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so.”

I cannot protest more against such uninformed nonsense… but I will try. Sam thinks when “liberals” think other than he does here, they are doing so from what??? some liberal do-gooder complex and pure hatred for Bush?

First, I repeat, I am not a liberal. Liberals are the centrists on the political scale from Left to Right (though you would not know this in our far-right-wing country at the time), and thus they often have fairly conservative ideas about human nature and society. I think the better analyses and diagnoses come from progressives, socialists, and anarchists…

...But anyway, the evidence is plentiful that both America and Israel engage in attacking and killing noncombatants all the time; the “human shield” argument is just a way to spin this fact to make it sound like in front of every combatant is a noncombatant placed there to take the blow. Such nonsense! Tell me, of the 600,000 dead due to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, how many of this number does Wavelength think were combatants?

How many combatants were there in Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (compared to non-combantants) during WWII? 

How many combatants were in the villages of women and children the U.S. forces routinely slaughtered in Viet Nam? 

How many combatant children and women die every day in Iraq and Afghanistan due to cluster bombs (the commonly used bomb, but not a choice bomb if one wants to target only combatants), and depleted uranium?  What about the decade of sanctions against Iraq before the invasion which killed over 100,000 children (please don’t tell me that was Saddam’s fault!)

End Part One

Michael’s argument is not worthy of a response.

And mintcheerios, you should reread all I wrote and not take this graph out of context.  I never doubted religion plays some role, but my argument has been both about placing religion where it belongs in this sociopolitical debate, and not front and center as Harris and Wavelength do.  Also, my point was to offer a perspective from which we can actualy move toward real world solutions… Solutions Harris hasn’t a clue of BECAUSE of his mis-prioritization and narrow understanding of the sociopolitical and economic landscape (of which religion is only one part). 

Also, if religion or anything abstract can be used as a “solution” to problems which can then lead to immoral acts (terror), then how does one suggest we address the problems themselves ... do away with religion?  Not only will that probably never happen, something else can always replace religion.  We need to solve the problems themselves.. AND move toward a humanistic (science-based) society.

Barry:  I did not say suicide terrorism and the cartoon controversy were “purely” political or economic in nature.  Of course religion played a role, and these conflicts ARE about - to a degree - religious beliefs.  BUT, if the Arab world had not suffered (as it still does) as it has at the hand of Western Colonialism and Imperialism over the last 100 or more years, and if globalization and Western Capitalism had not threw the entire “3rd World” into chaos, AND if the U.S. had not (deliberately) helped political Islam become victorious over secular nationalistic Arab leadership and socialist Arab leadership over the last 60 years, do you really think thousands of mainly moderate Muslims (not the Imams who have the spotlight because political Islam was bolstered so high by the US), would care enough to react as they did to the cartoons… even cartoons purposely published to insult and cause a riot by the right-wing Dutch newspaper???

You just admitted that religious beliefs are a part of the problem.  That was the point of the whole argument.  Whether the US or the Rolling Stones were responsible for empowering a theocracy in the Arab world has nothing to do with how bad of an ideology Islam is.  Criticizing Islam is not the same as approving of US foreign policy.

So why would religious belief be a part of the problem?

Mike-G: Many people want the debate to be posted not just for themselves but for the sake of integrity.  I’m interested in hearing what the debaters have to say, but I’m more interested in seeing that the debate is made public for everyone to hear (having to pay 16 bucks doesn’t accomplish this).  Everyone knows making a transcriptof a debate isn’t easy, but there’s no excuse for not having the audio up by now (at least they haven’t come up with one yet).  If 13 year olds can upload edited videos onto youtube, a professional journalistic website that makes money can upload an audio file.  Harris in his last article seemed quite confident that he made the better arguments in the debate and it is tremendously unfair to him and the readers to conceal it, even for this long.

typical nonsense from Barry - rationalize a wall of bafflegag as a way of hiding the arguments of others.

your three posts all add up to OCD. All the blather in the world can’t hide the fact there is no god, allah, jesus, et al.

here’s proof: fuck god, fuck allah, fuck jesus fuck all religious bullshit. I still seem to be alive....hmmmm

Part Three (Conclusion)

wavelength: To take 9/11 specifically, there is no evidence to suggest the 9/11 hijackers flew planes into buildings out of social, political or economic strife.  They were all college educated and many had PhDs.  None demonstrated any political motivation in their lives to that point.  None were abused by Western powers.

Barry:  I already addressed this, but Hedges did so too if you listened. 

wavelength: Islam itself deserves the blame, not Islamic preachers or institutions.  Islam provides a convenient and well-established means for funneling Muslim youth into violent behavior.

Barry:  I never said this was not part of the problem, but hell, did you ever try to solve the problem of why Muslim youth can so easily be sold these religious goods?  Therein is where you ought to put your energies… If you solve those issues, the preachers will have nothing to sell worth buying!

wavelength: By contrast, Hedges attempted to defend religion by recourse to his own subjectivity - anecdotal stories from his various travels to the Middle East as a war correspondent.  Its amazing that at the end of this you conclude that Hedges was the “clear winner” of this portion of the debate.  I believe it is the other way around. 

Barry:  Harris’ “objectivity” is nonsense because he has never gone to these lands and never teased out from Arabs themselves what the deal is. Harris is arguing from his ivory tower.  That is SUBJECTIVE, based on his hypothesis about religion which is false.

Hedges’ has many false hypotheses about religion on other levels to be sure (which is why I would love to see an atheist like Noam Chomsky, Ted Honderich or Gilbert Achcar debate Harris or Hitchens on religion rather than a religionist like Hedges), but his evidence is not anecdotal in the sense that he is telling just-so stories.  Instead, his analysis is based on sociology and other social sciences as he is going to the horses mouth for answers Harris instead dreams up in LA.

Hedges won not because religion is correct, or because his ideas about the good or bad in general, as refers to the human mind or heart stemming, in religion is indisputable, but because he better understood and explained the big picture of which religion is only a part.  I think he is too liberal on religion, of course, but he was far closer to the truth than Harris who is far too narrow and naive in his analysis.  And if Hedges can win such a debate, imagine what Chomsky, Achcar or Honderich would do to Harris’ argument?

wavelength says liberals think:
1) experience apoplectic rage at even theoretical arguments for torture, even in restricted settings

Barry:  Talk of torture did not belong in Harris’ book, it was irrelevant to his thesis about the dangers of religion.  That it DID find its way into the book shows he is far more than “theoretical” about torture than you think.  That truth has little to do with his arguments about religion, but it does show a leaning toward conservative and immoral positions on society and the human condition.

wavelength: 2) view criticizing the medievalism of Islam as an indicator of racism and bigotry

Barry:  These are two (three?) different “characters” acting in the same play… A play not as much about either of them, but rather about political and economic hegemony (the West’s not of the Middle East).  In biblical terms, you are blaming a socially, economically and political battered and beaten David who has found morally questionable ways to fight back against an evil (pretending to be good) Goliath.

wavelength: 3) view science & religion as essentially equivalent, without even a basic appreciation for the intellectual standards and honesty that distinguish science from other pursuits

Barry:  Um, I never did that.  And PS, I am not a liberal or a Liberal or a right-Libertarian.  Nor am I a conservative or a Right-winger or a Neo-con Fascist.

-END-

Part Two:

wavelength: You claim it is naive to think religion lies at the core of suicidal terrorism or the Dutch cartoon controversy.  In reality, if you subtract out belief in specific religious doctrines (paradise awaits those who kill infidels, don’t caricature the prophet) then these events make no sense whatsoever.  There may be a role for political manipulation of religious individuals in each case, but to insinuate that these are purely political or economic conflicts in which religious belief is merely a bystander or grafted on as an artifact, is a dangerous misunderstanding of the situation.

Barry:  I did not say suicide terrorism and the cartoon controversy were “purely” political or economic in nature.  Of course religion played a role, and these conflicts ARE about - to a degree - religious beliefs.  BUT, if the Arab world had not suffered (as it still does) as it has at the hand of Western Colonialism and Imperialism over the last 100 or more years, and if globalization and Western Capitalism had not threw the entire “3rd World” into chaos, AND if the U.S. had not (deliberately) helped political Islam become victorious over secular nationalistic Arab leadership and socialist Arab leadership over the last 60 years, do you really think thousands of mainly moderate Muslims (not the Imams who have the spotlight because political Islam was bolstered so high by the US), would care enough to react as they did to the cartoons… even cartoons purposely published to insult and cause a riot by the right-wing Dutch newspaper??? 

If suicide terrorism was not successful and was not the only way most Arabs could fight back against the West (and Israel regarding the Palestinians) and was not born from social conditions which have led the Arab world to be socially ill (most of those reasons coming from Western colonialism, racism and capitalist inspired imperialism), do you really think any suicide terrorism would be condoned at all by anyone in these lands?

wavelength: If religion plays no role, and oppression or occupation are enough to derange people into blowing themselves up, then where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers?  Where are the Native American suicide bombers?  There are none.  Why?  Because these people don’t have the substrate of belief necessary that others might convince them to blow themselves up. 

Barry:  All societies evolve in different ways. Other religions have led to suicide terrorism such as Hinduism.  Non Muslim countries practice this a la Imperial Japan.  Societies not very religious have done this, such as the leading suicide terrorists on Earth… the Tamil Tigers.  And, not all Muslims resort to this, only Arab or Palestinian Muslims which shows how it is not religion as much as it is other sociopolitical factors.

Also, one has to consider morality on a different level.  Suicide terror almost always ends in very few innocent people being killed (9/11 was the exception).  However, state-sponsored terrorism, in the case of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq (just as the latest average example from the West), has caused the deaths of over 600,000 people (mostly innocent).  If you compare side by the side the innocent lives lost at the hands of suicide terrorism with those lost at the hands of the U.S. and its allies - in just the last 45 years - I think you will find the former is but a blip on the screen. 

What do you think is the bigger moral dilemma for the Left and Humanists today?

End Part Two

wavelength: Sam Harris does not deny a role for economic factors, social systems, or political manipulation in promulgating radical Islam or suicidal terrorism.  The thrust of his argument is that religion is a prominent variable among these other factors –undeniably so—and that we need to come to terms with this fact. 

Barry:  No, that is NOT Harris’ argument. He does admit (because it is so obvious), that economics and the rest you cite need to be taken into consideration, but he then instead argues that these factors pale in comparison to religious factors. He states that the alleged 19 highjackers of 9/11 were not hurting economically, but misses other sociopolitical markers for why they might have did what they did.  I have heard Harris along with other messianic atheists like Hitchens and Ibn Warraq argue the same argument Rudy Guilianni argued (against Ron Paul) in the Republican debate… that U.S. foreign policy had nothing to do with why 9/11 occurred!

Yes, religion DOES play a role.. a motivating role, a justification role, and in some cases perhaps an instigating role; but more than not, the first two are the most important.  Religion can wear any sociopolitical hat humans want it to wear (no matter how false supernaturalism is and how damaging it can be in various realms), and it is often other elements in society which determine the behavior of their governments (and the existence of governments themselves) - at least over the last 200-300 years - and whether or not religion becomes the oppressive tool for the strong and/or the single source of hope for many of the oppressed. 

I agree that atheists need to point out the absurdities concerning religious faith, and where faith-based thinking can lead us, but they also have to understand the process of religion is more important than the academic propositions, and thus find new processes from which to build a reason-based, scientifically literate and humanistic society.  Harris and the other “new atheists” are just naysayers, and niave at that. 

wavelength: Atheists like Harris are not “conflating metaphysics with sociology or anthropology They are simply acknowledging that what people believe to be true about the world really matters when examining their actions.

Barry:  But people will not stop doing the things you and I find immoral if religion goes away.  But, if other things go away - capitalism, dominance hierarchies, elitist government, the state (the primary sociopolitical factors) - then secondary negative factors (religion can also be positive, bare in mind) such as literalist or fundamentalist religion, racism, sexism, etc., will follow suit.  I do think, by the way, that supernaturalism will eventually fade away, but because we will have progressively replaced it with a spiritual naturalism.

wavelength: From your perspective, religious ideas are not actually believed, but rather used “as a weapon” or an “excuse” to promote political stances on topics such as abortion, stem cell research, gays, etc.

Barry:  No, I did not say (or imply) that. 

1) For the Neo-cons, this is true.
2) For fundamentalist Christians, this is not true, but many of these folks have turned to radical religion because of OTHER sociopolitical factors. 
3) For the religious Right leadership, I think its more #1 than #2, but both certainly can be true.

I also think that other factors are the base of these prejudices rather than even fundamentalism such as

a) Strict Father Morality,
b) sexism,
c) scientific ignorance due to poor the American education system and the corporate media,
d) economics (the powerful white men do not want women to be equals so it is best to keep them pregnant and barefoot), etc.,

End Part One

Wavelength is frustrated because--

“I am growing increasingly frustrated with people who start their posts by stating, “I am an atheist, but…” and then proceed to slam the atheist in question, be it Harris or Dawkins or Hitchens or Dennett.  I’ve sampled a good deal of the criticism directed at these authors.  I’ve discovered that most of it, especially the fault-finding attacks on Harris, are put forth by liberals to which at least one of the following apply:

1) experience apoplectic rage at even theoretical arguments for torture, even in restricted settings...”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
wavelength,

I haven’t noticed any apoplectic rage lately, but Hitchens has been known to disapprove of even the theoretical mention of torture:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011203/hitchens

“‘That’s the Democrats, right?’ said Norquist. ‘But we were assured there would be a fight up there. Instead all the liberals just rolled over.’ In my pocket was an article by one liberal hack journalist named Jonathan Alter, and another article by the rich thug’s liberal loophole artist, Alan Dershowitz. Both men proposed that we should give torture a chance.

It gave me a vertiginous feeling, to be talking with a toughened conservative who had helped organize a struggle, in wartime, for the defense of civil and political liberties and the rights of unpopular minorities. A struggle in which the liberals had lost their nerve as well as (in the cases of Alter and Dershowitz) their decency.”

It’s probably a truthdig conspiracy to keep everyone in the dark.  HaHa.  Patience is a virtue.

Here’s an interesting article by Jerome Groopman on what he sees as the futility of “neurotheology.” Something for nearly everyone, people who say there’s no ghost in the machine and people who never sought divinity in anatomy.

http://www.jeromegroopman.com/articles/god-and-the-bra in.html

“In the past, religion and biology have usually been in sharp conflict, but in recent years scientists of faith have sought to narrow the divide. Technological advances have made it possible to chart the neural circuits that are switched on and off during religious experiences; this work dovetails with studies examining the physiological effects of repetitive prayer, chanting, and meditation, and with recent attempts to measure the effects of religion on health. Data on the science of spirituality are being sought not only in the laboratory and in the clinic but also in the church and the synagogue and the mosque. Much of the funding for these studies has come from the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropy that focuses on reconciling science and religion. But what does this new partnership signify? And can the burgeoning biology of religious experience be used to argue convincingly for the existence of God?”

Hi Mike-G/Westside,
I think those who “want” a transcriptof the debate do so ONLY because the supposedly-easy-to-obtain audio/video (unedited) version was suspiciously kept unavailable to the public. In fact, Truthdig still hasn’t explained to us what causes the delay and only patronizingly asked for our patience.
Also, since the debate, many from this site and many other forums have heard of the “rumor” that the debate was clearly biased (against Sam Harris). While those who didn’t attend the debate in person can hardly substantiate or dispute this rumor without listening to or watching the unedited debate and make up their own minds, I and certainly many others think that Truthdig further puts itself into a bad position by procrastinating a to-be-honest-to-all-of-us very simple task.
I hope you can at least (try to) understand our frustration towards Truthdig, which is after all a site we frequent.
One more thing, for someone promoting “Global Voices for Justice,” don’t you think this matter itself is actually something where you can use your voice a little bit?

As an atheist, I expected to agree in some philosophical and metaphysical sense with Harris, and disagree in the same sense with Hedges. I was not disappointed.  Indeed, Harris makes legitimate claims about the unscientific, sometimes absurd claims of at least the Abrahamic religions - miracles, virgin births, heaven, etc., as well as the sociopolitical dangers of taking these beliefs seriously, or at least literally.

And, of course, I heard Hedges offer some of the same claims many liberal religionists do such as Hitler was an atheist (he was not), not many people take the bible literally (many do), and Christianity a la Jesus was “really” about love, reason and very down-to-earth politics (read Hector Avalos to understand the falseness of this idea).

In the end, if this were a debate about the existence of God, or on the authority of biblical texts, or even on the probable negative psychological affects of supernaturalism, Harris would probably win hands down. Again, after all, Hedges is a believer ... if indeed one who almost seems to not be a supernaturalist (which makes me wonder how he missed that aspect of religion, but I digress).

But of course this was not really a debate of that sort, but a debate about the implications of holding religious beliefs and the actions of religious believers around the world ... thus, the clear “winner” of this debate is Mr. Hedges. 

Harris does not seem to notice the naivety of his idea that the real motivation for terrorism or the reaction to the Dutch Cartoons have far less to do with religion than with sociopolitical markers.  His call for torture (which is so ineptly defended on his website), his misdiagnosis of 9/11 (which includes his claim that those terrorists were not acting out of sociopolitical strife), his absolute misreading of Palestinian terrorism, as well as the reality of political Islam and the rest of the Muslim or Arab (not always the same thing) world ON THE GROUND ... all point to Harris as a voice piece of what I have heard referred to as narrowly focused and angry, ‘messianic atheism.’

Narrowly focused because the New Atheists are conflating metaphysics with sociology and anthropology.  Angry because they are (rightly so) offering their rebuttal to the attacks of the Right which have used fundamentalist religion as a weapon against secular society and as an excuse for barbaric political measures from anti-abortionism, anti-stem cell research, anti-women and anti-peace (and pro-capitalistic) behavior. Those behaviors are certainly far more complicated in origin than via religion.  And messianic because the New Atheists seem to think that if we eliminate religion from the planet, we will have some sort of utopia (never mind that neither Dawkins, Harris or especially Hitchens have anything to say on what might really create such a future such as ridding ourselves of dominance hierarchies and market-based capitalistic economics, etc.)

In any event, I hope more of this debate is posted soon (along with a written transcript), but I think it is clear that while I am glad Harris and the New Atheists have reopened the dialogue about religion in these regressive times in America, and that they have followed in the footsteps of Ingersoll and Twain (and even O’Hare) in clearly articulating the at times mind-blind role of religion in a scientific age (and religionists from Robertson and the Pope to Wallis and Hedges ought not dismiss the problems with Faith), it is time for we humanists (who are non-theists by default) to pick up the baton from the New Atheists before they do any real damage to the sociopolitical landscape we all have to live in.  Let’s be critical thinkers about Faith like the New Atheists are, but let’s also be critical thinkers about religion, humanity and the sociopolitical and economic landscape like Hedges is. We don’t need a “new atheism,” we need a new humanism!

I hope the full audio version is released unedited.  I can’t shake the feeling that the delay is due to Truthdig making meticulous biased editing decisions.  The mention that the video may never be released doesn’t help either.  Either way, We’ll all know when it is released.

Greetings all,

First and foremost, I would like to add my own voice to the fussilade of dissent and dismay. The prolonged delay is simply unacceptable and extremely unprofessional.

re: the edited version: What a truly pointless exercise this was!! Had you have included the opening statements from our respective protagonists, and ONLY the opening statements, then this would have been acceptable and justified. However, the inclusion of selected splatterings of the debate is utterly unfair, uninformative and rather eerie!!

I should add that I wholeheartedly applaud ‘truthdig’ for holding the event, recording the event and for posting the opening statements from the event. I look forward to hearing the debate in its entirety and I urge you to move as quickly as possible in realising this much anticipated endeavour.

Kind regards,

Scriabin

“Have you ever heard of a single religious war prior to monotheism? “

Sure, David.  I suggest you brush off your history of India, for plenty of examples of non-monotheistic societies battling it out. Read the Bhagavad-Gita or Ramayana for major wars that go back into the mists of mythology, and lots of major battles of religious intolerance between Hindus and Sikhs in more modern times.

I agree that monotheism has fostered a hell of a lot of intolerance, but it certainly does not have a monolithic claim to such stunted behavior.

It seems to me, that Chris Hedges has it all wrong when he claims that monotheism founded the open society.  Does he forget the ‘pagan’ societies of Greece and Rome?  It was monotheism that ended our open societies, and they did not return until secularism prevailed on July 4, 1776. 

Pagan’s at least respected the gods of other societies, after all, one did not want to get on the bad-side of any deity, Roman, Egyptian or otherwise.  It was monotheism that ended the respect one had for the beliefs of other cultures. 

Have you ever heard of a single religious war prior to monotheism?

3legcat writes:
“did Robert Scheer just say “no islamic country ever dropped a nuclear bomb on civilians”?
holy cow… honestly i am dumbfounded, is he feeling ok?  i am worried for him.”

Scary right?  He really did say it, and I’m just as stunned that the synapses of a human brain were actually capable of coming up with that thought and putting it into words.  How does that happen?  How pathetic.

So the organizer of the debate TruthDig has to wait for more than two weeks just for the audio version! (One can’t help wonder how hard it is to do it in this age.) And yet, Beneath the Surface can somehow come up with a skillfully condensed version, presumably from an unedited one, right away.

Coincidentally, suggested by Scheer’s response to niloroth, it seems Truthdig has no intention to “disclose” the video version of the debate anymore.

Karl Popper discussed a kind of “methodological individualism,” but I can’t for the life of me find anywhere he credits “religion” (from the brief online search.

Why not credit Epicurus? Did his school not champion individualism?

Can anybody here tell me why Hedges says what he does about religion and individualism? The opposite of what he says seems to be true, and I can’t find Popper in support.

I couldn’t use the streaming option, which is a ‘playlist’.

Your link on this page is a missing file.

I found this version that works, and appears to
start with the real beginning of the debate, and
maybe plays all of it.

http://64.27.15.184/parchive/mp3/kpfk_070604_170000bts _suzi.mp3

Please post the entire debate without further delay.  This sort of meddling demeans both the TruthDig website and it readers.  Do it now.

Please post the entire debate. It appears that something is being hidden. Others who apparently attended the debate allude to this. I love the truthdig example, let’s follow it.

This edit is very lame.  You owe it to Harris and Hedges to post the whole thing, or explain why you won’t.  Harris says on his site he wants it posted. 

Video for the people!  Full show! 

“It sounds to me like Scheer couldn’t moderate a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

Ha.

I thought it suspicious that we had to wait for this audio so long, given your one sided comments on the debate 2 weeks ago.

please, lets here it all.

The Harris-Hedges debate drew me to this site.  I’ve since dropped in daily for the promised audio.  Mission accomplished, Truthdig.  Post it...unedited… for Christ’s sake.

Truthdig? Dig a hole and bury the truth.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the debate and I thought that both speakers were very well spoken and intelligent.  I thought that even though Mr. Harris (the initial crowd favorite) was much more entertaining and easier to follow, Mr Hedges eventually came across as having the more reasonable, researched and factual position.  Looking forward to hearing/seeing more of these type of events.  Thanks Truthdig.
p.s. negatively impressed with the imature, negative tone of many of the comments.

Now the edited version isn’t working.

I’d be happy with that.

Or a transcript.

Oh, come on now.  Put up the entire video.  Dig beneath the redacted version.

I went to the debate at UCLA. I am an avid atheist, but I was very disturbed by Sam Harris’s comments.
1-Sam Harris has no basic knowledge of Middle East and its culture outside of Islam. He can start simply by reading the poetry of Rumi and Omar Khayyam to understand that atheism has historical roots at least in Iranian culture. Hundreds of books and poems attest to the need of the people for other alternatives. Mr. Harris does not need to condemn a human being born in a Muslim country and to automatically label him as a natural born killer. Mr. Harris, there are many people who are atheist or at least moderates in Muslim countries. They do not need your advice of of forced dictatorship on them. 
2-Sam Harris needs to travel around a little bit to understand that human emotions and aspirations are universal. His comment that Muslim mothers as opposed to Jewish mothers celebrate their sons’ deaths with joy is revolting. A mother is a mother.
He can travel and walk in the streets of Tehran, Beirut, Amman as I did recently, and talk to people and see that the young girls are more inspired by Britney Spears and the boys more by them than the prophet and his promise of virgins. Every human being wants a decent life and some hope. Hopelessness, despair and humiliation in Middle East has helped the radical movements to thrive and religion to become the abstract answer to everything. As some fill up their pockets with oil money and preach the Koran, others starve. If you do not have hope for a future, why not believe in the doors of heaven?

I’m beginning to drill beneath the stench.  It’s becoming fairly obvious Scheer’s still licking his wounds from Harris’ verbal onslaught.  Hopefully he’s a slow healer and not a coward.

Here is a link to the Hedges/Hitchens debate

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1235,n,n

It looks like is was made by someone with a cellphone. Hedges seems to have been edited out of some of it for some reason. I share the frustration with people who want to see the full videos. I’ve been waiting to see these two debates for a while.

Boo!  It ended just as it was getting really interesting.  Post the full debate, please!

did Robert Scheer just say “no islamic country ever dropped a nuclear bomb on civilians”?

holy cow… honestly i am dumbfounded, is he feeling ok?  i am worried for him.

Sam Harris:  Clear headed, logical, found and connected almost all the dots.  Chris Hedges:  Passionate, profound, missed the dots altogether. 

I’d like to see Sam carry his argument to all belief systems, not just religions, to make his point even more solidly.  Any belief system is an absurdity because it is made up of assumptions that one gives away one’s power to because at some point one has consciously or unconsciously transfomed them into “truths” that, at best, must be defended when attacked, and, at worst, may be used to attack non-believers. 

What is wrong with saying these are my assumptions?  I do not know if they are right or wrong, but they do well for me now in these moments. 

The great benefits are that 1) this is the most honest and responsible approach because it appears to mirror the truth, and 2) these assumptions do not lock a person into an untenable position in that he/she may without fear, difficulty or embarrassment change, upgrade or toss them out entirely anytime a better assumption or set of assumptions seem to come along (and change back again if they didn’t work out).  Best yet is that aside for being true, this approach requires no irrational or emotional commitment that could result in the untimely injury or deaths of oneself or of vile “non-assumers.”

Drew Renner

I’ll just add my voice to the call.  Post the entire debate!!  Transcript, audio, video, something!!!

Hedges has more wisdom and humanism that Harris, who can only harp on the 72 virgins, while favoring the idiotic Iraq war and ignoring the desperation of the Palestinians.  You or I might become a bit fanatical if we were living as they are.  As a Hindu sympathist, I am a bit worried about Hedges’ praise for monotheism.  Does he realize that that might offend Hindus a bit?  Does he care?  Does he have any missionary fervor?  I hope not.  Missionaries are obnoxious.

Sam gave a very reasonable dissertation as usual.
Chris tried to justify sermons with a sermon.

A good speaker, in my opinion, is someone who can present an argument. Harris was very clear and understandable. He laid out his arguments and then backed them up with well reasoned justifications. Sam, in his delivery, invited listeners to consider his arguments. On the other hand, Hedges sounded like, well, kind of like a journalist or a scholar. Not bad, but not really presenting an argument, so far as I can tell in this clip. He sounded as though he was reading his personal opinions about the history of western religious culture. I found myself wanting from Hedges facts, but instead got allegory. But, Hedges clearly has a lot to say and unfortunately this clip did not do his arguments (?) justice. If he did in fact present an argument then truth diggers did not yet get to hear it.

What is this?  Why edit show the whole truth guys.  Give us a torrent link if your worried about bandwidth. 
You hyped this and we want to hear it. 

Thanks

Truthdig editors, what the $*&(# is wrong with you?

POST THE ENTIRE DEBATE, YOU MORONS.

I don’t even need the audio, the transcriptwould be fine. But obviously, I want the _entire_ debate, not some cherry-picked version.

I can’t fathom why you find this so hard to figure out. What’s stopping you? Is it that Robert Scheer came off like a complete douchebag during the debate? Reading some of the previous comments, it sounds to me like Scheer couldn’t moderate a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Prove me wrong, Truthdig. Prove me wrong.

This is a great debate.  Both Chris Hedges and Sam Harris bring their written texts alive during their opening statements.  I’m glad that I have become a devoted reader of Truthdig.