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

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.

Second, Judiasm doesn’t have a ‘hell’ the same way that Christianity does. Its teachings on the afterlife tend to be more ambiguous and focus on ‘destruction’ rather than Hell. The idea seems reasonable, since societies and people do make mistakes suffer for it. It’s fair to think that certain well-intentioned ideas have negative consequences, though it’s worth debating what those are.

Third; I’m not aware of Judaism ever ‘capping the prophets’ as Islam has done, or saying ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’

There are critiques to be made of Judiasm, but I think they’re different than the ones you’ve given here.

Sure some kind of creator could have made all of this possible, and Maher doesn’t deny that. What he does doubt is the God, created by man in religious texts from a time before scientific reasoning. Your arguments against many of his contentions are simply: What if the religion is the truth. Rational human beings should not believe in the bible. It makes no sense. Rational human beings should not believe in some kind of God that smites cities off the face of the world, kills the innocent children in Egypt because their Pharaoh didn’t listen to Moses, or hates gay people. This is what Maher is getting at. Religion breeds hate. It does make some people feel that they have the answer while others will burn in hell.
I just don’t get how we can still have so much faith in these backwards and outdated religious doctrines.
The vast God that is outside of human grasp would be a more likely candidate for our creator, and I don’t think Maher would object to people believing in a God that they can’t explain. It’s when people read 2000 yr old writings and believe that they are infallible truths, that people start getting killed.
Maher is attacking established religions–not the “concept” of a God.

* “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

I believe you are correct that one can take disbelief too far. When you get to the point of trying to convince other people that there is NOT a God, well it seems equal in some ways to attempting to convince people there IS a God. On the other hand, you don’t worry about the Teletubbies because you don’t believe they are going to bring about the destruction of the entire planet. But there is a very strong case to be made that religion will indeed do this.

For example, I personally believe that within my lifetime we will witness the detonation of a nuclear weapon on innocent civilians by some sort of terrorist organization. I am also convinced that it will be done in the name of God. And this scares me very much. Maher didn’t put this thought in my mind, it’s a belief I’ve long held.

In my opinion the biggest difference between people who are religious and people who are not, is that the former are attracted to death, while the latter cling voraciously to life. It is difficult for non-believers to feel comfortable when surrounded by people who not only don’t care if they die… but who are looking forward to it. After all, people who believe in an after-life project that belief onto even Atheists (”He’s going to hell…” or “She’s a saint”), and this belief, in many ways, devalues life here on Earth.

John

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.

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