Ben Affleck Clashes With Bill Maher and Sam Harris Over Whether Criticizing Islamic Beliefs Is Islamophobia and racicm Sam Harris: “Liberals have failed us. We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people.” Ben Affleck: “Are you the person who understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam? You're the interpreter of that?” Sam Harris: “I'm actually well educated on this topic.” Ben Affleck: “Well, it's not a real thing when we do it.” Sam Harris: “We have to be able to criticize bad ideas.” Bill Maher: “Because it's gross. It's racist.” Ben Affleck: “You're not listening to what we are saying. You guys are saying, if you want to be liberals, believe in liberal principles like freedom of speech… all men are created equal.” Sam Harris: “Islamism is the motherlode of bad ideas.” Ben Affleck: “Or how about more than a billion people who aren't fanatical, who don't punch women, who just want to go to the store?” Bill Maher: “All these billion people don't hold any of those—” Sam Harris: “Don't hold these pernicious beliefs? I would—” Bill Maher: “That's just not true, Ben.”