Last edited Mon Oct 27, 2014, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

The fact is many people in this nation and on DU that have rejected religion come from families that were at one time or currently Christian. So it makes sense that they would have an easier time to give criticism of Christianity because most people here know a bit more about the religion than Islam.

I am not a fan or a detractor of Maher because he has his hits and misses. His opinions on Islam are to sweeping and not representative of the religion but the same can be said about his views on Christianity. Imo he assumes that the most conservative elements of both religions are the norm for all members and that is not true.

I have no issue with people's criticism of Christianity, epecially when we have so many Christians acting like fools and doing foolish things, nor should anyone fear criticism of Islam. Yes there are a few posters here that will happily criticize Christianity but get agitated when the same is done to Muslims. Their main fear is Islamophobia and it is a real thing. Here in NYC I have seen discrimination of our Muslim citizens and it is very real despite what some may say. This however is not a good reason to not confront issues in Islam.

"The fact is he assumes that the most conservative elements of both religions are the norm for all members"
I directly challenge you to support that bit of dubious witness. If you wish to hang a man for his words, you need to use his actual words, not some revision worked up to support the prosecution.
Bill was raised Catholic you know. Why would you presume he has no knowledge of the very community in which he was raised?

Why didn't you say 'this is my opinion' instead of: "The fact is he assumes that the most conservative elements of both religions are the norm for all members" ?

I find it to be amazingly dishonest. You know what a fact is and you know what an opinion is and you intentionally claimed that your opinion of another person's beliefs is actually a fact about their beliefs.
If anyone did to you or yours what you are doing to Bill right now, you'd plotz.

both holy books are filled with mostly stupid + some evil shit-

Christians are legitimate targets only because they're a more immediate threat in domestic politics, while the fact that right-wingers constantly demonize Muslims means that Islam must be a peace-loving progressive religion.

People whose reality is a social construct always end up believing absurdities like that. The only way to avoid it and stay in contact with some form of objective reality is to examine things from moral first principles.

E.g., what does an idea do? That's how one should judge it, not by a bunch of social relationship analogies with one's self at the center of the universe.

Objectively, Islam is (currently) more anti-liberal than Christianity by a very large margin. The only way anyone can argue otherwise is attempt to silence anyone who says so with mendacious smear campaigns, calling courageous voices of reason and truth "bigots" - a sick and Orwellian lie if Bill Maher is the target.

Shouldn't it read - People like Bill Maher, who broad-brush Islam, are the same as those who accuse of every Christian of being a Dominionist

I like Bill Maher, but he does not hesitate to be overtly antagonist toward religion. It's part of his schtick. As an unbeliever, sometimes I laugh, and sometimes I cringe when I think he overcooks it. He's not terribly careful not to be overbroad when does it.

And there probably is an element among progressives who want to be very sensitive in avoiding Islamaphobia, but don't worry too much about distinguishing between reasonable Christians and the horrible things American rightwingers think the Bible justifies.

I think we all at least get the point that anti-Muslim rhetoric has a greater potential for actually hurting people than anti-Christian rhetoric in our hugely Christian country, so it's not necessarily hypocrisy that makes people worry more about broad-brushing Muslims. We are after all the country where Hindus are harrassed and threatened because some of our citizenry is simultaneously bigoted and unable to tell one unusual looking hat from the other.

To me, it becomes unfair when someone tries to make a case that one religion is somehow the "winner." All the Abrahamic religions have both good and terrible things in their holy books. Your better behaved believers take the good and leave the "stone your children if they are unruly" type stuff on the side.

So the "broadbrush" comes down to blaming the book vs. the people wielding it as an excuse for evil. In reality, you could take away the book, and people who want to oppress gay people or women or conquer another country or, say, torture people, would find another "reason."

The same people can (and often do) use the same books to find reasons to do better things. We ought to focus on that.