A month ago, Sam Harris and Ben Affleck exchanged words about the topic of Islam. For those who haven’t seen it, the video can be watched here. Despite these ideas being echoed for years by both Harris and Maher, this particular discussion provoked an extraordinary amount of media attention. Since then, hundreds of people have chimed in on the debate, and I won’t rehash those ideas here. What I will argue, is that the debate seems to be fueled by three problems: differing semantics, emotional reactance, and a disconnect between being a Muslim and practicing Islam.

Let’s begin with the semantics. To those like Maher and Harris that criticize Islam, they do so by attacking the ideas that Islam presents. Apologists, on the other hand, seemingly acknowledge that some ideas are bad – but reduce their dissonance by isolating those ideas to only the fringe or to ‘fundamental Islam.’ Interestingly, right here the two agree, or at least they should. Fundamentalism refers to “strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline,” which is to say that fundamental Islam is the strict adherence to the basic principles of Islam. Subsequently, one should make the logical argument, that it is those Muslims practicing fundamental Islam, that truly represent Islam for what it is. However, these defenders of Islam, seem to have redefined what fundamentalism means. It appears they see fundamentalism as not the adherence to an idea, but the bastardization of it. One may liken it to a no true Scotsman fallacy – in which any Muslim who commits a heinous act, is not truly practicing Islam. “Death to apostates is not representative of true Islam, only the fundamentalists believe that” inherently contradicts itself, yet because many people have redefined what they think fundamentalism means, the doublethink is not immediately apparent. Perhaps the best example, comes from ISIL. It’s amazing that many people disagree that they represent Islam (It’s in their name!), Even Obama has argued that they are not Islamic. This ability to semantically divorce fundamental Islam from Islam leaves any debate on weak ground to start.

The second problem comes from what I’ll call emotional reactance. Islamophobia – or what I’ll define precisely as bigotry against individuals who identify as Muslim, is real, just as sexism, racism, or anti-Semitism are real. Many individuals will be prejudiced against those individuals that identify as Muslim, regardless of the beliefs they actually hold or what actions they have committed. This problem, seems to be clustered predominately on the right side of the political spectrum. Recently, in Ottawa Canada, when a soldier was killed by a Muslim individual, my Facebook was peppered with calls to attack Arab nations, even though no facts about his motivation were made apparent. But even if this individual had harboured fundamental Islamic beliefs, that still wouldn’t be justification to massacre other individuals who may or may not have had any impact on his actions. Or when a mosque was to be built near the area of the World Trade Center, calls to ban it resonated with many. And after 9/11, attacks on completely innocent Muslims were made. The last decade has conditioned those on the left to see any attack on Muslims as unfounded, unjustified, and morally wrong – because much of the time Muslims (the people, not the religion) do need defending from ignorant and unfounded attacks.

But Harris and Maher weren’t criticizing Muslims, they were criticizing Islam; (just as they do the exact same to other religions). The problem that liberals have now is that they’ve gotten fundamental Islam backwards. It’s not that fundamental Islamists are the crazies and the extremists; Fundamental Islam, by definition, are the people who (or more specifically, is the set of ideas that), at least under the most literal readings of the Quran, truly represent what Islam is. Those Muslims you and I meet, have engaging conversations with, don’t cover their faces/their wives faces, and maybe even have a drink with (note: drinking is forbidden in Islam), may identify as Muslim, but they are the ones with a warped view of their faith; Indeed in some areas, other Muslims would condemn them to whipping or death for not practicing it as zealously.

Although I, as do many, follow few or none of the Jewish laws, I still identify as Jewish. However, I should not, and cannot, claim that the Orthodox, who discriminate against women or homosexuals are not being true to the faith. They are of being completely consistent, whereas I, as so many others, are clearly deviating. Judaism, like all religions, contains some bad ideas, but the set of beliefs that I, or anyone hold, is the product of all our experiences and ideas, to which religion is just one.

In western society, where we are exposed to many ideas and values, religious teachings do not necessarily align with all our beliefs. We may identify as Christian but support gay marriage, condom/contraceptive use, and abortion. However, in situations where that set of experiences and ideas are limited, for example, the bible-belt, rural Africa or the middle-east, religious ideology shapes those more ideas more fully; Which is why specific parts of the U.S. still condemn abortion, and gay marriage, and certain areas in Africa seek death for being gay or prefer the risk of HIV to wearing condoms. All these groups identify as being Christian, but only the latter two are truthfully practicing what it preaches.

This disconnect between identifying as a Muslim and practicing Islam (or Identifying as a Christian/Jew/Bahai and practicing Christianity/Judaism/Bahai) leads to a problem akin to the affirming the consequent: A logical fallacy in which people assume that if A => B, then B => A. I doubt many people would disagree with the premise that people who practice Islam are Muslims (A => B). Where people get hung up, is the opposing but fallacious idea that all Muslims practice Islam (B => A), but as I’ve tried to argue, depending on your view and definition of Islam, this second premise is false. Analogously, Everyone who keeps Kosher is Jewish, but of course not everyone who is Jewish keeps Kosher. Yet, when Harris, Maher, or others criticize Islam and the ideas it holds, it immediately conjures thoughts of the second premise – that everyone who identifies as Muslim holds those beliefs. Let me reiterate, this is as ridiculous as criticizing Christianity’s stance on homosexuality or calling it a homophobic religion and then assuming that I think every Christian is homophobic.

But it’s also ridiculous to think that those Christians who do hold those middle-age beliefs are not doing so, in very large part because of their religion. In psychological research we often assess a specific manipulation (e.g. a context, a news article, or a personality characteristic) with reference to a specific dependent variable. If we find a statistically significant effect of the IV on the DV, and we rule out possible confounds, we can be pretty confident that the IV ‘causes’ the DV. What we mean though is not a 1:1 cause-effect, but on average people given the manipulation or have a certain personality characteristic will tend to act more in the way we predict. In fact, for every cause — effect relationship, there’s typically much or more within group variance as there is between group variance. That is, the difference between two random people of the same group is greater than the difference between the group means.

For example, when one says that men are stronger than women, they don’t mean that ALL men are stronger than ALL women, but that on average men are stronger than women. If we give one group of people coffee and the other group a placebo and measure their alertness, we’ll likely find that the coffee group is more alert, on average, than the placebo group. This doesn’t mean that ALL coffee drinkers will be more alert than ALL non-coffee drinkers, but that on average coffee increases artfulness. Lastly, if we give one group of people a religion, like Islam, that at its fundamental levels teaches hate and violence to others, it’s not that ALL those people will be hateful and violent, but those people will tend to be more hateful and more violent than if we didn’t give them that religion. And just as it would be stupid to assert that the people in the coffee condition are inherently more alert or jittery, instead of blaming their actions on the coffee, it’s stupid to assert that Muslims are inherently more violent and hateful – rather, what should be blamed, and what is being blamed by Harris and Maher, is the set of beliefs that makes them act in that way.

And this is the last point that we all need to understand. Those fundamental Muslims with bad ideas, have those bad ideas, at least in part, because of Islam. Sure, Islam is a variable belief structure that can be modified so that it does not teach violence and hate at its core. And sure, there are other sociological, economic, political, historical and geographic reasons that also facilitate their actions, no-one is denying that. In fact, I would argue that it’s those factors that block out the other ideas that are so pinnacle in keeping Muslims more secular and less violent. But when those factors operate and they do so regularly – the effects are destructive, damaging, and real.