Bill Maher and Rula Jebreal Go at it regarding Islam.

[MrCrabs1893]

Are you referring to The Crusades and The Spanish Inquisition?

Wow... thanks for proving my point that you have 0 clue about history. Shocking that you know even less than I thought.
I mentioned the Dark Ages... so I'm referring to the fucking Dark Ages. Please educate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ages

the Catholic Church (who are in mainstream Christianity regarded as almost an entirely different entity [particularly post-Luther]).

Please, please stop embarrassing yourself.
The Catholic Church IS mainstream Christianity...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity#Major_denominations

With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest church representing over half of all Christians and one sixth of the world's population.

Conversely, there are currently over 100 active Islamic terrorist organizations today:

What has that have to do with anything???

 

[Gored Matador]

Your problem is that you have absolutely no clue about history. If you did, you'd know that there was a time when Christianity was in charge. It was called the Dark Ages, and it sucked. Then there was the Enlightenment, and with secular governments the floor began to rise.
Keeping Christianity separated from the state is largely responsible for the values of democracy and freedoms you experience in North America. It's a shame you know nothing about your own history to not understand that.

no it is your ignorance that is sad.

freedom of church and state as far as the founding fathers goes does not mean what it has been twisted to mean today.
it meant the gov would not assign the official religion
but they very much wanted religion to be part of public life and to base or morality/laws on it

and it was freedom to be any christian sect you wanted to be that they were worried about, see Church of England

so GET YOUR FUCKING HISTORY RIGHT

 

[MrCrabs1893]

Between 2003-2011 half a million Iraqis died violent deaths due to the US invasion and occupation, according to National Geographic. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-survey-2013/

So you chalk each and every death in those conflicts up to the US? Poor trolling.

 

[Gored Matador]

Between 2003-2011 half a million Iraqis died violent deaths due to the US invasion and occupation,

um, the funny thing about this is it was not about islam at all
iraq under sadam was very secular (as far as hit regime goes)

we fought iraq to begin with because Saudi Arabia told us to and for some reason we are their dogs
and SA is under full sharia


sooooo

 

[JuliaB4GSP]

So you chalk each and every death in those conflicts up to the US? Poor trolling.

So, the poster claimed the boogeyman radical Islamists were killing more innocent people than the innocent US bombs that carpeted a region for a decade.

 

[Jimmy Tuna**]

How can you be RAISED "half Jewish"? You only learn half of the religion? LOL

Maher hates religion as a whole, not just Islam.



As with Maher, Harris hates religion as a whole. The only reason Maher & Harris focus on Islam the most is because that's the most troublesome religion on the planet today. This is simply a fact.

You clearly have an agenda.

They don't talk much about Judaism, to be honest

 

[Fronk]

Wow... thanks for proving my point that you have 0 clue about history. Shocking that you know even less than I thought.
I mentioned the Dark Ages... so I'm referring to the fucking Dark Ages. Please educate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ages


Please, please stop embarrassing yourself.
The Catholic Church IS mainstream Christianity...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity#Major_denominations

What has that have to do with anything???

The "darkness" of the early middle ages had little to do with christianity holding everyone back, if anything monastaries throughout Europe were the only ones who valued and tried to preserve the knowledge of past generations.The "darkness" was caused by the decentralisation that occured after the fall of the western roman empire and thus largely reduced the ability of the various fiefdoms that sprung out of the chaos(like the ability to tax and spend money on various projects). That the damp enviroment of northern Europe is directly bad for preserving papyrus is also a factor. 19th century myths about the dark ages doesn't really hold any ground in modern historical research.

 

[JuliaB4GSP]

um, the funny thing about this is it was not about islam at all
iraq under sadam was very secular (as far as hit regime goes)

we fought iraq to begin with because Saudi Arabia told us to and for some reason we are their dogs
and SA is under full sharia


sooooo

My post wasn't about Islam, it was about US imperial pursuits and their results: innocent people die, more 'Islamic' terrorist groups sprout up, Sam Harris and Bill Maher talk about Islam as if it's the primary driver behind suicide bombers, ISIS, Osama etc. when it's US bombs being dropped on kids sitting in their houses that fans the flames of discontent, which gives the US executive reason to drop more bombs.

 

[MrCrabs1893]

but they very much wanted religion to be part of public life and to base or morality/laws on it

vs

so GET YOUR FUCKING HISTORY RIGHT

Hilarious.
You don't understand the secular nature of your constitution, and tell others to learn history. Lost cause, I guess.

 

[__Big_D__]

Fuck she's annoying... almost as annoying as this topic has become. At least Muslims are only butthurt here, and not threatening to murder Bill Maher like they did to that Danish cartoonist.

Muslims....smdh

 

[Gored Matador]

while i think its a stretch calling "stalinism" a religion, i like how "pro religion" guys always compare western developed countries to the socialist ones n thats the proof that religion is good.

how about all the countries in south america, africa n asia?

im pretty sure that life in communist countries is/was much better

chances of getting kidnapped n held for ransom in cuba is far less likely than in some other latin american country.

socialism also brought education for everybody n rights for women. which was a big step forward for some of those "religious" developing countries.

i mean you dont hear stories about female western tourist getting gang raped in china.

hey, i am just pointing to facts

every atheist regime brings death, mind control, oppression, and the elite level at the top of gov while screwing the working class

as far as women, lol, look at christian nations. germany has a woman chancelor
hillary clinton has a shot at presidency

you are not educated at all on the reality

all atheist societies are the worst. you know why? because humans are just matter. not special. only the state matters.

But don't listen to me, go live in china, go talk to someone who lived in USSR
do these things and stop talking out of your ass

now, christianity is not some magic cure all
i am not saying every christian is better than every athesit

what i am saying is any nation or person who takes the message of christianity seriously and tries to live up to it
WILL BE BETTER than if they did not

all this shit with africa and being christian is that THEY DO NOT LIVE UP TO THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY
that is why they are shit
we in the west do try and we are better because of it

you know the message of ATHEISM? there is not fucking message. It is nihilism.
what is the message of mihilism? nothing

 

[MrCrabs1893]

every atheist regime brings death, mind control, oppression, and the elite level at the top of gov while screwing the working class

And atheism is the reason? FAIL #1

all this shit with africa and being christian is that THEY DO NOT LIVE UP TO THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY
that is why they are shit
we in the west do try and we are better because of it

Ah, the good old "no true Scotsman" fallacy. FAIL #2

you know the message of ATHEISM? there is not fucking message. It is nihilism.
what is the message of mihilism? nothing

Of course atheism doesn't have a message. It's not an ideology or an believe system. It's a lack of believing in fairy tales. Nothing more, nothing less. FAIL #3
It doesn't have anything to do with nihilism. FAIL #4

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Getting to your point, though, ID'ing someone as "a Jew" w/o prompt and saying someone only believes or does something because he's Jewish - which is what you did by bringing it up a few pages back - smells like antisemitism*. Why bring up the fact he has Jewish heritage at all? To be fair, maybe you're not antisemitic, but when you post something greatly stereotypical like the equivalent of "Jews...they're always hating on the muslims", be prepared to be called antisemitic.

If you're going to talk like an antisemite, better brace yourself to be thought of as and be called an antisemite.

Nothing wrong with trying to identify potential biases. It is done in lots of things like picking a jury. And what is more important "debate" platform (if you will) in this country than a trial by jury.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Well, then...being the Maher biographer you clearly are...you know that Maher wasn't raised in a Jewish household - not that it would matter if he was. But since you brought up his background, yes, his mother was Jewish, but his father was Catholic and if anything, Maher was raised Catholic until he was about thirteen. Then his father stopped taking him to church and effectively left Church b/c of its position on birth control. So if anything Maher was a lapsed Catholic for most of his life, then became an atheist Catholic apostate. But you're not focusing on his Catholic heritage which his upbringing was much more steeped in. No, you're focusing on his Jewish heritage, making unwarranted, conspiratorially negative conclusions about him based on it. You know who else does that? Antisemites.

Did he have a strict catholic upbringing like going to catholic school for most of his life, or did he just visit church with his father like once a week for an hour sermon sitting in the back?

His mom being jewish would make him a jew in the eyes of the jews traditionally no? Did he completely reject that side altogether now?

It is not really about your religious beliefs, but the people you associate with even if you dont share everything in common. That is really what your upbringing is and comes from.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

When I watch a "highly-regarded" person like Jebreal trying to defend practitioners of the religion of Islam it reminds me of watching some "highly-regarded" Creationist trying to defend that theory.

You realize that if this really represents the best arguments their side has there is absolutely no point in considering the possible legitimacy of their side's position any further.

I believe all she was trying to say is that most moslems dont practice extremism, dont go behead people, or treat women like crap (that last one may or may not be true). But I believe the other two to be true. It is like in the 80s and 90s when everyone thought the explosive and athletic ones were all gangbangers.

 

[MrCrabs1893]

I believe all she was trying to say is that most moslems dont practice extremism, dont go behead people, or treat women like crap (that last one may or may not be true). But I believe the other two to be true.

Everybody knows the other two to be true, including Maher and Harris.

 

[Fronk]

I believe all she was trying to say is that most moslems dont practice extremism, dont go behead people, or treat women like crap (that last one may or may not be true). But I believe the other two to be true. It is like in the 80s and 90s when everyone thought the explosive and athletic ones were all gangbangers.

But that isn't what Maher is saying, he is being misrepresented over and over. Maher is making a point about general views on homosexuality, adultery, apostasy and so on in the Middle East, fact based. It's not about suicide bombings and beheadings.

I don't really like Maher and his smug face but the essence of his point is a valid one. Too bad he isn't presenting it very well.

 

[PEB]

What's amazing too me that Bill is being viewed now as an old establishment guy now. There was a time he was viewed as anti-establishment.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Bill Maher was raised half Jewish and hates Muslims? Who woulda thunk it?

Same goes for Howard Stern and Sam Harris. Both are half-Jewish and hate Islam as a whole.

I'm not religious, spiritual, anti-semitic, or islamophobic, just pointing out the bias.

I could maybe see it Maher but not in Harris. I just read his book Waking Up and he does nothing to distinguish Judaism from the other Abrahamic religions.

In fact, he includes a quote from the well known Sufi mystic Rumi as an example of a great spiritual insight that would likely be naively disregarded by many modern atheists and based on a few of his blog posts he seems to have respect for Sufism(Islamic mysticism) yet I have never seen him even mention Kabbalah(Jewish mysticism).

Bill Maher and especially his good friend Sam Harris are apologists for Western imperialism. If you listen to them speak over and over the tune is "Islam is this set of practices that is anti-woman, anti-human, violent etc. at its core". Not that I disagree with everything they have to say about violence from the Other, they're just big fat cheerleaders for Western planes to fly over and drop bombs on people because some of them are the bogeymen of western liberal democratic ideals.

I think Harris' problem is that he approaches the issue with a detached examination of the ideologies involved without really examining the details. Even if you conclude that Islam is the problem that still doesn't free the US of blame. One of our key allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, is the source of funding for numerous terrorist organizations and that fact is hardly a well kept secret.

 

[Fronk]

I could maybe see it Maher but not in Haris. I just read his book Waking Up and he does nothing to distinguish Judaism from the other Abrahamic religions.

In fact, he includes a quote from the well known Sufi mystic Rumi as an example of a great spiritual insight that would likely be naively disregarded by many modern atheists and based on a few of his blog posts he seems to have respect for Sufism(Islamic mysticism) yet I have never seen him even mention Kabbalah(Jewish mysticism).

I think Harris' problem is that he approaches the issue with a detached examination of the ideologies involved without really examining the details. Even if you conclude that Islam is the problem that still doesn't free the US of blame. One of our key allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, is the source of funding for numerous terrorist organizations and that fact is hardly a well kept secret.

Not only funding but the Saudis are backing the very core thought that is driving these organisations. Even if the Saudis isn't directly funding ISIS and may even view them as a threat against their own rule doesn't exonerate them from the fact that Salafist thought is whats behind their existance in the first place. Sunni supremacism and its literalism that is tearing through the ME is a direct responsibility on the Saudis who has been spreading this through mosques all over the world.