Liberal opinion of Bill Maher's views on Islam...

[Slander and/or Libel]

Sbane, we've basically been at war with Islamic extremist groups for 13 years and change.  We've spent untold billions and lost thousands of lives.  And, globally, we have Islamic extremist insurgencies around the world that are killing people and committing horrendous crimes.  So, Islam is on the table for discussion.  I didn't put it on the table for political debate, Islam has injected itself into the conversation.  And, so, I'm more interested in understanding the issue than I am with avoiding potential hurt feelings.  Obviously, this subject begs sensitivity and nuance, but I think I've been sensitive and nuanced.

The conflation of the two bolded bits above is neither sensitive nor nuanced, and I would go so far as to say is a big part of the problem Sbane is talking about.

[Slander and/or Libel]

You talk about Islamic extremist groups, and then you say Islam (implication: Islam as a whole) has proactively injected itself into a discussion about the people committing horrendous crimes. This is incorrect.

[Slander and/or Libel]

I didn't say you can't talk about Islam. You said "Islam has injected itself into the conversation," which implies a certain level of proactiveness on the part of the religion at large. If you had said "Islam has been thrust into the conversation," I would likely have had no problem.

[Slander and/or Libel]

If that's what you mean, then fine. It's not what you said, and it's almost certainly not what a moderate Muslim would have heard.

[Slander and/or Libel]

JFC, dude, I'm not being pedantic. This is directly relevant to the topic at hand. I accept that you didn't mean what it looked to me like your words implied, but your steadfast refusal to even entertain the idea that it's a reasonable implication is baffling.

Also, nowhere did I say "all Muslim people as individuals". Check yourself.

[Slander and/or Libel]

"Islam has injected itself into the conversation."

The conversation about what?

"Islamic extremist insurgencies around the world that are killing people and committing horrendous crimes."

How exactly has Islam, in general, injected itself into that specific conversation?

[Slander and/or Libel]

So are you saying Islamic extremism has dragged Islam into that conversation? I might agree. I find it still pretty baffling that you seem unable to understand what I'm talking about.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Sbane, we've basically been at war with Islamic extremist groups for 13 years and change.  We've spent untold billions and lost thousands of lives.  And, globally, we have Islamic extremist insurgencies around the world that are killing people and committing horrendous crimes.  So, Islam is on the table for discussion.  I didn't put it on the table for political debate, Islam has injected itself into the conversation.  And, so, I'm more interested in understanding the issue than I am with avoiding potential hurt feelings.  Obviously, this subject begs sensitivity and nuance, but I think I've been sensitive and nuanced.

The conflation of the two bolded bits above is neither sensitive nor nuanced, and I would go so far as to say is a big part of the problem Sbane is talking about.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Sbane, we've basically been at war with Islamic extremist groups for 13 years and change.  We've spent untold billions and lost thousands of lives.  And, globally, we have Islamic extremist insurgencies around the world that are killing people and committing horrendous crimes.  So, Islam is on the table for discussion.  I didn't put it on the table for political debate, Islam has injected itself into the conversation.  And, so, I'm more interested in understanding the issue than I am with avoiding potential hurt feelings.  Obviously, this subject begs sensitivity and nuance, but I think I've been sensitive and nuanced.

The conflation of the two bolded bits above is neither sensitive nor nuanced, and I would go so far as to say is a big part of the problem Sbane is talking about.

Try to explain with you own words what you mean, because clearly everybody is able to find your earlier post, and bedstuy have desperate tried to interpreted your comments in all reasonable and sensible ways it could be interpreted, with you behaving like you was his angry girlfriend ("it wasn't that I meant, you should know what I mean").

WTF are you even talking about? I quoted my own words. My post was perfectly clear. The swipe about an angry girlfriend is incoherent.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Tell me what you think is unclear about my post and I'll try to clear it up, then.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Sbane, we've basically been at war with Islamic extremist groups for 13 years and change.  We've spent untold billions and lost thousands of lives.  And, globally, we have Islamic extremist insurgencies around the world that are killing people and committing horrendous crimes.  So, Islam is on the table for discussion.  I didn't put it on the table for political debate, Islam has injected itself into the conversation.  And, so, I'm more interested in understanding the issue than I am with avoiding potential hurt feelings.  Obviously, this subject begs sensitivity and nuance, but I think I've been sensitive and nuanced.

The conflation of the two bolded bits above is neither sensitive nor nuanced, and I would go so far as to say is a big part of the problem Sbane is talking about.

OK. You see above, where I bolded two parts of what he said? At first he's talking about Islamic extremist groups committing horrendous crimes. Cool. No problem.

But he then slides into "Islam is on the table for discussion." (I've italicized this bit, though I didn't in my original reply) Still not objectionable, but it's drifting from a focus on Islamic extremist groups to Islam in general.

Then he says, "Islam has injected itself into the conversation," as though Islam as an institution (if such a thing can be said to coherently exist) has done something to implicate itself in the conversation about Islamic extremists.

This is not to say that Islam is off-limits for discussion. Far from it. But the slide from "Islamic extremists" to "Islam" is not backed up in the post, and is emblematic of a lot of what people find objectionable about what Harris and Maher were saying in the first place.

As for why? It's because, generally, the two of them are claiming to know what the truest expression of Islam is, and that it's the kind practiced by the aforementioned extremists.

[Slander and/or Libel]

So, since we appear to be going around in circles here, let me ask a (probably ridiculous, but maybe thought-provoking at the margins) question: Let's say by some fluke of history, the places of Islam and Christianity were roughly reversed. That is, Islam presently occupies majority status in Europe and the West, and Christianity is the religion of many/most in the Middle East through Southeast Asia. I know this counterfactual is ridiculous for any number of reasons, but just roll with me for a second.

Do we believe that Europe and the West, in that case, economically prosperous Europe and the West, would be violent and oppressive because of the doctrine of Islam, and the Middle East would be comparatively peaceful because of the lack of such doctrine?

Also, to quickly reply to the post above mine, the idea that if you're focused on problems closer to home more than bigger problems elsewhere in the world, you're somehow a hypocrite, is ridiculous. You're arguing VOCIFEROUSLY against people who hold different opinions on an internet message board, but meanwhile, people are being stoned to death for apostasy. WHY DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE BEING STONED TO DEATH MORE THAN OUR OPINIONS?

[Slander and/or Libel]

So, your point is like in 1944 saying we can't have an academic discussion about Stalinism because we need to USSR's help and we can't go to war with them.  "You can't say bad things about communism because there are hundreds of millions of communists!"

That's the difference here. Some people are interested in the connections between religion and certain phenomena in the real world.  Other people are specifically not interested if the truth doesn't conform to what they wish was true.  If the truth might be offensive or upsetting, nahhh, not interested.

I actually don't think I'm an expert on this subject. There are really complicated questions here that are layered and complex.  And, maybe, you look at Islam and say, "hey, Islam has no connection to Islamic terrorism."  But, it seems to me that shutting down all thinking about certain difficult questions, as some people here demand, for the sake of people's feelings is ridiculous.  If you want to understand any issue and ultimately attempt to address it, I think you need to start with the truth.  Not what you hope is true or a sanitized version of the truth that could never hurt people's feelings.

Strawmen bolded. If you're going to rightly call people out for mischaracterizing their position, don't do it back to them.

[Slander and/or Libel]

I'm not trying to police or edit you. I wasn't even really very harsh. I was just pointing out something you said that wasn't correct.

I posited a question earlier that nobody has answered. Do you think that, were religions to be magically flipped and today the West were to be dominated by Islam, and Christianity were dominant in the Middle East, that the West would become more violent and regressive and the Middle East would become more tolerant?

[Slander and/or Libel]

Jesus Christ. Go throw your little hissy fit somewhere else. It's beyond tiresome.

It's absolutely relevant to this discussion to ponder whether it's something inherent about the religion or, like you said, the particular path that the history of that religion has taken in this world. That's what I'm getting at. Do you think that Islam uniquely offers up more justification for violence and regressive policies than other religions do? I happen to think that the places in the world where Islam has taken deepest root and their particular circumstances matter a good bit more than the actual contents of the religion's scriptures.

[Slander and/or Libel]

OK. So, in between all of the condescension, and the attempts to tell me what my opinions really are, it seems like there are some actual points in there.

My contention isn't that Islam is irrelevant, or can be ignored, or is the same as any other religion, or any of that. Rather, I think it's less relevant than is often asserted by folks like Harris and Maher. I'm an atheist, and I obviously think the regressive, illiberal doctrines of Islam are awful in theory and in practice. But I think the geopolitical situation of the region in which Islam has made its deepest roots has provided fertile ground for those aspects of the religion to fester and spread.

I don't oppose criticism in this vein because I'm a shrinking violet who's afraid someone's feelings will get hurt. Rather, I don't think it's terribly effective, and doesn't address the real roots of the problem. This particular extremism is Islamic in flavor, but I'm not convinced at all that it's irreducibly Islamic, and that absent that particular ideology the extremism wouldn't exist.