Part of his job is to challenge each debater. Harris may be an eloquent speaker but at the end of the day if more of what he's saying needs challened than Hedges so be it. I know you guys really love cheering on Harris' rhetoric but a lot of it is really flawed. You just don't hear Hedges & Sanders because you agree with Harris already.
@@squigglyline2813 Challenging is one thing, but inserting yourself as a 3rd debater is completely different and that's exactly what colonel sanders did. The fact that you can even say "Hedges & Sanders" shows how biased the 'moderator' was. He wasn't just challenging, he was giving his own arguments. How many times have you heard someone in the audience scream "YOU'RE A MODERATOR" before? That's how egregiously biased he was.
@@cwjalexx exactly Challenging and moderating is one thing but when you start chewing up the time of the debaters constantly not just here and there. That I clicked to watch And going on several minute speeches. especially when he’s directing it towards Sam Harris.. and not the other guy. Essentially double teaming Harris, And preventing Harris from answering the other guys question.. yea it gets annoying.
I've seen Sam Harris debate Reza, Chomsky, Cenk, and Hedges --- every time I hear the same simple-minded, thought-experiment-driven approach to irreducibly complex, real-world social problems. His lack of training in social science is very obvious and weakens his arguments (see him against Hedges and Reza). He is very naive about the nature of american power in the world and myopically emphasizes the importance of professed intentions (see him against Chomsky). He is a "pop-intellectual" --- which is to say that he is lacking in depth of analysis and poses as an expert about topics about which he has no expertise. In doing so, he sadly empowers a uniquely american ignorance about other peoples in the world. And what I am surprised by most of all (!) is that the comment boards are always full of comments about how brilliantly Harris chopped down his opponent. I couldn't disagree more strongly. Harris is a troll. Sorry to break it to you, folks!
Well said! Harris uses atheism as a cover that allows him to espouse racist rhetoric against Muslims. He has Jewish origins, similar to protagonist Bill Maher, that clearly have shaped his intolerant thinking. Like Bill, he has never spent time in the Middle East with Muslims families, yet feels educated enough to paint them all in a broad terrorist picture. This is the thinking of a non-thinking, ignorant child.
The question of whether religious beliefs contribute to behaviour is obvious and need not even be questioned. If religions had no role to play in people's lives, people would not practice them. This is not controversial at all. What Harris is questioning is the validity, sanctity and the consequences of those beliefs. A combination of factor X (e.g. poverty or dispair) with religion Y (e.g. Islam) is likely to lead to outcome Z as apposed to a case where Y is replaced with W (e.g. Buddhism). This is a very powerful argument that all things considered equal religion does play a significant role in whether or not a person will or will not commit a violent act.
The role of a moderator is to facilitate the debate, not complicate it by interrupting constantly, derailing it by presenting your own ideas in the midst of what could be a fruitful exchange between the two debaters, and spending about as much time talking as your debaters.
The people in the comments referring to Robert Scheer as an "old man" or an "annoying moderator" are exposing their ignorance,willful or otherwise. Editor in Chief Robert Scheer is dedicated to reporting on current issues that are insufficiently covered by mainstream media. The website’s mission is to dig beneath the headlines, provide expert reporting and commentary from a progressive point of view, and offer an outlet for original work by exceptional journalists. Truthdig rests on the bedrock of independent journalism, and insists that their reporting meet the highest standards. He and Publisher Zuade Kaufman are the co- founders of Truthdig This us a debate, Scheer is a participant in it.
I'm an atheist and I think Hedges is one of the best modern writers and a brilliant public speaker. As I read the comments here, and listen to this debate and others, I see how his, Hedges, intelligent queries and narrative are often converted to straw-man or simply ignored. It is a shame and, intellectually, we are worse off for doing so.
I too am an atheist. While listening to the Hedge and his overwrought speaking style, i imagine my toolbox and the rusty implements within. Which dull tool, still capable of firmly gripping things, should I choose to remove everyone of my finger and toe nails. Only a slow, sweet, searing sort of pain will do. The semi- shock state is the only antidote to this inane, and intellectually dishonest man"s ramblings. i can not see how this passion ploy, 5 straight minutes of emotional word salad, dressed with threats of moral guilt. How did a simple, humble idiot he must think me, have a such a clear heavensent vision. Why did some sort of higher, all knowing being choose me to receive his miraculous message. Why must I, a sinner, bring this lesson to you, dear reader. I must relate, my short, but spiritually, earthshaking tale. Moments before i was even drawn to this clip. I, a simple and....what was the? .....dammit!.....oh yea!.......simple and humble.....man, was visited, in my den, by an.....ANGEL.... yes an actual ANGEL!!......I swear...not that kind...the oath kind The ..Angel...... lets call him Mark, ...because that's what he said his name was. He, I think, is the first heavenly being {bearing a message from god, or not} to visit me. I can not swear {the good or bad kind} to this, however, as I often take long naps in the afternoon, and don't always answer the doorbell. I may have missed an angel or two in the past, or any number of other mythical, commandment carriers, of any number faiths, but I was sure it was those increasingly serious/ominous bill collectors again, Alright, back to my visionary visitor, Mark the Angel, ....can I just call him Mark Angel, for the rest of this post? He,[ i think he was a he, i had an uncle Mark before, and he was a he. These days you don't want to assume anyone, is a pitcher or a catcher these days. It's a lot easier if a tranny demands that you call use some bizzare, made-up pronoun. I didn't like being TOLD to use words, against my will, at first. ...BUT,......really, ....I've got better things to do, than trying to guess what gender, a perfectly strange stranger, thinks zer is. My spellcheck says that's not how zim should spell "zer", but how else ya gonna spell "zer" ?.....right? ....like it sounds right? Luckily Mark.........the angel I was telling you about?.......the one who woke me up? .......remember? ..He woke me up..........I fell asleep...in my new easy chair? ....in the den ..... remember? before you got me talkin about the zer, zim, zippity do dah ..bullshit!.... did I get to the message part? ...no ? ...ok.. no! .. that's not even the best part..........wait til I tell you..........what ..GOD thinks about, what that Hedges blowhard, thinks about religion.!! you know? ....we talked about him before ....that hack writer.....you know........the commie hack.....yea I know right? ....there's way too many of 'em now! .....remember when we thought we were done with these dolts?....after everybody read "Gulag...". and the truth about Stalin and the purges came out, and the truth about Lenin and the Purges came out and the truth about Moa and the purges came out, and Pol Pot.... ...and Trotsky and th...oh yea ....he GOT purged! ...that's right...did he get to purge before he got purged?....well that doesn't sound fair! ....I mean in an egalitarian system, where everyone is equal, and society has finally rid itself of the west's capitalist oppressed/oppressor construct, .......you would think,...as a friend and hero of the working classes......is it masses or classes? ..i forget ...no working masses ...that don't sound right......sounds like your tumor is growing really fast, or something....come on .....it wasn't that bad ......it wasn't like it was MALignant? .......eh...you gotta admit? .......what else you gonna do ? ...sittin there...for hours waitin for the damn kemo bag to finish drainin into you..finish drainin you..is more like it.....yea that's what we do ...we try an wright a joke or two to kill the time..........we gotta a rule......jokes, but no puns, we don't do puns...........everbody knows........there's nothin punny........about Kemo......right.....am I right yea...you know I'm right! WHAT?!! you gotta let me finish the angel angle......alright you swear?.....I know you swear........I heard you in the can , at the club last week, ....you should get that looked at,........or what ever they do to things like that, on people like you.......alright..........yea I'll see ya tomorrow........I'll tell ya, what god told me.....yea it can wait. ......hell!.......heaven can wait.... KOut
I disagreed, I thought he was awesome. Because he let the people speak when it was their turn but in between would add some context, and it wasn’t like he was just some idiot from CNN he had a lot of valuable experience and information to add to the conversation
@@dowhatsright4429 He was horrible. The moderator accused Sam of defending the invasion of Iraq and interrupted Sam on multiple occasions to say he disagreed. A moderator shouldn't be overly biased to one side. It was clear he was cheerleading Chris Hedges. Typical religious tribalism for you.
Did you even bother to see what Sam said which prompted that response from the moderator? This millionaire (Sam Harris) wants you to believe that his shallow and inaccurate polling data (most middle eastern countries don’t allow) is worth more than 1000 years of wandering around the Middle East? Who is so vain or disingenuous to honestly believe that? Gtfo here…That is intellectual dishonesty and to view it as anything else is like trying to slap lipstick on a pig and passing it as your wife.
Sam's composure never ceases to amaze me. That wasn't a debate, it was an ambush. The "moderator" ate up probably half of Sam's time with his yammering. Sam managed to hold his own despite being screwed out of the equal time Colonel Sanders was supposed to make sure he got.
@@rupertgillies447 what I thought was very concerning was how Harris is playing to the audience instead of engaging hedges. He relied upon a lot of, what I suppose he thought was “Slick humor” instead of actually engaging the arguments of the individual he disagreed with. And it seems to me that as the conversation went on, and Harris found that his playing to the audience was becoming less and less effective, Harris decides to become insulting and says that he would rather put his face, or I should say implying he would rather put his face, within a pole as opposed to a man who clearly understands Islam far better than Harris himself and has actually lived within the Middle East for seven years as opposed to Harris himself who has never even planted his feet on the soil.
Yup, from the comments it seems he sent a lot of folks here today. Never heard about Sam Harris until Dore recently brought him up. Hedges I knew of before I found Dore, great individuals both.
What a horrendous moderator. Interrupted Harris repeatedly and allowed him to be interrupted before getting to most of his points, very openly taking sides in a reasonable point about polls vs personal experience, spending his time talking (which - does he think people are there to listen to him?) to meander through multiple irrelevant monologues before making a superficial question that's less interesting than the previous topics he interrupted... I was even starting to side against Harris' argument until the moderator suddenly made me realize he still wasn't, and hadn't been until that point, actually allowing for a proper debate. Not to mention the multiple interruptions of Hedges in attempts to take the reigns of Hedges' arguments, which he did pretty well, as they were a masturbatory and painfully long strawmanning that honestly seemed to come out of nowhere. Disgraceful failure to honest and open discourse.
oh god what is the moderator doing? He said he didn't want to give too long of an intro but he proceeded to ramble out a spew of nothing for nearly 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour, his introduction was literally the opposite of compelling, it was tortuously banal. Shut up man!!!
Really shitty moderator. Loudmouth who hasn’t bothered to read any background material. I think he’s trying to join both sides because we can all clearly agree he’s a fucking moron. Y’all Wit Me?!
Chris is not a 'believer' or even an orthodox Christian - I doubt he even accepts the Bible - It's unclear what his position is on religion or even theism
I think he was not only fine but raised some good points and key questions. Just because one particularly rabid and angry audience member toward the end, and then a few dozen people on RU-vid gave that sentiment a thumbs up, doesn't mean that this man did a poor job moderating. I think he was engaging, but not long-winded. Not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. It seems to me that a bunch of Sam Harris fans and otherwise tribal, non-thinking people got upset that Scheer seemed to take more of Chris' side on one or two specifics and had the audacity to challenge Sam on those specifics. Nothing more to see here.
@@mikeisapro I’m not basing my negative opinion of the moderator on the guy in the audience or any other RU-vid comments. My opinion comes from the moderator. He’s not an impartial party. He is long winded. Every second he talks is a second lost from the actual featured debaters, so his input should have been kept at an absolute minimum. It wasn’t. Instead, he was another debater on stage who wasn’t invited.
Harris is right to oppose religious dogma but he’s wrong to blame religion (Islam) for suicide bombing and 9/11. 9/11 was done by Israel (Jews), not Muslims. Harris doesn’t know much about Islam or the Middle East. Hedges does. Hedges does not argue in favor of religious dogma at all but he does understand the most believers are not fanatics.
The thing that makes Harris look like a bigot trying to confirm their belief system is that he constantly uses examples of middle eastern people appearing to be behaving in with irrational murderous intent but brushes aside agent orange, nuclear bombs, drones etc that the us drops on civilians without qualm. One example seems "rational" and just happens to be his homeland, his culture and in-line with his geopolitics and the other is a culture and religion that also happens to be an enemy of the us and israel whom he regularly shows contempt for. It's all clearly subjective and also reflects a stubborn ignorance of history. It's always a disappointment for me because he's such a skilled debater otherwise.
This moderator needs to take some classes on how to be a moderator. Moderators are supposed to keep the discussion(s) on track and potentially clarify any positions. That’s it. What a moderator does NOT do is repeatedly interject their own opinions into the topic of debate between the two invited guest debators
What I meant is: pursuit of pure science without humanities is really dangerous. When physicists develop bombs they study physical impact but not the extent of human suffering.
Remember that Star Trek movie where Spock's brother is some self-proclaimed holy man who mind melds with people to make their pain go away? It works but the people touched by him walk around like zombies with smiles on their faces. When he approches Kirk he says, "Your pain runs deep. Let me remove your pain." Kirk protests, "NO! I need my pain. My pain makes me who I am!" I think there's wisdom in that even if it's not what we want to hear. Pain also teaches us compassion-empathy.
You've GOT to be kidding, right? The distinction of Straw Man Argument Abuse belongs to Sam Harris in this debate. Introducing gimmicky ruses like Fundamentalist Naziism, Fundamentalist Witchcraft, etc., as rhetorical devises to distract from real phenomena in religious and socio-economic motivations was simply lazy intellectualism, which evidently reflects Mr. Harris' seeming approach to most subjects outside of basic his refutation technique applied to religion.
just0a0Biff Those were not strawman and they were really great points. Makeing a distinction between moderate and fundelmentalist Chrisitianity is like making a distinction between moderate and fundelmentalist nazism.
greenghost2008 Wrong. They were exactly straw man arguments in that they were used to back into a presupposed but false conclusion rather than used by extracting correlative original facts that proved an alternative conclusion. The analogies were incongruous, irrelevant in their spirit and context to the arguments Mr. Hedges was making. I think Mr. Harris was attacking Islam at the time, and he was attempting to label all adherents with the same brush when he used the straw man relativity of Fundamentalist Nazis versus just regular Nazis as proof that they are one and the same in terms of their evil, and therefore condemnation of all followers of Islam is demonstrably valid. If the scientific Mr. Harris wants to demonstrate that Islam/Christianity/Judaism and all adherents are evil, then at least be scientific in the approach and stop resorting to philosophical slights of hand to manipulate what he imagines is an empirically rigorous conclusion.
greenghost2008 No, actually I don't. Perhaps you should just say it rather than misquote me and rely on innuendo to ascribe some perverted meaning. And once you've wasted both of our time, I'll tell you to read my post more carefully and address the points, or lets just agree to disagree and move on. I did not say that Harris was trying to paint Nazis with the same brush, but it's humorous that you used his same philosophical debating gimmick to muddy the water.
It is not intellectual to crowd please and it is also disingenuous. Many people are taken in by "style over substance". Harris is all style and no substance and this is a mastery of psychology rather than de-constructing real events with the intention to be fair to the situation or to have motivation to resolve the issues.
Hedges argues from emotion, and that gets a response out of people. Sadly, most people base their beliefs on emotion rather than evidence that might be uncomfortable.
@@MicahBuzanANIMATION Hedges argues from knowledge, experience and offers citations. His emotion comes from experience. Harris, however, is badly informed, makes no research and uses cheap emotional buttons as rhetoric. The guy tries to talk about religion and misrepresents both Jesus and Mohammed. In the case of the Great Prophet, he is completely wrong - he was not a conquering general and that kind of mistake is unacceptable from someone who claims to have studied the subject. You see, it's not a mistake about someone on the periphery of Muslim theology but a mistake about the founder of the Islam so absurd that even I, who was raised as a catholic in a country with very few muslims, caught it right away. His error is equivalent to saying Jesus was a Persian.
@@maxheadrom3088 How on Earth are you arguing that Muhammad wasn’t a conquerer? He spread Islam through conquest for the first couple decades of its spread. Do you just know absolutely nothing about the history and assume that because Jesus was basically an ancient hippie that Muhammad must have been one too? News flash, he wasn’t, at all.
Yeah. Someone actually called out of the crowd, "You're a lousy moderator!" The reason he was (at least for this debate) a lousy moderator is because he interrupts Harris at least 2 times to interject his own experiences. You either moderate or you debate. But doing both is ... lousy. On a personal note, I agreed with what Rob Scheer interjected and I don't like Sam Harris or his perspectives. But he should be heard if he came to debate. He has some intelligence; I just feel like he inflames issues.
The people in the comments referring to Robert Scheer as an "old man" or an "annoying moderator" are exposing their ignorance,willful or otherwise. Editor in Chief Robert Scheer is dedicated to reporting on current issues that are insufficiently covered by mainstream media. The website’s mission is to dig beneath the headlines, provide expert reporting and commentary from a progressive point of view, and offer an outlet for original work by exceptional journalists. Truthdig rests on the bedrock of independent journalism, and insists that their reporting meet the highest standards. He and Publisher Zuade Kaufman are the co- founders of Truthdig This us a debate, Scheer is a participant in it.
Wish I could give this more than on thumbs up. Sadly, Hedges' effectiveness places a spotlight on how most people respond more to emotional argumentation than any system of logic or reason.
This is my first experience of Hedges but in this debate he seems to lean on his anecdotal personal experience and occasionally just knida yelling. Can I assume this is not an accurate representation I've built of him?
@@matthewharrington9723 I’m sure that like most intellectuals Hedges makes a lot of sense on certain topics. I’ve heard he’s been caught commuting obvious plagiarism on more than one occasion though, so make of that what you will.
Chris Hedges sounds insane when he talks about religion. The Abrahamic religions didn't invent the concept of the individual. This is claim is beyond absurd.
I’m an Atheist, and Sam Harris stupidity in that debate, made me root for the religious side. He is nothing but a war monguer using Atheism as a political tool. He is no better than those terrorists that twist and abuse faith, upon ignorant masses, to achieve their sick goals. It’s revolting to hear him speak.
Sam Harris was funny and entertaining when discussing religion, but once the debate turned to the middle east he just got destroyed. It's telling that both Hedges and the moderator spoke at length about their experiences in the middle east, but Harris had absolutely nothing concrete to say about the region. He's simply not an authority on the middle east, and his ignorance showed here. The only point he scored there was on the Pew poll on suicide bombing, and I'm surprised that neither Hedges or the moderator had anything to say about that. Even though the Pew poll was an effective point, Harris' support of use of violence by America against the Muslim world is appalling. He's as much a part of the problem as the Christian fundamentalists that he purports to oppose. This is why Atheist fundamentalism is a step back for the Western world, and not a step forward. If you aren't religious, then you should be Agnostic, which is what all non-believers are when they choose to remain neutral and impartial. Why care so much about religion if you don't think it has credibility? Only Atheists are foolish enough to waste so much time on the subject. A secular person should stick to focusing on the secular world. Agnostics are capable of that, but Atheist fundamentalists by definition can never be.
+Eward Ho "Atheist fundamentalism" Do you realize how dumb you sound, you litterally lose all credibility when you say shit like that. Also, anecdotes are not scientific evidence, at least you're not hiding behind the fact that you think it's about who has the "authority" on the subject and not the evidence, wow
+2CSST2 Do you know even know fundamentalism means? Are you saying that it's dumb to say that there are Atheists out there who insist that their spiritual beliefs are the only ones that are valid? Don't you know that these Atheists can also be very emotional in their beliefs, and tend to ridicule and even hate those who don't agree 100% with them? That's what a fundamentalist is. Read up on fundamentalism on Wikipedia and note that non-religions, including Atheism can be labeled fundamentalist: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#Atheist. And a strict adherence to science (scientific fundamentalism) is not only dumb, it could ruin the world. Scientific understanding requires huge amounts of time and money, along with qualified researchers and the ability to control all variables (which is sometimes next to impossible when you're studying people). If you want to wait until we scientifically prove that America is wrong to use violence, then you'll have to wait forever, because not only is that hard to do, but no one is even really trying. Moreover, no one has scientifically proven that America is right, and no, one Pew Poll isn't going to do that. And remember, just because something hasn't been scientifically proven doesn't mean that it can't exist.
Eward Ho "Fundamentalism is defined as strict adherence to some belief or ideology, especially in a religious context, or a form of Christianity where the Bible is taken literally and obeyed in full." Atheism is the absense of belief, there's no belief or idealogy to adhere to, end of stupid debate. That link you provide points to an Archbishop using the term, that doesn't make it true, it just makes one more of you uttering stupid idiocies.
So many people calling Sam an idiot but don't cite a single example of what he got wrong. Hedges first sentence of his closing remarks show that he totally missed Sam's main point. Sam's beef is not with fundamentalism. It is with the fundamentals of Islam.
+Joe Smith I'm absolutely not saying he's lying (though it wouldn't be the first time - he is a serial plagiarist after all, and he's denied it in spite of overwhelming evidence). I'm just saying his limited, subjective experiences are worthless when put next to polling data.
Rupert Evans Fucking hilarious. You give more credence to poll data than actual personal experience reporting as a journalist in the field? wow...just wow. You realize you can get a poll to say anything, right?
I certainly give more credence to polling data - especially when it's corroborated by more polling data, from reliable polling organisations, like Pew or ICM - than some hack plagiarist's partisan intuitions. I grant that in a poll, one *can* frame questions in such a way as to receive the desired answer, but if you've read the wording of the relevant polling data discussed above (which one assumes you haven't), you'd know that the questions were posed completely fairly. I warn you now, incidentally, that long gone are the days when I would happily engage in RU-vid 'debates/arguments'. I simply don't have the time anymore, so if you reply, and your reply doesn't meet my (relatively high) standards, this will be my last 'contribution'. You don't have to agree with me, but you have to do better than condescension and prosaic generalities (which are irrelevant insofar as the polling data mentioned above is concerned).
Wow, I came here for Harris, and after the debate, they were both great. But can't escape the feeling ghat Hedges was on a whole different level compared to Harris. Hedges came across as kind and thiughtful while Harris looked like a smart-alek high school kid.
That’s because Harris doesn’t do any real homework. Hedges has been on the ground covering the after-effects of bombings and the mutilation of the bombed both physically and spiritually. Shell shock is a well understood concept. Today it’s PTSD. Imagine dealing with an entire society suffering trauma together. The US killed hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of 9/11, most of whom are civilians. To Sam that’s not insanity. Why not? It’s not liked Americans wept over the dead in Iraq. They killed them like they were ants, quickly forgotten the moment after it happened from the people who supported that war. It’s a failure of Harris’s humanity that he can’t see Muslims are fully human and respond to despair and anger the way everybody else does.
You weren’t listening to the same debate as me. Harris did his homework, and clearly explained his compassion for Muslims. Like with other religions, it’s the ideas he has a problem with, and there were great points made without sufficient rebuttal.
@@timcrowe8696 His saying he has compassion and me believing it are two very different things. He's shown no evidence for example he cares at all for the Palestinian dead except for some throwaway lines about how of course it's bad that people are dying. Then an hour justifying it and explaining how we shouldn't get too caught up in our emotions when we see dead Palestinian children. I simply don't believe his moral compass works. That's my opinion.
@@timcrowe8696Harris is the same person who says stuff like, "we need to keep the number of Muslims down in any society." That's not a statement against Islam, that showcases non-compassion and bigotry towards Muslims as people on the basis of their beliefs. THAT is bigotry, not criticism of Islam.
My only question is who is paying all the Sam harris trolls in the comments section? You know, the ones who saying some discrediting remark while leaving a HUGE gap where you'd normally find specifics of where and how his arguments are wrong?
So Sam Harris concludes this debate by talking about witches and why the greatest problem of religion is the denial of homosexuality! Brilliant not much.
Sam is afraid of something, maybe many things, like being wrong. He doesn't engage hedges' argument. The "tenets" Harris speaks to can be replaced easily by sports chants, nationalist slogans and capitalist doctrine. What the hell else is he afraid of?
Yes, I've read and listened to Sam Harris make some smooth & clever arguments but after further examination I saw an agenda that had subtle layer of excusing the brutalities of Zionism and fundamental Christianity that I could not overlook. The Corporate Atheist monsters and killers of the present day Military Industrial complex seem to fly below Sam Harris's intellectual radar too frequently for me.
Another strawman I see. Chris Hedges admits that there is no physical god and argues that God and religion are rather abstract concepts the same way art and philosophy are, and that they are ways to grasp with the nonrational as well as explain human nature, which Hedges believes to be the cause of evil. Furthermore, he accuses Sam Harris of being a cultural supremacist who supports the Zionist and neoconservative agenda (IE war in Iraq, Afghanistan Presence) just so he can go up to people and say how morally and culturally superior we are. So please, why don't you build a church to Sam Harris and worship him as a messiah while vomiting out his bigoted and hateful vile albeit with less articulation and clarity?
The moderator is there to moderate as I understand it. What a disgrace. He couldn't have been more cowardly about anything about Islam. Sam has to fight his corner against his opponent and the moderator.. This 'moderator' really bigged up everyone at the start because he is so meek and pathetic himself.
1:21:25 Harris won the debate and cut through a tsunami of confusion and politically correct bullshit in single line: “There’s no doubt despair is a variable, but it matters what you believes in your despair.”
Chris Hedges makes so much sense. He is speaking from love and experience, not just intellectual generality. It is frustrating to see that the finesse of his point of view is not always appreciated. Let's stop pointing a finger at religion and consider the elephant in the room, the ruling oligarchy.
Chris Hedges is dodging from the subject of discussion without finesse, appealing to his life emotional experiences. The ruling oligarchy is not the subject of this debate, but it is formed from people with beliefs that inform their actions like the rest of world, poor or rich. And ruling oligarchy people are not immune to irrational beliefs or religious beliefs wich eventually will become atrocities. Atrocities of moral holy books.
I'd love to see this PEW poll to see exactly what it said because that would 1000% end that particular debate. I'd say Sam did his research before putting it in his book but I've never read this PEW poll.... The Moderator debated with his heart rather than his brain.
I find it very evasive of Sam, to just brush away the secular nationalist Arab movements as if they didn't exist. How does he explain them? he dodged that question. He refuses to give credit to the Muslim population for endogenously developing secular governments. But when religious sentiment, arises out of foreign involvement and the failure of these secular gov's, then its the fault of religion!! a double standard Also, saying that the population under these secular gov's was still more or less religious, can be said for even western governments, just look at the Christian right here in the US.
TheHomoludens lol, I don't know if he is payed, but yes he does excuse warmongering right wing morons. RObert Wright exposed him in his debate with him a while ago.
***** just indirectly, he just piggybacks on his networks and supports his policies. He's much more aligned with the "liberal" zionists, not that there is any difference. He wouldn't even be able to spew out his disgusting racist bullshit without the massive networks of support, financed by adelson that have made it possible to be a pseudointellectual piece of shit shill for israel, cherry picking sources which stupid fucks like you eat up because you're racist bias explodes out of you fucks, just like breitbart edited videos to do the exact same thing. He's a piece of shit that is a "NUKE IRAN NOW" far-right neocon pig that hides behind boutique activist "liberal positions" just like the Kochs and the pig libertarians do. You're all disgusting dishonest trolls piggybacking corporate money and corporate propaganda in service to the imperial war machine.
Hedges gets lost in the weeds. Weeds that seem to be of his own making. DOES he have a cogent point to make? Sounds like more of a declaration of things he doesn't like versus a rational, well laid out argument with an actual underlying theme or idea to promote. Hedges promotes and defends "faith" ... well..."faith" in/of what exactly? It is not easy to separate tribalism from faith (whichever one might be involved), as faith often in turn breeds expanded tribalism .. the primary point Hedges completely misses or ignores, yet Harris zeroes in on. Then Hedges basically says he sees religion as a coping mechanism with some social value...something Harris would agree with. Hedges sidesteps the whole gist of the discourse, and the announcer has to reign him back into the point of the debate. Hedges has great trouble with context.
Everyone managed to annoy me in this debate, from the moderator starting off with the adjective "ballsy" to losing all composure at the end, to Christopher Hedges wandering into Sam Harris' writing on torture (necessary but not the thesis of the evening) and never responding to the critiques of religion directly, to Sam Harris referring to "the riddle of womanhood" and resorting to bland simplifications. Also I was troubled by the leap he made in his closing remarks from the witch trials, which worked to scald patriarchal capitalism into existence via the flesh of women, to joking about how the idea of "witchcraft" is so silly and somehow equatable with religious violence itself? "Witchcraft" generally refers to an animistic understanding of the universe and is not a religion, and most certainly not the patriarchal religion that waged genocide against women it labelled "witches." So that was just baffling. What was really lacking here was a focus on a particular theme and assessment of the underlying assumptions that kept getting tripped over. Why and wherefore is symbolic language taken literally? Harris seemed to be most solid in critiquing the literalness of fundamentalism but Hedges never entered that arena at all. Why and wherefore is Hedges Christian if he finds whole sections of the bible nefarious and the existence of Jesus questionable? That would seem a reasonable question. And what in the human psyche is triggered by ritual, and why and in what circumstances does this fuse with a cult mentality? Perhaps most importantly: Why do religions exist and what is defined as religion? That would seem a good starting point. Frankly I feel everyone on stage resorted to emotional arguments (torture! suicide! morality!) rather than exploring the tangled web of reality with honest nuance.
+emma13254 The witch hunts were inspired by Christianity, so it's a perfectly valid point by Harris. But your repeated use of the term "patriarchy" tells me what has turned your brain to mush.
I was sober when I wrote this comment and I was sober when I reviewed Dr. Silvia Federici's seminal work, "Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation."
attn. Frank Sanders: Please forward a full list of banned words so I may sure to never stretch the fragile bounds of your worldview. I would hate to present when it snaps entirely.
Hedges arguments all come from his personal experience. Sam had it right, anecdotal evidence is not science. Hedges also seems to equate suicide bombers with Palestinians. That was puzzling. Hedges last leg to stand on was to equate bad aspects of religion to tribalism, which is nonsense. The bad aspects of religion, like the discrimination of gays, happens in America today with all of its modernity. Hitchens said it best, religion poisons everything. Hedges said it worst, religion is some abstract concept force in the universe. No, religion is the dogma.
I love that everyone acts surprised that Harris thinks a well-run survey is a better way to determine the opinions of people than wandering haphazardly about a country. It's as though they've never read a criticism of anecdotal evidence.
Sam always alludes to surveys but I"ve yet to hear one citation. It's always comments like "we know this" or "there was pew survey" that supports this. What survey, when, where? Also, it's not a given that surveys are correct, but sam is disparaging Hedges' experience but not offering anything himself empirically.
Imagine thinking a skewed survey which Sam himself states is limited because the countries he demonizes and makes coin in doing so do not accurately show best results. Hedges helped debunk the WMD false flag we used to set the Middle East on fire for 20 years, speaks Arabic and lived in the Middle East for 10 years. Would you accept a pew poll or survey if China, India or Saudi Arabia conducted similar polls on the US and then used said limited data to demonize us? Of course not.
Don't enjoy debates when the moderator involves himself too much in the discussion. I would rather he confined himself to asking questions and keeping the subject matter on course. Sam Harris was on form a usual, being both articulate and funny, but always a fount of uncomfortable home truths.
Unfortunately, when you put a knowledgeable person with someone who has 'talking points' of a very shallow nature, you get this kind of massacre. You can see how Sam struggles to have an intellectual conversation - he's able to seemingly talk about several topics - but anybody who has the slightest knowledge on the topics discussed (even as a first year scholar), realises that he is just 'inventing' an image about religious people and so-called facts that simply are not correct. Verifiable. I can however understand the appeal of the lesser intellectual, lesser interested person hearing him and finding the 'logic' in his statements (considering that half of his statements are based on non-factual statements)
+TruthHunter that less intellect is you boyo. pull up your gown and take your masochistic drag queen show to the Levant....tailored orange jumpsuit awaits your servile soul
@@Sweeney-Kubach It was awesome! Sam logically laid out the irrationality and dangers of religions while the other two idiots appealed to emotions without providing any arguement for the existence of the supernatural.
I am not an atheist but an existentialist and a Gnostic; and I question the essence of what lies beyond the sophism and doctrinal, surface view of spirituality of these Materialist; Reductionist atheist's; and their own faith in their wit and the parochial, linear, Aristotelian view of nature and the cosmos; when their back's are against the wall. I say this because Richard Dawkins went out of his way to get Graham Hancock's lecture taken off of TED; it begs the question; if you are so certain of your "orthodox" view; then what are you afraid of? Why go out of your way to silence the idea's of those that don't accommodate your own. Seems pretty weak to me!
This brilliant man just can’t stop talking about Islam and spreading misconceptions and hate toward Muslims , I am a Muslim and I can assure you most of the things he says about my religion which he claims to be an expert of is nothing but bull shit , he is nothing more than a hate monger , he talks about what 38% British Muslims think about someone leaving Islam and thousands of people acting violently about cartoons of prophet just to make a cheap point to cover his hate mongering , I challenge you to show me one verse of the Quran where it says kill those who leave Islam I will join you in your beliefs , it is very sad to see ppl like you who actually believe hate mongers like him and praise him without having any clue of what he says is true or not , he claims Islam is the reason for suicide bombing , listen to professor Robert Pape of University of Chicago who unlike this brilliant man studied every single case of suicide bombing from 1980 to 2005 including 911 attacks which this brilliant man has used many times to blame Islam and Muslims this exact quote of professor Robert Pape“ There is little connection between suicide terrorist and Islamic fundamentalism or any of world religions rather what nearly all suicide Terrorist attacks have in common is a Pacific Secular and strategic goals to compel modern democracies to withdraw Military forces From territories terrorists considered to be their homeland “ Quran says , if you kill one innocent man it is as you have killed entire humanity and if you save one life it is as you have saved entire humanity , show me any other religious book which teaches that ??? Let me know If you like I can show a Little glimpse of this brilliant man’s world
@@craigjones8518 There’s no better debate tactic than being right. Being clearly right is what gives Harris much of his rhetorical firepower. Always being on the easier side of the argument says something about you. Not necessarily brilliance or genius, but it says a lot about the quality and clarity of your thought and your perspective.
38:28 Don't forget what Weinberg said, and paraphrased by Hitchens: "In general, good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things - BUT - if you want good people to do bad things, for that you need religion."
all these years later, and this colonel sanders "moderator" is still the worst I've ever encountered. The only thing he succeeded in doing was not moderating
IMO Sam’s closing speech sums it all up. Could have gone without the opinionated moderator. When it comes down to it, the world would still have problems without religion. Religion has not alleviate any of it. In fact, it’s added to the problems. I can’t think no other divisive force that markets the differences between than religion. It’s incredible claims that have zero merit except for one book written by men who were ignorant of the world. Fact: No god has ever intervened in any wars or has rid the world of poverty, cancer, and all other disease, holocaust, The Inquisition, WW1, WW2, Pick any period of suffering and you’ll see not a peep. The answer is quite simple. He doesn’t exist. He belongs alongside Zeus, Thor, Poseidon and the hundreds of other mythical gods dredged up by man’s imagination. Humanity has to grow up and leave this wishful thinking behind. The wasted hours spent on praying for something that never happens could final be used to actually improve life for all.
Now I understand the appeal of Sam Harris. To appear like an intellectual, all he does is ignore any point his opponent makes and keeps repeating his own over and over. Truly a powerhouse of reason and not just a pathetic shitlib on an egotrip with the morality of the CIA
Mhm, he's quite good at sophistic rhetoric, it's an ancient artform embraced by western mainstream in this day and age. Sophism is the rethoric school of thought that content, logic, facts and truth is unimportant as long as it sounds like you won the argument. Typical techniques includes strawman argumentation, ridicule, ignoring what the other part said, and diverting the focus of the conversation away from "dangerous" tracks/topics where one knows the opponent is steadier than oneself over to topics one knows how to navigate in an impressive manner.
@@karagi101 They are called logical fallacies. The only defence that can be made is that this is an old video and maybe his arguments are now better than "religion bad because religious guy did bad thing".
@@anopinionatedlaymanappears9052 His arguements were that beliefs in the supernatural are not supported by evidence (e.g. evolution) and that many people believe in religions’ holy books, some of which act out to commit violence in accordance to their scriptures. Provide some examples of what you claim are logical fallacies.
a lot of people seemed to hate the moderator here. (mostly harris fans im guessing) but i think he did have some good points even if he wasnt supposed to make them. the harris supporters im guessing never had their family accidentally killed in a drone attack. the drone attack a new indiscriminate killing machine in the wests never ever ending fight against terrorism.....haha
Did anyone in your family die in a specifically theologically-driven attack specifically on civilians in the defence of a faith which only differs SLIGHTLY from yours? All on purpose. This is a perfect example of whataboutism. Ridiculous.
"The arguments on Iraq boil down to three things..." The biggest problem with humanity right now is with those who believe they have a right to kill in the service of their beliefs, no matter how benevolent they may seem to the beholder. Attacking other countries is the "Supreme crime of aggression" according prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials. We executed Nazis for the same things we are doing. If you cant see what's wrong with that you need to think longer on it.
Just curious about the opinion polls Mr Harris speaks of concerning Muslims thoughts on Suicide attacks. A simple search on pew research and other groups seems to completely contract his assertion. Where are these "polls after polls" revealing support of sucide bombing against non combatants in defense of Islam?
Towards the end around 1:16:00, what kind of hand gestures was the moderator doing towards Sam ?? Acting like a child when the man was speaking truths. Clearly you can get more data in "polls" nowadays with the technology we have at our fingertips, as opposed to living in that region for any amount of time. 1 poll could reach millions if not billions in 1 day and no person can retrieve that kind of data the old fashioned way.
How? When? Where? All Hedges did was make claims from personal experience, appeal to emotion, slander Sam by not only making up viewpoints Sam doesn't have but by derailing the conversation to different moral question such as torture that don't relate to the topic at all. If you seriously believe this, I would encourage to rewatch this debate again. Sam never speaks as if religion was the only reason tribal violence occurs(Hedges said he does), he never said that all Muslim women celebrate their child's deaths(Hedges said he does), he never says all Muslims celebrated 9/11 (Hedges said he did but this time Sam actually got to correct him), he cited Pew polls that directly show evidence for his claims regarding the dangerous magnitude of Muslims that hold terrifying ideas, to which Hedges responds that he was in the middle east and from his personal experience in the places he visited they didn't believe those things. The only thing Hedges gets right in the entire debate is the damage that the US has caused in the middle east, to which Sam agrees with him! Finally, even the moderator makes up nonsense about Sam supporting the Iraq war, which Sam completely rebukes, and if you research this you will find no example of Sam ever supporting the Iraq war. Hitchens supported the Iraq War, and this was arguably the biggest mistake he ever made, but Sam did not. How could you possibly think Sam was outmatched?
If all theists were observing the spiritual, mostly-secular observance and practice of faith that this guy is promoting, I wouldn't have any problem with it.
Hedge's speaks poetically but he often makes absurd claims that lack evidence. He should really study Bart Erhman and learn some basics of the history of Christianity if he's going to be talking about religion in any critical capacity.
Neat, so Chris Hedges was right. I watched this 12 years ago and was overwhelmingly in agreement with Sam. After watching some of the most rapid wealth consolidation the world has ever seen over the last 4 years, the effects that Chris describes in this conversation couldn't be more apparent. Sam's view, while often humorous and deeply engaging, is utterly myopic.
Moderators should be subjected to rigorous impartial screening process before they are allowed to moderate debates such as this. This moderator in my opinion do not even deserve an interview for the job.
The moderator may not have seemed unbiased, but it really boils down to having the best argument win, not the best “arguer”. Hedges did a good job of redefining the question. If all you want to do is debate then maybe you get to laugh at some of Harris’ witty comments, but that’s the mistakes that atheists would be making. This is not about winning a debate. It’s about getting to the root of a problem. Hedges is arguing that like 9/11, like Vietman, like many other mistakes the west has made, this is another one. It is very convenient to blame religion, and less so to address how religion is not the real culprit.
I like Bob Scheer, but he really should have kept quiet as the moderator. It's okay to say a few things here and there, but don't go on and on when the debate is supposed to be between Harris and Hedges. I do think Scheer made some good points, and I think he should have debated Harris himself instead of trying butt in all the time if he felt so strongly about voicing his view, .....
@@davidsheriff9274 Use 'Irregardless" often and there will be price to pay. You can get the same effect by wearing a sign that says "I've never attended an English Class" . You can carry a dictionary if you want, but it won't help. There is no law against picking your nose with your thumb during a job interview.... saying "Irregardless" is like that but worse.
