Clip 1: Atheism as Islamophobia (Templeton Foundation)

A conversation between Terry Eagleton, author of "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate" (Yale University Press), and Arnold Eisen, Chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary. For more information about Templeton Book Forum events, please visit http://www.templeton.org/events/book_forums/

Terry Eagleton's witty and polemical Reason, Faith, and Revolution has caused a stir among scientists, theologians, people of faith, and people of no faith, as well as among general readers eager to understand the current "God debate." Eagleton takes aim at what he calls the "truly shocking ignorance" of religion displayed by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in their best-selling atheist manifestos. His own account of the "tragic humanism" at the center of the Western religious tradition includes provocative reflections on death, suffering, and love; on revelation and reasonable belief; on the relationship between science and rationality; and on the peculiarly modern tension between the claims of civilization and culture.

Terry Eagleton is Bailrigg Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster, England, and Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland, Galway. For the next five years, he will be a Distinguished Visitor for three weeks each semester in the English Department at the University of Notre Dame. A fellow of the British Academy, he is the author of more than forty books, ranging widely over literary theory, cultural studies, religion, politics, and history. He will deliver a Gifford Lecture on the "God Debate" at the University of Edinburgh in March 2010.

Arnold Eisen is the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Before coming to JTS, he was the Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion at Stanford University. He also served as senior lecturer in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University and assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. His many publications include a personal essay, Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America; a historical work, Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community; and (with Steven Cohen) The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America.

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[theREALshafan]

as has been said, incredibly smug, and I would LOVE to see this guy debate hitchens.

Hitchens criticises both militant Islam and moderate Islam, because the first necessarily comes from the other: most indonesians aren't radical muslims, but the muslims that blew up the nightclub in bali probably would have had moderate parents, telling them that it was ok to blindly believe a single book, because it was the work of god.

[ddunniii]

what a pompous windbag

[IanM1984]

@narcomensajae You're wasting your time, using some reasoned analysis on the sort who post comments in youtube videos.

[narcomensajae]

@theREALshafan Yeah, moderate Muslims necessarily become militant Muslims. Even if, being kind to your proposition, only 50% of moderates become militant, then there would be 750 million militant Muslims. There would be a concomitant massive number of terror attacks by this logic. There is not.

Isn't it more likely that they are just like as ignorant of their religion as your average Christian or Jew, rather than being the politically expedient monsters we are led to believe?

[Tessisidatokmigirass]

Eagleton is the fucking man

[CosmosLoyal]

"Where questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanour. Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense. The give the name of 'God' to some vague abstraction which they have created for themselves; having done so they can pose before all the world as deists, as believers in God, and they can even boast that they have recognised a higher, purer concept of God..."Sig Freud

[CosmosLoyal]

Eagleton is a bleating, fatuous, pseudo Marxist cretin. People like him and Karen Armstrong are analogous to the inner party intellectuals in 1984 who would argue all day that 2+2=5 and that anyone who argues differently is simplistic.

[Zoundsism999]

A crapulent Learian psychotic.

[Llyranon]

@SIMKINETICS

What you see in Terry Eagleton IS a seriously thoughtful demeanour, and stands in stark contrast to the smug, glib, and frequently abusive grandstanding of Hitchens and Dawkins. I'm glad that one of the world's leading philosophers is attempting to engage in the theism/secularism debate without recourse to vitriol. Is Eagleton's humour smug? That's a matter of opinion. However, smug or not, I prefer humour to intellectual sophistry and ad hominem attacks.

[SIMKINETICS]

Pompous windbag indeed! He ignores the fact that so-called 'Islamophobia' is really ardent resistance to fear-based religion. Hitchens & Dawkins might say that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Eagleton's smug grin, clenched hands & articulate speech are no substitute for a seriously thoughtful demeanor.

[Wtfgames]

The defination of self hating jew is this video