Bill Maher and Sam Harris arguing with Ben Affleck about Islam

And what question(s) is that?

I've not seen ATW claim anything was "flawed".

 

He took issue with the fact that the VAST majority of those polled believe that there should be "religious freedom." He then went on to make **** up to try and reconcile the two seemingly contradictory poll responses.

 

I think you are being a bit naive if you think that is what ATW's agenda is. He's not going around attacking Islam as a means of governance, he's attacking it as a means of a way of life. He's demonstrating it as a poisonous idea that instills people to violence.

If people were to say that Judaism leads people to be callous towards others, they would be labeled anti-Semitic. So how is that saying Islam is inherently violent not the same thing?

Islam has problems, and no one is arguing against that. This is the strawman that has been constructed by him. Islam needs reform. It needs a massive amount of education and industrialization to bring it into the modern world. But the problem is not Islam itself, it is the civil society that is the remnants of an ancient culture. No one would be making the criticisms of Islam today back in the 1400's. Back then, Islam was considered the civilized world and Europeans were the barbarians.

People don't understand that.

The issue isn't the governing bodies as the problem. In Pakistan the government is more moderate than the fanatics, they are pushed by the fanatics. Same in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and so on.

If you want to change Islamic culture and modernize it, you need a different solution than simply saying Islam is inherently violent and can never co-exist peacefully with the rest of the world. That simply isn't true.

The issue isn't the religion in and of itself, it's the religious institutions and culture built around it.

 

We are on page 17 of this thread. A majority of this thread has centered around a large, multi country poll of Muslims. After nearly 20 pages there still has not been a compeling explanation for the very troubling poll results.

At some point we just have accept that many Muslims have different values and a different culture than the West and it is very hard to reconcile. You can have posters attempt to brush the results under the rug but that doesn't do a service to anyone.

I don't think anyone is arguing ALL Muslims believe in the death of infidels, or that all Muslims are not capable of doing well in the West. However, the poll results give us a greater understanding of why there are issues and problems.

 

What do you have to say about the fact that another question in the exact same poll indicates that the same people believe in "religious freedom"?

Could it be that there were translation errors? Could it be that those people don't believe that people who leave Islam should be put to death, but should be censored in other ways? Could it be that the poll questions were asked in different ways in different languages in different countries?

Of course, all of these things are possible. However, in your twisted mind, you seize on the worst possible interpretation because you have already decided that Muslims are inherently evil.

There are more than 1 billion Muslims in the world, even if the number you threw out there (250M) are actually as violent as you seem to think, that is still a minority of the people who identify as part of the Muslim religion. As Sweet lou said, you are painting with a brush that is entirely too large based on your own preconceived notions of Islam. Your preconceived notions aren't accurate and you are 100% analogous to a dyed in the wool antisemitic fanatic.

 

No he didn't.

Also there seems to be this under-current of "Well okay 250,000,000 muslims feel a particular way, but what about the 750,000,000 that don't feel that way?

The point is 250,000,000 is a huge amount at that is alarming and something that needs to be addressed and not just swept under the rug.

 

You want to debate without name calling and can you be respectful, then let's debate.

The people who think someone should be executed for leaving a religion are backward. They are living in the dark ages. They are narrow-minded. But it has nothing to do with Islam itself but the fact that this is what humanity is without civilization. These are the people living in villages, not cities. The people who are impoverished and uneducated. Where the mosque is the only thing that makes sense to them.

Christianity wasn't all that different a few hundred years back.


If you respond with one more tired personal attack, it will be clear you have no interest in an honest intellectual discussion.

 

He's saying the people are backwards and would be backwards no matter what their religion was.

 

This is a common religion apologist meme.

"People are screwed up, religion isn't to blame."

Yeah, no. Bad people exist, but bad ideas can make good people do bad things.... and make bad people do horrible things.

 

Only religion propogates the notion of "thought" crimes.

 

Communism and fascism also

 

Yep. Good post.

 

For the record, you initiated the name calling here way early in this thread. I started to respond in kind, thought better of it, and deleted it. I don't see an apology nor retraction of anything you've posted over the course of the last 7 years. Yes, you do annoy the F out of me at times. But I am trying to be a mature adult here. I would hope you have grown a bit wiser with age as well.

Ok, on to this topic. I will respond later tonight when I have more time.

 

You answered it by making **** up based on your assumptions.

Like I said, not a linguistic expert, but there are dramatic contradictions in the poll responses.

No, I'm trying to understand why there are such stark contradictions in the poll. As the contradictions are so clear and because I have such a strong understanding of statistical methods, I am inclined to believe that the poll is flawed in some way.

No, they're not. There are dramatic contradictions in the very poll you cite. It seems obvious to me that someone didn't understand something, either the respondent didn't understand the questions or the questioner didn't understand the response.

You may never have specifically stated "Muslims are inherently evil," but your constant diatribe certainly leads people to believe that this is your position.

And if you had limited your criticism to Muslims in those countries alone, perhaps your points would have some validity. However, you choose to paint with the broadest possible brush and seem to paint the religion of Islam as problematic en toto.

They don't give MBAs to people who are "dumb."

Try again, rookie.

 

Muslims are not inherently evil. Muslims are humans. Islam is inherently antiquated. Just like most religons, it proffeses objective morality but in reality it's just a freeze frame of 700AD Middle Eastern subjective moral codes wrapped up in the guise of "objective morality". 90% of the problem with Islam stems from this fact.