@gorillaman

The only thing I see failing completely is your absurd attempt at rationalizing your bigotry--more aptly labelled in this case by its proper name: Islamophobia. I don't for a second believe what I'm about to post will change your mind about Islam or Muslims in general but I do believe that this kind of bigotry needs to be called out when it rears its ugly head. And my, you went full ugly there, didn't you... comparing Muslims to rats and seriel killers? Classy.

Despite your protestations to the contrary, there are in fact Muslims who do not believe in God but for a variety of reasons (keeping peace with religious family members, maintaining a connection to their cultural heritage, networking, etc.) continue to attend services and identify as Muslims. This is true of many believers in all the major religions, including Christianity and Judaism.

You see, as much as you'd like Muslims to all be boogeymen coming to bring Sharia law down on the rest of world, anyone who has actually met and talked with a Muslim (and god-forbid actually visited one of the countries StukaFox listed) realizes that Muslims, like all people, are extremely diverse (again, despite your protestations to the contrary).

Indeed there are Sharia zealots. But there are also moderates and reformers and even liberal radicals. Mostly, though its just a lot of people trying to get on with their lives the best way they know how.

Now, I find most religious beliefs to be repugnant. However, I don't find the ideas expressed in the Koran to be much more repugnant than, say, the Bible. In fact, I'm less concerned about what is written in supposedly holy books and more concerned with how believers attempt to implement those ideas in reality. I do indeed find particular forms of this implementation, such as forcing women to wear a bhurka, disturbing (just as I find Christians' attacks on LGBT rights disturbing). It's important to note, though, that such practices are NOT universal. For example, in some Islamic countries like Malaysia it's enough to simply cover your hair with a colorful scarf.

On the other hand, other practices that you mentioned such as Female Genital Mutilation and virginity tests ARE NOT Islamic. FGM predates Islam and is still practiced in the locales where it originated (places such as Mali, for instance) that now happen to be Islamic majority areas. The Indonesian virginity tests as well do not stem from some universal commandment in Islam but from Indonesian culture which sees women as "the symbol of the nations moral guardians".

Again, I don't suppose any of this makes any difference to you. You want to see the world in black and white, us versus them, "rats" and "serial killers" versus you, the white knight who is just trying to save us all from our cultural relativistic blindness. And so the shades of grey I am describing to you will likely go overlooked. I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I suspect the reality is I'll receive some lengthy reply that can be distilled down to, "Islam bad, hur." Or perhaps, "All religions bad, but Islam worst, hur." To which I can only reply, that demonizing the practitioners of any particular religion is unlikely to bring about the reforms you seek.

Didn't he say Obama was a terrorist who would convert America to Sharia law.

Then during the re-election campaign that the first four years were just to lull Americans into a false sense of security but if re-elected he'd absolutely convert America to Sharia law THIS time.

Also, he doesn't know the difference between a jar and a can.

Only in America could someone so stupid be so rich and popular. (eyeing Donald Trump)

So you do now see why I thought you were calling him an immigrant? It certainly reads that way. Glad to know you didn't mean it.

As for killing gays in the name of Allah -- turns out not so much, now that reporting and information gathering has had time to happen.

A man who lives in America, being told on all sides that being gay is an abomination and sinful -- by some Christians, Muslims, good lord how many different sources -- who hangs out in gay bars in what pit of self-loathing because of the messages he received during his life....

A perfect case of internalized homophobia. Do a google search to find out how many of the most virulently anti-gay people turn out to actually be gay.

When this first happened, my first thought was to go up those who say gay people are sinners, take them by their lapels, look them in their eyes and say, "The blood of these people is on your hands. Your attacks on the humanity of these people who were made as God made them, have led to this horrific event."

So a hint back at you -- it isn't just sharia law that led to this. It is old fashioned religious bigotry and fear of the "other" -- very few religions are free from this crap. Certainly not Christianity. Westboro Baptist Church ring a bell?

Donald Trump is unfit for the office of the Presidency of the United States of America. This is a fact.

It turns out when congress members need to spend up to 50% each day ringing up rich individuals and corporations for donations to stay competitive in their elections - things like corporate subsidies and selectively lowering tax rates for those individuals tends to be where the money goes.

Lead paint is far down the list especially when most will not appreciate that it's silently harming their health. Besides, you can turn out the vote of so called 'single issue voters' by distracting them with social issues that have virtually no consequence on their lives (banning Sharia law, legislating gun carry laws, building ineffective border walls).

Of course Obama's an extremist, don't you remember when he enacted Sharia Law and took away all your guns? Or the incarceration and subjugation of all white heterosexual males? Or outlawed Christianity, Christmas and the US flag?

OK, didn't know that food restrictions were abolished in the new testament. I guess I have to drop that argument. I'll stick with the mixed fabric one though. Since I'm certain she served a person wearing mixed fabric at some point...clearly we should stone her.

I have been taught that 'treat others as you would have them treat you' was considered the most important teaching BY Jesus (not just the most important teaching OF Jesus), yet these people are doing the exact opposite, by trying to outlaw any form of Sharia law while also trying to codify this 'Christian belief' as law. That just being one in an endless list of attempts at legislating (their narrow idea of) 'morality' or pure religious, completely non moral ideas (I'm thinking 'blue laws' here).
On that note, I always found it odd that so many Christians are so insistent on 'keeping the Sabbath holy', but always forget that the Sabbath that refers to is the Jewish Sabbath (the commandment was for, and given directly to the Jews, no?).
That means they're all doing it wrong....
...but what do you expect from a group that chants “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them." while bowing in front of statues and stained glass likenesses of people, places, and things?

But...if you don't 'believe' in the progress of science you ARE ignorant and/or delusional. Scientific progress is not a debatable issue or something that requires 'belief', it simply is.
I'm not sure why I listened after he implied thinking that is wrong somehow.

99.9% of Muslims that don't want to impose Sharia or have an Islamic Caliphate? That certainly does not jibe with the numbers I've heard repeatedly. A recent poll in Germany I read said over 25% of Muslims there believed it was proper to impose Sharia in Germany on non Muslims. Where did he pull that 99.9% number from I wonder?

I never said that we should brand people living in Islamic regions as the same. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said that if you seriously follow the tenets of the Islamic religion, not casually but seriously follow what the religion says, then you will be doing whatever you can to further the spread of Islam and Sharia law.

This is somewhat of a problem in all religions, but IT IS PREDOMINANT in Islam because Islam has never stepped away from these rules and tenets. In a very sad way, Islam is still in the state Christianity was during the damn inquisition and crusades. Now you will have people that refuse to devote themselves fully to Islam and those people will not act in a fashion like I illustrated. They are truly casual worshipers that have found a way to morally work around the tenets of the religion. I have no problem with those folks. Sadly, a huge amount of evidence points towards the information that they are a minority of the religion.

As far as US involvement, I said that we do stick our nose where it doesn't belong and that we should cut the rest of the world off when it comes to requests for military aid. But lets look at the link you posted. I see about half or more of the incidents are the US providing help at the request of other countries or joining coalitions of other countries. You can't have it both ways, either ask us to back out of the world scene completely or get over it when we do get involved at your request. Do you think we just popped up and sent troops/missiles to Turkey because we wanted to? Or did we invade Jordan while sending troops to help prevent the Syrian Civil War from spilling over into their country? They ASKED us to come and help. Are drone strikes against terrorists stupid? Absolutely and they help the terrorists find new recruits, but does that make Islam any less of a violence promoting religion?

The answer is no, it does not. Nor does your attempt to veer the spotlight off of the failings of Islam and back onto something else. You can misdirect all you like, but until you can provide hard facts you are simply equivocating.

Islam promotes Sharia law. Tell me truthfully if you can, that a religion that supports the execution of a woman who left the faith to marry a man her family didn't receive a dowry from is a religion of peace. Tell me that a religion that supports the execution of Homosexuals is a religion of peace. Tell me that a religion that still promotes honor killing is a religion of peace.

Because if that is the case, by your own definition the US is the greatest supporter of peace since the Romans.

It's not fringe when a good chunk of muslims around the world (not just the middle east) have extremist points of view:


Muslims in most countries surveyed say that a wife should always obey her husband." (including 93% in Indonesia and 65% in Turkey).

Only 32% of Muslims in Indonesia say a woman should have the right to divorce her husband (22% in Egypt, 26% in Pakistan and 60% in Russia)

1 in 3 Muslims in Austria say it is not possible to be a European and a Muslim. 22% oppose democracy

21% of Muslim-Americans say there is a fair to great amount of support for Islamic extremism in their community.

61% of British Muslims want homosexuality punished

Turkish Ministry of Education: 1 in 4 Turks Support Honor Killings

WZB Berlin Social Science Center: 65% of Muslims in Europe say Sharia is more important than the law of the country they live in.

Pew Research (2013): 81% of South Asian Muslims and 57% of Egyptians suport amputating limbs for theft.

Pew Research (2013): 72% of Indonesians want Sharia to be law of the land

Pew Research (2010): 82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
70% of Jordanian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
42% of Indonesian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
82% of Pakistanis favor stoning adulterers
56% of Nigerian Muslims favor stoning adulterers

MacDonald Laurier Institute: 62% of Muslims want Sharia in Canada (15% say make it mandatory)

Pew Research (2013): 39% of Muslims in Malaysia say suicide bombings "justified" in defense of Islam (only 58% say 'never').

Pew Research (2013): 76% of South Asian Muslims and 56% of Egyptians advocate killing anyone who leaves the Islamic religion.

Pew Research (2010): 84% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
86% of Jordanian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
30% of Indonesian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
76% of Pakistanis support death the penalty for leaving Islam
51% of Nigerian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam

Pew Global: 68% of Palestinian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
43% of Nigerian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
38% of Lebanese Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
15% of Egyptian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
13% of Indonesian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
12% of Jordanian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
7% of Muslim Israelis say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.


CLEARLY, what we need is more Islam in the world. Such a force for good...

@lantern53

"The world is on fire and this funny man spends his time slamming the country that's making him rich. So what else is new?

Don't bring up the muslims! Don't bring up radical Islam! Don't talk about sharia law!"

Unlike, apparently, you, most of us are capable of being concerned with more than one issue at a time. And for the record Oliver is not slamming the US, he's slamming a very specific few Americans. If you don't think America should be concerned with exporting Lively's kind of hate you're part of the problem.

The world is on fire and this funny man spends his time slamming the country that's making him rich. So what else is new?

Don't bring up the muslims! Don't bring up radical Islam! Don't talk about sharia law!

Let's instead have a hiphopping Lincoln and easy targets like an African potentate with Christian aspirations.

"Jewish and democratic". "White and democratic" "Christian and democratic" "Muslim and democratic" "Ginger and democratic".

Can't you all see how much of an oxymoron this is and that the word "democratic" is just being used as hyperbole to gain legitimacy for what is a militaristic, racist and expansionist nation in the middle of a region that is entirely foreign to its culture in every way? It's like having a Sharia nation in the middle of Ohio and claiming that it is free and democratic.

For all the horrible things you can say about drone strikes, there has never before been such an efficient method of specifically killing enemy leaders in a war zone. Look at WW2 and Vietnam, and how many innocent civilians were killed for every high level enemy leader. The drone strikes in tribal Pakistan, even by the measure of Pakistan's own critics of them, manage better than 50% of their victims as bonafide militants. This includes a long list of high level Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Loss of civilian life is always tragic, but to kill 1 thousand militants and a thousand bystanders each year, while those same militants kill 10s of thousands of civilians on purpose is on the whole a good trade. Truth be told, if the Pak army was at the helm of the drones, the praises of the program would be unending. It's a combined pride and distrust of America thing.

I also think guys over here complaining need to better appreciate the ground situation over in places like tribal Pakistan. Tribal Pakistan is exactly that, a series of tribal communities. Outsiders are either welcomed in as guest and friend, or ushered out as mortal enemy, with a number of social and ethical codes dictating which will apply. If you are living in a community, that whole community has embraced you as one of your own and on a large scale sharing common cause and values. Any tribal community that's accepted high level Taliban militants into their community is guaranteed to share an extreme form of Sharia law. The community will not tolerate the education of their young girls. Blasphemy and apostasy will be immediate death sentences, without trial. Rape victims will be stoned and/or killed for adultery, as is only right. Our high standards of morality over here absolutely demand we still declare those people civilians, and mark their deaths as such, but the notion of them being potential allies turned enemies because of drone strikes is absurd.

So, it seems to make your point of Christian tollerance you show me a site all about Christianity including a part where non-Christian speak is absolutely not allowed. Hmmmm.? You don't see the issue there?
You are allowed to say whatever you like, and others are allowed to speak their mind about what you said. Where's the persecution? Being ignored is not persecution, neither is being disagreed with, and so far as I know no one banned you.
My experience was far different, growing up in the deep south as a non-Christian is a truly hard row to hoe, and a dangerous one. I also disagree that our entertainment or education system is secular, it may have pockets of secularism, but not an entirety by far. Consider how you would feel if your money had "there is no god" printed on it, it's an example of how our society caters to religion across the board.
As far as religious freedom's being curtailed, that's a good thing, religion has enjoyed a freedom from responsibility for it's actions for far too long, and needs to be curtailed before we live in the Christian equivelant of sharia law, like many Christians support and vote for.
I would continue this discussion, but you do not seem to be following the logic or even the truthful statements I am presenting. As I wrote previously, I do not expect to change your mind, I simply hope to offer a different point of view for the other readers of this exchange.
Not ignoring, but done replying.

@RedSky I would add that the Jewish laws of Leviticus, Deuteronomy etc. are the foundations for Sharia law, but that most Christians throughout history see Jesus as having repudiated Jewish law (this is of course a question of interpretation), causing it to have "lived on" almost exclusively in its Islamic form. I still hold that as far as fundamentals go, the Quran and life of Mohammed are somewhat more easily used as unequivocal justification for violence than the New Testament and Jesus. (I would reference gorillaman's comment, but... see below)

I'm glad you brought Indonesia into the picture, as it is a good example of my argument. It may be the most populated muslim country, but it has repeatedly refused to let its central gvt be encroached upon by Islam, i.e. to become an Islamic state or espouse Sharia (despite the pressure from noisy fundamentalists).
In the one part of the country where Sharia is allowed to be enforced, Aceh, you get the same amount of unethical conduct and discrimination/violence towards women, homosexuals, non-jilbab-wearers, "adulterers" etc as you'd expect in the meanest of the Islamic states. And where do they find those discriminatory laws and the "divine" authority to enforce them? The Quran of course.

@gorillaman You make a few salient points (about the life/example of M. and the fact that, unlike The Bible, the Quran is the work of one author, alive at the time of the religion's birth) but you lose all credibility by
a) using a homophobic slur as a pejorative in your first line and
b) making gross (and false) generalisations, notably the all-caps
"THIS IS WHAT ALL MUSLIMS BELIEVE" which is so easily demonstrably false (simply ask the nearest muslim). If it had read "this is what fundamentalist muslims believe" or even "this is what all muslims should believe if they want to honestly hold that the Quran is the perfect word of God" then you would be a bit closer to reality.
Finally, the hyperbole of your last paragraph does not help your credibility either. I am as antitheist as one can be, and the gross demonisation of religious believers (aka fellow human beings) as criminals and inhumane, ethic-less zombies not only made me shake my head sadly, it also reminded me of how religious extremists depict atheists.

@Babymech You do know that most of the Islamist terrorist attacks were perpetrated by middle-to-upper-class, well-to-do educated men, not poor and desperate Jean Valjeans, right?
The reason I pointed to your first comment as one of the "ignorant extremes" of attitude towards Islam and violence is that, the way I read it, it illustrated the common rebuttal that often comes from the far-left when a terrorist/mass-murderer is found out to be a Muslim extremist: "it must be other political/socio-economical factors, it can't be plain old religious fanaticism" or "it's our fault for waging war on them". While I agree that the US should never have gone a-warring in the ME, it's often a false equivalence and ignorant simplification to exclude or minimise the religious factor. In hindsight it was maybe rash of me to read that much into your comment, but I hope I have made clear what I meant.

As for Maher's stance that Islam is (in this point in history, as he stresses) worse than Christianity: for my opinion see above, and feel free to refute my "argumentum ad comparatio" to support your disagreement.