Fareed schools Bill - Intelligence over... by ewillies
It is hard to remember Bill Maher being so outclassed in a discussion as
he was on today's Real Time panel. Fareed Zakaria made so many
consecutive intelligent points that unlike other guests on the same subject,
Bill Maher was unable to interrupt. One must give kudos to Bill Maher
however for bringing Fareed Zakaria to the panel after Zakaria
intellectually ridiculed the oversimplification and naive interpretation
of the state of Islam today by both Maher and Sam Harris in
his Washington Post piece “Let’s be honest, Islam has a problem right now”
Bill Maher segued from a discussion about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's possible death sentence to Maher's recent attacks on Islam. "Which get's us back to the idea of Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas," Bill Maher said. "Fareed?"
Fareed Zakaria was ready. "As you know Bill, I have written a lot about the problem in Islam," Fareed Zakaria said. "In fact I wrote about them well before you were talking about it because I was focused on that stuff." In other words Bill, you are the new kid on the block.
Zakaria continued. "My problem with the way you approach it is, I don't think you are going to reform a religion by telling 1.6 billion people -- most of whom are just devout people, who get some inspiration from that religion and go about their daily lives -- I don't think you are going to change the religion by saying 'Your religion is the mother lode of bad ideas. It's a terrible thing. Shape it up and change it'."
Bill Maher's audience busted out in applause for Fareed Zakaria's statement as he continued. "I think frankly you are going to make a lot of news for yourself and you are going to get a lot of applause lines and joke lines out of it. But if you really want to change those people. If you want to change that religion then what you have to do is push for reform but also with some form of respect for the spiritual values that people take."
Fareed Zakaria then attempts to teach a form of sophisticated empathy that Bill Maher and many Atheist, Christians, and others lack. "I am not a religious guy. But all I am telling you is that I know that word and if you tell everybody 'you suck, your religion sucks, clean it up' then its going to get their backs up against the wall."
Bill Maher comes back with the generalization of Islam's intolerance of women and gays. Again Zakaria reminds him that does not apply to the 1.6 billion Muslims. He schools Bill Maher on Indonesia, the largest Muslim country which is also very tolerant of minorities and have been as peaceful as any other country. READ MORE
Bill Maher segued from a discussion about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's possible death sentence to Maher's recent attacks on Islam. "Which get's us back to the idea of Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas," Bill Maher said. "Fareed?"
Fareed Zakaria was ready. "As you know Bill, I have written a lot about the problem in Islam," Fareed Zakaria said. "In fact I wrote about them well before you were talking about it because I was focused on that stuff." In other words Bill, you are the new kid on the block.
Zakaria continued. "My problem with the way you approach it is, I don't think you are going to reform a religion by telling 1.6 billion people -- most of whom are just devout people, who get some inspiration from that religion and go about their daily lives -- I don't think you are going to change the religion by saying 'Your religion is the mother lode of bad ideas. It's a terrible thing. Shape it up and change it'."
Bill Maher's audience busted out in applause for Fareed Zakaria's statement as he continued. "I think frankly you are going to make a lot of news for yourself and you are going to get a lot of applause lines and joke lines out of it. But if you really want to change those people. If you want to change that religion then what you have to do is push for reform but also with some form of respect for the spiritual values that people take."
Fareed Zakaria then attempts to teach a form of sophisticated empathy that Bill Maher and many Atheist, Christians, and others lack. "I am not a religious guy. But all I am telling you is that I know that word and if you tell everybody 'you suck, your religion sucks, clean it up' then its going to get their backs up against the wall."
Bill Maher comes back with the generalization of Islam's intolerance of women and gays. Again Zakaria reminds him that does not apply to the 1.6 billion Muslims. He schools Bill Maher on Indonesia, the largest Muslim country which is also very tolerant of minorities and have been as peaceful as any other country. READ MORE
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