{"id":302974,"date":"2017-04-09T15:36:21","date_gmt":"2017-04-09T14:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/bill-mahers-muddled-attacks-on-islam\/"},"modified":"2017-04-09T15:36:21","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T14:36:21","slug":"bill-mahers-muddled-attacks-on-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/bill-mahers-muddled-attacks-on-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher\u2019s Muddled Attacks on Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>As an edgy comedian, Bill Maher prides himself on his \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d religion-bashing, but his excessive attacks on Islam more aptly reflect a \u201cpolitically correct\u201d bigotry, as JP Sottile explains.<\/p>\n<p>By JP Sottile<\/p>\n<p>Bill Maher thinks he knows exactly why they hate us. In the world according to Bill, all those agitated Muslims on the receiving end of multiple interventions, numerous \u201cdouble-tap\u201d drone strikes, countless tons of falling bombs, the systematic imprisonment of \u201crendered\u201d individuals and the widespread use of lawless torture are, simply put, the outgrowth of a backwards belief system. And those beliefs also inspire a type of religious violence that\u2019s become a destructive force unparalleled in today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_23196\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2-300x225.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23196\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2-160x120.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23196\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2-160x120.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/hqdefault-2.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comedian Bill Maher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The \u201ctoday\u201d part is important to Maher because he doesn\u2019t like the \u201cfalse equivalence\u201d of historical context. Instead, he\u2019s decidedly on the side of \u201cthat was then, this is now.\u201d So, forget Christian Crusaders, Spanish Inquisitors, Philistine-purging Israelites or, one would assume, any of human history\u2019s numerous examples of holy war-making.<\/p>\n<p>Also not equivalent are recent mass murders of <a href=\"http:\/\/fox6now.com\/2016\/08\/05\/sikh-temple-of-wisconsin-marks-4th-anniversary-of-tragic-event-in-oak-creek\/\">Sikhs in Wisconsin<\/a> and of <a href=\"http:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/news\/local-news\/quebec-mosque-shooting-vigil-planned-in-montreal-after-terrorist-attack\">Muslims in Quebec<\/a>. And don\u2019t bother bringing up the growing list of identity-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/09\/18\/us\/politics\/hate-crimes-american-muslims-rise.html\">violence against Muslims<\/a> or, perhaps most tellingly, of mistaken identity-based violence against those who are <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/islamophobia-south-asia-trump-modi-b43a7eb0a6df\">ignorantly thought to be Muslims<\/a>, but aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Somehow, America\u2019s long, demonstrable history of putting ethnic cleanliness next to its own obsessive Godliness doesn\u2019t quite cut it either, burning crosses and Native American genocide notwithstanding. No, history doesn\u2019t reverberate in the Islamophobic echo chamber \u2026 unless, of course, we\u2019re talking about the \u201cwarlike\u201d history of long-since faded Islamic empires. Then all\u2019s fair in this one-sided front on the anti-religious war being waged by the so-called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/mar\/03\/what-scares-the-new-atheists\">New Atheists<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The New Atheism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Maher and his confrontational cohorts \u2014 like famed geneticist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/news\/uk\/611231\/Richard-Dawkins-in-extraordinary-blast-at-Muslims-To-hell-with-their-culture\">Richard Dawkins<\/a> and anti-Muslim gadfly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/grayzone-project\/new-atheist-spokesperson-sam-harris-featured-explicitly-anti-muslim-hate-video\">Sam Harris <\/a>\u2014 have targeted Islam as something far more pernicious than just another fantasy-based religion with&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/04\/09\/bill-mahers-muddled-attacks-on-islam\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As an edgy comedian, Bill Maher prides himself on his \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d religion-bashing, but his excessive attacks on Islam more aptly reflect a \u201cpolitically correct\u201d bigotry, as JP Sottile explains. By JP Sottile Bill Maher thinks he knows exactly why they hate us. In the world according to Bill, all those agitated Muslims on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-302974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}