Reply #25: Thank you for the reference.

[ForeignSpectator]

I wouldn't call it "advocating" a nuclear first strike against arabs though.

That is your opinion and I could see how you come to your interpretation of it. If you provide me with more
references (especially where he would be pro-torture bush-style), maybe I would arrive at the same conclusion
that he is a neocon-type.

From the quote above alone, I would say he contemplates an extreme measure in an extreme situation.
Imagine an islamist regime getting a hold of pakistan's nuclear arsenal. IMO not a too remote possibility
as a islamist backlash against a US-backed dictatorial regime.

I think that's a situation he describes.
What would you do? I don't say categorically a nuclear strike but what would you do?


RE: apostasy. You're right the hadiths do not carry koranic authority BUT they carry authority nevertheless,
2nd only to the koran, and have been regarded as truth by islamic scholars.

And I NEVER said "that the vast majority of muslims embrace the most extreme interpretation".
I AGREE with you on that, at least not the majority of those living in western countries.

But my point was what the teachings actually are, i.e what the books actually say. I gave you the quote of the
prophet himself in the hadith and the muslim (scholar?) in the video who admitted that according to the sharia,
death is the penalty for apostasy. It is "punishable" by death, that's the point.

You gave me letter signed by muslims who disavow this practice and your statement that "the majority does not
embrace the most extreme interpretation".
So you're judging a religion by its followers, ok. But then you have to consider the "extremists", too. They
exist, albeit as a minority, and even implied by your own statement "the majority doesn't embrace..." (so a
minority does...)

And here lies the rub: the extremists, whether it be terrorists or the ayatollah calling for the death of
salman rushdie, can claim koranic authority from all its violent passages (verse of the sword et al)
No amount of signed letters will take that away.
So, when you judge by the followers, you have to take the "bad" ones too.

Or, you could judge an ideology by its actual teachings, what its books say. And then I arrive at the
conclusion that it's not an inherently peaceful one, especially when you also consider history,
the deeds of the prophet himself.
I arrive at the same conclusion for christianity, not out of relativism, but because of what the books
teach and its history as well.

And most christians aren't nuts and violent, just as with muslims. I don't dispute that at all, we can agree
on that I think...? But it doesn't make a whole ideology with all its teachings, all its verses etc inherently
peaceful. That's where I disagree.

And harris said s.t. similar in the video at 5:23 about.