Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Forgive Him Lord, He Knows Not of What He Speaks

The "he" in this case is Bill Maher, who never allows reason or knowledge to interfere with his rants.  While going off on religion (of course) he had this exchange with panelists S.E. Cupp, a fellow atheist, and Newark mayor Cory Booker, a devout Baptist:

MAHER: [Religion] causes most wars: The Crusades, the inquisition, 9/11, honor Killings…

CUPP: No that’s factually not true.

BOOKER: Humans…humans cause war.

CUPP: Religion doesn’t kill people…people kill people.

BOOKER: We’ve been known to start wars over everything from natural resources to land, to religion—

CUPP: Colonialism, tribalism.

BOOKER: —we start wars.

MAHER: The justification for most of that is religion.

CUPP: No it’s not.

MAHER: Of course it is…What gets normal people to think it’s okay to kill other people is religion…very little else….

CUPP: Or colonialism, or land power grabs, or nativism…

MAHER: Mostly religion. Ethnic cleansing, honor rape…

CUPP: Hitler, Pol Pot Mao, Stalin, not in the name of religion.

MAHER: Were state religions. [Puzzled looks from panel] Of course they were.

CUPP: Communism is a state religion?

MAHER: Absolutely. You never heard that?

CUPP: I think we’re talking about different things.

MAHER: We’re not. We’re just talking different labels.
Applying Maher's definition is there anything that can't be labeled "religion"? 

I'm told that once upon a time Maher was actually funny.  Now he just appears angry and very, very small.  I assume that no one ever told Maher that being the loudest and most obnoxious person in the room does not make one factually correct.

Maher gets a well deserved takedown at Newsbusters.

2 comments:

jill said...

Conclusion: He doesn't even know what religion is. But he knows it's bad.

Dave C said...

Maher's definition of a religion: If it causes a war, it's a religion.