kbas9000
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Ben Affleck
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Sounds like you didn't even watch the show. Ben acted like a really childish boob on it, screaming over the other guests as they tried to present facts and figures.
I totally agree. Ben wasn't even listening to what they were saying, you could see him fuming and thinking about what he was going to blurt out next while they were trying to make their points.
Sam posted about the aftermath on his blog, it's a very interesting read.
Can Liberalism Be Saved From Itself? : Sam Harris
Funny. I witnessed his illiterate PC crapola tantrum...and he managed to lose even more respect from me (who used to be obsessed with him). Incredibly, Sam Harris is now better-looking than Affleck, who on top of being dumb also let himself go.
ConanTheBarber
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Fine sentiments ... and they really are ... but I'm not sure they capture the argument between Affleck, Maher and Harris.
Maher and especially Harris do not label the Islamic faith as a whole abhorrent. They explicitly state that they are criticizing a subset of Muslims, which they feel are adversely affected by elements of Muslim doctrine -- contained in the Quran and the Sunnah (hardly outliers as sources) -- that Islam had softly moved away from over many centuries but which a significant number of Muslims (still definitely only a minority) are beginning to take seriously again.
Harris is particularly careful about this; Maher's brush paints more broadly.
Now, I realize that no matter how often you draw the lines separating extremists from more typical Muslims, they tend to quickly get blurry again. So they have to be drawn again and again. But we can't dump the conversation for that reason ... we simply have to keep drawing those lines of separation and keep the conversation going.
Of course, most Muslims are peaceful. And of course, it's important to keep hate out of our discourse. But discourse is essential.
Here is partial transcript:
BEN AFFLECK: How about more than a billion people who aren't fanatical, who don't punch women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, pray 5 times a day, and don't do any of the things you're saying of all Muslims. It's stereotyping.
SAM HARRIS, AUTHOR: I'm not saying all Muslims --
AFFLECK: Some of them do bad things and you're painting the whole religion with that broad brush.
MAHER: Wait, let's get down to who has the right answer here. A billion people, you say.
AFFLECK: A billion five.
MAHER: All these billion people don't hold these pernicious beliefs?
AFFLECK: They don't.
MAHER: That's just not true, Ben. That's just not true. You're trying to say that these few people, that's all the problem is, these few bad apples. The idea that someone should be killed if they leave the Islamic
AFFLECK: That's horrible.
MAHER: But you're saying the idea that someone should be killed if they leave the Islamic religion is just a few bad apples?
AFFLECK: The people who would actually believe in that you murder someone if they leave Islam is not the majority of Muslims at all...
SAM HARRIS: Just imagine you have some concentric circles. You have at the center, you have jihadists, these are people who wake up wanting to kill apostates, wanting to die trying. They believe in paradise, they believe in martyrdom. Outside of them, we have Islamists, these are people who are just as convinced of martyrdom and paradise and wanting to foist their religion on the rest of humanity but they want to work within the system. They're not going to blow themselves up on a bus. They want to change governments, they want to use democracy against itself. Those two circles arguably are 20% of the Muslim world.
BEN AFFLECK: What are you basing that research on?
HARRIS: There are a bunch of poll results that we can talk about. To give you one point of contact: 78% of British Muslims think that the Danish cartoonist should have been prosecuted. 78%. So, I'm being conservative when I roll this back to 20%. But outside of that circle you have conservative Muslims who can honestly look at ISIS and say that does not represent us, we're horrified by that but they hold views about human rights, and about women, and about homosexuals that are deeply troubling. So, these are not Islamists, they are not jihadists, but they often keep women and homosexuals immiserated in these cultures and we have to empower the true reformers in the Muslim world to change it. And lying about doctrine and this behavior is not going to do that...
MICHAEL STEELE, FMR. RNC CHAIR: So having said that, even if that is true, statistically or otherwise, the key thing to recognize that I don't think is part of the argument but I think should be is that there are voices that are oftentimes raised in opposition to these jihadists and to these extreme acts but, guess what, they don't covered, they don't get exposed. And they're not on the same level platform that we see jihadists get.
BILL MAHER: One reason they don't get exposed is because they're afraid to speak out because it's the only religion that acts like the mafia that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book. There's a reason why Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs bodyguards 24/7...
AFFLECK: What is your solution? To condemn Islam? To do what? We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us by an awful lot. We've invaded more --
MAHER: I'm not for more dead Muslims.
AFFLECK: And somehow we're exempt from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in. We did it by accident, that's why we invaded Iraq.
MAHER: We're not convincing anybody here.
AFFLECK: I'm simply telling you that I disagree with you.
MAHER: I understand, and we're obviously not convincing anybody here.
HARRIS: You don't understand my argument.
AFFLECK: Your argument is, "You know, black people, they shoot each other" --
MAHER: It's not! No, it's not. It's based on facts. I can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians. They are not outliers in the Muslims world. It's like 90% of them believe death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion. If 90% of Brazilians thought that death was the appropriate response to leaving Catholicism you would think it was a bigger deal.
AFFLECK: I would think it's a big deal no matter what.
MAHER: Okay, well, that's the facts.
AFFLECK: I wouldn't say it's all Brazilians, or I wouldn't say, "Well, Ted Bundy did this. God damn these gays, they're all trying to eat each other."
HARRIS: Let me just give you what you want. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are nominal Muslims who don't take the faith seriously, who don't want to kill apostates, who are horrified by ISIS and we need to defend these people, prop them up and let them reform their faith.
AFFLECK: ISIS couldn't couldn't full a AA ballpark in Charleston, West Virginia and you want to make a career out of ISIS, ISIS, ISIS.
MAHER: No we're not. That's the opposite.
HARRIS: No, it's not just ISIS, it's all jihadists. It's a phenomenon of global jihad.
MAHER: I think that's the opposite of what we're doing.
AFFLECK: There is those things. There is ISIS, there is global jihadists. The question is the degree to which you're willing to say, because I've witnessed this behavior, which we all object to on part of these people, I'm willing to flatly condemn those of you I don't know and never met.
MAHER: They're not willing. This is based on reality.
HARRIS: It's not condemning people, it's ideas.
MAHER: It's based on reality, Ben. We're not take it up that in the Muslim world it is mainstream belief.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: This is such a caricature of Indonesia, of Malaysia, of so much of the world. And this does have a tinge a little bit of how white racists talk about African-American and define blacks by --
MAHER: What you're saying is because they are a minority, we shouldn't criticize.
AFFLECK: It's not a minority, it's the second biggest religion in the world.
MAHER: Exactly, but you're treating them like a minority. I mean if Filipinos were capturing teenagers and sending them into white slavery, we would criticize that. We wouldn't say, oh, well, they're Filipinos.
AFFLECK: You would criticize the people who are doing it, not the Philippines. A Filipino kid who lives on the streets has nothing to do with that. These are different things.
SAM HARRIS, AUTHOR: I'm not saying all Muslims --
AFFLECK: Some of them do bad things and you're painting the whole religion with that broad brush.
MAHER: Wait, let's get down to who has the right answer here. A billion people, you say.
AFFLECK: A billion five.
MAHER: All these billion people don't hold these pernicious beliefs?
AFFLECK: They don't.
MAHER: That's just not true, Ben. That's just not true. You're trying to say that these few people, that's all the problem is, these few bad apples. The idea that someone should be killed if they leave the Islamic
AFFLECK: That's horrible.
MAHER: But you're saying the idea that someone should be killed if they leave the Islamic religion is just a few bad apples?
AFFLECK: The people who would actually believe in that you murder someone if they leave Islam is not the majority of Muslims at all...
SAM HARRIS: Just imagine you have some concentric circles. You have at the center, you have jihadists, these are people who wake up wanting to kill apostates, wanting to die trying. They believe in paradise, they believe in martyrdom. Outside of them, we have Islamists, these are people who are just as convinced of martyrdom and paradise and wanting to foist their religion on the rest of humanity but they want to work within the system. They're not going to blow themselves up on a bus. They want to change governments, they want to use democracy against itself. Those two circles arguably are 20% of the Muslim world.
BEN AFFLECK: What are you basing that research on?
HARRIS: There are a bunch of poll results that we can talk about. To give you one point of contact: 78% of British Muslims think that the Danish cartoonist should have been prosecuted. 78%. So, I'm being conservative when I roll this back to 20%. But outside of that circle you have conservative Muslims who can honestly look at ISIS and say that does not represent us, we're horrified by that but they hold views about human rights, and about women, and about homosexuals that are deeply troubling. So, these are not Islamists, they are not jihadists, but they often keep women and homosexuals immiserated in these cultures and we have to empower the true reformers in the Muslim world to change it. And lying about doctrine and this behavior is not going to do that...
MICHAEL STEELE, FMR. RNC CHAIR: So having said that, even if that is true, statistically or otherwise, the key thing to recognize that I don't think is part of the argument but I think should be is that there are voices that are oftentimes raised in opposition to these jihadists and to these extreme acts but, guess what, they don't covered, they don't get exposed. And they're not on the same level platform that we see jihadists get.
BILL MAHER: One reason they don't get exposed is because they're afraid to speak out because it's the only religion that acts like the mafia that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book. There's a reason why Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs bodyguards 24/7...
AFFLECK: What is your solution? To condemn Islam? To do what? We've killed more Muslims than they've killed us by an awful lot. We've invaded more --
MAHER: I'm not for more dead Muslims.
AFFLECK: And somehow we're exempt from these things because they're not really a reflection of what we believe in. We did it by accident, that's why we invaded Iraq.
MAHER: We're not convincing anybody here.
AFFLECK: I'm simply telling you that I disagree with you.
MAHER: I understand, and we're obviously not convincing anybody here.
HARRIS: You don't understand my argument.
AFFLECK: Your argument is, "You know, black people, they shoot each other" --
MAHER: It's not! No, it's not. It's based on facts. I can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians. They are not outliers in the Muslims world. It's like 90% of them believe death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion. If 90% of Brazilians thought that death was the appropriate response to leaving Catholicism you would think it was a bigger deal.
AFFLECK: I would think it's a big deal no matter what.
MAHER: Okay, well, that's the facts.
AFFLECK: I wouldn't say it's all Brazilians, or I wouldn't say, "Well, Ted Bundy did this. God damn these gays, they're all trying to eat each other."
HARRIS: Let me just give you what you want. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are nominal Muslims who don't take the faith seriously, who don't want to kill apostates, who are horrified by ISIS and we need to defend these people, prop them up and let them reform their faith.
AFFLECK: ISIS couldn't couldn't full a AA ballpark in Charleston, West Virginia and you want to make a career out of ISIS, ISIS, ISIS.
MAHER: No we're not. That's the opposite.
HARRIS: No, it's not just ISIS, it's all jihadists. It's a phenomenon of global jihad.
MAHER: I think that's the opposite of what we're doing.
AFFLECK: There is those things. There is ISIS, there is global jihadists. The question is the degree to which you're willing to say, because I've witnessed this behavior, which we all object to on part of these people, I'm willing to flatly condemn those of you I don't know and never met.
MAHER: They're not willing. This is based on reality.
HARRIS: It's not condemning people, it's ideas.
MAHER: It's based on reality, Ben. We're not take it up that in the Muslim world it is mainstream belief.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: This is such a caricature of Indonesia, of Malaysia, of so much of the world. And this does have a tinge a little bit of how white racists talk about African-American and define blacks by --
MAHER: What you're saying is because they are a minority, we shouldn't criticize.
AFFLECK: It's not a minority, it's the second biggest religion in the world.
MAHER: Exactly, but you're treating them like a minority. I mean if Filipinos were capturing teenagers and sending them into white slavery, we would criticize that. We wouldn't say, oh, well, they're Filipinos.
AFFLECK: You would criticize the people who are doing it, not the Philippines. A Filipino kid who lives on the streets has nothing to do with that. These are different things.
I agree, but I thought it was cut. And also a cropped image, so perhaps a body double.
Conan
Thanks for your analysis and retrace of the Affleck, Mahler, and Harris discussion surrounding the Islamic faith (#354 (permalink). I suspect that most thread readers are here to praise Affleck for his acting skills and physical qualities so there will be a natural resistance to finding fault with any other characteristic(s).
Ben Affleck was a featured guest on ‘Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr’ (PBS 14/10/14). He hails from past generations (especially his mother) who were very active social change advocates. From that context it is easy to see how Ben might have some conflict in choosing to support gay rights issues (for example) while trying to hold on to some categorical respect for Islam. The degree to which he seems to ignore many highly depraved and frequently practiced concepts associated with Islam suggest he well may have no pragmatic understanding in either gay (human) rights or the Islamic faith.
In his discussion with Mahler and Harris, Afflect was not able to maintain his persona of “looking good” when faced with the challenge of “doing good”. Doing good would have obligated him point out and reject depravities associated with Islam.
Everyone, especially gays, who are interested in human dignity and equality should read through the 2013 Pwe Research Report: The Worlds Muslims: Religion, Politics, and Society. It is a topic too big to ignore. Eventually everyone in a free society will be forced to make choices about what is right and/or wrong with what is happening here.
The Worldâs Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project
Thanks for your analysis and retrace of the Affleck, Mahler, and Harris discussion surrounding the Islamic faith (#354 (permalink). I suspect that most thread readers are here to praise Affleck for his acting skills and physical qualities so there will be a natural resistance to finding fault with any other characteristic(s).
Ben Affleck was a featured guest on ‘Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr’ (PBS 14/10/14). He hails from past generations (especially his mother) who were very active social change advocates. From that context it is easy to see how Ben might have some conflict in choosing to support gay rights issues (for example) while trying to hold on to some categorical respect for Islam. The degree to which he seems to ignore many highly depraved and frequently practiced concepts associated with Islam suggest he well may have no pragmatic understanding in either gay (human) rights or the Islamic faith.
In his discussion with Mahler and Harris, Afflect was not able to maintain his persona of “looking good” when faced with the challenge of “doing good”. Doing good would have obligated him point out and reject depravities associated with Islam.
Everyone, especially gays, who are interested in human dignity and equality should read through the 2013 Pwe Research Report: The Worlds Muslims: Religion, Politics, and Society. It is a topic too big to ignore. Eventually everyone in a free society will be forced to make choices about what is right and/or wrong with what is happening here.
The Worldâs Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society | Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project
I would love to see NPH cock. I remember him as doogie houser MD and wondered if he was gay then.
I saw it in a play he did in LA several years ago called THE PARIS LETTER. It was fine. Attractive and average and nothing to write home about.
invisibleman
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invisibleman
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No matter how hard we try to capture that peen, it's not going to be any good until a blu ray rip becomes available.
It is fun trying though. :wink: I am happy that people are attempting to do so. By the time GONE GIRL comes out in the home movie market...the studios will probably edit that part out. Who knows?
Studio execs did it to the movie SWORDFISH. Hugh Jackman had some scandalous VPLs in the original theatrical movie. When SWORDFISH was released on DVD...a LOT of those parts were edited out.
Swordfish was from the 90s, and it wasn't a David Fincher movie. Also the fact that there has been so much talk about Ben Afflecks penis which is probably part of the reason it's doing so well at the boxoffice so I see no reason for them to edit that out. I'm sure the quick view of dick was intentional, the movie starts out using the male gaze and ends up with the female gaze for reasons that compliment the story. I'd be very very surprised if it doesn't stay in, it's so brief and tame anyways.
invisibleman
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Yeah, I know all that. I know SWORDFISH was a movie from the 90s and it wasn't a David Fincher film. I only used SWORDFISH as an example of movie studios editing out sex scenes out of the original in the DVD versions.
I just saw GONE GIRL...it showed nothing! Sounds like a big publicity stunt to me!
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