Fox News Interview: "Why Would a Muslim Write a Book About Jesus?"

[Brain Damage]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...eza_aslan_why_muslim_would_be_interested.html

This is cringe worthy and hilarious.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Cause apparently Islam is a religion invented out of nowhere by the underground lava men, and is not of the same Abrahamic tradition of Judaism and Christianity.

 

[The Question]

Fox news is the worst thing ever?

Funny enough, that's not news.

 

[Doctor Evo]

Yeah, this guy is awesome. He's pretty damn sharp, and he handles this unbelievable stupidity incredibly well. That woman should really consider a new career path.

 

[Pink Ranger]

In all fairness, he could have helped educate that idiot by just mentioning that Muslims also recognize Jesus, not as the son of a monotheistic god per se, but as a prophet who still possessed great power.

 

[Teelie]

I was going to say that myself. I'm not a Muslim and I only know a basic amount of the religion but I knew they viewed Jesus as a prophet and held in high regard as such.

 

[NickNitro]

Ironically, Fox is going to dig themselves into a deep enough hole, they'll eventually be interviewing the Devil.

 

[Manic]

Anchor: “You’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?”

Aslan: “Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim.”

Anchor:

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Yeah, this guy is awesome. He's pretty damn sharp, and he handles this unbelievable stupidity incredibly well. That woman should really consider a new career path.

Actually working at Fox News seems to be the perfect career path for her.

 

[Doctor Evo]

Actually working at Fox News seems to be the perfect career path for her.

Well, I would hope that even Fox News would be able to realize how bad this makes them look, but you're probably right. Judging by some of the Yahoo! comments, this idiot is a hero to their audience.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I like the sponsors ad before it, asking people; "How old is the oldest person you know?"
Many said 90 years and older while the age of retirement is standard, and the next question raised is: "How do you make sure you have enough money to enjoy in these years after retirement?"

I wanted to only defend the interviewer until Reza Aslan said "it's not wrong for a Christian scholar to write about prophet Mohammad" and she replies with agreement, she lost me there, the way she was questioning him rings bitterness
Her interviewing him like that is not all bad, if the people she quoted got the answers to their questions from the author of the book, it's fine

 

[Warhammer]

I saw this. She probably feels stupid now that it received all this attention.

 

[jmc]

I saw this last night and I found it hilarious how this dude had to more or less speak as if he was talking to a 5 year old to get his point across. Then she has the nerve to suggest he was hiding his faith when it's mentioned on PAGE 2 of his book what his faith is. Ill informed and insulting to say the least. A Muslim academic writing about the historical Jesus? Oh the horror. The irony here is that this guy probably knows a crap load more about who Jesus actually was than what any Christian does.

 

[Spider-Who?]

I'll play devils advocate and say that it is natural, and should I say required to check for bias, to make sure a bias is not affecting the facts.

That being said, it's pretty obvious that this guy is not some goon looking to deface someone's faith. It's also equally obvious that the "journalist" knew this, but was hoping to corner him into saying something she could false interpret in order to make a story about it.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I like Reza's books, though I am not as familiar with his bio as I should be. I seem to remember him saying he had an evangelical/born again moment as a youth recently on either Colbert/Daily. Does anyone else recall that?

 

[Hal_Jordan]

I'll play devils advocate and say that it is natural, and should I say required to check for bias, to make sure a bias is not affecting the facts.

That being said, it's pretty obvious that this guy is not some goon looking to deface someone's faith. It's also equally obvious that the "journalist" knew this, but was hoping to corner him into saying something she could false interpret in order to make a story about it.

Yeah, it's obvious that the journalist was trying to "catch him" in his "evil Muslim lies," and when he makes his points about being a PhD in several religions, she has nothing else to discuss with him.

But that still didn't stop her from pushing her agenda.

 

[jmc]

I'll play devils advocate and say that it is natural, and should I say required to check for bias, to make sure a bias is not affecting the facts.

That being said, it's pretty obvious that this guy is not some goon looking to deface someone's faith. It's also equally obvious that the ''journalist'' knew this, but was hoping to corner him into saying something she could false interpret in order to make a story about it.

I know it wasn't intentional but there's irony in that statement about bias. Bias was affecting the facts, but it wasn't the author's doing, this woman clearly had a preconceived notion of what she was going to do and assumed a lot about what this book was meant to be about and it backfired on her spectacularly. The dude couldn't be any more crystal clear about his intentions regarding that book and the research for it. As a lover of history I do like to learn about the actual people in which religious text are based off of, in spite the fact I believe the biblical stories to be utter nonsense so I can understand where he's coming from in terms of being able to remove himself from his beliefs system in order to judge facts, hell even Charles Darwin who was a religious person had to do that due to the evidence he discovered. She's going to have to live with that embarrassment the rest of her life.

 

[bullets]

I've learned from this interview to pick up Aslan's "Zealot" sometime this week and never watch FOX News outside comedy clips on The Daily Show.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Reza Aslan talked to CNN about the FOX interview.
http://www.voice4america.com/masadl...ssed-by-fox-news-interview.html#axzz2aVnfH1kU

 

[Siby]

That Fox News interview was cringe worthy. Instead of attacking what's in the book, she uses people who themselves have a bias against Islam. lol

 

[KevanG]

Ah, Fox news. You never fail to impress.

 

[chamber-music]

She or any of her 'news' research team obviously didn't read the book because keeps asking him questions about what other people think of Aslan's book.

This isn't an interview. This is just a Fox News journalist saying your a Muslim writing about Christianity you have an agenda. Her questions never really stray too far from her casting assertions that the author has some sort of negative agenda in regards to Christianity.

 

[childeroland]

Based on the lady's reasoning, I guess we can dismiss any perspective Fox News hosts have on Islam because they're Christians (and one Scientologist), then?

 

[Siby]

Whoa, they have a Scientologist working there? Who?

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I think we should just retitle this thread 'awkward, epic fail or facepalmy FOXNews interviews' because there's been so many. Didn't a highschool kid shut down O'Reilly once?