Of course, he’s right – damned right: he’ll burn in hell! Folk seem to be scared of what they (we) don’t know. The way of science is that things are held to be true until something better comes along: “This will do for now, let’s keep going on that basis”. Most religions have closed the book at some point – say n the Middle ages, when Christian authority peaked – “everything known and knowable is here, in this Book, Old and New Testaments”. Doubt it and Burn in Hell. Before that Judaism had gotten as far as the Old Testament, believe it or burn in hell. Sometime in between Islam had said “Ok, New and Old Testaments will do – but everything is actually in here, the Qu’ran: final, definitive. Close the book” (or burn in hell).

A note: The video here had a link (Google ads) to John Galt – Ayn rand. I subscribe to a great deal of Ms. Rand’s Objectivism, but that can run into the same “burn-in-hell” things: if Ayn rand didn’t say so, it isn’t true – “Aynranity”?

I leave you with a quote from that Great American Philosopher (!), Donald Rumsfeld:

“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”

(So we may as well burn in hell anyhow?).

Q

I’m religious, so obviously I don’t agree with Maher … but I like his questions, and I like that he forces me to think about my belief.

Now, there’s a fairly strong stream of thought that suggests such intense nonbelief is itself a sort of quasi religion — why spend so much time on proving the non-existence of God? I don’t waste any effort on proving the non-existence of the Teletubbies. If I did, people might say I “protest too much”.

I’m undecided on this point, but Maher’s passionate disbelief lends credence to the theory.

Haven’t seen the movie but have watched him from time to time on “Real Time”. He is a smart guy, but comes off as a hater much of the time and that’s too bad, because his show could be much better. Is his still living with strippers?

Bill Maher just demonstrates how a person with a little knowledge, and less understanding, can take things that are true but arrive at a completely erroneous conclusion. Although religious people have said the things he says in his diatribe, the views expressed do not reflect accurately what is in the Bible. Faith is not as he defines it, but rather, “the assured expectation of things hoped for, but not yet beheld”. But faith is not credulity. Faith is based on knowledge. A simple example is we have faith that it is going to rain when the weatherman predicts a 100% chance of showers. This is based on prior knowledge, though we have not as yet seen the rain. The Bible uses Megeddo to illustrate a world situation because those who first read it understood the meaning of Megeddo. The bible does predict that there would be a turning on religion, in fact, that governments would turn on religion, and we are seeing the beginnings of this now. Although Mr Maher thinks hes being rational, he is in fact very irrational. (And by the way, its Revelation not Revelations ).

Interesting how religious people have also done the most good in the world, particularly Christians who provide for the less fortunate – The Red Cross, Salvation Army, churches, missionaries, etc. They also established this nation … including it’s hospitals and universities. Yet those who abandoned religion and took great measures to eliminate it from society include such notable factions as the Communists and the Socialist Nazis. Does this mean Bill Maher respects Hitler more than George Washington? And would have prefered this Judeo-Christian nation to not interfere with Adolph’s attempts to take over the world?

i think we shouldn’t over think about things. It doesn’t matter what religion you are in as long as you believe in God

did you see the whole movie? i did, and i highly recommend it. i expected it to be more just religion-baiting than it is — he makes a lot of good points. and it was important to me that what he has a problem with is religion itself — not spirituality, not personal belief, but proscribed belief and institutionalized groups. as a recovering roman catholic cum buddhist, i think he hit the nail on the head in many ways with this film.

Religion is often used as a motivating force. Men hit each other in the head long before today’s religions existed. A civilization united by a common belief likely trumps one that is not. Believer or not we need to keep our religions from be usurped by those who wish to do evil.

I am extremely impressed with this movie. All of Bill’s questions always have the same response, just have faith. I’ve always thought that faith is the most dangerous word in the english language. It simply gives people excuses. Sometimes these excuses are good. Religion helps some people act kindly toward there fellow man. However, the idea for religion is created by humans so it has human error. People will always intentionally misinterpret there religion to manipulate weaker minded people. Everyone is so afraid to talk about this subject, but until humans are content with the idea that no one really knows what happens when you die, religion will remain the biggest threat to mankind.

Without even taking a side on who’s right, I can point out the logical fallacy in the statements above:

* “If one believes that the world is going to come to an end, does it not drain one’s motivation to improve life while we’re here?” This is just ridiculous. “No man knows the day or the hour”. If you’re lost at sea, you don’t eat all your food on day one because you know you’ll get rescued eventually.
* “Religion must die for man to live.” (Unless the religion you believe just happens to be true, then it’s the opposite)_
* “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.” This is just insulting. The most faithful people I know are the most thoughtful. They consider all sides of the debate.
* “Those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders.” (Unless they just happen to be sharing the truth)
* “Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings, who don’t have all the answers, to think they do.” (Unless the religion in question just happens to be the truth)
* “The only attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt.” (So faithful people don’t doubt?)
* “The solace and comfort that religion brings you, actually comes at a terrible price.” (Unless the religion you believe in happens to be the truth)

All of the arguments against religion start with the assumption that the religion is false. In logic this is called conditional proof. You make an assumption x, then you see what conclusion y you can draw with that assumption. You are then able to prove, if x then y.

In this case, all you can prove is that “if god doesn’t exist, then god doesn’t exist” or “if god doesn’t exist, then religion is a waste of time” or whatever, but you’ll notice that if you start with the assumption that god does exist, you’ll come up with a whole different set of conclusions. (like god does exist and religion isn’t a waste of time)

There is no PROOF in any of these arguments. If there was proof, it wouldn’t be religion. If there’s a god out there, perhaps the stars in the sky are the cells of his/her body. Prove me wrong.

People who argue against god are arguing against the nice convenient small god that they picture in their mind. Perhaps the real god is so vast, so powerful and awesome that we can’t even begin to grasp what he/she is really.

Check your assumptions

Kyle – This is what Maher is getting at. Religion breeds hate.

Parochial hatred existed prior to Christianity or Judiasm. People were distrusting and killing outsiders long before these faiths. The introduction of things like equal protection of publicly readable written law actually went a long way to reverse that trend. Outside of the JudeoChristian tradition who persued this in ancient times? Draco is the only one who comes to mind, and he recommended the death penalty for every single crime.

The problem is that to do a good scientific study of this topic, you’d need two groups; one religious, one non – an experiment and a control group. It doesn’t prove anything to say; “some people are religious and also violent in the name of their religion; Thus religion creates violence.” Non-religious societies, including many communist societies, were tremendously violent to their own people and others in the name of their beliefs. This suggests that violence is a part of human nature, not a product of religion which can be destroyed if religion is destroyed.

Also, since Maher is libertarian he should check out the voting record of unmarried and divorced women. They tend to vote strongly to the left while married women tend to adopt the political beliefs of their husbands. So either women’s sufferage is eliminated (which I don’t favor) or libertine libertarians are sowing the seeds of their own political destruction.

It’s also noteworthy how Maher criticizes religions for being deceptive in order to get their message across, yet did the same thing to get certain shots for his film, deceiving people on his intent for the clip. I’m not defending religion on this point, just noting how Maher seems to fall short on his own established standards.

…or hates gay people. T

The Old Testament says that men sleeping with men is “abayah” or “unclean.” It’s a scientifically provable fact that such activities can transmit disease, and a statistically demonstratable fact that men who have sex with other men have dramatically more sexual contacts and shorter lifespans. Men with other men tend to be more promiscuous. There’s a very good reason that they won’t let you donate blood if you’ve had sex with a man. This shouldn’t translate into hatred of anyone, of course, nor does the bible reccomend that. It says that behavior, unfortunately, has consequences which is objectively demonstrable. Even the Pope has expressed respect for the love that exists in committed unions.

You can certainly criticize the bible on its sexual proscriptions if you like. But I’m not sure you’ve even taken the time to understand what the Bible advocates or its implications.

If we get rid of religion, people will find something else to fight about. Religion itself is not the problem, to say that eliminating religion will solve the world’s problems is naive. Countries in Africa fight all the time over race, money, and power. The Soviet Union was the epitome of the non-religious country and caused all kinds of problems, and produced many dangerous weapons (not to say the U.S. didn’t either, but the point remains). The fact is, whether we have religion or not, people just like to hate each other. Bottom line. Sure, people like to use religion as an excuse for these things, but you don’t actually need religion to promote something awful, a political movement can do just as much damage.

Religulous is first of all FUNNY. Have a glass of wine, go with a non-believer friend, let it go, and enjoy yourself. Some times the best laughs can be at yourself. It’s also a reasonably informative movie and factually quite accurate… they wouldn’t spend this kind of money without doing a wee bit of research. And be fair… give credit where credit is due… regardless of wether you personally like or dislike Maher, the man is well educated, well read, and well informed. His viewpoint is worth listing to without prejudice. With this movie, I think Maher is speaking for the other silent majority. The ones who don’t drag along a toddler and knock on your door, early Sunday morning, in a suit, to deliver you salvation.

In the end, a believer can almost never be dissuaded from whatever belief he is invested. It is the perfect closed-loop (ill)logic of belief itself. No amount, nor quality, of opposing argument would, could, or would matter… all can be brushed aside as casually as a misplaced hair, with belief. Further, the more fervently the believerbelieves, the higher the emotional reward for believing.

There’s a reason it’s called Blind Faith… duhh