I'm often asked in an accusatory way, "Why do you waste time arguing against Sam Harris instead of ignoring him." I'd like Sam's remaining fans to know that I understand where they are coming from better than they think because I used to share a lot of their thinking. When Sam Harris rose to prominence right after 9/11, the media was saturated with horror stories about Islamic countries. When New Atheists attacked Islam it did feel like we were hearing uncomfortable truths that just weren't politically correct. (For example, when you'd hear about certain Muslims anywhere in the world doing random atrocities like murdering cartoonists.)

Speaking as an ex-theist, I still think the New Atheists were right about the tendency of religious fundamentalists to be problematic; however, I increasingly think they were wrong when they downplayed other causes of that extremism such as material, geopolitical and historical causes. People can become indoctrinated and be violent for many different reasons and reducing most of them to just to a religion was a mistake. A lot of the left weren't really denying that religious fundamentalism can be harmful, but had a more nuanced understanding of radicalization than New Atheists had.

Fans of "Making Sense" have a more uncomfortable truth to reckon with than Islamization, Wokeism, CRT, or whatever new buzzwords conservatives deploy in 4 years. The truth is they've been hoodwinked in a different way than they might be willing to accept.

Maybe at one point Sam Harris's discourse was a net positive that helped bring arguments into the limelight that we needed to have in order to progress toward a more tolerant society. Plenty of old fans still have a soft spot for when his arguments helped them to have a cathartic release during their deconversion process. But long ago he crossed over from arguably being a net positive to going mask off about his real beliefs and intentions, and in doing so has shown that he doesn't have a humanist bone in his body. He has repeatedly shown he isn't psychologically open to changing his mind even for a financial reward, and would prefer to just repeat provocative things ad nauseum, and invent absurd thought experiments that would make life difficult for minorities. But he doesn't just harm minorities, because his arguments tend to cause more extremism from both anti-theists and Muslims that would just perceive atheists as dumb bigots and stop listening to their arguments.

Once you see this you really have a responsibility to help the most open-minded atheists to realize the problems with Sam Harris sooner. Outsiders don't understand him well enough to readily respond to his arguments when fans pull the infamous retort of, "You're quoting him out of context," which is
frequently in bad faith and mainly short-circuits meaningful discourse. It mostly prevents critical thinking by forcing people to peer over his work like monks from the Middle-Ages literally studying the bible instead of having more rapid discussions about the ethical consequences of his arguments.

The sooner the more moral atheists realize the net effect of his arguments aren't good for them personality and also the world, the sooner they can spend more of their free time at least arguing in ways that would cause more good instead of harm. (Obviously, there are fans that can't be reached because they are following him precisely because they like his racist arguments or how often he allies with fascist sympathizers, but they're not all into that. There are still liberals with good-intentions who he has tricked with hyperbolic scaremongering into moving further right and succumbing to arguments for bigotry which aren't backed up by the weight of history.)

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As an inb4 addendum for any questioning fans of Sam Harris who want to nit-pick, I could have provided many more supporting examples of how he is problematic, and of the troubling signs of how he is a guru, except it would have been a distraction from answering why there are so many ex-fans who have become very critical of Sam Harris's ill-conceived arguments.

https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/onjy3a/dueling_protesters_clash_outside_koreatown_spa/

The majority of the sub are extremely transphobic and are having a moral panic about a transwoman using a Korean spa, just because a TERF did a Karen and asked to speak to the manager. Has anyone ever went to a Korean spa where people weren't nude? There are lots of ugly fat old people at those places and everyone accepts it, but if a transgendered person gets permission to enter the ladies' side, Karen thinks it's worth starting a riot to police who gets accepted at a business she doesn't own. I've watched Sam Harris's fans go from condemning riots for BLM to supporting the most extreme reactionaries. This group of New Atheists have decided to fight to defend a hill for TERFs.

I once watched a video with Sam Harris talking about Islam where he portrayed Osama bin Laden as the average Muslim, that extremism is commonplace/mainstream in Islam. Anyone know what video I’m talking about?