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Refuting Bill Maher's and Sam Harris's Demonization of Muslims

by John Spritzler

October 11, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/17/islam-religion1

The article linked above refutes the claim, made by Bill Maher to an HBO "Real Time with Bill Maher" TV audience of who knows how many millions of Americans the other night, that Muslims kill anybody who leaves the Muslim faith. This article has a transcript of the heated debate between Bill Maher and professional atheist Sam Harris demonizing Muslims on the one hand against actor Ben Affleck and NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof defending Muslims against this demonization on the other hand.

Maher and Harris are leading the charge (on HBO TV at least) against Muslims, declaring the Muslim religion to be the main enemy in the world today and the main threat to what Maher calls "liberalism," by which he means all that is good and decent and reasonable.

The ruling class clearly wants Americans to fear and despise Muslims the way it wanted us to fear and despise Communists in the Cold War and "Japs" and "Huns" before that: Orwellian wars of social control need an enemy that is feared and despised.

Whether by design or not, Affleck and Kristof in my opinion lost the debate; they were not sufficiently well-prepared or knowledgeable. In contrast Maher and Harris were like well-oiled machines of bigotry, with well-rehearsed lies and with pithy and aggressive ways of expressing them.

I think most people try very hard to avoid adopting bigoted or racist beliefs. But in the face of extremely sophisticated propaganda like that of Bill Maher's and Sam Harris's, it's hard not to be influenced by lies if one has little or no personal knowledge about those being demonized and one never hears the lies refuted by those who do have such knowledge.

Here are some other good refutations of what Maher and Harris asserted:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pjxPR36qFU (video, you need to wait for the ad to end)



 

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Books

We Can Change the World: The Real Meaning of Everyday Life by Dave Stratman

The People as Enemy: The Leaders' Hidden Agenda in World War II by John Spritzler