He must have known he would get slaughtered

It's emotion that drives people to the polls, and Reed's specialty is whipping up righteous indignation in the evangelical base of the Republican party. Tonight he let Bill Maher help him with this. He's a con man; it's what he does.

The Bible that gets thumped still has the Old & the New back to back in a single volume. Literal and absolutely truthful stuff from God's hand, or so I've been told. So if the "New Covenant" trumps what was said before Christ, why bother to preface it with the earlier stuff and all the horrors that it encompasses? What Maher mentioned is only the tip of the iceberg. Still, passages from Leviticus and Mosaic Law get cherry picked by fundies to prove whatever moral point they wish to make. For example, as we speak I'm sure there are Southern Baptists somewhere lamenting the sanctioning of same-sex marriage over a plate of barbecued pork ribs.

I had wished that Bill Maher had said to him that most of what the fundies emphasize from the Bible come from the old testament and not the new - which they assiduously avoid most times.

said,

"If I die it can only get better".

Dangerous little fucks.

You always get the feeling they want to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

were compiled into one book at the behest of Emperor Constantine. Look him up. He did it to consolidate his power base in the third century. He burned more books on Christianity than he ever bothered to include in the bible. Now, centuries later, yahoos like this guy take it as the literal word of god. Give me a break!

to convince his followers to protest the opening of rival casinos, because God says gambling is sinful.

This has been factually proven under sworn testimony in a court of law.

Why don't this guys followers have a problem with this? Doesn't it pretty well give the game away?

Around here, it's abortion-abortion-abortion. All it does is give people an excuse to always vote Republican. When I point out that the Catholic church and Jesus oppose things like capital punishment, economic injustice and so forth, they act like those topics don't exist or are irrelevant.

These same people will bitch and moan about the economic injustices caused by policies that their Republican politicians voted for. When I ask why they voted for that person, their response is always, "Because he supports the sanctity of life and opposes abortion."

I've said for years that if the people around where I live were half as loyal to their faith as they are to their politics, most of the people in this county would be up for sainthood.

That people are that blind adherents to politics rather than truth and good of all, is interesting and at depressing simultaneously. We are deep in brainwashing that it will miraculous to turn around.

people who volunteered to go fight and die so that rich men who owned plantations could continue to monopolize the economy with their slaves. These ancestors I'm talking about did NOT own slaves. They actually were damaged by the slave economy because they couldn't sell their labor or expertise when a slave did it for free. The non-slave holding population in the South who fought in the Civil War, were some of the poorest and stupidest people ever to fight.

I think the stupidity was just passed along. Now these white people bow down to the uber rich 1% instead of bowing down to plantation slave owners. It's in their blood to fight against their own best interest.

which is why Reed's political career is in the toilet.

Maher took the predictable path of grandstanding and shitting all over religion for applause's sake. And everyone here cheers.

Reed is unfortunately gaining power yet again, and Maher could have laid into his lobbying/Abramoff work, gambling connections, personally fostering slavery in the Mariana Islands, etc. He's a fucking monster, and Maher chose to take the low (and embarrassing) road of gotcha Bible quotes.

What a joke.

Excellent show.

One of the best in quite awhile.

I wish he would ease up on the religion bashing. Yes, I get that he is an Atheist, and good for him, but he doesn't need to be arrogant about it. He makes it sound almost as if a person is an idiot and incapable of thinking for themselves if they believe in religion. I am a life-long Lutheran, but I have always had good grades in school and college. Many have told me that I am intelligent and wise. I consider myself well-versed on politics. Everyone in my family is perfectly-functioning human beings despite following religion. In fact, I'm sure there are many other people who are coherent human beings who follow religion--just look at our President. He is a devout Christian, but he is one of the smartest and most pragmatic guys in our government! He arguably does much more to follow the teachings of his religion than the likes of Bachmann and Santorum.
Whenever non-believers like BM try to generalize all religion as nonsense or group all people of faith into a box, it makes them look almost as bad and as self-righteous as the religious fundamentalists. They are both essentially imposing their beliefs on others, except in different ways. Each of the organized religions are unique, and they all have something different to offer (my favorite example is Buddhism's Eightfold Path). Furthermore, considering that the existence of a God (or Gods) can't be proven or disproven (as none of us were around millions of years ago to know for sure), both sides should just live and let live instead of ridiculing each other.

Many outspoken Christians are the very worst ambassadors of their religion. Their hypocrisy is off the charts.

WHY?
Why do you believe in eternal ANYTHING?

99% of X-tians I run across simply state that Jeebus died for their "sins" and that by "believing in him" they get "eternal life"...I have that correct, right? People get themselves all ginned up for Jeebus because he is their own personal Willie Wonka handing out Golden Tickets to his purported Daddy's super awesome magic funhouse.

WHY?
What exactly is so super-duper awesome about a static, unchanging and eternal existence ANYWHERE?

Let's forget for a minute the absurd concept of "sin" - as if there were a spooky white-bearded hominid in the great banana in the sky watching everything he already has to know (omniscient); like some kind of very sad re-run addict, yet remaining powerless to stop any of the heinously evil things in the world (NOT omnipotent after all), but still recording the misdeeds of each and every individual (man, woman, child of every nation and every region and every class) in order to punish that which he already KNEW would happen anyway (thus making this purported 'supreme' being nothing more than a logically inconsistent and morally repugnant man-made creation).

WHY?
What about a vengeful, insecure, capricious imaginary friend that allows evil to happen under the guise of "free will"....what makes THAT a desirable landlord for the next 500 Trillion years or the 500 Trillion years after THAT?

When it comes to religion, if you do not like being lumped in with the weak-minded and simple people that are preyed upon by it every day, then my suggestion would be to focus more on purging the hypocrisy and harmful charlatans of your own clan before setting your gaze on those who do not share you delusions.

I defer to the late Christopher Hitchens to more eloquently summarize my feeling on religion:

“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

And:

“One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”

― Christopher Hitchens (gone forever, but not forgotten)

I grew up for the first 17 years of my life in a fundie evangelical house. I left home right after high school to get away from it. Looking back what I think drives fundies like Reed is fear. They are mostly in fear of themselves and what they are capable of if their imaginations are any indication. So they project those evil possibilities onto the greater population. Not only do they feel a need to have guaranteed assurance that they will be saved from paying for any sins, both done and imagined, but also a need to codify their path to separate themselves from the unsaved. Churches are for mutual assurance and moral support that you are not crazy, or that if you are then thousands of other people are too...(but but but we don't even want to go there)

So what I'm saying is that Maher and others mistake religious fundies as actually consciously believing in the literal words of the Bible. They may say they do and even believe they do, but really they simply need any avenue to take themselves out of the real world full of nasty awful behaviours to an imaginary magical world where they and their similar-minded friends and family will be taken care of live forever in bliss. Not only a physical golden bliss but also the bliss of knowing you were right all along......gawdammit!

Why does this person have to defend their beliefs to you? What the hell business is it of yours?

Your question is loaded with presumptions about this person's beliefs. You're projecting your own biases on the person you're addressing. Look, during the dark and terrible Bush years, I belonged to some atheist groups myself, but your very obnoxious post is so typical of the movement as it exists today, I no longer want any part of it.

Oh, and one more question for you: how can anyone respect someone who quotes a bloodthirsty neocon like Christopher Hitchens?

I asked a question of someone who felt it was necessary to unload religious feces on the board - not you.
I did not start the sentiment, so if there is anyone who should defend themself, it is the person who started to haul out their need to feel accepted for being a Jeebus lover.

As far as you not wanting anything to do with atheism, whatever...lack of belief in something is not a movement, its a state of mind. You either live by rational thought and reason or you willingly delude yourself (to what degree is individually based) and live opposed to both.

Hitchens quotes on politics? That would be something to disdain on a progressive community....
Hitchens quotes on religion? I stand by the original sentiments.

You are kicking some serious ass.

Please re-read the post you replied to and point out specifically where the poster "unloads religious feces on the board".

It sounds like his mere existence as a religious person offends you, and guess what, that's your problem. Do you have any idea how belligerent you sound?

I did not make the original post to you. I do not owe you anything.

Religion, in all of its forms, is an evil remnant of humanity's evolution from primitive societies to our more modern incarnation. The fact that it exists DOES offend me because it is easily twisted to support any number of malicious things that I despise, not the least of which is the promotion of superstition and "belief" in place of reason and questioning.

I'm done here because shouting back and forth is pointless with someone who believes they can reach me and/or change the intensity of my hatred from that which is a retardation of the species.

This post should have its own thread.

early in interview.

Maher has proven himself to be an 'equal rights for all, including GLBT people' supporter.

As one who remembers his spirited defense of his dear friend Ann Coulter after she called John Edwards a f****t, I was hardly surprised.

Maher is an asshole.

Folks are pretty simple. Religion gives them a "place" to stow their fears and worries so they can function. Never MIND that it's a totally non-existent place - it works. Sadly, that perfect place carries a price that demands we ALL pay - whether we believe that crap or not!

And as soon as Maher starts holding Muslim clerics to the same standard, as he has often done, we'll have people here bitching about him being a neo-con Muslim hater.

But I guess for this post Maher gets to be a hero.

It also happens when someone says "our culture doesn't treat women as badly as culture X does."

His anti-Muslim tirades are full of lies and distortions. They are in no way intended to foster any sort of progress; they are designed to spread hate and fear. His hateful words make the world a more dangerous place for Muslims, and for Muslim women, for whom he has a very perverse type of "concern".

DUers bend over backwards to defend this bigot, and yet they'd have no trouble seeing the problem if the target were Jews.

....but doesn't. And that's a huge difference.

But you already knew that.

From your post, I can guess with a great deal of confidence that the answer is, almost nothing.

So, specifically, how does your response explain why it's OK for Bill Maher to spread lies and disinformation? Because this is demonstrably true.

Muslims represent nearly a quarter of the world's population, a vast number of whom I absolutely guarantee are your intellectual superiors. They are human beings who deserve to live their lives as they choose (yes, choose) without the snark and derision I see on this board every day.

Disregard that stoning behind the curtain....

Muslims are human beings, just like anyone else. Some of them, I absolutely guarantee are not nice people and in fact are religious zealots who sadly are in a position of power to hurt their fellow Muslims via the laws of their land, specifically women.

Why are you holding some of them to a different standard? Or are you, in fact, okay with it?

Are you even remotely interested in the truth? Or do you only listen to those who reinforce your biases?

http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/muslims-are-no-different-or-why-bill-mahers-blood-libel-is-bigotry.html

Some Muslims are not nice people? Quite the stroke of insight there. Muslims number in the billions and yes, they are human beings. A certain percentage will be psychopathic, cruel, mentally ill - the whole spectrum of human flaws. Some will commit atrocities or heinous acts. And you think it's fair to take the behavior of the worst of the worst and use it to smear all Muslims? That is the very essence of bigotry.

And if I did what you do, only with Jews -- I selected the most horrific acts committed by Jews, either in the name of their religion or not, railed about it in the public square and suggested that this is what THEY are like! They're crazy! Be afraid!

You'd instantly recognize that as anti-Semitism. You'd know it was something horrible and wrong. So why is it OK for you to do that to Muslims?

You could have just saved a lot of text.

I'm bookmarking this so the hand wringers can chew on it then.

The bible was not the word of god, or Christ, it was written by men who wanted to control the populace and passed on as the word of god. They are now living by the doctrines (some) men believed in thousands of years ago.

But I guess God didnt hear me.

I was hoping Bill threw out that fact as well.

I was disappointed that he did not.

Why is this disgraced guy still invited on TV anywhere?

bull