Yeah, implying or suggesting that all in the religion is bad, is pretty shitty.
Guardian: Sam Harris and Bill Maher are bigots
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I'm not a fan of Harris at all, and this is misconstruing and simplifying his world view. To my knowledge Harris has never implied that whites are intellectually superior.
He has however, completely ignored why people are rightfully angry at policy entrepreneurs such as Charles Murray (No doubt the podcast controversy you are referring to).
Can we have a more nuanced Harris without jumping to hyperbole? For example I would argue that Harris is probably an islamophobe, and fears islam to the point where he condones torture in "extreme" circumstances, and even profiling of muslims in airports and other security.
Jesus I thought that was going to end with the Django notch in the skull thing. Gross.
Edit I'm talking about your quote.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Rationalising racist arguments. Prior infractions. Ban extended after review.
Nope. Harris and Maher are just not towing the leftist line in strict conformity, they enjoy trashing extreme leftists, and have conversations/debates with conservatives. That is enough to get them on the hate list for a significant portion of the left even though 90% of public policy they support is Democrat/liberal.
As far as their views on Islam, they criticize doctrine. Same as they criticize other religious doctrine. The bigot label is a 15 year old claim at this point and still hasn't stuck. SPLC tried painting Maajid Nawaz (Islamic friend of Harris/Maher who agrees with many of their claims) as an Islamophobic bigot too but then ended up apologizing to him and giving him a big payout for slander.
As far as those making the "Harris thinks whites are genetically superior" line I encourage any of them to listen to the Ezra Klein/Harris debate. Both make legitimate points revolving around the race/IQ debate. Ezra thinks the history of slavery and discrimination has a strong systemic impact on IQ results. Harris thinks the data may or may not be impacted by slavery/discrimination at this point in time and that one should be able to argue for either side without being called a "bigot". Neither of them claim to make decisive, absolute claims or know for certain why racial IQ differences exist. To be clear, I'm not going to debate the details of this topic, I'm merely describing it to show its complexity, and that drive by posts about him being racist are just that: drive by posts.
As far as their views on Islam, they criticize doctrine. Same as they criticize other religious doctrine. The bigot label is a 15 year old claim at this point and still hasn't stuck. SPLC tried painting Maajid Nawaz (Islamic friend of Harris/Maher who agrees with many of their claims) as an Islamophobic bigot too but then ended up apologizing to him and giving him a big payout for slander.
As far as those making the "Harris thinks whites are genetically superior" line I encourage any of them to listen to the Ezra Klein/Harris debate. Both make legitimate points revolving around the race/IQ debate. Ezra thinks the history of slavery and discrimination has a strong systemic impact on IQ results. Harris thinks the data may or may not be impacted by slavery/discrimination at this point in time and that one should be able to argue for either side without being called a "bigot". Neither of them claim to make decisive, absolute claims or know for certain why racial IQ differences exist. To be clear, I'm not going to debate the details of this topic, I'm merely describing it to show its complexity, and that drive by posts about him being racist are just that: drive by posts.
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I'm a fan of Maher and if anyone here wants to call me a bigot for that, they can fuck right off and go on ignore. I'm really sick and tired of the constant hate-boner and shaming for anyone who has anything positive to say about him or his show around here.
Not everyone is pure and perfect, especially when it comes to older people. We're all going to have massive political and empathetic blindspots in our 60's and 70's too.
Not everyone is pure and perfect, especially when it comes to older people. We're all going to have massive political and empathetic blindspots in our 60's and 70's too.
I heard he was suing them for defamation but I didn't know that had ended. Seems to be the other week.
https://www.splcenter.org/splc-statement-video
I guess the second you sue them they have a change of mind!
"We have taken the time to do more research". It's almost as if before you do large pieces on someone and label them as something doing research should be the fundamental beginning of the scientific method.
Edit: Cost a couple of million but that's probably pocket change
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2...nter-pay-anti-extremist-u-k-group-settlement/
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You don't know any older people who don't hate a specific group of people?
Being skeptical and critical of conservative religions where homophobia and sexism is widespread doesn't make people bigots or racists.
The author is in their right to call out Maher (don't know about this Harris guy for sure) but this perception problem doesn't revolve around their popularity.
His prototypical progressive in the first paragraph illustrates the problem initiate. The world is becoming female? Well how are liberals going to react to hearing news about women being abused in the middle east. While we still have our own rape culture to deal with it is easy to observe in common conversation even on this forum we have more harsher criticism for Muslims in the mid east quadrant because of how we consume news about them.
The threat of the rise of Islamphobia stems way more from our news media as a group and not cults of personality like Maher or Harris.
His prototypical progressive in the first paragraph illustrates the problem initiate. The world is becoming female? Well how are liberals going to react to hearing news about women being abused in the middle east. While we still have our own rape culture to deal with it is easy to observe in common conversation even on this forum we have more harsher criticism for Muslims in the mid east quadrant because of how we consume news about them.
The threat of the rise of Islamphobia stems way more from our news media as a group and not cults of personality like Maher or Harris.
You never watched his show.
Dont know a thing about Harris, but the left does need it's own spokesman spitting fire and for now, Maher will do.
And while he's old now and more prone to fuck ups, he did have his old show canceled by conservatives, called Trump a mutant gorilla before it was cool, and has been banging the drums about Dems getting active since before he gave that check to Obama. He also stanned for Bernie a lot and was realist enough to stand with Hillary when he didn't get the nod.
I did see his documentary called Religious or something like that, and no religion comes off looking good there. Maybe people, including me, are more comfortable aiming at Christianity because it's the things most people know/are traumatized by. I do wonder if there's a similar aggressive comedian in other religions
And while he's old now and more prone to fuck ups, he did have his old show canceled by conservatives, called Trump a mutant gorilla before it was cool, and has been banging the drums about Dems getting active since before he gave that check to Obama. He also stanned for Bernie a lot and was realist enough to stand with Hillary when he didn't get the nod.
I did see his documentary called Religious or something like that, and no religion comes off looking good there. Maybe people, including me, are more comfortable aiming at Christianity because it's the things most people know/are traumatized by. I do wonder if there's a similar aggressive comedian in other religions
And then use doctrine to make out a billion people as violent and dangerous as a result. It’s simple bigotry.
Edit: Bill Maher was not speaking about doctrine when he said “ “Talk to women who have ever dated an Arab man. The reviews are not good.” I know this because “Arab” is not a doctrine. He’s a fucking bigot.
eh, how about one that doesn't slurp up a transphobe on his show for ratings
No, he won't. If the left needs some sort of singular spokesman, I would prefer not to be people that throw minorities and LGBT by the wayside for a cheap chuckle. I'm getting very tired of the implication that someone so mediocre is the best we have to deal with.
But there isn't. That's the thing. Until some of the left stop poo-pooing simple stuff like kicking the likes of Sanders out of restaurants, or hold out for that one perfect candidate with a magic wand, Maher will do. I do think his extremes are over compensating for liberal paralysis. Not saying it's right, but I get where he's coming from.
Some of y'all in here defending Maher obviously haven't read the opening fucking quote in the OP
Nah, he can continue speaking for himself. There are so many other people out there doing good work that he isn't needed, they might not be on hbo but they are doing so much great work in their local communities that it would almost be a waste of their time.
Plus they don't throw PoC or LGBTQ under the bus for fun.
there's no need to settle for someone with obvious problems that affect a lot of people
don't need a visible "leader", just people doing work
Please tell me which of the following Bill Maher quotes demonstrates the bolded:
“Just tell me two things, [former One Direction member] Zayn [Malik]. Which one in the band were you? And where were you during the Boston Marathon?”
“The most popular name in the United Kingdom, Great Britain — this was in the news this week — for babies this year was Muhammad. Am I racist to feel I’m alarmed by that? Because I am.”
“Talk to women who’ve ever dated an Arab man. The reviews are not good.”
“Most Muslim people in the world do condone violence.”
If you actually pay any attention to Bill Maher at all then there's no way you didn't know about at least a few of these.
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I don't always agree with Bill Maher but I will continue to watch his show regardless of what he says.
So are you ignoring it or? Because it's more than just a reasoned critique of certain ideals within parts of Islam.
I'd say Maher is just particularly brutal against anyone following any religion. Makes sense he'll be labeled a bigot since religious people are a protected class. I don't think it'll stop him and others from mocking religions over the globe for what they are. HBO isn't going to cut Maher for cutting down religion like he does.
Dont know much about Maher but I saw some clips of him where he defended Israel occupation of Palestine with dumb remarks like "where would you rather live?"
I don't know about Maher but Harris has a lot of ex-muslim fans, and what they want from the left is to be unapologetically left and to not turn a blind eye to harmful things Islam is causing. I'd argue he is more left than most people here from my outsider/non-american perspective.
I heard the military Junta in Myanmar also believes the same...
This is nonesense. Sam believes Muslims need to be REDUCED or limited in any progressive society, he believes Muslims should be profiled, his contempt of Muslims leaks into his stance of Israel/Palestine, he believes US in their meddling of the Middleast are exempt for whatever atrocities committed because they come from a place of 'good', a bias and absurbness that Noel Chomsky beautifully beat out of him with historic accounts and facts in thier published email exchanges. He is an anti Muslim bigot, and the very act of worship or presence by Muslim is troubling for him, he fuels anti Muslim sentiment and definitely contributes to thier discrimination and prejudice, he promotes ISIS as represetative of the Muslim populace, something I'd assume they'd thank him for. Bill is far worse though.
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It is
However, satirising, mocking, criticizing or discussing whether the claims religions/religious people make are true aren't inherently discrimination or harassment.
Religion isn't an immutable characteristic, so it's not quite seen the same as things like race, sex, gender and other parts of a human being that aren't chosen or can be changed. Even although it's still a protected class.
The things people can do with their doctrine are nasty as hell, horrifying stuff that deserves to be called on , but leftist critics/comedians/'intellectuals' should mind their words or else they start to say stupid, even dangerous shit like their right counterparts
Harris always use the terms jihadists or Islamists when talking about extremism to describe those who are entwined with conservative/fundamentalist Islam and support particular sexist religious beliefs or apostasy doctrine, which of course can't be representative of all of Islam but does represent a not insignificant portion of its adherents.
As for Bill Maher's joke, it was a bad "anti-PC" joke, and you could make a case for him being bigoted in some capacity due to it. IMO it was more likely lazy conflation of the religion with the area where it's most publicized as existing. But then he hasn't thought nearly as deeply on the subject as people like Harris or Nawaz, so making these mistakes isn't surprising. Same for his BS stance on vaccination.
Sam believes Islamists and jihadists need to be reduced or limited for a society to remain progressive. Do you disagree? He would say the same for any conservative or fundamentalist religious movement that was quickly expanding into a liberal society. His profiling criteria is basically "young or middle aged men" as he readily admits any westerner could be a converted Jihadist as well (https://youtu.be/EsVtM0RFQJI?t=183), his stance on Israel and Palestine has absolutely nothing to do with "contempt", he no longer believes US's "good" intentions outweight the wrongdoing that comes from foreign meddling (https://samharris.org/the-pleasure-of-changing-my-mind/). He's best friends with a Muslim named Maajid Nawaz so it must be interesting for him to be "troubled" while this Muslim is in his presense as you say. He'd likely find any religion adherent worshipping to their god troubling on an intellectual level. He doesn't promote ISIS as a representative of the populace as he specifies Islamists and Jihadists as his concern (https://youtu.be/cgu2HWltQ6E?t=27). "I think the apostates, the intellectuals, the women, the gays of the Muslim world are the most important people in the world right now. If we could give green cards to every real secularist in the Muslim world I think they should just get to the front of the line. These are the people who need to be empowered." - Harris
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Bill Maher is definitely a bigot and an opportunist. I think the only reason why he bothers to be progressive is probably because he can't get away with being a smug bastard if he was a conservative.
I am not ignoring it, I just understand where he is coming from and I get his point. He has given facts to support his claims that a lot of Muslims support things like killing Muslims if they change their religion or think that death is appropriate when Muhammad is involved.
This is the whole discussion btw
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/v...king_kill_you_if_you_say_the_wrong_thing.html
The Charlie Hebdo attack kinda proves his point.
Don't forget both Harris and Maher's want for minority issues to take a backseat, their constant attacks on college leftists while defending those on the far right, and their affiliation with people like Gad Saad and Milo (respectively).
There's more than enough to harp on these two besides just Islam.
So I decided to ignore all the rhetoric and look up the Pew study. This is what I found:
Those numbers come from Muslims who believe Sharia should be the law of the country they live in. So It's not that 88% of Muslims in Egypt believe the death penalty should apply to Muslims who leave the faith, it's that 88% of the 74% who believe Sharia should be national law agree with this. That brings the number down to about 65% of Muslims in Egypt agreeing with the death penalty for Muslims who leave the faith.
This isn't to say that I think the 65% is okay. Nobody should wish for someone to die for leaving a faith. But I wonder if Maher did his research or just saw the 88% and latched on to it as a nice talking point. And that's usually done by people who care more about reinforcing their biases and pushing talking points than saying anything factual or sincere, and that's the problem I have with his bullshit.
And before anyone jumps on me for blindly giving Islam a pass or whatever, I've made at least a couple comments on ERA criticizing certain aspects of Abrahamic religions (infant circumcision and burkas specifically). Other topics haven't come up so I haven't commented on them, and I doubt other topics such as punishing apostasy will come up here in a way where anyone on this site would defend them.
I have other thoughts on Islam and its relation to secularism as a whole but it's not all that well-researched and I don't want to derail the topic too much because this is just one example of how these two asshats are, at the very least, too careless and self-righteous in their rhetoric to realize they're exhibiting the kind of prejudice they are.
This is pretty much my view. Maher agrees with me on >90% of issues, and says some absolute dumbass shit otherwise.
If Maher fails the purity test, we're basically boned.
Humans say dumb shit at times, the difference with Maher/Harris and everyone here is that Harris and Maher are public figures and everything they say is recorded.