TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  
Showing posts with label Sam Harris (Neuroscientist). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Harris (Neuroscientist). Show all posts

March 08, 2015

'Sam Harris rips academics who ceaselessly deny that religion can inspire brutal violence' [RawStory]



Sam Harris rips academics who ceaselessly deny that religion can inspire brutal violence

Scott Kaufman
05 Mar 2015 at 10:33 ET                 

Neuroscientist and public intellectual Sam Harris conducted a wide-ranging interview with journalist Graeme Wood that was supposed to be about the latter’s cover story in this month’s Atlantic, but which turned into an opportunity for Harris to outline what, to his mind, is the psychological state of a jihadist.

Harris began by arguing that it was rational to believe that most believers understand religious texts at a literal level. “There are more or less plausible, more or less straightforward, more or less comprehensive readings of any scripture,” he said.

“And the most plausible, straightforward, and comprehensive readings tend to be the more literalistic, no matter how self-contradictory the text. So, for instance, when it says in the Qur’an (8:12), ‘Smite the necks of the infidels,’ some people may read that metaphorically, but it’s always tempting to read it literally.”

“In fact,” he continued, “a line like that fairly cries out for a literal reading. Of course, some Muslims believe that such violent passages must be read in their historical context. But it seems even more natural to assume that the words of God apply for all time. So it’s no accident that the Islamic State has made a cottage industry of decapitation.”

Because “the Islamic State is giving a very plausible reading of the Qur’an and the hadīth. That’s a terrible problem, because one can’t stand up and say that this behavior is un-Islamic.”

Harris then wondered why so many academics refuse to believe the statements made by jihadists at face value.

No one doubts the political and economic justifications that people give for their behavior. When someone says, ‘Listen, I murdered my rich neighbor because I knew he kept a pile of money in a safe. I wanted that money, and I didn’t want to leave a witness,’ nobody looks for an ulterior explanation for that behavior,” he said.

“But when someone says, ‘I think infidels and apostates deserve to burn in hell, and I know for a fact that I’ll go to paradise if I die while waging jihad against them,’ many academics refuse to accept this rationale at face value and begin looking for the political or economic reasons that they imagine lie beneath it. So the game is rigged.”

The reason those academics refuse to believe the statements of a believer is that they are too committed to their secular understanding of the world to fully comprehend the power of belief.

But “once you imagine what it would be like to actually believe in paradise, and in martyrdom as the surest way of getting there, it becomes obvious why someone would want to join the Islamic State. If a person truly believes that the Creator of the universe wants him to wage war against the evil of unbelief and that the Islamic State is the very tip of His spear, he has to be insane not to join the cause.”

“I see no reason to think that most jihadis are psychologically abnormal,” Harris said. “The truth is far more depressing: These are mostly normal people — fully capable of love, empathy, altruism, and so forth — who simply believe what they say they believe.”

“The fact that most jihadis are generally rational, even psychologically normal, and merely in the grip of a dangerous belief system is, in my view, the most important point to get across.”

“It is amazing how resolutely people will ignore the evidence of this,” he concluded. “Justin Bieber could convert to Islam tomorrow, spend a full hour on 60 Minutes confessing his hopes for martyrdom and his certainty of paradise, and then join the Islamic State — and Glenn Greenwald would still say his actions had nothing to do with the doctrine of Islam and everything to do with U.S. foreign policy.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/sam-harris-rips-academics-who-ceaselessly-deny-that-religion-can-inspire-brutal-violence/

COMMENT

Interesting points raised by Sam Harris.  The bit about Beiber & Greenwald made me laugh.

A heap of media focus and blame on 'radicalisation' at the moment, and not enough discussion of belief systems (although I'm sure US foreign policy also has a significant role in Middle East dramas).

The 'psychologically normal' part isn't something I'd accept.  

To my way of thinking, it isn't psychologically normal for modern man to believe he is on a mission from an almighty creator to destroy others or, at the other end of the spectrum, to seriously believe in any kind of religious being, powers, rituals and so on, no matter what belief system they represent.
In other news:
"Less Porn, More Scripture on New Russian Orthodox Search Engine" [MoscowTimes]
Imagined a Soviet Union that had rid itself of the shackles of religious superstition.  But that's far from the case in post Soviet Russia.  It's encouraged.  Very disappointing.