Four Marines killed in shooting at Tennessee military facilities

[FaithIsFilth]

I don't get it. What does atheism have to do with this?

Nothing at all. I admit it's not a great reason for me going with the hundreds of thousands number, but what can I say? I've been influenced by the atheists on here and guys like Sam Harris who say the millions number is ridiculous and a joke. Maybe it's ridiculous and maybe it's correct. If Sam Harris and others like him apparently can't come close to figuring out the real number, then how the hell am I supposed to be able to figure this shit out?

And yes, I do realise that when talking about these wars, Harris seems to just defend the US. I like Harris much less than I used to.

[FaithIsFilth]

Except do you realize that an exorbitantly disproportionate amount of Native Americans live in poverty on reservations as testament to a system that happened "a long time ago"? Even though a few decades has passed between now and then, there are still very real effects of it in present day, along with resentment.

Yes, I do realise this. I think the government should do more to help these people out. I'm in favour of helping out all of my fellow Canadians who need it. Am I mad that I was born on the winning team though? No.

We had a lot more to gain when we took over the Native Americans land. It doesn't seem that these wars in the Mid East are worth it, but what do I know?

[Shiranu]

Here. The real Irak body count. They did everything to discreet most of the researches been done, esp this one. They even removed the charts and the title pointing about 3 000 000 civilian deaths, around half a million children.

There is also researches on comparison of the general death toll before the invasion in the regions and after the invasion in the site's pages.

The scandalous underestimation of Iraqi civilian casualties

http://www.brussellstribunal.org/article_view.asp?id=803#.Vak7vPntlBe

I honestly misread this 2 times that you were saying the deaths weren't in the hundreds of thousands (as in, they were less). That was slightly confusing.

Anyways, this gives me a topic to go do a paper on, so thats good. Thanks.

[FaithIsFilth]

I found the video I watched a couple months ago. Harris says he thinks it's just around two hundred thousand and he provides his reasoning, and says others he's talked to like Steven Pinker are close to that number as well. It seems that he's not counting deaths caused by sectarian violence, which would of course have been less without the invasion happening, and I don't think he's counting starvation and things like that either that can be attributed to the US for starting the war. Start at 55 minutes, 50 seconds into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm8xFaM-raY

The estimates range from a couple hundred thousand to a couple million plus, so I think there's no real way of me knowing what the actual number is. Technically "hundreds of thousands" can also mean a million plus. I've heard Richard Dawkins say that the Earth is hundreds of millions of years old. That is not incorrect. Billions are a number of hundreds of millions.

[drunkenshoe]

He talked to a popular science writer and estimates the death toll is 200 000?  I hope somebody sues him for treating Americans as complete morons. We don't need to know the actual number. However, an estimate for a couple of hundred thousands and an estimate of a couple of million makes the whole difference. It's constantly being pull down and gets covered up in front of our eyes. Probably more so in the US media. Aren't you guys bored of being treated like a North Korean citizen?

(Sectarian violence and disease, every kind of life loss under war conditions always included in calculations of an aftermath. For example, the Holocaust numbers or WWII death toll are calculated with the same logic. Two negative examples; there are American writers who claims Mesoamerican Genocide not a genocide because most of the people died as a result of disease and very bad conditions. There are Turkish writers claim the same with Armenian genocide. Because in both cases, there are no death camps and systematic killings are scattered around in war conflict with people running away, marches... That doesn't change a thing what happened to masses of people in every seperate event. So Harris is not just biased, he is also ignorant or trust the ignorance of his audience.)

Harris doesn't just seem to defend the US, he is an apologist of American war policy. He is a perfect type for it too. He is perfectly happy with it. Because he can't exist in another way, make money and be famous. It's his ticket. That man cannot afford to say anything that is not siding with US policies in the main frame -esp.when democrats in power- let alone coming to terms with a fundamentally controversial truth of that politics. He'd lose his place, his fandom. He wouldn't get promoted.

Doesn't it strike anyone odd that compared to the level of his domestic fame, the scope of his topics, despite of all this promotion of the so popular 'scientist-writer' this man isn't really an international name, has no place among scholarship on these topics, but just an American best selling author? Who by the way became famous because he criticised Christianity in 21st century and promotes that 'religion is bad!'. No shit, sherlock. Dawkins is going down by his own hand unfortunately, his time is over. Maher is just a stand up comedian and a jerk making money from it. Hitchens is dead. Dennett is not a stageman. What is he going to do without characters like those? He is only 48. There is always a chance that he might get that being popular gets you nothing, because people who are not afraid to side with the ugly truth almost never are. Yes he is doing a lot of things to promote secularism, good for him, but he aspires to be much more than that consdering his attempts with Chomsky.

And no, I never mean he should side with my opinions or the scholars and philosophers I agree with. I just want to see some BALLS. Because I am not buying that he genuinely believes what he says.  Or I hope I am not sure. Because the other road is pretty ugly and bumpy and no apple pie life of popular 'intellectuals'. What he aspires to be needs a lot of balls, serious salt and it is not fun at all. Everything is aside, he should know that if he is enjoying this as a life style, he is doing something wrong. How on earth is that a man in claim of being a world class intellectual CAN SIDE WITH SERIES OF STATE POLICIES THAT RESULTED IN GLOBAL SCALE OF CATASTROPHY? Any state. That means, he is either cut out from the real world, recent history the invention and trasnformation of those concepts he keeps using OR he just don't give a fuck as long as he is the Sam Harris of British-American Atheist fandom. Either way, he is useless like this. He is an advocate of the failed state policy.

Also, although he looks somewhat controversial in the American media, aside form being an atheist, actually his opinions are very commonplace ideas in his country which can find supporters from EVERY group, even from christian base, because if its basic nature. Nationalism. Religion of the modern state. Safe and rewarding. Those could have been said by an average American atheist with a solid right tendency. But it made/makes money when Harris say, becuse he is the right type of person to be promoted. He is white, a male, he comes from famous parents in show business and he has a scientific education. Camera loves him. He knows what to say. Not to mention youngest and most 'handsome' of the four horsemen.

His point of view; perspective is based on a very typical understanding of 'American patriotism' sold with American dream and Uncle Sam defending democracy and freedom. You are kidding right?  In a nutshell, he says 'America has done bad things and probably will do again, but I don't agree that American policy is abuse of power'. That's not critical thought. It's propaganda. We have better defenders of the US policies in this very forum.

His writings about Baudrillard and Chomsky is a very good examples of where he comes from and tries to go to. Talk about trying to reach out of one's league. He ignores and denies any one who criticises general American policy -with simple rhetoric of casaulties, fantasy threats, a few 'regrets' and designed 'bad examples'- denies its goal -by the way which is admitted and transformed in to a culture AND an industry already decaaades ago- and then pretends an intellect that can addrees global issues with conclusive results, which are the result of those policies into our face and which the above philosophers and some others have spent the time of his life span to deal with.

I wouldn't be surprised if he said something like 'oh everybody is against us, guys' at some point in the future, in a talk show.

He is as sound as religious politicians we have in my country. Now, that's an insult. Sorry, Sam.


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So if someone defines themselves as a sceptic, it is really ridiculous for them to look at the world from a one person's or one group's point of view. This is exactly the opposite of scepticism. I think, it's also the common problem of British-American atheist movement(s) of the last decades. Yes it was a good thing to have scientists to come out and yell 'this is bullshit', but today, instead of a real sceptics group made up by individuals who can think for themselves beyond mainstream political bullshit, there is a mass of people who bear pretty much the same political views with the religious right in a different level served up with milder flavours,  whose receptions is tuned into a small world around them, treating a few famous names pretty much their own prophets. Yes, I am making a generalisation, because it stands.

The lack of intellectualism in America that Americans criticise does not just exist among religious groups. It also exists among the 'enlightened', because it follows the same course of understanding and vision of the world which was established by the religious, so the nationalist foundations. The thing is you can't have it both ways. You only enter a new delusion by trading religion with nationalism. The latter is more dangerous, because while there is no real and actual belief more than politics and what's beneficial and profitable for a specific group with the former in a given society, nationalism is a far more bigger, warm and safe trap that can cover all of those groups. 

Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens of the four horsemen in this defense of war policies is the same shit. Probably the only moment I really warmed up to Dawkins was then when he spoke against Iraq war, Israeli war policies which lost him a considerable amount of American fans but he didn't care. I don't know his opinions now. Dawkins doesn't mean much to me, because I am too old for his cult. We didn't have agressive white-male idols screaming their heads of from a stand when I was learning what is atheism. We didn't need them either.

Does any of you honestly believe that any American source that we can reach at the tip of our fingers is to give even a remote estimate of real Iraq body count? Even if those invasion had not been the failures they were? That's not naive, it is right down stupid to believe in something like that. And this is not just about the US. It's about every fucking state and government and its policies, but this ones effects all of us.

This is not about someone being an American, it is about how state policies and governments work. The general Western delusion about nationalism and patriotism that is because the governments can provide the basics in these countries -also hyped up perception management of western culture(s) by constant definition by contrast from all channels- making big political deals out of a few western citizens killed in main stream media, most of you have this unconscious trust and acceptance that the general policy and what comes with it is not far off and that the main stream opinions on it counts as information. It's also why rules and laws are highly likely to be obeyed in general in western societies I suppose.

So, NO. A best selling author doesn't have a place in estimating Irak body count or confirming or falsifying a number in an official manner that is offered by an independent source, which doesn't have any benefit or profit or something to lose with the results, in a research made with an open scientific method.

So, I'll go with 'who the fuck Sam Harris is to talk about Irak body count with some assuring authority?'


Anyway, I am really not into put in more energy and time for Harris.