# Cecil's teaching changes mind of radical Islamist. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 7, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-teaching-changes-mind-of-radical-islamist/670623 "2013-10-07T21:35:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-teaching-changes-mind-of-radical-islamist/670623/1 "2013-10-07T21:35:52Z")
Probably not the same Cecil. 😛 But who knows? Cecil does get around a lot. Inspiring story and it validates the importance of an education. I plan to watch some of his lectures. They look very interesting. Cecil’s youtube channel. > **[Wes Cecil](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ff15w4ufviWfv9UfIuByA)** > > wescecil.com original article. > **[Port Townsend professor Wes Cecil helped change mind of radical Islamist with...](https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2013/10/port_townsend_professor_helps.html)** > > Wes Cecil, the man who helped change Ahmed Akkari's mind, teaches philosophy and English literature at a satellite campus of Peninsula College. daily mail covering the story > **[American professor's online tutorials change mind of radical Islamist](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2448205/American-professors-tutorials-helped-change-mind-radical-Islamist.html)** > > Ahmed Akkari, right, says Wes Cecil's, left, online video tutorials changed his way of thinking and turned him into an 'apologetic agnostic'. > [@](#): > > And he’s crediting his change of faith to Cecil, according to the Oregonian. > > Cecil, 47, who is a published playwright, novelist, essayist and academic, lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, far away from the cartoon controversy that sparked rage across the Muslim world, and which resulted in Danish embassies being torched during protests in Denmark, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iran. > > But in his own community of 9,000, along the Salish Sea, his reputation is fabled, particularly among the 600 students who take college classes in the Old Schoolhouse building at Fort Worden State Park. > > He also has over 100,000 hits on his youtube videos in which he lectures about everything from modern and ancient thinkers – the German existentialist Martin Heidegger and Greek philosopher Epicurus – to literature, culture, and the humane arts of walking, letter writing and conversation. > > Kevin Webber, an 18-year-old student of biology at Peninsula, says it is ‘hard to get your fix of Cecil’. > [@](#): > > A Lebanese-born Danish man who was once a radical islamist and was instrumental in the protests against Denmark in the wake of the Danish cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad is a changed man. > > Ahmed Akkari says it is thanks to one man, a teacher in America, Wes Cecil, whose online video tutorials touched him and changed his way of thinking. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-teaching-changes-mind-of-radical-islamist/670623/2 "2013-10-07T22:02:16Z")
Thank you very much for posting that. It was a joy to read. Of course I have to wonder to what extent it’s true, but even so. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-teaching-changes-mind-of-radical-islamist/670623/3 "2013-10-07T22:33:56Z")
I’ve always admired great teachers that can bring a complex subject alive and draw their students in. This gentlemen is even giving free lectures for the public. Sounds like quite a remarkable teacher. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cecils-teaching-changes-mind-of-radical-islamist/670623/4 "2013-10-09T03:53:55Z")
Seems to me that the original article never gets to the point. What teachings from Cecil changed the guy’s thinking? How did he change. Yeah, he’s an agnostic now, but did he lose his faith first, and, thus without assurances of a God, there’s no reason to be upset about depictions of his Prophet, or did he, as I would hope, discover that non-Muslims had no reason to honor Muslim proscriptions, and only from there decide to question his other beliefs? Why in the world does the article jump to be all about Cecil and what other people think of him, instead of the more interesting case of a radical Islamist who was convinced of the error of his ways? The Daily Mail article is at least a little more focused, even if it does feel like they just gloss over that part as well. Why did he embrace existentialism? What crisis of faith did the guy have?