“Religious scholar Reza Aslan took some serious issue on CNN Monday night with Bill Maher‘s commentary about Islamic violence and oppression. Maher ended his show last Friday by going after liberals for being silent about the violence and oppression that goes on in Muslim nations. Aslan said on CNN that Maher’s arguments are just very unsophisticated.
He said these “facile arguments” might sound good, but not all Muslim nations are the same. Aslan explained that female mutilation is an African problem, not a Muslim one, and there are Muslim-majority nations where women are treated better and there are even female leaders.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here from Josh Feldman / Mediaite:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reza-aslan-slams-maher-for-facile-arguments-about-muslim-violence/
Comments
Aslan’s arguments are not really valid. For a ‘dismantling’ of his ‘facts’ see http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/05/reza-aslan-is-wrong-about-islam-and-this-is-why/
Even a religious scholar can make mistakes. Either willingly or by bad fact checking…
How does Mr. Aslan explain the fact that more than 85% of adult Egyptian women have been circumcised? How about the fact that the vast majority of Pakistanis and Egyptians support the death penalty for apostasy? These beliefs are held by mainstream Muslims in many countries and they lend support to the more extreme Muslims which obviously represent a small percentage of the population.
Even a tiny percentage of 1.2 billion people adds up to a lot of potential terrorists. I am with Bill Maher on this one, but I wish more Muslims were like Reza Aslan (most of them are, but that is still not enough).
Bill Maher is often right about certain things, and I’m fully atheist with hhim. But with regards to UNDERSTANDING the roots of certain cultural-religious evils in the world, he is sincerely lacking.
Indeed, the longest lasting conflict in the middle east, the Israel-US-Palestine conflict, Bill Maher’s understanding is approximately -ZILCH-… He brings on Benjamin Netanyahu to hear his opinions and propaganda, as if he’s somehow the respectable party of the conflict.
I’d love to see Bill Maher go against Norman Finkelstein on the Israel-US-Palestine conflict.. he’d go and hide in a corner out of shame from his lack of understanding. He still believes the conflict. is religiously motivated on any of the sides, or indeed just the one side..
You may be right that the latest round of unrest in Gaza is not due to religious differences. Hamas needed to raise money as some of their more reliable donors had been distracted by the wars in Syria and Iraq.
They decided that dead women and children would raise the most money, so they deliberately attacked Israel in a way that would guarantee a response, then they made sure to fire on Israeli troops from hospitals and schools. They got the result that they wanted. The lesson here is don’t elect terrorists as your government.
The line that separates church and state in this country is non-existent so far as politics is concerned. I think if we would create a Religious Ambassador position within our government and put Reza in charge of it we’d be much better off in relation to the way the rest of the world see us, as well as the way we see other countries.
One more thing, in Pakistan Benazir Bhutto (a woman) was elected as Prime Minister for two times. May I asked Maher how many times does the ”great USA” has elected a woman as their President? Not even once! Nada. Before 9/11 and American invasion of Afghanistan, the Pakistanis were way more tolerant than today. You can drive, vote, ”talk” in Pakistan but you can’t do that in Iran or KSA. My mother worked in Pakistan for 35 years straight but never in her life she was stopped or harassed in anyway. So stop comparing Pakistan with Iran or the KSA. FFS.
Pakistanis overwhelmingly favor stoning people who commit adultery (83%), and comparable percentages favor punishments like whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery (80%), and the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion (78%). Support for strict punishments is equally widespread among men and women, old and young, and the educated and uneducated.
TL: DR; Pakistan is basically a stone age society at this point:
http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/08/13/chapter-2-religion-law-and-society/
Clickbait? Having your argument dismantled doesn’t destroy you … Bill Maher will still have Real Time and his standup career as platforms for his message.
I am a Muslim and I am married to a catholic christian. We live peacefully like no one else in UAE which is an Arab country. Sometimes she forces me to go to mosque and pray lol so if Islam was the problem then we 2 wouldn’t be together at all. Here we have Churches and Mosques in front of each other and never ever a single christian man or women ever faced a problem. Thanks TYT for the video.
I totally disagree with Reza, I like him but there is no place for violence in the name of religion, stop trying to defend it.
^^^ I think you totally missed his point.
Totally.
He wasn’t trying to defend violence, he was trying to deny it.
His argument was basically: “Sure, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen are violently intolerant of unbelievers, but look at Malaysia and Indonesia.”