How many people have died and how many riots have taken place because of depictions of Muhammad in cartoons? How many people have died and how many riots have taken place because of depictions of Jesus on shows like South Park?
Personally, I hated them both.
Neither knew very much about what they were talking about, though I’ll admit that Affleck came across as dumber, ruder, and smarmier they way he kept sighing shaking his head, and creating straw men to attack them while clearly not even listening to what was being said.
Frankly, it’s why I generally hate shows like Real Time which try and take complex topics and turn them into soundbites.
Personally I’d have found a discussion between Harris and Kristoff vastly more interesting.
Personally, I found Maher’s claim on another show, for which he didn’t receive one tenth the criticism he’s got where he complained that he was terrified of the fact that “Muhammad” was the most common baby’s name in London right now. Admittedly with a name like Ali(which I’m sure Bill would also find problematic) it’s a bit personal for me.
I obviously agree to a large extent with LN that the differences between Islam and Christianity are more an accident of history, but you both seem to be making the very common mistake of thinking that most or even sizable number of predominantly Muslim countries are theocracies.
That’s far from the truth. There are around 60 Muslim countries in the world(depending on how you count them) and only a handful could be called theocracies. The only Arab countries out of the 23 I think that could be called theocracies are Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Somalia(and frankly the last two are something of a stretch).
If you want to go beyond the Arab world, there’s Iran, and arguably Pakistan(AK84 would probably disagree).
Off the top of my head, I’m not sure I can think of any others.
Now, are there others where there’s some mixing of religion and government, but that’s hardly a theocracy or theocratic government. Islam was the official religion of Iran under the Shah and my father was taught in school that the Shah was chosen by God, but no one would claim it was a theocracy or a theocratic government.
I’ll +1 to Ibn Warraq’s “They both suck” opinion. Typical argument that uses Muslims as a proxy to make competing points about American politics, without actually caring about the people or the religion they are supposedly arguing about. Also, as an aside I am jealous of how Reza Aslan has made a career out of being just slightly less dumb than other people on TV.
I am also going to push back against the idea that Islam is somehow where Christianity was some hundreds of years ago, and is following the same path. It’s completely, utterly wrong. Islam is here now, and the trends that are affecting it are modern ones. Islam has its own history, its own intellectual traditions, its own sources of authority, it is not Christianity with different hats. The Qur’an is not the Bible with Arabic lettering on the cover. Christianity the way it was in 1500 is not the way Islam is now, and the way Christianity is now is not going to be the way Islam is in 500 years.
I’m with Affleck in this. Societies are more or less violent than others, and their religions reflect that, not the other way around. Underdeveloped societies will have less developed views in respect to things like sexism or homophobia, and the cure for that is to let them develop… whatever man in the sky they pray to has no bearing on that.
Saying that there’s anything inherently wrong with a race or a religion will have the PC police accusing you of racism, that’s true enough… but that doesn’t mean that the PC police is not right.
You do bring up an interesting point here, but I would have to disagree to some extent in regards to Muslim migrants to Europe and North America. It is true that the vast majority of Muslim migrants to the West have moved away from fundamentalism, but not completely. Perhaps it isn’t as noticeable in the US as it is in Europe because of the more multicultural society in the US, added with survival of the fittest culture that forces immigrants to adapt or go under. In Europe, where the cultures are more homogenous, there is a certain problem of integration causing pockets of cultural isolation. Unfortunately, these do become hotbeds for radicalization within Europe despite varying efforts of European governments to integrate these immigrants. Now most European countries are liberal, and due to political correctness, European governments seem to have a problem criticizing the radical elements of Islam in their own countries for fear of offending the Muslim communities. Freedom of the press has helped to a certain degree, leaving the media to take on the role of criticizing Islam, but even they are becoming cautious. We all know the outcome of the Danish cartoons, which originally went under the radar until radical Danish imam named Abu Laban took these cartoons to the middle east to show the disrespect the Danes had for Islam and riots ensued where Danish embassies were attacked and torched fully six months after the original cartoons were published. Other incidents around Europe, such as the reaction to Theo Van Gogh’s film which cost him his life and various disruptions of scientific and artistic forums by Muslims who seem to insist that it should be illegal to criticize their religion, no matter what. Such radical views in a liberal and secular society is a concern, and in such a free society, where one of the most important aspect that protects the society is freedom of speech, there can be no quarter given in restricting that freedom.
As Carl Sagan said it: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. As there is not a single piece of evidence that God or Allah exists, I retain my right to call all religion bullshit. But if a particular religion is permitting and encouraging violence not only in countries where they have a majority, but also trying to inflict violence in countries outside of their sphere, I would have no problems criticizing that religion even more. Religion breeds intolerance and I can’t tolerate intolerance.
I’d just like to point out that there have been Muslim terrorist attacks in Indonesia, like the night club bombing in Bali and various hotels bombed in Jakarta, mind it was almost 10 years ago, and I think the Indonesian government has been keeping up with the radical elements. I should add though the Danish embassy in Jakarta was one of the various embassies attacked by Muslim mobs during the Danish cartoon incident. An angry Muslim mob, aren’t necessarily terrorists, but that’s religion for you.
As for Turkey, perhaps no specific terrorist attacks, but I have been reading that there is a radical fundamentalist movement brewing there.
It’s true that honor killings and genital mutilations may not be specific to Islam, but it is a common problem within Islam, and in many places it has become part of Muslim culture. Like the Christmas tree, arguably, originated from pre-Christian pagan culture but has become part of the Christian culture. Just because “other” cultures or religions also practice the horrific acts, doesn’t excuse Muslims for doing the same and there is no doubt that it has become tradition within Muslim cultures and therefore horrific acts perpetrated by Muslims on Muslim women and girls.
If everyone in the Middle East converted, would we finally see peace? I strongly suggest they would just find something else to fight about.
Religion takes on whatever politics would be there anyway. I lived in a mixed (but primarily Muslim) village in Cameroon near the Nigerian border. It was a peaceful and tolerant place. Just a few miles over the border, Boko Haram is raging. Same people, same religion, same everything. It seems obvious to me that the primary factor there is npt something inherent to religion, but politics.
Societies that want to split will split along whatever lines are handy-- religion, ethnicity, language, politics, race. They will find something. The Hutus and Tutti spoke the same language, intermarried, practices the same religion and lived mixed together- in other words they had none of the actual attributes of being different ethnicities. But that didn’t stop such a tenuous different from landing to genocide.
How many places were vandalized for exhibiting Piss Christ ? How many protests did that one photo generate and still generates ? Bonus question, how many newspapers reproduced *Piss Christ *out of general spite towards their local Xian community and as deliberate, trolling "fuck you"s ?
Tell that to all the Muslims we’ve bombed over the decades in a thinly veiled Christian crusade. Christianity isn’t less violent; it’s just usually less honest about it these days, and not as powerful.
Religion is “peaceful” where it is weak, and violent where it is strong. Just look at Buddhism for example; here in America it has a peaceful reputation, but that’s because it’s powerless. In Burma it is powerful, and rather than it being peaceful the Buddhists there persecute and kill Muslims. Why? Power.
Oh, come on; there’s plenty of enthusiastic Christian oppression of women, minorities and so on. It’s in the news fairly often, it’s not some secret.
And here’s another problem - the anti-Islam campaign has a strong racist aspect; it’s often just a more politically acceptable means of expressing racism, like the Republicans who claim Obama is a secret Muslim.
Why do you equate race and religion?
Because they lost, and were replaced with non-theocratic governments. Not that there still aren’t plenty of Christian governments with nasty theocratic aspects.
If the Christian leaders in America had the opportunity to make law and hand out punishment they would do it in a heartbeat with as heavy a hand as any Muslim leader. You only have to look at the kinds of laws that are proposed now to see the direction they would like to go in - exactly the direction we see in Islamic countries controled by the clergy. Fortunately, most ‘Christian’ nations have already had their major wars over who gets to run things and the religious extremeist have lost that one. Yet they battle on, every day.
Christianity isn’t a ‘better’ or nicer religion than Islam, it’s power is just constrained better. Make Pat Robertson our dictator and see how long it takes to before America looks exactly like any theocracy. I’d give us about a month.
Somebody out smarmed Maher?
I didn’t think that was possible.
I like both Affleck and Maher and I have no idea whose side I’m on. It’s a complicated mess.
I think they both make good points and in the end, they both just want peace in the middle east. I hope it doesn’t affect their friendship negatively.
Good point - just look what they did when the had the chance to write a Constitution.
But ignoring the reason for the beliefs wolf be akin to trying to stop gang violence in LA without acknowledging that the people commit the crimes they do because they’re in gangs. To be clear, no one—no one—is attempting to claim that all Muslims are murderous barbarians, but to ignore that Islam is a motivating force for their actions is both fantastical and unhelpful.
I’m more on Affleck’s side, and think the West can only do worse if the current struggle against Islamic extremism comes to be seen as “a war on Islam” by the average Muslim. There are plenty of peaceful, friendly Muslims in the world; we need allies or at the very least neutrals in the Middle East, and don’t want to alienate and/or radicalize any more of them. Christianity is responsible for the Crusades, the Inquisition, anti-Jewish pogroms, the Salem witch trials, etc., but the faith has largely outgrown those violent, oppressive impulses. In time, I hope Islam does the same.
Well, there is Vatican City…
This is ridiculous. Not surprisingly, you offer zero support for such inanity.
Sure – these radical beliefs are a problem. But they’re not “Islamic” beliefs, any more than ‘kill abortion doctors’ is a “Christian belief” – they’re radical extremist Islamic beliefs. They shouldn’t be portrayed as “Islamic beliefs”.
Isn’t this Phil Robertson a christian?
He thinks we need to convert them (ISIS) or kill them.
Europeans didn’t just wake up one day, go crazy, and suddenly decide to start the Crusades without rhyme or reason. Muslims had been violently encroaching on Europe for centuries before the first Crusade.
Yes, but that’s just a single whackadoo going off. He’s not getting that from his religion, but from Fox News. Apostasy in Islam is specifically addressed in the Koran and Hadith, including grievous punishment for committing it.