Affleck, well known for his progressive views, was promoting his latest film “Gone Girl” on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” when the conversation turned toward Muslims.
Sam Harris, a philosopher, claimed that 20 percent of the world’s Muslims are “either jihadists or Islamists,” according to “a bunch of poll results.”
Oscar-winner Affleck recoiled at the broad-brush portrayal of the world’s second-biggest faith.
“So you’re saying that Islamophobia is not a real thing,” snapped the actor, who tackled the 1979-81 Iran hostage crisis in his 2012 political-thriller “Argo.”
“But why are you so hostile about this?” said Maher, a left-wing comedian and atheist who shared Harris’s contempt for Islam.
Affleck went on to say that “we’ve killed more Muslims than they’ve killed us, by an awful lot,” and argued that the Islamic State group “couldn’t fill a double-A ballpark in Charleston, West Virginia,” his wife Jennifer Garner’s hometown.
Not that Maher was swayed: He said Muslims would kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book.”
“It’s gross, it’s racist,” a visibly frustrated Affleck said, likening it to calling someone “a shifty Jew.”
“How about the more than a billion people, who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punish women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, pray five times a day, and don’t do any of the things that you’re saying all Muslims do.”
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