Sam Harris, Cenk Uygur Talk Islamic Violence in Lengthy Face-Off over Religion

Atheist author Sam Harris faced off last night on The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur for his beliefs on Islamic violence and religion. And they ended up having a mostly respectful discussion, occasionally clashing over Harris’ contention that Islam has been shown to be uniquely violent.

Before they jumped into the religious debate, Harris took a few minutes to address the criticisms he’s gotten in the media from Reza Aslan and Salon, among others. Of Salon in particular, Harris said their articles on him and his views have been “pure slander” coming from “maniacs in their bedrooms typing.” He also challenged Uygur for not being particularly fair to him in the lead-up to this debate, which Uygur took some issue with.

As for Islam, Harris repeatedly made it clear that he is not trying to paint all Muslims with a broad brush. That being said, he takes issue with anyone dismissing polls showing that certain beliefs like stoning and death for apostasy are widespread in certain Muslim nations.

Uygur noted how there’s plenty of violent language in other holy books, and Harris conceded that in some respects, the Hebrew Bible “is worse than the Qu’ran.” But at the same time, he argued, the image of Jesus as a “hippie who got crucified” is different from the image of Mohammed as a warrior.

You can watch the full three-hour interview below, via The Young Turks:

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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