It looks like a day of discussion about Islam today. I don’t mind posting twice about it in a row, for I do see it as perhaps the most important issue of our day: a clash between a modernity born of the Enlightenment and a group of people (I’m not referring, of course, to all Muslims) whose views and morality are positively medieval. It is as if modern civilization was suddenly put into contact with our morally retrograde ancestors, except that it’s occurring now.

And here is the problem of liberalism encountering Islam: a video op-ed by MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes on his show All In on Monday:

Hayes emphasizes that any discussion of Islam that doesn’t involve Muslims is invalid. That’s bogus. Islam is a code of belief, and is open for discussion by anyone. Certainly discussions should try to avoid distortion, but really—Hayes think that Reza Aslan is a good participant in such discussions? Aslan has a view of Islam that is even more biased than that of many non-Muslims, for he’s a dedicated apologist for the faith—so much so that he even distorts Muhammad’s personal history in an attempt at The Big Whitewash. To think, as does Hayes, that Aslan’s apologetics is “more enlightening” than the views of Harris and Maher shows how misled (or cowed) many liberals are when it comes to Islam. And if you’re going to ask a Muslim what he or she believes, well, you certainly need one in the room, but Aslan is the one you’d pick only if you want the most favorable view possible of Islam. Actually, nobody is a good representative of the faith given the polarization—or so I hope—among Muslims,a s well as the personal costs incurred by making the least criticism of the religion. Would Hayes like it if a member of ISIS explained what he believed? Would he find that equally “enlightening”? Would Hayes be “enlightened” if a Muslim explained why he cheered (as so many did) when 3000 people were murdered in the name of faith on September 11, 2001?

Somehow I see the recent discussions about Bill Maher’s, Sam Harris’s, and Ben Affleck’s views on Islam as a watershed moment: the moment when liberals really must confront the fact that their Enlightenment views on matters like the equality of women and gays come into direct conflict with another liberal tenet: tolerance of religion. If “tolerance” means—as it seems to for people like Hayes and Affleck—avoiding criticism of faith, then please excise that trait from my own liberalism.

I suggest reading Sam Harris’s take, newly published on his website, about the exchange between him, Maher, and Affleck (and Kristof) on Real Time. His piece, “Can liberalism be saved from itself?” gives us some inside information about what went on during and after the vitriolic exchange that, to my mind, completely discredited Affleck as a thinker—and as a civil human being. Here are a few excerpts:

One of the most depressing things in the aftermath of this exchange is the way Affleck is now being lauded for having exposed my and Maher’s “racism,” “bigotry,” and “hatred of Muslims.” This is yet another sign that simply accusing someone of these sins, however illogically, is sufficient to establish them as facts in the minds of many viewers. It certainly does not help that unscrupulous people like Reza Aslan and Glenn Greenwald have been spinning the conversation this way. Of course, Affleck is also being widely reviled as an imbecile. But much of this criticism, too, is unfair. Those who describe him as a mere “actor” who was out of his depth are no better than those who dismiss me as a “neuroscientist” who cannot, therefore, know anything about religion. And Affleck isn’t merely an actor: He’s a director, a producer, a screenwriter, a philanthropist, and may one day be a politician. Even if he were nothing more than an actor, there would be no reason to assume that he’s not smart. In fact, I think he probably is quite smart, and that makes our encounter all the more disheartening. The important point is that a person’s CV is immaterial as long as he or she is making sense. Unfortunately, Affleck wasn’t—but neither was Kristof, who really is an expert in this area, particularly where the plight of women in the developing world is concerned. His failure to recognize and celebrate the heroism of my friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali remains a journalistic embarrassment and a moral scandal (and I told him so backstage).

I hadn’t an inkling that Affleck might be a politician some day. I hope he keeps his day job.

The following is one example of how Sam manages to inject some dry and sardonic wit into discussions of even the most serious issues:

After the show, a few things became clear about Affleck’s and Kristof’s views. Rather than trust poll results and the testimony of jihadists and Islamists, they trust the feeling that they get from the dozens of Muslims they have known personally. As a method of gauging Muslim opinion worldwide, this preference is obviously crazy. It is nevertheless understandable. On the basis of their life experiences, they believe that the success of a group like ISIS, despite its ability to recruit people by the thousands from free societies, says nothing about the role that Islamic doctrines play in inspiring global jihad. Rather, they imagine that ISIS is functioning like a bug light for psychopaths—attracting “disaffected young men” who would do terrible things to someone, somewhere, in any case. For some strange reason these disturbed individuals can’t resist an invitation to travel to a foreign desert for the privilege of decapitating journalists and aid workers. I await an entry in the DSM-VI that describes this troubling condition.

And Sam on Reza Aslan, who gives me the creeps:

His thoughts about religion in general are a jumble of pretentious nonsense—yet he speaks with an air of self-importance that would have been embarrassing in Genghis Khan at the height of his power. On the topic of Islam, however, Aslan has begun to seem more sinister. He cannot possibly believe what he says, because nearly everything he says is a lie or a half-truth calibrated to mislead a liberal audience. If he claims something isn’t in the Koran, it probably is. I don’t know what his agenda is, beyond riding a jet stream of white guilt from interview to interview, but he is manipulating liberal biases for the purpose of shutting down conversation on important topics. Given what he surely knows about the contents of the Koran and the hadith,the state of public opinion in the Muslim world, the suffering of women and other disempowered groups, and the real-world effects of deeply held religious beliefs, I find his deception on these issues unconscionable.

I believe Aslan’s agenda is to become the Karen Armstrong of Islam. But let no one say that Dr. Harris pulls his punches. There’s a lot more, and I recommend reading it all.

Finally, before I leave, a rare event: comity between Sam and someone with whom he’s clashed before—Andrew Sullivan. At the Daily Dish, Sullivan takes Harris and Maher’s side in the debate:

Christianity has a bloody past and a deeply flawed present. Islam has a glorious past in many respects, and manifests itself in many countries today, including the US, humbly, peacefully, beautifully. But far too much of contemporary Islam – from Pakistan through Iran and Iraq to Saudi Arabia – is more than usually fucked up. Some Muslims are threatening non-believers with mass murder, subjecting free societies to shameless terrorism, engaging in foul anti-Semitism, and beheading the sinful in Saudi Arabia just as much as in the Islamic State. And if liberals – in the broadest sense – cannot stand up for freedom of speech and assembly and religion, and for toleration as a core value, then what are liberals for? Does this make me a bigot? Of course it doesn’t. Criticizing a current manifestation of a religion is a duty – not a sin. And it’s not as if I have spared my own church from brutal criticism. And it’s not as if I do not respect – because I do – those countless Muslims and Muslim-Americans whose faith is real and deep and admirable. But it’s precisely because of those true representatives of the best of their faith that we should not hesitate to point out the evil and intolerance and violence of too many others. Some things really are right in front of our nose – and contemporary Islam’s all-too-frequent extremism and fanaticism is one of them. As for Sam Harris, we are never fully in agreement, but on this issue – the unique threat that Jihadism represents in our world and the disgrace it represents for Islam as a whole – we are as one.

Well, I’ll be. . .