Comments on: Bill Maher Promotes Rationalism on The Daily Show

By: nina

nina — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:21:31 +0000

You people amaze me. Bill Maher is such a disgusting creep[. I would’nt spend one cent of my money on anything he produces. He is a hate monger in my opinion. He is not thought provoking in any way. If God bugs you people so much, fine but don’t try to ruin it for the youth in america who is trying to believe in something good and pure. all you do is bring on confusion and its not necessary.you don’t want christians to “make” you believe, so quit trying to get into our childrens heads to go your way.
I will always believe in God as the higher power, through Him we can do anything, without Him we are nothing, which is what atheism is, NOTHING!

By: C. L. Hanson

C. L. Hanson — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:50:47 +0000

Re: Even the stupid people are going “wow, she’s pretty stupid”

I think we’re making progress if people think we should try electing someone who isn’t stupid. Unfortunately, he was probably just kidding….

By: martymankins

martymankins — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:20:58 +0000

Big fan of Bill Maher. And I will see this movie.

Regardless of his self-defined atheist position, I like and agree with his rant against all organized religions.

I loved his retelling of the God/Jesus story.

By: Aj

Aj — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:03:39 +0000

The word “atheist” as understood by the majority, religious people, is that it’s denying the existence of gods. They struggle to contemplate lack of belief, even though they probably lack belief on other subjects.

By anti-theist, Christopher Hitchens means even though he doesn’t believe in God, if it existed he would be against it. To counter those that while not believing would actually like there to be a God.

I haven’t heard Bill Maher say anything about vaccines or homeopathy. He says unjustified things about medicine and enviromental causes of illness, with a conspiracy theory thrown in.

By: Awesomesauce

Awesomesauce — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:34:00 +0000

Did Bill Maher know better than to say what he did? Probably…

Though, it seemed like he regained the audience’s approval with that statement. As long as more people are exposed to the ideas of critical thinking and skepticism about these issues, I can overlook it. Better to have temporary misinformation (that most already seem to have anyway) than scare people away from thinking rationally.

By: Jeremy White

Jeremy White — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:13:58 +0000

@Lisa

I’m ashamed to say it seems that I’m confusing the two as well. To be honest I’m not familiar with the term anti-theism. Seems I have more research to do!

I think I got my definition from Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Experience show.
However Christopher Hitchens seems to use the word antitheist to mean antireligious.

You can call yourself an atheist or agnostic and mean the same thing, but Bill Maher did a disservice to agnostic atheist by using a definition for atheism that he is well aware isn’t used by many agnostic atheist, including Dawkins, who he had on his show.

I think most people who claim to be atheists would say that they don’t know whether God exists or not. There’s no evidence supporting the claim that God doesn’t exist, so you can’t accept that claim either. If you did, you’d be an antitheist (accord to my working definition).

By: Spurs Fan

Spurs Fan — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:41:00 +0000

I agree that most people don’t understand the concept of atheism, especially one as a default. Sure I can’t prove that some sort of diety doesn’t exist, but using all of the senses and logic I have, it doesn’t seem likely that one does exist, so therefore, I feel that I’m an atheist.

For me the agnostic position just doesn’t fly for one major reason. There are only two ways to live your life: as a believer or a non-believer.

Ken, I agree to a point, but this is a bit oversimplified, no? After all, I know a lot of “believers” who live like non-believers. These are the people who will sometimes defend their belief in god most vigorously, despite “living in sin” quite often. I think it’s quite a bit more gray than this.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:11:37 +0000

@Ken McKnight, what makes you think that there are only two ways people can live their lives? Isn’t that a little limiting? I considered myself an atheist for most of my childhood and early teen years, but as I thought more about what I truly believed in, I realized that I just don’t know. I don’t know whether or not the world was created by an intelligent being, so wouldn’t I be a hypocrite to call myself an atheist?
It’s important to note that I’m not on the fence about the answer to life, the universe and everything; I have come to terms with the fact that I don’t understand how the world was created. I’m not undecided, I’ve just decided that I don’t know.

ETA@Jeremy, I’m ashamed to say it seems that I’m confusing the two as well. To be honest I’m not familiar with the term anti-theism. Seems I have more research to do!

By: Jeremy White

Jeremy White — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:59:40 +0000

Bill Maher confuses anti-theism with atheism: Disappointing. I know he’s talked with Richard Dawkins about Dawkins’ 7 levels of atheism. How could he still get it wrong?
But Bill Maher believing in homeopathy? Unbelievable.
What is the evidence for that?

By: J.S.Brown

J.S.Brown — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:45:22 +0000

For me it’s a fifty mile drive to nearest theater showing it. I’m not sure it’s worth it. I’m hoping it will do well and the local theaters will pick it up.