The too-often unfunny comedian Bill Maher’s comments about the pope deserve all the outrage and contempt that the self-righteous media could possibly dump on the man. But it is very unlikly that he will receive more than the most mild criticism.
You think of Don Imus getting dumped over his “nappy headed hoes” comment; you think of the media universe literally coming unglued over Senator George Allen’s use of a single word – “macaca” which I still have never actually heard defined. (Media narrative: “We don’t know what it means, but it just sounds racist to us, coming as it did from a Republican and all.”). Actor Isaiah Washington was fired from his role on Grey’s Anatomy over an anti-gay slur. But when Bill Maher viciously rips the pope and a billion-plus Catholics again and again, the media doesn’t seem to see any problems. It’s a matter of one of their own targeting one of their targets.
Christians – and Catholics, especially – are fair game. I guess when every other group has special protections, somebody has to remain on the “fair game” list. Every propaganda machine needs a villian, after all.
I’d like to say a few things about Bill Maher. But first let’s let the man speak for himself:
According to Newsmax:
“The comments were made on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, Apr. 11. Maher went into a long monologue on his program comparing the Catholic church to a polygamous cult — the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — which was raided on Apr. 3 and whose founder, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year for being an accessory to the rape of a teenage girl. Bill Maher compared the Texas scandal and its latest alleged abuse with the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in the United States in 2002. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Pope_bill_maher_/2008/04/15/88028.html
These are a few of Maher’s remarks:
“I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult,” Maher told his audience. “Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he’s single.”
And again:
“If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you ‘Pope.’ It’s like, if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat. But if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia — too big, too fat.”
First of all the man is a documented liar. Pope Benedict XVI – like ALL German youth of the time – was conscripted against his will into a German youth organization, from which he fled as soon as he could. He was not a Nazi. He was never a Nazi. If anyone is a Nazi, it is Bill Maher for using Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda tactics to maliciously brand an innocent man with the most despicable charge.
Bill Maher clearly doesn’t mind telling vicious, hateful lies. So it isn’t surprising that he would also talk about the Catholic Church in this manner. I did a little reading on the subject, and discovered that one of the most reliable sources available – the February 2004 research study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – found that 81% of the so-called abuse cases involved teen-age boys and up. Stephen Rubino, a lawyer who has represented over 300 alleged victims of priest abuse, estimated 85 percent of the victims have been teen-age boys. And Catholic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, who has treated many victims and offending priests, agrees with that figure, noting that 90 percent of his patients are either abused teen-age males or their priest abusers. These were cases of evil abuse against young men who were taken advantage of by certain priests in the worst way, but they were NOT cases of “child molestation” and/or pedophilia. Rather, these cases were the result of a massive homosexual sub-culture within the Catholic Church taking advantage of their positions and the unequal-power-relationships they initiated to have homosexual intercourse with teens and young men.
It turns out that genuine cases of pedophila are MUCH more likely to occur in the public schools than in the Catholic Church. And that the culture of cover-ups, transfers, and
other protective schemes to conceal abusive teachers are likewise FAR more likely to occur in the public school system than in the Catholic Church – especially today. Public school abuses – including both the cases of sexual abuse by teachers and the covering up of such abuses by the administrators and unions – ought to be far more shocking and disturbing, because parents are forced to send their children to public schools whereas they are not so required to send their children to priests. Why doesn’t Bill Maher charicterize public school teachers as pedophiles? If you hate religion, don’t let facts get in the way of a good propaganda campaign. The Catholic League has documented the points I made at: http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm
Second, Bill Maher is a bigot.
That’s what he’d call him if he singled out ANY other group of people for such hateful remarks. If I go on a comedic rant about blacks, or Muslims, or gays, or most anyone else, and I’m sure going to hear that label applied to me. And from no less a personage than Bill Maher, to boot.
As a counterexample to Maher, I, along with the overwhelming majority of genuine Christians, would never use rhetoric like Maher’s to describe or ridicule homosexuals in spite of our beliefs about the nature of their lifestyles. We recognize that they are human beings who deserve compassion. So are the one billion Catholics that Maher calls deranged cultists.
Third, Bill Maher is a coward.
I’m sure in his little “yuk-it-up” elitist social gatherings, Maher is routinely praised for his “courage” in “taking on” the Catholic Church, Christianity, and organized religion. But this atheist wouldn’t dare attack and insult and lie about Islam the way he so cavalierly does about Catholicism and Christianity. why not? Because they will go after him and kill him, that’s why. And he won’t go after Jews or Judaism (or rabbis, who have about the same rate of sex-abuse as Catholic priests, by the way) the way he goes after Catholics and Christians, because that really would be “politically incorrect” (the title of his former show), and organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League would rightly make him pay.
Fourth, Bill Mayer is a bully.
Instead of taking on people and organizations that would go after him or undermine his popularity, Maher takes advantage of the fact that Christians believe in turning the other cheek. He takes advantage of their goodness, graciousness, and self-restraint to attack them and hurt them. He takes advantage of the fact that his core audience – which is as vile, as bitter, and as mean as he is – are the type of people who wouldn’t at all mind seeing Christians killed by the tens of thousands in the Coliseum just as they were in the Roman days. He’s no different than the ringleader of a group of thugs in a school yard who single out a particular kid for torment.
Fifth, Bill Maher is a hypocrite.
I mentioned that the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests’ sexual abuse cases were homosexual in nature rather than cases of pedophilia. Let me take a moment to document the homosexual subculture within the Catholic Church before I relate this to Bill Maher. I quote one paragraph from the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_rcc1.htm). I am including the footnotes in order to better document the following statements, and maintain the numbering of the footnotes as they are found in the article:
* Father Donald Cozzens wrote that several studies have concluded that about 50% of priests and seminarians are gay. 5
* David France of Newsweek, referring to St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, CA, wrote:
“Depending on whom you ask, gay and bisexual men make up anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of the student body at the college and graduate levels.” 3
* Rt. Rev. Helmut Hefner, rector of St. Johns Seminary “accepts that his gay enrollment may be as high as 50 percent.” 3
* Gay journalist Rex Wockner commented: “When I was in the Catholic seminary in my early 20s (St. Meinrad College, St. Meinrad, Ind., 1982-1983; University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Ill., 1983-1984), at least 50 percent of the students were gay….At St. Mary of the Lake, the straight students felt like a minority and felt excluded from some aspects of campus life to such an extent that the administration staged a seminar at which we discussed the problem of the straight students feeling left out of things…” 6
* Author and sociologist James G. Wolfe estimated that 55.1% of seminarians were gay. 7
3 David France, “Gays and the Seminary,” MSNBC, 2002-MAY-20, at: http://www.msnbc.com/
5 “Vatican threatens gay purge of priesthood,” The Data Lounge, 2002-MAR-6, at: http://www.datalounge.com/
6 Rex Wockner, “The end of Catholicism in America,” PlanetOut, at: http://www.planetout.com/
7 James G. Wolf, “Gay Priests,” Harper and Row, 1989, Pages 59-60. Cited in Father Donald Cozzens, “The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A reflection on the priest’s crisis of soul,” Liturgical Press, (2000), Page 99.
One of many supporting articles would be http://www.actupny.org/YELL/catholicpriests.html which begins, “Roman Catholic priests in the United States are dying from AIDS-related illnesses at a rate four times higher than the general population and the cause is often concealed on their death certificates, The Kansas City Star reported in a series of stories that started Sunday.” The article goes on to describe the homosexual subculture within the Catholic Church.
I don’t point out that the maliciously characterized “pedophile priests” have actually been homosexuals in order to attack homosexuals or homosexuality in this context. Most of these homosexual priests – in the overwhelming majority of casaes – have practiced their vows of abstinence. The statistics demonstrate that a tiny minority of priests perpetuated all the abuses. Rather, I bring this up in order to reveal what a hypocrite Bill Maher is. This man, who has made so much of these abuse cases within the Catholic Church, is a hard-core liberal activist. Homosexuals are very much one of the groups of people that he and people like him have shielded. One of the main reasons people like Bill Maher have so vindictively attacked Christianity and Catholicism has been because Christians and Catholics have condemned homosexuality. And for Maher to lay at the feet of Catholicism what more deservedly lays at the feet of people whose rights he defends is the basest form of hypocrite.
The Catholic Church could have done a much better job of dealing with the abuse cases by aggressively purging homosexuals from its priesthood – which would have brought the ire of liberals like Bill Maher. Instead, they tolerated this massive homosexual presence within their midst for decades – and Bill Maher attacks the Catholic church for tolerating a group of people that he demand they tolerate!
Thus I conclude my case that Bill Maher – and quite frankly every one who agrees with him – is a lying, bigoted, hypocritical, bullying coward.
The Catholic Church is a flawed organization, without a doubt. But when I look at all the good that Catholics have done in the world, and then look at the fruits of people like Bill Maher, it is not the Catholic Church that looks bad.
Tags: bigot, Bill Maher, Catholic, Christianity, despicable, HBO, homosexual, lies, Nazi, pedophile, Pope Benedict, propaganda, public schools, religious cult
Start Thinking Right 
April 18, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Well written post!
Check out http://www.firebillmaher.com for action!! Cancel your HBO- Fire Bill Maher!
April 18, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I couldn’t agree more. I am neither Catholic nor Protestant. I am a Baptist Pastor. BM is truly a sad little man searching in his own way for some kind of approval from a even more sad group of followers. But I believe in the power of prayer. God can change anyone – even Bill Mayer. I am not angry with Bill, just saddened for him. Judas, another sad little man, sat next to Jesus at one point. So close yet so far away. His words could not save him – his heart was evil. Bills words of hate are a mask for a man with a very troubled heart.
April 19, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I think Paul D has it about right. BM is a sad little man — and a bigot!
October 28, 2008 at 12:11 pm
The Catholic Church attempts to cover up cases of pedophilia by sending the child molesters to different areas. This is something that can not be tolerated. The Pope, as the head of his religion, is responsible for the actions of these individuals. They should be dealt with sternly and removed from their positions.
It’s sad that individuals, such as yourself, support a religious leader that does nothing while innocent children are victimized. It’s also sad that an individuals political ideology can influence their opinion on pedophilia.
But continue attacking a comedian instead of those responsible for their sick crimes. Good call.
October 28, 2008 at 2:51 pm
John,
I’ve got to say that you are so morally twisted it is unreal.
You’re right: A lot of Catholic leaders terribly failed by moving pedophiles around rather than dealing with them. They are nearly as bad as teachers unions, which likewise rush to defend teachers accused of pedophiles, and school districts which do the same things. Maybe we should regard public education the way you regard the Catholic Church.
First of all, it is EXTREMELY unlikely – and I welcome you to provide the evidence – that the Pope ordered Bishops to shuffle pedophile priests around.
Second, Pope Benedict only recently arrived into this situation, yet you blame him for all of this anyway? I think I’ll blame slavery on YOU, with that kind of logic.
Third, the WORST problem creating this terrible malady afflicting the Catholic Church is the MASSIVE problem of a MASSIVE underground homosexual subculture. Most of the “children” being molested are teen age boys. It is homosexuals who are doing this, which I document. I come right out and DENOUNCE homosexuality and homosexual priests; do you do the same? If not, kindly shut up, because YOU and YOUR ideas are part of the problem; not me and mine.
Maher goes after Pope Benedict as a Nazi, which is a horribly evil thing to do. But you don’t mind that, do you, John? You don’t mind a guy like Maher or his sick mind. A moral idiot like Maher – and apparently like you – support the radical homosexual agenda and then attack the Catholic Church for allowing homosexuals to do what they do. If you people had a moral compass, you’d realize what hypocrites you are. As it is, having moral discourse with you is like trying to describe colors to a man born blind.
Pope Benedict has the worldview to correct many of the evils plaguing the Catholic Church. I only hope he has the will, the influence, and the time to turn the crises affecting the Catholic Church around.
January 20, 2009 at 2:06 am
Quote
“The Catholic Church is a flawed organization, without a doubt. But when I look at all the good that Catholics have done in the world, and then look at the fruits of people like Bill Maher, it is not the Catholic Church that looks bad.”
What is exactly “all the good” that Catholics have done in the world… please asshole….
Look, for instance, the history of Old Europe…. all that Catholic church ever did was seeding fear and terror amongst poor people and condemning and eventually killing anybody who doubted or defied them… Ever heard of Gallileo Galliei?
Thomas Jefferson said that Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on men…. and that’s true, even it’s painful to you but it’s true…
January 20, 2009 at 4:27 am
Oh..Mikey… you sure like to talk a lot…. jeez…
Quote:
For the Glory of God” by Rodney Stark, and “What’s So Great About Christianity” by Dinesh D’Souza.
Ok then….
let’s say that someone wants to justify what Hitler did back then in 1939-1945…. and the other someone says that was evil….. Then the first one replies: “Well you’re wrong… there was a book titled “Mien Kampf” It’s all there, read it and then you will see…..
As for Jefferson’s text about God… It is, well, about God… but here’s where the classic Catholic misconception kicks in…and I’ll print that:
GOD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CATHOLIC, ORTODOX, MUSLIM OR WHATEVER THE NAME OF THE GAME IS…. It’s the people Micheal, people made up that shit called religion and that’s what I’m agaist… the cult… worshiping statues… killing people in the name of God… It’s the from the gut corrupt organization that has, again, nothing to do with God itself or himself or maybe herself….
“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals…..” Oh please spare me that BS…
If you want to read something good, try Stephen Hawking… but then again it may be to much for a two-dimensional mind such as yours…
January 20, 2009 at 5:35 am
First of all, Kate, you are a liar. Jefferson said no such thing.
What he really said is this:
“…those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, endeavored to crush your well earnt, & well deserved fame.” – Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, Washington, 21 March 1801
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Christianity_is_the_most_perverted_system_that_ever_shone_on_man
Jefferson’s point was that Christianity – although in itself the most sublime and benevolent philosophy – has often been perverted by people. People like you, as it so happens. And it is just like atheists to turn a quote in which Jefferson praised Christianity as the most “sublime and benevolent philosophy” into a vicious attack against Christianity. What you are doing is evil.
If you had any intent of knowing the truth, rather than just being the purveyor of lies, you would read a well-researched book on the subject. Two come to mind: “For the Glory of God” by Rodney Stark, and “What’s So Great About Christianity” by Dinesh D’Souza. Both deal with many of the myths (such as Galileo – who by the way was a devout Catholic). Judging by the seething anger that just flows from you
Here’s a short list of quotes from our founding fathers to document just how obscenely wrong you are. Starting with Jefferson:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God? That they are not to violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
– John Adams
“…And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
– George Washington, Farewell Address, Sept 17, 1796
“Religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness.”
– Samuel Adams, Letter to John Trumbull, October 16, 1778
“The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor…and this alone, that renders us invincible.”
– Patrick Henry, Letter to Archibald Blair, January 8, 1789
“Without morals, a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”
– Charles Carroll (signer of the Constitution), Letter to James McHenry,November 4, 1800
“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man towards God.”
– Life of Gouverneur Morris, Vol III
“Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity…in short of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.“
– Samuel Adams, Letter to John Adams, October 4, 1790
“In contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes, and take so little pains to prevent them. We profess to be republicans and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government. That is, the universal
education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible.”
– Benjamin Rush, “A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book”, 1798
“In my view, the Christian Religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed…no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian Religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”
– Noah Webster, Reply to David McClure, Oct. 25, 1836
“Information to those who would remove (or move) to America”: “To this may be truly added, that serious Religion under its various Denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practised. Atheism is unknown there, Infidelity rare & secret, so that Persons may live to a great Age in that Country without having their Piety shock’d by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his Approbation of the mutual Forbearance and Kindness with which the different Sects treat each other, by the remarkable Prosperity with which he has been pleased to favour the whole Country.”
– Ben Franklin, 1787 pamphlet to Europeans
“Independent of its connection with human destiny hereafter, the fate of republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion, and a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passions and of arbitrary power.”
– Lewis Cass, A Brigadier-General in the War of 1812, Governor of the Michigan Territory, a Secretary of War, a Senator, a Secretary of State. The State of Michigan placed his statue in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…”
– George Washington, Farewell Address, Sept 17, 1796
“Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.”
– John Adams, Letter of June 21, 1776
January 20, 2009 at 6:50 am
what’s up Mikey…. or down maybe….
cat ate your tongue???
January 20, 2009 at 7:47 am
Last thing first.
As a PhD Physicist I understand Hawking much more than you do… that’s for certain… but it is also beside the point I was trying to make by mentioning his name… forget it…
As for my breezing past several quotes… it’s obvious that only thing you can do is quote someone else… that’s kind of a born defect amongst all of you religious folks… endless quoting of who said what and when…
just trying to find someone to back up your bullshit…
“…How does atheism tell me how I OUGHT to live? ”
OK.. are you telling me that you need someone to tell you how you OUGHT to live? Is that it? Christ maybe, or your local pastor…
Do you really need church to be moral. Would you be immoral, bad, serial killer if it weren’t for churches and pastors and Popes…
Stalin, Mao and others were madmen… atheists? maybe, maybe not… But they didn’t do that because of atheism but because the were mad men. Hitler wasn’t an atheist… and we know what he did.
January 20, 2009 at 8:03 am
It rather disturbs me that you so cavalierly breeze past the fact that you used blatantly false information regarding the Jefferson quote. You don’t even acknowledge your falsehood.
And then, as though that were not bad enough, you breeze past Adam’s quote: ““We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Apparently, a false quote supporting atheism is more true for you than a true quote supporting religion. And then you just completely disregard all the others. I suppose they don’t matter to you at all.
Adams was one of the leading men at the Constitutional Convention. As it so happens, Jefferson wasn’t even there (he was out of the country).
You don’t understand something that all these men did. Religion provides the only possible foundation for morality. And all of our Democratic institutions and individual freedoms derive from God.
Let’s go to something Jefferson DID write – the Declaration of Independence – to see that:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
You have mentioned Christians “killing people in the name of God.” And that certainly happened. But I can go to the SOURCE – the PARADIGM – of Christianity and show that that was NOT Christian. Jesus is my paradigm. I get my understanding of what it means to be a Christian from Him, from His life and from His teachings.
Now let me ask you something: what about the WAY OVER 100 million deaths – committed during peacetime – attributed to atheism? You HAVE heard of Stalin’s purges of 50 million people? You’ve heard of Mao’s purge of 60 million people? How about Pol Pot in Cambodia and the more than 1 million he had killed in purges? And the untold millions who have now starved or been killed by North Korea? All officially atheist. All having atheism as their official ideology. And all having murdered millions of people in ideological purges. The worst crimes of Christians – who again I can show were acting CONTRARY to Christianity – appear feeble in comparison to the shocking horrors caused by atheism.
I can add to those tolls the work of the Nazis, by the way. I really have no idea why you’d bring them up as though they were a point for you. That movie out now? Do you know that the hero – Col. Claus von Stauffenberg – was a devout Christian? How about another hero who stood against the Holocaust and died trying to take out Hitler – Dietrich Bonehoeffer? Or the thousands of “Confession Church” pastors and leaders who were put in the death camps for their stand for the Jews? Or the unknown thousands of Christians like the Ten Booms who were caught sheltering Jews and went to the death camps for their efforts?
Now let me get to the roots of Nazism: Darwinism. Sorry. But it’s a documented reality.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26092
http://www.csustan.edu/history/faculty/weikart/fromdarwintohitler.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life
There’s more. George Steiner wrote, “By killing the Jews, Western Culture would eradicate those who had “invented” God… The Holocaust is a reflex, the more complete for being long inhibited, of natural sensory consciousness, of instinctual polytheistic and animist needs.” Ernst Nolte defined “fascism” as “the practical and violent resistance to transcendence.” The Nazis killed the Jews because they hated the concept of a transcendent God and the transcendent moral law which flowed from belief in God. They believed that by eradicating the Jews they could eradicate God from Western Civilization.
The Holocaust was no more “Christian” than abortion is “Christian.” It came from people who believe like you, not from people who believe like me.
Let me ask you something: I told you that I can show how murder in the name of Christ is COMPLETELY UN-Christian. But can you please show me how murder in the name of atheism is “UN-atheistic”?
Let’s take your boy, Joseph Stalin. Leader of the atheist world. Murdered 50 million people in the name of his atheist ideology in purges designed to preserve HIS power system. How was he a bad atheist?
You explain that. Explain to me that “social Darwinism” has nothing to do with Darwinism. Explain to me how survival of the fittest is INCOMPATIBLE with wiping out my competition. How does atheism tell me how I OUGHT to live? What are the moral tenants of atheism? When do I know if I’m doing something wrong according to atheist morality? Is atheist morality written down somewhere so I can examine it?
The founding fathers such as Adams – whom you mock – understood something you sadly do not.
Btw, for all your arrogance, I kind of doubt that you understand Stephen Hawking’s work any better than I do.
January 20, 2009 at 8:09 am
I have to give up on you.
You start out by throwing a quote at Jefferson at me. Which was a lie.
Then you mock a quote by Adams. Which was a true quote.
Now you are telling me – after throwing a quote at me – that “it’s obvious that the only thing I can do is quote someone else… that’s kind of a born defect amongst all of you religious folks. You have an addiction to hypocrisy I just don’t want to deal with.
You can be as depraved as you want to be and be a perfectly fulfilled atheist. There IS no foundation for a people to come together and live moral lives in harmony with one one another. That was Adams point. After Jefferson – whom you deceitfully quoted before calling the whole institution of quoting narrow-minded – pointed out that our freedoms were grounded in God.
Stalin, Mao, et al may well have been madmen, but they were certainly card-carrying atheists. As for Hitler, he was brought up in a nominally Catholic home. But he was an AVOWED EVOLUTIONIST. There is NO reason to argue that he was a “Christian.”
You have no foundation for morality as an atheist, other than living however the hell you want. There’s the basis for an total nihilistic society where the strong crush the weak. You have no reason to uphold that saving someone’s life (particularly a handicapped person who is a “defective”) is one iota better than murdering the same person.
Now go away. Hypocrites bore me. And you are clearly a hypocrite, with your constantly changing standards.
January 20, 2009 at 10:41 am
My standards never change, nor my beliefs…
My only addiction is pot and lesbian sex… that’s all
bye
March 11, 2009 at 7:29 am
Bil Maher is the man. Religion causes more trouble than it prevents. The truth hurts, and nobody wants to hear it.
My only regret is, then when we are all dead and gone, there will be no way for me to tell everyone “I told you so” because these is no afterlife and there is no god. Notice I did not capitalize god, because although it is a noun, it’s more of a “thing” as opposed to a person or a place. The “thing” is the biggest hoax known to mankind.
March 11, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Javier,
Yeah, I noticed. And I’m sure God noticed too. Come judgment day He will take it up with you.
Religion causes more trouble than it prevents? Tell that to the 50+ million people buried in shallow graves that Joseph Stalin murdered on behalf of his godless atheist state. Tell that to the 60 million people murdered under Chairman Mao in China (not to mention Tienanmen Square and Lord only knows how many secret executions). Tell that to the millions murdered in Cambodia under Pol Pot. Tell that to the millions who have died recently and continue to die under Kim Jong Il and his godless communist dictatorship.
No God means no transcendent human dignity. No God means the state becomes “God” and does whatever it wills. No God means humans are meat puppets possessing no soul, and no free will. No God means that social Darwinism is true and valid and the strong SHOULD crush the weak and weak humans should be exterminated to improve the race just as Hitler – BECAUSE of his Darwinian beliefs – attempted to do.
March 12, 2009 at 11:06 am
Nor did I say it does.
What I said is there is too much killing going on in the name of god and no one seems to mind because, hey, it is in the name of god. The same god who told Moses on the top of the mountain that killing is wrong; yea, the same god who supposedly flooded the Earth for 40 days/nights killing EVERYONE. The same one who ordered Cain to murder his children.
The grandfather of the Octu-mom woman said he would take care of the kids because they are “children of god” although they were test-tube babies.
You tell the people that died on 9/11 that they did not die in vain, since they died in the name of god. It just wasn’t our god; it was the god of a religion which has been around much longer than the one you preach.
You tell all the family members of the all the victims of murderers who got away with a light sentence because they were declared temporarily insane when they killed a bunch of kids in the name of god.
You tell the American soldiers who are getting shot in the back by 8 year olds that they did not die in vain, either. Since they are fighting a war sparked by religious contradictions. Explain to them why our currency says “IN GOD WE TRUST” while we drop bombs on Hiroshima and our political leaders (whom the majority are Christian, might I add), continue to get caught in hotel rooms with hookers, buying/selling senate seats, cheating, lying, stealing, conveniently mismanage government funds, and pump money into research and development of even more weapons and destructive devices.
Why don’t you mention how many people were killed in the Crusades? How many people were killed during the colonization of the West while they were trying to flee their home countries so they can practice their own religion? How many people are killed daily in Middle-Eastern countries with the holy wars going on over there?
The only “judgement day” I will ever be forced to face would be from a judge here in the real world when I get hit with assault charges for trying to slap sense into people like you. Even if I am wrong about the ridiculous concepts by which you have chosen to WASTE your life abiding by, I have no fear for my soul. I help old ladies across the street, I sponsor a child in the Christian Children’s Fund (go figure), I send clothing to the Dominican Republic to help the unfortunate, I recycle and I advocate protecting out planet, and I donate money constantly to the Red Cross and to any disastrous cause (i.e. Tsunami, Katrina, etc.); and that’s just off the top of my head.
So if with all the good I do (without the guide of religion, might I add) is not enough to prove to you that some people are genuinely good and others are genuinely bad, I really don’t know what else to tell you.
If you’re right, I’ll be listening for your voice from up above telling me you told me so.
BTW: Don’t even get me started on Darwinian beliefs. Mankind is VERY hypocritical and compares itself to the animal kingdom when it is convenient, and segregates itself from it when it is not. Survival of the fittest occurs throughout the entire animal kingdom, or god’s kingdom as you would call it. The US did not engage Iraq because of survival of the fittest, did it? Hitler was a madman. Do not compare apples to oranges. I psycho cannot be compared to a Darwinian. I’ve read your posts and while I obviously do not agree with your stance, you seem to be intelligent enough so as to not make such a far-fetched comparison.
March 12, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I quit reading after your second incredibly major factual error.
1) God did NOT tell Cain to kill his children. In fact, God spared Cain’s life. He went off and had children, and God did not order any of them killed.
2) Islam is nowhere NEAR as old as either Christianity or Judaism. Islam came about in the 7th century AD; Christianity was in the first century, and Judaism goes back to the 14th or 15th century BC just with Moses (NOT going back to Abraham).
So you are wrong. WRONG. You are also wrong to conflate the sins of Islam with Christianity or Judaism. YOUR side is far more “tolerant” of militant Islam than mine. Not our baby. We know that there is a Satan, and that he has his hand in Islam, and Hinduism, etc. And militant Islam – for all of its horrors today – is STILL not responsible for anywhere near the deaths that communist/atheist regimes like North Korea are. MILLIONS have starved to death under Kim Jong Il.
The Crusades, the Inquisition, all of them put together are a tiny fraction of what atheists did. And the atheists did it THIS CENTURY.
As for your last paragraph. This from an earlier article I wrote:
This copied from one of my earlier articles:
“Nazi Doctors began presenting their views – based on Darwinism and the best “science” – of the superiority of the Aryan race and the corresponding need – in the name of Darwinian “survival of the fittest” – to eliminate inferior people in order to forge the master race. Other doctors – affirming the aforementioned theories – delved into eugenics and other measures to create and shape that master race. And all the while philosophers and other German intellectuals were developing the concept of Lebensunwertes Leben (”life unworthy to be lived”).
Adolf Hitler – who was shaped and influenced by these intellectuals’ ideas – was merely one of the architects who put them all together. The view that the Jews were a subhuman race whose very existence posed a threat to the German people, and to the German Weltanschauung (for a more in depth understanding, click here).
I can’t disagree with you that atheists are incredibly inconsistent with the application of their Darwinism. That’s again on you; not on religious people. The fact that your “people” aren’t honest enough to embrace the obvious implications of their own philosophy is actually an incredibly powerful point in my favor that atheism doesn’t work, and can’t work.
Maybe next time you write back you can explain how Joseph Stalin – or any mass murderer for that matter – is a “bad atheist.”
March 13, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I haven’t brushed up on my Sunday School notes for a while so I’m sure you are right ab out the Cain/offspring deal. I must have gotten the names confused, but I honestly cannot remember the correct one. That story is somewhere in the collection of fairy tales which is known as the bible; you can believe that.
Christianity is NOT the oldest religion, and there is plenty of documentation on that. People in Africa and all over the world, for that matter, have been worshiping the sun, moon and starts as gods for longer than anything was even being documented. There are other documented religions which are older, though.
As for your articles on as rebuttal to my last paragraph: – based on Darwinism and the best “science” – Need I really say more? So basically, he took the concept of “survival of the fittest” and added a madman’s twist to it, and now Atheism is responsible for the Holocaust? No, RACISM was responsible for that. He was targeting blacks and Jews and homosexuals and anything that was not white. How do you figure that a lack of religious faith was responsible for that?
“The Crusades, the Inquisition, all of them put together are a tiny fraction of what atheists did. And the atheists did it THIS CENTURY.” Are you serious? Don’t you think if the people from this era had planes with bombs, armed tanks, guns, and the technology that was available to people in THIS CENTURY, the number of people killed would be a WEE bit higher? Not to mention, the world was MUCH less populated in those times, and there were literally less people to kill.
There is no such thing as a bad atheist; only bad people. An atheist can be good or evil at heart, and his/her actions will follow what it is in his/her heart.
March 13, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Just to make sure we understand each other, I’ll repeat. You acknowledge that your example was false; and you excuse yourself for providing a lie as an example because you are ignorant. But rather than admit you are incorrect and move on, you stubbornly cling to your demented notion that God orders babies killed because you are a patently biased ideologue and you don’t frankly give a damn about the truth unless you think it supports your twisted views. Fine. Pleased to meet you.
Now maybe you’re referring to the story that illustrated the wisdom of Solomon. Two women came to him, both claiming the same baby was hers. And Solomon – to expose the ruse – ordered the child cut in half with the sword, with a piece of the child being given to each woman. The fake mother was satisfied, the real mother cried that the child be given to the other woman; and the truth was known. Solomon did NOT have the child killed, but returned to the real mother.
Nazism wasn’t just about Hitler. The “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” (just so you know it came from the LEFT, and not the right – change it to ‘National Socialist American Workers’ Party’ and see what I mean) was the effort of a nation. Tens of thousands of German scientists – Germany being the MOST educated and scientific in the world – and Darwinian eugenics was extremely popular.
It was SO popular, in fact, that it was going on here, too. And our only madman was FDR. Lest we think this was just about the evil of the Nazis, think again. The “science” behind Nazi thinking was pioneered by American researchers:
[Dr. Harry Hamilton] Laughlin’s Eugenical Sterilization in the United States established him as an expert on the topic. His model sterilization laws were used by many of the more than 30 states that passed sterilization laws. Germany’s 1933 sterilization laws were also modeled after Laughlin’s. Laughlin’s immigration studies, which seemed to support the idea that recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe had a higher percentage of “socially inadequate” persons than other immigrants, led to the highly restrictive immigration quota system of 1924 which favored immigrants from Northern Europe. As is evident in the Laughlin Collection, Dr. Laughlin also devoted considerable time and effort developing his ideas for a common world government.
Now, when it comes to blaming who for deaths, I’m just looking at the numbers. And well over 100 million people systematically murdered in peacetime while atheist/communist totalitarian leaders (because, really, why NOT be a totalitarian if you’re an atheist leader?) is a pretty big number. Your argument is, “If those Crusaders and Inquisitors had had modern weapons, they would have been just as murderous. And my counter would be, “IF those Crusaders and Inquisitors had had modern weapons, their Christian faith (e.g. the printing press that produced Bibles so every Christian could afford to have one) would have likewise been more informed, and they wouldn’t have done much of what they did. YOU, on the other hand, can’t make such an argument, given that communists were mass murdering throughout the modern era, and continue to do so today.
As for your last trivial observation, you never answered my question: what would make a Joseph Stalin a bad atheist? You cite the Crusades and the Inquisition: I can go on all day long about how much of what they did directly violated the teachings of Jesus Christ, making them bad Christians (i.e. not genuine Christians at all). But what about Stalin, Mao, Pot, and Kim Jong Il: what makes them bad atheists when they murdered so many in the name of an officially godless regime and agenda?
And when you say, “An atheist can be good or evil at heart,” let me ask: what do you mean, “good or evil”? Explain how “evil” belongs to your view. “Evil” is a departure from the way things ought to be; you need a religious world view in order to account for it. Evolution cannot be prescriptive and tell us how we ought to be. That’s why the Columbine killers recorded themselves saying, “We are no longer human, for we have evolved beyond human morality.” And how do you as a Darwinian argue that they didn’t?
Christianity provides a framework for a moral system. Atheism most certainly does not (or if it does, it is the law of the jungle, kill before you are killed). Christianity provided the framework for science (you do know that science arose out of Christendom, do you not?); for universities (the university system grew out of monasteries; and 106 of the first 108 colleges in this country were founded as Christian institutions); and even for the democratic republic of the United States – which has been the most successful nation in the history of the world.
And our founding fathers knew it:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens…”
– George Washington, Farewell Address, Sept 17, 1796
“We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
– John Adams
March 16, 2009 at 9:58 am
“Just to make sure we understand each other, I’ll repeat. You acknowledge that your example was false; and you excuse yourself for providing a lie as an example because you are ignorant. But rather than admit you are incorrect and move on, you stubbornly cling to your demented notion that God orders babies killed because you are a patently biased ideologue and you don’t frankly give a damn about the truth unless you think it supports your twisted views. Fine. Pleased to meet you.”
Not a lie; although I’ll give you ignorant. Yes, I am ignorant on all the fairy tales that make up your faith. If I felt like memorizing all the bible stories would provide useful knowledge worth having, I would be more familiar with it. However, since it is has as much merit as a book full of Mother Goose rhymes, you will have to forgive me for not caring, as you so aptly put it. As far as the pleasure: Trust me; it is all yours. You are a condescending prick, and I’ll bet god, although imaginary, is probably your only friend.
“As for your last trivial observation, you never answered my question: what would make a Joseph Stalin a bad atheist? You cite the Crusades and the Inquisition: I can go on all day long about how much of what they did directly violated the teachings of Jesus Christ, making them bad Christians (i.e. not genuine Christians at all). But what about Stalin, Mao, Pot, and Kim Jong Il: what makes them bad atheists when they murdered so many in the name of an officially godless regime and agenda?”
Are you trying to tell me that if the above mentioned had baby Jesus in their life, they would not have killed anyone? People kill people; always have and always will. Just a few hundred years ago in the wild west, when two grown men had a disagreement, they would line up back-to-back, take 10 steps and draw. No one would think twice about it. THAT is my definition of survival of the fittest. Mass murder because you are culturally, racially, or religiously different is not survival of the fittest; it’s lunacy. Because of the fact that I do not believe in religion, does not mean I am incapable of seeing the difference between right/wrong and/or good/evil. It is insulting that you would make that argument. It is your priests that are sodomizing altar boys using your church as a dirty blanket (no pun intended); not me. Either way, evil is a relative term depending on who you ask it to; so what makes you so arrogant to think that what your religion says is evil should be given more worth than what someone/something else says is evil?
“Now, when it comes to blaming who for deaths, I’m just looking at the numbers. And well over 100 million people systematically murdered in peacetime while atheist/communist totalitarian leaders (because, really, why NOT be a totalitarian if you’re an atheist leader?) is a pretty big number. Your argument is, “If those Crusaders and Inquisitors had had modern weapons, they would have been just as murderous. And my counter would be, “IF those Crusaders and Inquisitors had had modern weapons, their Christian faith (e.g. the printing press that produced Bibles so every Christian could afford to have one) would have likewise been more informed, and they wouldn’t have done much of what they did. YOU, on the other hand, can’t make such an argument, given that communists were mass murdering throughout the modern era, and continue to do so today.”
Ummmm…..during the Crusades, people were approached and asked to “embrace the cross, or die”. According to you, if they had a printing press, the Crusades would have consisted of a bunch of bible-pushers walking around giving people a copy of the good book as opposed to slaying them. That is BS, and you know it. It is obvious that they were not following the teachings of Christ if they were killing people, but that is not the point. The point is, they are just more deaths in the name of religion. It is not plausible to kill people in the name of Atheism. Killing for selfish reasons already has a term: Murder. God-fearing people commit murder all the time. Whether it is because a spouse cheated, to road rage, or whatever the case may be. Faith alone does not make people good; not by a long shot.
“Christianity provides a framework for a moral system. Atheism most certainly does not (or if it does, it is the law of the jungle, kill before you are killed).”
WOAH! Finally….something we can agree on. I do believe religion provides a framework for morality. I also believe, Atheism does not offer moral teaching; it doesn’t offer any teachings at all, actually. I do believe that because of the belief in god, an axe-murderer will not go killing people because although he may not be scared of jail, he may be scared of hell and so not commit those heinous acts due to the values he received from church. However, by that same token, you have the extremists who feel they will gloriously in the eyes of their god if they strap themselves with bombs and kill a bunch of innocent people. You say that “we Atheists” are killing people in the modern era, but all I see is religious wars in the middle east, and then Christian president of the US deploying troops and asking the whole world to join him in the ‘war against terror”. Who are these Atheists that you say are sparking war and killing thousands?
You like quotes? Here’s one for you:
“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago — a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people.
“Then indeed when Rome collapsed there were endless streams of new German bands flowing into the Empire from the North; but, if Germany collapses today, who is there to come after us? German blood upon this earth is on the way to gradual exhaustion unless we pull ourselves together and make ourselves free!
“And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.”
Adolf Hitler (Munich speech on 4/22/1922)
Yea, we Atheists Darwanians are some bad, BAD boys.
March 16, 2009 at 9:23 pm
First of all you’ll refrain from vulgar language if you want to continue to be able to express your views. I don’t accept that, nor should I have to.
Condescending? I suppose it takes one to know one.
I am amazed that you regard your own ignorance as a virtue. You despise religion, so ignorance of religion is okay. Thus there is no chance that you will ever be able to learn anything that could overcome your atheism. The mindset of a true ideologue, this.
Prior to the Crusades, the Christian emperor of Constantinople found his empire under attack. So he implored the pope for aid. The pope intended to send a relative small fighting force; but his language inspired – or incited – a massive “force” of poorly armed or unarmed non-soldiers who were massacred. Very few of the people of the early 12th century had ever so much as touched a Bible, much less read one. They knew NOTHING of the teachings of the Bible, or of Christ. You have an opinion that a genuine knowledge of the Christian life and worldview would not have changed their conduct; I disagree entirely. Christendom responded to an attack, and they were far less than perfect in that response. We agree.
But let’s look at your counterparts – the pagans who had robbed, murdered, raped, and killed until they embraced Christianity. The Huns, the Vandals, the Visigoths, Vikings, etc. If you want to claim that Christianity made you violent and being ungodly made you virtuous, you are simply foolish beyond the point of absurdity.
Now you mention a speech by Hitler. It is interesting that you have to go back all the way to 1922 – when Hitler was just beginning his rise to power – to quote him as talking about (and misrepresenting) Christianity. Germany – once the seat of the Protestant Reformation – had largely forfeited all but token religiosity by this time. The schools of “higher criticism,” “documentary hypothesis,” and other forms of liberal German theology which held the Bible to be a collection of myths and fables had taken a toll on the faith of the culture. But Hitler knew he still needed to pay lip service to Christianity if he wanted to win the people and gain power. He would have done anything or said anything to get to power. So he faked it. Very much like Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean faked Christianity. And ignorant people – as you openly acknowledge yourself to be – will never be able to tell the real thing from the forgery.
In the same speech, Hitler also said:
“Christian capitalism’ is already as good as destroyed, the international Jewish Stock Exchange capital gains in proportion as the other loses ground. It is only the international Stock Exchange and loan-capital, the so-called ‘supra-state capital,’ which has profited from the collapse of our economic life, the capital which receives its character from the single supra-state nation which is itself national to the core, which fancies itself to be above all other nations, which places itself above other nations and which already rules over them.”
But let’s look how the Nazis REALLY viewed Christianity:
As Hannah Arendt described in her book, Eichmann In Jerusalem, when convicted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows, “He was in complete command of himself, nay, he was more; he was completely himself. Nothing could have demonstrated this more convincingly than the grotesque silliness of his last words. He began by stating emphatically that he was a Gottglaubiger, to express in common Nazi fashion that he was no Christian and did not believe in life after death.”
Being a Nazi meant REPUDIATING Christianity, not embracing it. And in your embrace of Darwinism, atheism, and political leftist politics, you are FAR more in tune with the Nazis than I have ever been. Just so you know, “NAZI” is an acronym for “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” Let’s change that to “National Socialist American Workers’ Party,” and discuss which American political party better fits that description.
March 17, 2009 at 9:11 am
You continue to say I am ignorant to the religion, which is untrue. The difference is that you obviously chose to learn more on the subject than I did. The fact that you know more about the subject makes you more informed; it does not make me ignorant. I have my communion and confirmation done, and shortly after that time is when I decided to separate myself from what I had been taught and try to find my own way. I looked into several other religions, and one was more ridiculous than the next. Then, I had the ultimate break-through. The only one that makes sense as opposed to being a collection of stories which belongs in the fiction section as opposed to the reference section in which you find biblical texts.
Your problem is obviously that you are delusional in your views because you have been brain-washed into believing in something and you are incapable to thinking for yourself. I don’t believe in religion, or in big politics, or any other way of thinking/being in which individualism and the ability to think for oneself is discouraged by instilling a set of rules/guidelines which we are supposed to adhere to while the people that makes the rules and preach the rules themselves do whatever they want.
You say Hitler had to pay “lip service to Christianity” to win people over. I say that, my friend, is a lie. You like to quote people and use history when it is convenient to you and your cause. Just like every other bible-pusher I’ve ever met. When I mixed my fantasy bible stories and mentioned that Cain was ordered to kill his children, and you came back calling me a liar yet you failed to acknowledge the fact that YOU lied when you said Hitler was an Atheist when there is plenty of documentation that proves otherwise; that proves he was a man of faith.
I picked that quote out of many. Yes, it was from 1922. Almost 2 decades before the start of WWII. What difference does that make? According to you, Hitler was faking Christianity to win people over. Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt here…..even if that is the case, what is the point of your “framework for morality” if a man of flesh can pretend he believes and god and get an army of real believers and convince to go against everything they stand for by becoming the means of Hitler’s genocidal ways? You are WRONG. If anything, and Hitler was indeed an Atheist, he used religion to convince people that the war he was waging was right under the eyes of god. So even if he manipulated the religion to get people to believe in him, religion is STILL the weak link which allowed Hitler to do what he did.
Also, if Hitler was such an Atheist, why did he have such a problem with killing Jews? A true Atheist would be completely biased as to what religion someone practices, because the Atheist does not care for any or all of them. If you told me Hitler only wanted to kill black and yellow people to promote a single white race, then fine. Jews are not a race, though. Homosexuals are not a race, and he killed them in abundance, too.
What about modern day Christian-based cults? Like the Waco, TX incident…..more lunacy inspired by religion.
Now the Crusades were “a misunderstanding” of the Pope’s orders? How do you confuse “thou shalt not kill” with “embrace the cross or die”?
March 17, 2009 at 9:37 am
Oh, and by the way, “prick” is not vulgar. Trust me, I should know what vulgar is. After all, I am a god-less Atheist. Did I miss the class in Sunday school which taught “thou shalt not curse”?
No, I’m pretty sure mankind was able to figure that one out on their own. Much like we could have figured killing people is wrong on our own, too. Even though the cavemen used to kill each other over a piece of raw meat, but that isn’t mentioned in the bible since it happened way before the time that the biggest hoax known to mankind (I am referring to religion here) was, ahem, recorded. Well, if you even want to call it that. I’d say fabricated is a more appropriate term.
I’ll tell you what. I am baptizing my daughter in April. I am doing it for my family more than for me, obviously. I will let you know if any chandeliers starts shaking or if the holy water starts bubbling when I walk into the church.
According to the bible, miracles like that were a dime a dozen in the bible days. Yet the best god has nowadays is the face of holy icon on a piece of toast which sold on eBay to a casino who used the piece of toast to attract more customers into their establishment. So, religion was used to attract people to an establishment which promotes drinking and gambling. Go, baby jesus, go.
Now, THAT^^^^ is condescending. I guess you forgot that you were already being condescending with Kate before I even jumped in on the subject.
March 17, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I think we both know precisely what anatomical part you were calling me – and that IS vulgar (or if you want to quibble over vulgar, let’s just go to just plain rude). I don’t call people such things on MY site, and I won’t allow others to use that language against me. Whether the Bible says, “thou shalt not curse” or not.
I am more than willing to mud wrestle with atheists and liberals. And I will give as good as I get. Just watch that you don’t carry the personal attacks too far.
The act of baptizing your daughter is meaningless, unless she is taught to embrace the Christian worldview. She’s just getting wet. Soren Kierkegaard said that a father owes his child a Christian view of the world as much as a mother owes her child her milk. What your daughter needs far more than a baptism is a father who will raise her to love and respect her Creator God.
Miracles were never “a dime a dozen” in the Bible. When Jesus fed the 5000 with a few loaves and fishes, everybody KNEW it was a miracle because stuff like that just didn’t happen. When Jesus walked on water, the disciples were utterly terrified because stuff like that just didn’t happen. This is the kind of ignorance I’m talking about: atheists present a straw man argument against the possibility of miracles, saying that if we allow for miracles, we suspend any belief in natural laws. But miracles occur only when God – the creator of natural laws – steps in and personally acts. Gravity is a natural law. If a knock a glass off the table, it will fall on the floor and break. Unless, that is, someone reaches out and catches the glass before it falls. That’s what God does in miracles. And there are plenty of Christians to attest to the fact that miracles are still happening today. My mother just had breast cancer surgery. The PET/CT and MRI scans showed that her tumors had not reduced in size, and were matted around her nerve. When the surgeon went in, within a weak of those scans, she found that the tumors HAD shrunk dramatically and there was no matting. The surgeon used the word “miracle.” You don’t believe in miracles? Fine. If you didn’t believe in China, it wouldn’t mean that China didn’t exist.
In the Bible, miracles always accompany new divine revelation. When God revealed Himself as deliverer to and through Moses with the Jews in Egypt, a lot of divine revelation, and a lot of miracles to show God’s people God was speaking. But before the coming of Christ, God had not spoken to Israel for 400 years (no miracles). And when Jesus announced Himself as Messiah, lots of miracles. When the apostles presented themselves as teaching the authoritative gospel of Christ, lots of miracles. After their message was authenticated and God finished the New Testament, not so many miracles. Except in the continuing lives of individual believers.
God holds every human being responsible for their beliefs and actions, but He gave us free will (how do YOU account for free will on your view that we are all biologically-determined meat puppets, anyway?) – He doesn’t force your choice. You don’t want to open your mind up to His existence, He’s not going to perform a dog and pony show to change your mind. C.S. Lewis described the atheist in the literal pits of hell, still denying that God exists and telling himself over and over again that he’s only having a dream.
You’ve mentioned Christians and war. First of all, let me point out – through the words of our founding fathers, who were in a position to know – that a viable democracy came out of religious foundations:
Then allow me to point out that no democracy has ever attacked another, or warred on another.
Yes, a government founded on Christian principles will fight against evil. It will fight against those who have repeatedly done great evil in the past, and which threatens to continue to do more evil. A government founded on Christian principles will still fight to protect itself and will fight to preserve the greater peace in the world. Sometimes it’s a judgment call, and good men on both sides will be able to offer valid arguments for or against going to war. But the very rationale for going to war (or not) derives from Christian principles, particularly those elaborated by Augustine’s “Just war” argument.
But if you are going to try to argue that Western democracies – which derived their democratic status from Christendom – are “warmongers,” you will find yourself on a very uphill slope.
March 17, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Given that you have stated as facts things that weren’t true about religion and the Bible, you have two choices: you are either ignorant, or you are a malicious liar. By calling you ignorant, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt.
I have written about the very clear link between Hitler’s Nazi fascism and Darwinism. I don’t need to keep going back to that well. It is a historical fact.
Why DID Hitler hate the Jews so much? It was, in the words of one thinker, “A reaction against transcendence.” By killing the Jew who brought mankind God, the Nazis thought they could ultimately rid the world of God and His transcendant morality.
Are today’s socialists FOR religion, or against it?
Jonah Goldberg, in his book Liberal Fascism, exhaustively provides original sources to show how atheistic and anti-Christian fascism was at its core.
Finally, the Bible has always stated – in both Testaments – that there are religions of demons. I think that Islam is demonic – and the more deeply you get into it, the more evil you become. Other religions are self-deceiving. Atheism itself is a religion, in the sense that it offers answers to the same questions that all religions offer answers to. You have a doctrine of God, a doctrine of man, a doctrine of the world, an eschatology, etc. Christians believe in the exclusive truth claim of Jesus who said, “I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life. No man comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
You yourself said that atheism offers no moral system. In point of fact, consistent atheism precludes a moral system. Beyond might makes right, the strong eat the weak, and survival of the fittest by any means necessary, that is.
You say religions are ridiculous? Look at the problems facing your own:
To illustrate, let me quote Gleason Archer, from page 55-56 of his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties:
March 24, 2009 at 5:30 am
For anyone else who wants to pursue Javiar Garcia’s argument that Hitler was a Jesus-lovin’ Christian, please read the article, “The Nazis and Christianity” in the American Thinker by Bruce Walker before saying that Hitler and Nazism were Christian.
Because otherwise I will skewer you with it, and you will skulk away feeling embarrassed.
March 24, 2009 at 9:02 am
[…] reminds me of one of my early articles about one of Bill Maher’s hateful and unhinged attacks on Pope Benedict. He labeled a man as a Nazi who had personally been a victim of Nazi oppression. Bill Maher, in […]
March 9, 2010 at 10:40 pm
You sick f____, just because someone is a “teenager” doesn’t remove the word child from the crime of child molestation. Under age is under age. You make a sick argument. The Pope would be better served by the devil himself.
March 10, 2010 at 4:43 pm
With very little due respect, you are a complete moral moron. And the only thing sick is you for your asinine “under age is under age” idiocy.
So you truly think sexually molesting a six month old is categorically identical to having sex with someone who is 17 years and 364 days old? Really???
You’re the one who makes a sick argument, and a truly sick one at that.
In the past, even in Western culture, it was common for teenagers to be married as young as 13 and 14 – especially for girls, but also for teenage boys (aka “young men”).
Here’s a little factoid:
But you think sex with an infant is the same exact thing as sex with someone who is considered old enough to take up the duties of a man and a warrior? And go off and fight wars and sacrifice his life for his country???
I can go to culture/civilization after culture/civilization to find supporting examples of teenagers being considered mature enough to fight wars, get married, and produce the next generation. I challenge you to find me one single example – in support of your “under age is under age” stupidity – of a major civilization that deemed it desirable to have sex with infants and small children.
By the time one reaches one’s teens, one is physically and sexually mature. And you think there is no difference between one who is physically and sexually mature from one who is crawling around the floor in diapers.
Our older age for marriage (18+) is a recent thing; and has gradually increased because our society is so technical that it is taking longer to reach the point where one is considered an “adult.”
You are a truly vapid individual to not realize that.
But it gets worse. Because you not only condemn me – and with a lot of hate at that. But you condemn God. Do you realize that the Virgin Mary may have been as young as 12-14 at the time of the immaculate conception??? And she was almost certainly no older than 16. So you turn God Himself into a child molester by your absolutely bizarre standard.
As a matter of fact, I do believe that minors should be protected from sexual intercourse – especially with older adults. I’m just not so brain-dead stupid that I can’t discriminate between sex with a little baby in diapers and sex with someone who is old enough to drive a car, get married (in the recent past), and go to war (to this very day). My point was not that a priest taking advantage of his position and influence to seduce a teenage boy is somehow right, but that it isn’t “pedophilia.” Not when the teenager is a fully developed, sexually mature very-near adult.
June 4, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Cozzen’s number is too high. Most studies don’t agree with his findings.
Macaca is an odd term. It was a European term for natives in Africa, a Dutch racial slur for Moroco’s people, a Haitan slur for an idiot or stupid person, or a French-African term for Indians. Since Allen’s mother is of French-African decent, it was assumed that he meant the latter.
June 4, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I have no idea how many homosexual priests there are, and I hope I never find out. But there are a whopping load of them, simply based on the median average of the studies. What has attracted so many homosexual men to this occupation?
The whole “Macaca” thing will always burn my butt. Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that just a couple years ago Barack Obama would be fetching them coffee for such white gentlemen. That wasn’t racist. And Harry Reid “complimented” Obama by pointing out he was a light-skinned negro with no trace of Negro dialect. That wasn’t racist.
But using a word none of us had ever heard of, with myriad possible etymologies and meanings? Now THAT’S racist.
July 3, 2012 at 5:05 am
One clearly has to be very careful not to be persuaded by every comment on the net BUT if the catholic faithful would be a little more analytical and a lot less emotional even they would realize that the Catholic church is and has always been a degenerate malignancy
July 3, 2012 at 12:30 pm
merry,
Boy, were YOU ever poorly named.
the Catholic church is and has always been a degenerate malignancy
One clearly has to be very careful not to be persuaded by every comment on the net BUT if the catholic faithful would be a little more analytical and a lot less emotional even they would realize that the Catholic church is and has always been a degenerate malignancy.
That vile cockroach Mother Teresa. I’m sure she’s rotting in hell now.
Because if she isn’t, Merry, YOU WILL BE.
615 Catholic hospitals account for 12.5% of community hospitals in the United States, and over 15.5% of all U.S. hospital admissions. The number one-ranked hospital in America is Catholic, and 29 of the best hospitals in America are Catholic.
I know, I know, Merry, YOU’VE done more good, I’m sure.
I think I can safely state which of you are a “degenerate malignancy.”
Buh-bye.
July 11, 2012 at 6:28 am
No debate necessary…as a straight choice between an enduring association with the fictitious Lucifer or exposure to the Catholic church I will go for the old fellow everytime.
July 11, 2012 at 11:37 am
merry,
I have very good news for you regarding your future. Soon the Antichrist, the beast, will come. You will love him. In fact you will worship him as the fulfillment of all of your wildest big government dreams. You will proudly take his mark. Things will be very good for you.
Just not for very long. Ultimately hell is awaiting both you AND your antichrist fals messiahs.
Joshua put it well: “Choose this day whom you will serve… As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
The nice thing about God is that He’s the kind of Being who wants everyone to repent and gives everyone until their last breath to do so.
July 11, 2012 at 11:26 pm
Ah tthe Anti Christ! The Borgia family and the Pope spawned (let alone other questionable Popes) the Conquistadores/Knights Templar/Crusaders/ Hospitalers/ the horrors of the Inquisition/The selling of Indulgences/Excommunication of mother and daughter but forgiveness of rapist father/nuns beating an illegitimate baby sinner/Chistian Brothers and sisters of Mercy AND a whole Lot of priests the world over who are paedophiles but protected by their seniors?????? and YOU worry about the ANTI Christ.Consider the senior Vatican incumbent who allegedly brought drug money into the Holy seat of Rome.Papal infallability now questioned and does Purgatory still exist.Oh dear why bother.
July 12, 2012 at 8:47 am
Merry,
You take all the very worst horrors of the entire 2,000 year history of the Christian church, and it doesn’t amount to one-one-thousandth of the suffering your atheism has caused in the modern world.
State atheist communists murdered more than 110 MILLION of their own people during peacetime alone during the last century. And when you research “state atheism” you’ll find that 95% of “state atheism” has been communism. So wear it.
Then we think about the millions more who were killed in wars of communist aggression all over the world – including wars such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars that killed 100,000 Americans and we get a ghastly tole of suffering, torture and death that makes the charges you bring look like NOTHING.
And let’s not forget the socialist’s “better half” – NAZISM. Nazism was “the far right” of the über über über LEFT. “Nazi” stood for “National SOCIALIST German WORKERS Party.” If we had a “National Socialist American Workers Party,” you’d be the very first one to join it, you vicious turd.
I’m not Catholic, and I can go on and on describing profound differences between my Baptist heritage and the Catholic Church. One of the major “issues” I’ve got with the Catholic Church is that they view the “Church” not as an organism (“the body of Christ”) but rather as an organization led by men. And as a result there has been a tragic tendency of the Catholic hierarchy to protect the “organization.” That has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible, or with Christianity. But one major difference between the Catholic Church and YOUR state atheist heritage is that the Catholic Church admitted that it made a mistake identifying “Jerusalem” and the “Holy Land” as some temporal kingdom of God on earth and therefore should NOT have done some of the things it did in the Crusades; whereas YOUR ilk is as determined to be mass-murdering psychopaths as EVER and the second you get another chance you’ll repeat your holocausts.
But let me get right to the heart of your pedophile thing.
First off, the reason the Catholic Church protected the so-called “pedophile priests” was the very flaw I mentioned above – the Catholics wrongly view the Church as an organization (“the Church” with St. Peter as first CEO) and fail to see it as an organism (“the Body of Christ on earth”). That flaw has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity or even with religion. Their organizational model is deeply flawed.
Second, for the most part, the issue with the priests was NOT “pedophilia,” but homosexuality. I write about that at length here and provide substantial documentation; Newsweek said something similar. Most of the victims of the priests were in fact NOT little kids, but teenage young men. The abuse was HOMOSEXUAL.
I am profoundly against homosexuality. Are YOU??? Probably not. And given the fact that homosexuality is wrong even according to DARWINISM (the “fittest” being defined as those that leave the most offspring), liberals don’t have a valid thing to stand on beyond political correctness which ITSELF is a Darwinian dead end.
Third, it is interesting that you bring this pedophilia stuff up given what happened in Penn State U. Pennsylvania went heavily for Obama in 2008, so we know they’re perverts already, don’t we? And we now know that the very top leadership was aware of what Sandusky was doing for TEN YEARS and refused to do anything about it.
If you’re going to demonize the whole Catholic Church, then I have at least as much warrant to demonize the entire university system. And dare I mention that the universities are overwhelmingly liberal, so we already know that they’re perverts???
I would submit that the giant flaw at Penn State is the same flaw that the Catholics suffered: putting the organization ahead of truth and morality.
Fourth, it is also interesting that you cite the Catholic Church and “pedophilia” given that YOUR DEMOCRAT PARTY and their Teachers Union allies just literally passed the Pedophile Protection Act in California. At least the Catholic Church didn’t put the power of the state behind protection pedophiles, as your side just did.
I’m going to be blocking you now. If you want to talk about how bad Catholics are, the least you can do is go find a Catholic.