# Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052 "2017-04-23T09:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 121
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2401 "2019-01-05T21:06:46Z")
Tell that to Kimstu. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2402 "2019-01-05T22:33:46Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Cite? Something from this millennium, please, and involving actual violence and not just “death threats” Nice goalpost-shifting there, but I think the [temporary cancellation of a New York production of _Corpus Christi_ in 1998 due to security concerns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Christi_(play)) still comes awfully close to fulfilling even your newly restricted conditions. And if we broaden them to include other majority-Christian countries besides the USA, then there’s no question about it. > [@](#): > > Because of protests, the producer of the play, the Manhattan Theatre Club, withdrew the play in May 1998, worried about possible violence. […] > > The planned staging of the play in Athens, Greece, in October 2012 caught the attention of right-wing extremist organizations including the fascist parliamentary party Golden Dawn. This led to violent protests by party members and clergymen, with journalists and audience members being banned in the theater, and the premiere was cancelled. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > And how about if instead of “pedophile”, I just say “Mohammed fucked prepubescent girls who were essentially sex slaves that became part of his harem without any meaningful consent”. Is that accurate enough for you? No, as **Ramira** explained in detail, that is nowhere close to accurate. It is a made-up prurient myth that says a lot more about the eagerness of Islamophobes to indulge their outrage-boners with fantasies of a swarthy Middle Easterner deflowering tender maidens than it does about anything factually related to the life and times of Muhammad himself. If you find it titillating to get indignant about the notion of “fucking prepubescent girls” as “sex slaves” in the privacy of your own mind without doing or causing harm to anybody else, that’s none of my business. But trying to drag Muhammad into it is just an attempt to cover up personal creepiness with religious bigotry. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2403 "2019-01-05T22:40:39Z")
You’re a Democrat because you believe in the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Apollo Moon program? Jesus, what a jackass you are. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2404 "2019-01-05T22:43:52Z")
Some dumb YouTube video led to Muslim riots in 2012. Per Wiki: “Related protests and attacks resulted in numerous deaths and injuries”. Got anything from Western Christians along those lines? :dubious: Also, fuck you and your “personal creepiness” slander. FTR, I have zero attraction to prepubescent children and I consider marrying them horrifying, not “titillating”. ETA: > [@CarnalK](#): > > You’re a Democrat because you believe in the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Apollo Moon program? So you’re unable to read the many civil rights and antipoverty programs also on that list? Sad! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2405 "2019-01-05T23:22:39Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Got anything from Western Christians along those lines? Such as the [1988 bombing of a Paris cinema showing _The Last Temptation of Christ_ which “destroyed the cinema and caused serious injuries to people inside”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism#France)? And it’s telling that you’re careful to narrow your criteria to exclude the many Christian violent terrorists who operate in developing nations and/or commit violence for reasons that they link to sectarian causes **other** than blasphemy prohibitions, such as fundamentalist Christian dogmas against abortion, homosexuality, religious pluralism, etc. As I said, your comparisons are the product of arbitrary cherrypicking and deliberate suppression of cultural, socioeconomic, and historical context. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > FTR, I have zero attraction to prepubescent children and I consider marrying them horrifying, not “titillating”. Then it should be a great relief to you to learn, as has been explained to you several times in the past, that the creepy allegations of Muhammad’s having had sex with prepubescent children are merely nasty Islamophobic fantasies with no basis in historical fact, so you can stop being horrified about them. But instead, you keep bringing them up and insisting that we contemplate the details of the vile behavior they falsely attribute to Muhammad. If you don’t want to come across as creepy, you should stop repeatedly disseminating creepy bigoted slanders that you now know to be historically unsupported. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2406 "2019-01-05T23:25:00Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So you’re unable to read the many civil rights and antipoverty programs also on that list? Sad! Lol, no I was able to read them. What percentage would you say of that list happened before you were born? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2407 "2019-01-05T23:31:18Z")
A large percentage. Why? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2408 "2019-01-05T23:40:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > A large percentage. Why? Because the Republicans freed the slaves that’s why. Man, you are totally full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2409 "2019-01-05T23:42:58Z")
I guess you guys better go correct the Wiki entry on Aisha, which some large number of Muslim scholars have somehow gotten wrong: > [@](#): > > Aisha’s age at the time of her marriage is frequently mentioned in Islamic literature.[11] According to Sunni hadith sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when she was married to Muhammad in Mecca. The marriage was consummated after the Hegira to Medina, when she had reached the age of nine or ten years old.[23] ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2410 "2019-01-06T00:04:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I guess you guys better go correct the Wiki entry on Aisha There is plenty of serious scholarship explaining the historical facts of the issue readily available to anyone who takes the trouble to look for it—some of it right there in the remainder of the Wiki article you quoted. Specifically, **there is no _hadith_ or other historical source indicating that Aisha was prepubescent when her marriage to Muhammad was consummated.** It is very clear that the Qur’an defines marriage to be valid only between consenting adults, and that “adulthood” for brides in most of the world’s cultures at that time was determined by the onset of puberty. Nowhere in Muslim or other contemporary sources is it suggested that Muhammad ever violated any of the scriptural laws on marriage prescribed in the Qur’an, which would rule out his having had sex with a prepubescent child. The fact that some prurient Islamophobic bigots have taken the rather dubious medieval chronology of Aisha’s age, together with the fact that 9 or 10 years is at the early end of the age spectrum for female puberty, to construct a lascivious fantasy narrative of Muhammad as a “pedophile” does not outweigh the conclusions of responsible historical scholarship. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2411 "2019-01-06T00:12:57Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > A large percentage. Why? 1. Your vote didn’t matter one bit on them being enacted 2. “Progressives” by definition want to implement new social reforms and new, liberal ideas. (thus progress) 3. Many of those causes were not even exclusive “Democrat” causes or efforts. 4. Some of them, like the FHA and red lining are directly attributable to the inequalities your racist ass claims are due to biology like [redlining](https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america). You are a _social conservative_ because you want to maintain racist power imbalances and at best you are a _conservative Democrat_. Supporting existing legislation, especially those policies that existed before your dad squired half your dna into your mom isn’t a _progressive_ stance. I see lots of bitching about how rich kids get to go to collage and you didn’t, so I could see how you can see yourself as a _economic liberal_ The only contemporary social areas you seem to care about on twitter with what you chose to re-tweet or comment on is protecting nazis and debasing “marxists”. From my view point economic envy and not an interest in fairness or liberal ideals is the largest reason you identify on this side. Because you only seem to care if it is something that will benefit you (like maintaining institutionalized racism) The funny thing is I am not judging you for being a Democrat but you are taking it that way, I am criticizing you for being a racist and fighting to maintain an oppressive social structure. I actually pity you for not having the strength to identify with a label that is closer to your world view, excluding the racist part, why do you think it is shameful to be a Democrat that isn’t a social progressive? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2412 "2019-01-06T00:14:19Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It is very clear that the Qur’an defines marriage to be valid only between consenting adults So she was a “consenting adult” who got married and then played with dolls while her husband Mohammed watched. :dubious: Or do you dispute that part as well? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2413 "2019-01-06T00:26:58Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > You are a _social conservative_ because you want to maintain racist power imbalances and at best you are a _conservative Democrat_. > > Supporting existing legislation, especially those policies that existed before your dad squired half your dna into your mom isn’t a _progressive_ stance. I see lots of bitching about how rich kids get to go to collage and you didn’t, so I could see how you can see yourself as a _economic liberal_ Not sure what you are on about, but I did go to college, for about 14 semesters in all. I just didn’t graduate. I do think private schools are an offensive concept. You know, as “conservative Democrats” tend to think. :rolleyes: Conservative Democrats apparently also support strong environmental regulation, an “Apollo program” for green energy, reparations for slavery, universal, always-on body cameras for police that must be turned over to a civilian review board in any case of violence in arrest or detention, increased education funding, steep taxes on the rich, government-run banking and transportation systems, a basic income, and universal health coverage. And strong protection of free speech and association. If that is the agenda of “conservative Democrats”, then sign me up! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2414 "2019-01-06T00:45:00Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So she was a “consenting adult” who got married By the standards of pretty much _ **every culture in the world at the time, including Christian ones** _, yes, she was. I don’t see why this is so difficult for you to understand. Sure, I think all we moderns can agree that puberty should not be considered a sufficient criterion for official adulthood and ability to consent to marriage. But that doesn’t mean that **all the millions of _pre-modern_ people, including Christians, who _did_ so consider it** should therefore be automatically considered “pedophiles”. Trying to cover up or ignore the accepted normality of pubescent-girl marriage throughout the medieval world, just so you can pretend that Muhammad’s entirely conventional marital behavior was some kind of evil pathological aberration, is merely an Islamophobic sex-horror fantasy. Even today in many non-Muslim cultures [early pubescent marriage and motherhood is by no means extinct:](https://motherhow.com/youngest-parents/) > [@](#): > > 2001: Wanwisa Janmuk from Thailand gave birth to a baby girl at the age of nine. The father of the child is her 27-year-old husband […] The girl got married at the age of 8, and at the age of 9 she became the youngest Asian mother. > > 2009: 11-year-old Kordeza Zhelyazkova from Bulgaria gave birth to a daughter, whose father was Kordeza’s 19-year-old husband. And 1200-1500 years ago, this sort of thing was entirely normal by the standards of most societies in the world. If you want to call Muhammad a “pedophile” for accepting marriage to an early-adolescent girl as socially permissible, then you are obligated to acknowledge that the vast majority of men up to a few hundred years ago, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, by that standard qualify as “pedophiles” as well. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2415 "2019-01-06T00:50:35Z")
So why were so many of his other wives older? Do you excuse Thomas Jefferson for being a man of his time, or do you say his legacy is seriously blighted by the inability of Sally Hemings to consent? You strike me as someone who would typically be in the latter category, but as I’m pinning you down here, you’re going to have to claim the former if you want to appear remotely consistent. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2416 "2019-01-06T01:03:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Nice goalpost-shifting there, but I think the [temporary cancellation of a New York production of _Corpus Christi_ in 1998 due to security concerns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Christi_(play)) still comes awfully close to fulfilling even your newly restricted conditions. And if we broaden them to include other majority-Christian countries besides the USA, then there’s no question about it. OK, I read the link, and my first thought is that a portrayal of Jesus and his disciples as coming-out gays is just asking for trouble. Are you surprised anybody in the US would object to its performance? It would go over at least as well as [Piss Christ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ#Reception). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2417 "2019-01-06T01:24:35Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So why were so many of his other wives older? 😕 Why wouldn’t they be? The vast majority of adult women, even if we define “adult” very broadly as meaning “post-puberty”, are older than adolescents. As **Ramira** has explained, Muhammad’s marriages after the death of his first wife seem to have been primarily marriages of alliance for family connections, as practiced by many other influential leaders throughout history. Any unmarried woman, whatever her age, from such a family would have been an eligible marital prospect. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Do you excuse Thomas Jefferson for being a man of his time, or do you say his legacy is seriously blighted by the inability of Sally Hemings to consent? Why do you think “being a man of his time” and having his “legacy seriously blighted” by the pernicious customs of his time are mutually exclusive? One could quibble that even in Jefferson’s world, slavery was a much more ethically contested issue than pubescent-girl marriage was in Muhammad’s, and also that extramarital concubinage such as Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings was less socially acceptable than legal marriage such as that of Muhammad and Aisha. However, I have no problem generally agreeing with statements like _“Jefferson’s legacy is seriously blighted by his participation in what we would now consider a coercive relationship with a woman whose enslaved status rendered her incapable of giving meaningful consent, although such relationships were legal and socially tolerated in his time”_, or _“Muhammad’s legacy is seriously blighted by his participation in what we would now consider a coercive marriage with a girl whose extreme youth rendered her incapable of giving meaningful consent, although such marriages were legal and socially accepted in his time”_. What I have a problem with is creepy prurient distortions of the historical facts by misleading and scandalmongering assertions such as _“Jefferson was a rapist”_ or _“Muhammad was a pedophile”_, **without** clarifying that it is the socio-historical context rather than the individual whose mores you are accusing. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2418 "2019-01-06T01:36:25Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > my first thought is that a portrayal of Jesus and his disciples as coming-out gays is just asking for trouble. Tell that to **SlackerInc**. I personally think that in a free society it should be legal to publish works of art or opinion considered “blasphemous” by some people, and that anybody offended by such works is obligated to confine themselves to legal forms of protest and denunciation. But I also recognize that the social impact of so-called “blasphemous” works and whether their creators are “asking for trouble” is a complex issue that needs to be understood in its historical and cultural context, not just naively applied as a crude yardstick for determining whether one religion or culture is “better” than another. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2419 "2019-01-06T01:45:03Z")
Great: “Muhammad’s legacy is seriously blighted by his participation in what we would now consider a coercive marriage with a girl whose extreme youth rendered her incapable of giving meaningful consent, although such marriages were legal and socially accepted in his time". I can go with that. Now, you’re an actuary. You know that I am a healthy person who should be expected to have decades left to live, all else equal. You also know that I have posted a YouTube video making the above point which has been publicized on Al-Jazeera. The video contains my correct current address. How do you feel about my request for a hefty life insurance policy? A good risk for the underwriters at the usual rate for my age and health status? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2420 "2019-01-06T02:06:34Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > How do you feel about my request for a hefty life insurance policy? Well, how has the publication of similar discussions of Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha vis-a-vis modern attitudes towards child marriage and age-of-consent laws affected the insurability status of numerous other content creators? Such as [this one](https://islamfyi.princeton.edu/is-it-true-that-muhammad-married-a-child-bride-by-the-name-of-ayesha-when-he-was-53-and-she-was-9-years-old-if-so-how-do-muslims-justify-this-from-their-exemplary-prophet/): > [@](#): > > Of all the criticism that Islam has endured since it appeared on the scene as a new religion fourteen centuries ago, the marriage of Muhammad to Ayesha was not one of them until fairly recently. Muslim apologists, those who defend the Islamic tradition, would argue that a reason for the absence of such criticism is that marriage and age are so historically and culturally contextual. […] when it comes to the sacred law (Shari’ah) not everything the Prophet did is taken as precedence for doing. Or [this one](https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IRW-Islamic-persepctive-on-CM.pdf): > [@](#): > > AN ISLAMIC HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE ON EARLY AND FORCED MARRIAGES […] > > The age of Ayesha at the time of her marriage to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), has recently become the subject of debate on whether Islam allows early marriage. […] Debating Ayesha’s exact age at marriage does not discharge Muslims of their obligation to adhere to the principles of Islamic law and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, which prohibit harmful practices and state that physical and intellectual maturity is a precondition of marriage. […] > > The Shari’ah welcomes governments to act for the benefit of the people and constitute man-made laws in areas where there is need. The Shari’ah also requires Muslim communities to obey the rules of the land as long as they do not contravene religious law, so in many countries Muslims are required, by Shari’ah, to wait until they reach 18 before they marry. > > Muslims are entrusted to follow the rules of the land, whether they live in Muslim or non-Muslim countries, and this includes adhering to the minimum legal age for marriage. And of course, the thousands upon thousands of outright Islamophobes all over the internet who openly endorse and propagate the “pedophile Muhammad” canard? Are they having problems getting insured? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=120) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=122)