Colonel sanders loves the sound of his own voice here... dude wasn’t even attempting to be neutral

The question of whether religious beliefs contribute to behaviour is obvious and need not even be questioned. If religions had no role to play in people's lives, people would not practice them. This is not controversial at all. What Harris is questioning is the validity, sanctity and the consequences of those beliefs. A combination of factor X (e.g. poverty or dispair) with religion Y (e.g. Islam) is likely to lead to outcome Z as apposed to a case where Y is replaced with W (e.g. Buddhism). This is a very powerful argument that all things considered equal religion does play a significant role in whether or not a person will or will not commit a violent act.

I have never seen a debate when the moderator does more talking that the debaters
- very disappointing

I'll always remember this as the debate where the moderator jumped in like Ric Flair.

Remember when Harris made claims of Israel being a enlightened liberal democracy and not a religious extremist country and people believed it lol 😆

The role of a moderator is to facilitate the debate, not complicate it by interrupting constantly, derailing it by presenting your own ideas in the midst of what could be a fruitful exchange between the two debaters, and spending about as much time talking as your debaters.

Hedges gives Sam formidable argument - much stronger than I heard from similar debates

why was the moderator sitting in the middle? clearly, he should have been sitting on the side of Chris Hedges

It would be incredible if these guys did this debate, sitting back and their big chairs, wearing sunglasses.

I'm an atheist and I think Hedges is one of the best modern writers and a brilliant public speaker. As I read the comments here, and listen to this debate and others,  I see how his, Hedges, intelligent queries and narrative are often converted to straw-man or simply ignored. It is a shame and, intellectually, we are worse off for doing so.

that awkward handshake at the end was the only way that debate could have ended

Don't ever let Scheer "moderate" another debate.

Remember that Star Trek movie where Spock's brother is some self-proclaimed holy man who mind melds with people to make their pain go away? It works but the people touched by him walk around like zombies with smiles on their faces. When he approches Kirk he says, "Your pain runs deep. Let me remove your pain." Kirk protests, "NO! I need my pain. My pain makes me who I am!" I think there's wisdom in that even if it's not what we want to hear. Pain also teaches us compassion-empathy.

gotta love a good double team masquerading as a moderator.

Pro-tip: Watch YouTube videos at 2x the normal speed in order to be more efficient.

I think Chris here perfectly displays why witness testimony is completely useless.

1:16:20  "YOU'RE THE MODERATOR"

I dont like people shouting in the public but this guy was right. The moderator should be objective or stfu.

I am not an atheist but an existentialist and a Gnostic; and I question the essence of what lies beyond the sophism and doctrinal, surface view of spirituality of these Materialist; Reductionist atheist's; and their  own faith  in their wit and the parochial, linear, Aristotelian view of nature and the cosmos; when their back's are against the wall. I say this because Richard Dawkins went out of his way to get Graham Hancock's lecture taken off of TED; it begs the question; if you are so certain of your "orthodox" view; then what are you afraid of? Why go out of your way to silence the idea's of those that don't accommodate your own.  Seems pretty weak to me!

Really wish the audio quality was better

Einstein was very depressed later part of his life because his theory of relativity was used to develop nuclear bomb.