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Comment by tunesmith | Hacker News Reader

I've never ready anything by Sam Harris that I've considered to be rational and well-reasoned. The guy's whole schtick seems to be making arguments that are valid but unsound. Here his premise is "But the only way that Muslims can reasonably be said to exist as a group is in terms of their adherence to the doctrine of Islam," which is completely false. He implies that anyone who practices Islam is "deeply committed to the actual doctrines" as practiced by the hijackers, which is false. He's implying that people who practice Islamophobia are targeting people by their beliefs, when in reality they will target them by their headwear (see the various crimes against Sikhs, one of the gosh-darn nicest religions in the world). Every time I read something by Harris my blood boils a bit because of how insidious his pseudo-logic is.

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I actually knew Sam when he was a sophomore in college, and his writings strike me as an almost perfect illustration of the term "sophomoric": smart, overconfident, but at the same time immature and lacking in depth and perspective.

His arguments for arming himself smack of complete ignorance of the concept of the monopoly of physical violence[1], and without accounting for those theories (and their practical application in modern states), the whole argument is just vapid.

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gewaltmonopol_des_Staates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

>that people who practice Islamophobia are targeting people by their beliefs, when in reality they will target them by their headwear

Are you proposing that they should read minds? As far as I know that's not possible so this statement is preposterous, of course they are going to target by the headgear/skin-color, is the only way they can determine who is Islamic and who is not; being bad at it is a different matter.

Reread the comment you're replying to; that's exactly what he's saying.

If Islam <-> Muslim is completely false, curious as to how you would define the term?

That improperly restates my rebuttal. I'm not saying that Islam is never Muslim or vice versa. He's making the forall statement, not me. I'm saying that it's completely false that "The only way that Muslims can reasonably be said to exist as a group is in terms of their adherence to the doctrine of Islam". Trivially refuted since he's making a ∀ statement. You only have to find a ∃ to refute it. Google "cultural muslim", etc.

Well the impression I get is the idea of a "cultural" muslim is contested from both within and without the muslim community so I don't think it's quite that clear cut. Who gets to own the labels seems to always be a political battle. You could argue that it is only "reasonable" to use the label for those who hold the beliefs.

No true Scotsman

How do you decide who owns the "right" beliefs? By that logic, who can we consider to be a Christian?

"No true Scotsman" is only a fallacy when one uses irrelevant criteria to exclude people from a group.

It's not NtS to point out that James "Scotty" Doohan wasn't Scottish (he was a Canadian of Irish descent.) Nor is it NtS to point out that certain people don't hold various relevant defining characteristics and therefore to claim that they don't count as being in a particular category. Of course, that exclusion is contextual -- it can apply to a particular use of a label without applying to all uses of it.

Note that I disagree with Sam Harris overall. His claim is that the only way Muslims can be reasonably said to exist is his definition; I would argue that one way Muslims can be said to exist is his definition. I would further argue that some people who use other definitions of Islam have irrational/unjustified/disproportionate fear, and can therefore be said to be Islamophobic.

I'm not really sure if there's a term for the problem with this, but "moral hazard" may apply. If a determination is made to exclude all "cultural muslims" from the definition of muslim, then that determination is probably made by someone who is not a "cultural muslim", and the effects might really suck for the cultural muslims.

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