{"id":372,"date":"2014-10-10T11:18:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T11:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/10\/bill-maher-isnt-the-only-one-who-misunderstands-religion.html"},"modified":"2014-10-10T11:18:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-10T11:18:00","slug":"bill-maher-isnt-the-only-one-who-misunderstands-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/10\/bill-maher-isnt-the-only-one-who-misunderstands-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher Isn\u2019t the Only One Who Misunderstands Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

BILL MAHER\u2019s recent rant<\/a> against Islam has set off a fierce debate about the problem of religious violence, particularly when it comes to Islam.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Maher, who has argued that Islam is unlike other religions (he thinks it\u2019s more \u201clike the Mafia\u201d<\/a>), recently took umbrage with President Obama\u2019s assertion that the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, or ISIS, does not represent Islam. In Mr. Maher\u2019s view, Islam has \u201ctoo much in common with ISIS.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

His comments have led to a flurry of responses, perhaps none so passionate as that of the actor Ben Affleck, who lambasted Mr. Maher, on Mr. Maher\u2019s own HBO show, for \u201cgross\u201d and \u201cracist\u201d generalizations about Muslims.<\/p>\n

Yet there is a real lack of sophistication on both sides of the argument when it comes to discussing religion and violence.<\/p>\n

On one hand, people of faith are far too eager to distance themselves from extremists in their community, often denying that religious violence has any religious motivation whatsoever. This is especially true of Muslims, who often glibly dismiss those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam as \u201cnot really Muslim.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other, critics of religion tend to exhibit an inability to understand religion outside of its absolutist connotations. They scour holy texts for bits of savagery and point to extreme examples of religious bigotry, of which there are too many, to generalize about the causes of oppression throughout the world.<\/p>\n

Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BILL MAHER\u2019s recent rant against Islam has set off a fierce debate about the problem of religious violence, particularly when it comes to Islam. Mr. Maher, who has argued that Islam is unlike other religions (he thinks it\u2019s more \u201clike the Mafia\u201d), recently took umbrage with President Obama\u2019s assertion that the terrorist group known as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBill Maher Isn\u2019t the Only One Who Misunderstands Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"BILL MAHER\u2019s recent rant against Islam has set off a fierce debate about the problem of religious violence, particularly when it comes to Islam.Mr. Maher,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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