going to believe that way no matter how many times it is pointed out that the reality is not all but only some. The human mind does not like that apparently. We love our blacks and our whites. It is this or it is not this. Such it has been, such it will continue to be.

Besides he makes money off of this crap.

That right there completely discredits anything that he has to say.

What an ass.

It started with his attitude towards women, so I turned away while many of the men I know stayed.

But now his appeal gets narrower and narrower.

Frankly, he is beginning to sound like those far right islamophobic politicians in Europe.

He does talk about things besides religion, and he has excellent guests on his weekly show. I enjoy the show. He has been taken to task by his own guests for some of those more hurtful statements. It's too bad that he goes to far and that doing so has become his trademark. Many share his attitude here on DU it would seem. It's a troubling phenomenon here that shows how powerful fear is when it is mixed with ignorance.

issues with.

Welcome to the interfaith room.

I myself don't know, did a quick search and see someone saying based on studies that 10 to 15% of Muslims in some of the majority Muslim countries support radical Islamist positions that would include violence. If that's true (and I don't say it is - I don't know the reliability of the source so I won't cite it) then it might translate to hundreds of millions. Do you have a different figure that you believe is more accurate?

anywhere near that number and he is irresponsible for even suggesting it without anything to back it up.

Where are these studies you are citing? I would like to take a closer look at that, because I just plain think he made it up in order to be inflammatory.

I'm not claiming an answer and I hesitate to post a citation since I don't have time to try to figure out which search results seem reliable. All I'm saying is that a quick search returns some results that are in that ballpark. I'll provide one not as a claim but just as a sample of something that you'll get back from a search and that could be researched further: Pew Research found the following percentages of "favorable" ratings among 11 "Muslim publics":

Al Qaeda 13%
Taliban 13%
Hamas 32%
Hezbollah 26%

(from page 5 of http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2013/09/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Project-Extremism-Report-Final-9-10-135.pdf)

The same study found that only half of Muslims in the 11 countries studied feel that suicide bombing is never justified. The study doesn't give an overall percentage for those who feel either that it is sometimes or often justified (as opposed to rarely or never) but the rates for the individual countries do make it look like that overall percentage could be 10-15% or more. (Page 3 of the same study).

While those survey results are interesting and of concern, that can not be translated into saying 10-20% of Muslims around the world support what happened in Paris. The questions are vague, as you can see.

It is important to note that rates of support under any circumstances for suicide bombings have fallen dramatically in certain regions over the 22 year period. It also very important to note that a significant percentage of people said they don't know or refused to answer when asked about support for extremist groups like the Taliban and AlQueda. It is known that to express a lack of support in some dominated areas would be a death wish.

But what is most important is that an overwhelming number of the people surveyed opposed violence in the name of Islam and that number is growing.

Pakistan 3%
Indonesia 6%
Nigeria 8%
Jordan 12%
Tunisia 12%
Turkey 16%
Senegal 18%
Egypt 25%
Malaysia 27%
Lebanon 33%
Palestinian Territory 62%

That's from page 3 of the same study and is apparently 2013 data.

That seems to me a pretty significant level of support for violence. I'm not sure whether that would extrapolate to hundreds of millions in the global Muslim population or not; seems possible though.

and whether these are politically motivated, as they clearly would be in the Palestinian Territories.

The fact is, based on the data that you present, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims questioned in this survey said that suicide bombings are rarely or never justified, with the exception of Palestine which is in the middle of a politically driven war.


He could have said, "There are over a billion Muslims in this world who would not support this kind of action". Standing up for them instead of painting all of them with the brush belonging to s clear minority would be the responsible thing to do.

Otherwise, he is basically declaring war on innocents.

populations that have themselves suffered violence and displacement are more likely to endorse desperate and violent measures to attain their goals.

What a surprise.

Agreed that much of the support for violence is due to the violence and oppression that they themselves (or else`their family and friends or else other members of their society) have suffered.

I think we have to look at the big picture: we allow ourselves to be divided and conquered. And it's not by accident - there are forces that deliberately and methodically pit us against each other in order to conquer us and pillage the world's resources and the products of our labor.

While I think Bill Maher does have a point (though it gets lost due to his hyperbole and careless way of communicating it), I think that most importantly he's missing the big picture. He's coming into the theater in the middle of the movie and, not knowing the plot, is misunderstanding the forces driving it. The real thing driving this catastrophe movie that we live in is the way the characters are manipulated, by offscreen actors, into fighting each other.

So while I agree with Maher's general thrust that religion has a part in this, I think he's missing that religion is not the ultimate source of the trouble, it's more of a lever that's employed by those who are the source.

The question then is how do we take the levers away from those who would use them to manipulate us. I think the answer is: good will. People of good will must seek each other out, recognize that the need is to work together on things that will save us all, and refuse to be manipulated into defeating each other, and thereby ourselves, over superficial differences. In other words, recognize that Othering is the main lever that we're tricked into using against each other and stop allowing ourselves to be used that way.

As mostly an aside, I think it might be the case that people of good will coming together would also deflate some of the drivers of religion and that religions might as a result diminish. Because religion is itself to some extent driven by Othering. And that diminishing would in my opinion be a good thing because it would be another way of taking some of the levers away. But it's not the primary way and therefore not the most important thing, because religion isn't the ultimate source of the problem, and that's what I think Maher is missing.

And then claims it is representative of all religions.

Although I'm no believer in demon possession or channeling, I do think sometimes people can become self-intoxicated channelers of the darkest impulses of their nation and generation. Just as others (Jon Stewart) can become spokesmen for the noblest and best aspects of our nation and generation. "Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm blue, my disposition depends on you." Being an American and baby-boomer is a dual curse, and a dual blessing when I look at media figures like Maher and Stewart respectively.

He has appeared darker and darker as time goes on, and he has an audience that is also foaming at the mouth, just looking for something to get outraged about.

It's really unfortunate that he is not using that bully pulpit to do something positive.

any degree, and in fact the lighter your belief the more you are to blame, because you can't do that without casuistry; but the real people to blame are liberals, especially the Democrats blblblb"

I mean, is Maher a Strasserite or something? he's "liberal" in the same way the Brazilian officers who slaughtered Canudos were