possible to embarrass Fox News?

interviewed by her recently. He managed to really get her riled up (as riled up as you can get Terry Gross) because he wasn't taking her crud.

Ya! Real fair and balanced interview...

but most embarrassing? I mean in 20 year FOX has some really, really horrid crap.
Got to think that would get her fired anyplace else. Probably get her a promo at Fox.

But Most Embarrassing is a very high bar for Fox.

You can see any fox news reporters eyes glaze over the moment anything educational is mentioned. After all they know how the colleges are a stronghold of socialists.
Why if they let some pinko commie college professor discuss actual fact, their viewers might think for themselves!Can't have that happen!

Facts are embarrassingly absent from Faux interviews, as are credible guests, impartial hosts, and the notation "COMMENTARY" at the bottom of the screen--because that's what Faux broadcasts--propaganda disguised as "news."

It looked like he was trying to teach a child advanced math and the kid wanted nothing to do with it.

He could've gotten her right there on her first claim.

She already had her mind made up before the interview.

frustrating! She wasn't listening to much of anything he was saying. She HAD to get those quotes out from "other scholars" so her foxbots would know he's just another Muslim - move along, nothing new to learn here.

It's like accepting an interview from a tabloid.

I wonder if the next segment was about a strip club.

Non-sequitter. Boggler of mindliness. Incommunicable.

--imm

She came off looking horrible in this interview and he came off very well.

I looked up the book at my county library system and it has 25 holds on 6 copies.

If it hadn't been for this horrible interview making the rounds on Facebook I might not even have known about the book.

Seriously, wow.

This was nothing more than an attempt to try to discredit Islam because the author was a Muslim.

I'd love to talk with this man, he is sharp as a scalpel. I also get a kick how the interviewer fails to notice how he says that Christianity is "the greatest religion on Earth."

She was given a job to link a hatred of Christianity by Muslims, and man does she try to follow that to the letter.

Kudos for the author for noticing the attack immediately. I may buy his book because it sounds interesting.

Holy crap. He was reduced to talking to her as if she were a four year old. He tried to explain to her what a professor does, multiple times, using simple declarative sentences. It had no effect on that automaton.

Her confusion was evident in her initial question: "Now I want to clarify, you're a Muslim so why would you want to 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."

Interviewer: "It still begs the question, why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity."

Aslan (still game, but trying to help by talking a little slower): "Because it's my job as an academic. I am a professor of religion, including the New Testament. That's what I do for a living actually."

Towards the end of the interview, the interviewer tries to raise level of discourse by going to a question posted by an astute Fox News viewer in the Fox chat room.

Interviewer: "I want to get this on before we end this interview, Taylor Cain just says 'So your book is written with clear bias, and you're trying to say it's academic. That's like a democrat writing a book about why Reagan wasn't a good president. It just doesn't work.' What do you say to that?"

Aslan: "Well it would be like a Democrat with a PhD in Reagan who had been studying his life and history for two decades, writing a book about Reagan."

Interviewer: "But then why would a Democrat want to promote democracy by writing about a Republican?"

...and the dumb just continues.

Interviewer: "...I believe you have been on several programs and have never disclosed that you're a Muslim, and I believe that's interesting for disclosure."

Aslan; "Ma'am on the second page of my book, the second page of my book says I'm a Muslim. Every single interview I have ever done, on TV or in print, says I'm a Muslim."



Astonishing stuff. If Fox wants to do a hatchet job on some one, they need sharper tools.

I was skeptical that such a thing as "most embarrassing Fox interview" could exist, but I think you may have found it.

Lauren Green serves as a religion correspondent for FOX News Channel's (FNC). Prior to this, Green served as a news anchor for "FOX & Friends," where she provided daily news updates for the irreverent morning program.

Prior to joining FNC in 1996, Green served as a weekend news anchor and correspondent at WBBM-TV (CBS) in Chicago. From 1988 to 1993, she was a general assignment reporter at KSTP-TV (ABC) in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Outside of her career at FNC, Green is well known as a concert pianist with a degree in piano performance from The University of Minnesota. She has interviewed some of the most prominent people in the classical music world including Placido Domingo, Pierre Boulez, Joshua Bell and has covered such events as the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and opening night of The Metropolitan Opera. Green has given several solo recitals and performed in small ensembles. In 2004, she released her debut CD, "Classic Beauty."

A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Green was named Miss Minnesota in 1984 and was the third runner-up in the 1985 Miss America contest.

When I was in the TV biz about a 1000 years ago such an individual would be referred to as a "Meat Puppet."


Carry on

Maybe she believes in the conservative cause, maybe the job just pays well, but she really stepped in it with that interview.

And the faux newz "reporter" failed miserably.

people who watched that show and thought the interviewer (NOT debater) was asking a valid question are exactly what these Fox "News" types want...a wholly uninformed and ignorant populous

The Catholics did that 400 years later.

I don't think you will find a single word attributed to Jesus where he said anything about organizing a new church. According to his legend, he was, after all, a Jew.

Mathew 16:18
And I say also unto you, That you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.

Did he erect a building? Did he organize a new religion? Did he renounce his Jewish faith? Did he ever write a single word to establish this new religion?

Or when he said "my church", was he actually talking about his mission -- meaning that was a metaphorical church representing taking a stand for the principles he is said to have supported? i.e. like "drawing a line in the sand" or planting one's feet.

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think any form of Christianity as a formal religion happened for centuries. I believe it is widely accepted that the "gospels" were actually written decades after Jesus' death.

It means a gathering or congregation of like minded people.
And no he never renounced his faith, but he clearly did renounce the Pharisees and the Saducees...the leadership of his faith...and with good reason, because it had become corrupted as badly as Christianity has become corrupted.
But he did establish a ritual for his church at the last supper...the breaking and sharing of bread and wine and told his "church" to do it to remember him...he created nothing but that.

And you are wrong...reading the book of Acts shows clearly there was an organized "church" after Jesus appeared to them in his 40 days after his death...before that appearance they were not organized and together but once he appeared to them it cemented them into a strong and effective orginization...which spread his teaching far and wide...(and which by the was was communist...saying that they held all things in common)

It might be widely accepted among academia that the Gospels were written much later but that is only their opinion based on evidence that they have...which is written evidence of them much later, but does not prove when they were written because they had to be copied on perishable paper or velum and they could have been written at the time the disciples were alive and we just don't have those older copies.

And I know this because I have actually read the bible like a story, not as a some mystical writing that cannot be understood...the story is clear when you read it like that.

In the mid-30s to the mid-50s, he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle

so this creates a very curious situation where it could have actually been Paul gilding the lily as he started to write some of this material (the earliest business plan for the new religion, if you will) decades after Jesus' death. Basically, "Oh yeah, I was Jesus' 'go to' guy."

In any event, the point still stands that Jesus didn't "found" Christianity as this Faux dingbat kept saying. There was no such thing as "Christianity" during his lifetime. Indeed, if we are to believe the accounts of the man, it wasn't all about him. The idea of self-promotion is anathema to what I know about the Bible.

it pretty much encompasses the generic christian view. I've seen this video on you tube and find it is very compelling and I could not agree with Sam Harris more on this. He nailed it!

what only lunatics could believe on their own."

Wow!

begin to recognize her own obvious and blatant bias in the conversation. I'm sure he left the studio shaking his head and wondering why humans are so easily indoctrinated and then become stuck in that indoctrination.

is a most fascinating, captivating book. I heard Reza speak a couple of weeks ago, and when he's not interrupted and challenged by a noodnik, he is an engaging, thoughtful and brilliant man. Recommend the book highly - very readable and informative.

I rarely reply on DU and I enjoy reading all the pithy replies on here but as a teacher I just have to say how sophomoric, dense spew is coming from this FOX shill. You cannot be a logical, intelligent human believing that this dribble has anything remotely to do with journalism. This is a hack with hack criticisms that I want to believe she was told to do and she is at fault for not recognizing the inane non sense she was told to ask him.
See this is what reporters, TV journalists should be suspended over -INCOMPETENT IGNORANCE.

I can just hear the producer screaming into the ear piece of this idiot to reach around and give it to Reza!!

Epic Fail, as they say.... And, THIS sets me up for yet another long time before I watch Fox News based video!

interview by Fox. It was disgusting but I've seen a lot worse from this network. First of all it was about a subject who many scholars have made good arguments never even existed. Whether Jesus existed or not his message and mission of standing up for the poor, dispossessed and disenfranchised was one the modern republican party and its propaganda organization, aka Fox News, could never get on board with.

I think this interview typifies what happens when you put brute ignorance opposite from brilliant academic and interview subject on a TV show.

I've seen Reza for years as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He's always been very humorous and intellectual. She and her producers were dumb to think they could browbeat him.

They come off looking like absolute fools.

My favorite part of the whole interview is early after he answered her stupid question the first time quite thoroughly by citing his credentials for writing such a book...she then says, "But that begs the question, why would a Muslim write about Christianity?"

He then looks at her like she's a donkey that just took a shit in his living room and starts talking to her like she's a preschooler. 'Well, you see...I'm a guy who is an expert in this field. You know....a guy who studies lots of books and writes lots of papers about things?'

Classic.