(hate) on me.

a moment of clarity.

for your consideration...

words.

"Criticizing Islam for the policies of, say, the Saudi Arabian government, or of the lunatic fringe of ISIS, is like blaming Christianity for the ghastly homophobic policies of the Ugandan government. Any religion is open to fundamentalist or liberal interpretations, and which becomes dominant is entirely dependent on the society in which that religion is practiced. This is not a defense of religion, per se — personally, I have little time for it — but I don’t think the principles of Islam are better or worse than the principles of Christianity, or Hinduism, or Wicca, or worshiping your cat. For the purposes of geopolitics, religion is basically a matter of choosing a team, and I don’t think it matters if it’s Team Allah or Team God or Team Whatever Else.

...Banging on about Islam being inherently violent or misogynistic or whatever else is basically saying that Those People are fundamentally different from us and can never be Like Us, which is precisely the sort of othering that’s been used to justify all sorts of atrocities throughout history. They’re a different color from us, they speak a different language, they worship a different god. Go and kill them. (And hey, while you’re there, take their land and resources!) Any religion is prone to being used this way in the right circumstances.

 ...It’s important that religion doesn’t get off scot-free here — it’s clearly been used to justify all sorts of awful shit throughout history, and saying that society is to blame for everything is an abrogation of the responsibility of people who’ve done that shit. But it’s also important to see it in context. And it’s important to discuss this stuff without turning it into a Team A vs. Team B shitfight. There’s been more than enough of that already, and it helps no one. As long as we continue to see a certain cohort of people as fundamentally different from us, we will continue to have problems."

FLAVORWIRE: Why Bill Maher Is Wrong About Islam