Kevin Kahn @kevin2kahn - Twitter Profile

“Bill Maher Says Islam Is “The Mother Lode of Bad Ideas” and Fareed Zakaria Fires Back” Bill Maher: Which gets us back to my idea of Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas. Fareed? Fareed Zakaria: I've written a lot about the problems in Islam. My problem with the way you approach it is, I don't think you're going to reform a religion by telling 1.6 billion people, “Your religion is the mother lode of bad ideas. It's a terrible thing. Shape it up and change it.” If you really want to change that religion, then what you have to do is push for reform, but also with some sense of respect for the spiritual values that people take. If you tell everybody, “You suck, your religion sucks, clean it up,” they're going to get their backs up. Bill Maher: Let's say there's a social club that believes women are second-class citizens, gay people should be put to death, you should be put to death... Fareed Zakaria: But that's not all 1.6 billion people. Because if they felt that way, you'd have a lot more than a few terrorists out there. In that same Pew survey that you quote every time, 99% of Muslims in the world say that it is not a widespread belief that death is the appropriate response to... You go to Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, and they have lived happily with minorities. Women are given respect. Yes, is it as advanced as the West? No. But you don't have a huge problem with jihad there. The biggest problems you have are in pathologically dysfunctional Arab societies which have had 40 or 50 years of repressive dictatorships. I have always said there is the word I've used is , there is a cancer within Islam. Our difference is, how are you going to fix it? Bill Maher: Well, first with honesty... Fareed Zakaria: You're not persuading people with what you're doing. You're getting applause lines in the West. Bill Maher: That's insulting. That I'm doing this for applause lines. Fareed Zakaria: What I'm telling you, the reality is you're not changing those people.