Given all the news we've been seeing worldwide in the last couple weeks, now would be a good time to revisit this excellent clip from 2012.
JOHN OLIVER: Things are pretty en fuego around here! But look, I think it's important for us all to pause, and note that it is clearly not the majority of Muslims who are protesting in the streets. And it's not even the majority of protestors who are getting violent. And, to put this in context, we should really remember Islam's young age.
JON STEWART: What... it's young...? Wait, Islam is 1,400 years old!
JOHN OLIVER: Yeah, exactly, Jon. In religious years, Islam is still just a teenager. And put it in context. Think what Christianity was doing when it was only 1,400 years old.
JON STEWART: Oh, no, that's not... (ponders, to audience applause) I guess.... Yeah.... I guess....
JOHN OLIVER: Exactly. Bloody Crusades, the Inquisition, execution of heretics. Christianity's frankly just lucky there weren't cell phones around then to film that shit. (audience laughter and applause)
....
JOHN OLIVER: The point, Jon, is that we need to be patient with Islam. They do not have it easy. Remember, most teenagers have some means of escape from their insecurities. They smoke pot, they experiment with sex, all-night bacon parties, Reformation. Muslims can't do any of that stuff right now.
JON STEWART: So you're saying, if we just wait 3 or 400 years....
JOHN OLIVER: Oh, yeah, half a millennium at most.
JON STEWART: And then there'll be peace.
JOHN OLIVER: Peace?!? What?? Fuck no, Jon! But if we're lucky, we will finally stop fighting over real or imagined insults to our religions, and go back to fighting over what really matters — natural resources and arbitrary lines on maps! (wild audience applause)
So not to worry! Radical Islam will no longer be a problem for us... by the year 2600. Until then, um........
Video and full transcript below the fold.
Read More