Summary of 3 Sources

Religion's Role in State Affairs

In this article the author argues that although Muslims often call Bill Maher a racist or Islamophobic in reality he is just trying to help and is actually correct. In the article the author talks about how the problems of Muslim countries are caused because there is no separation between religion and the state. The author blames the Muslim clerics, or ulema for the problems and suicide bombings in Pakistan. 

Dangerous Discourse

This article is about the debate that happened with Bill Maher, Ben Afflek and Sam Harris. The author debunks some of the assumptions that Bill Maher makes, for example, the idea that the Western world is in charge of trying to reverse the effects of "primitive Islam" on the world. The author also talks about the problems with the debate itself which includes the point that there wasn't a Muslim at this debate, which is often the case with these discussions. The article then concludes by saying how Bill Maher never actually poses a solution.

Bombing at the Box Office: Reviewers' Responses to Agnosticism in Bill Maher's Religulous

This was an academic journal about documentary reviewers' responses to Bill Maher's documentary Religulous. What they found was that Bill Maher chose people that were not necessarily good candidates for speaking about religion. In this way he portrayed them as fanatics while giving them very little respect. Some reviewers agreed with his methods, but others did not. The intent and the method of his arguments were questioned by the reviewers. They were seen as being humorous and therefore possibly less threatening yielding good reviews.