I used to watch Maher long long time ago, until the Kosovo war, when he sneered about American pilots who bombed the Serbs. I found it so disgusting that never watched him again, anymore.
I am from Canada and I don't watch Canadian TV as well. It is not surprising that the TV reporter and Maher understand one another so well. I am not surprised about the TV reporter's questions. It shows the ignorance of Canadians about the U.S.
You have to know that in Canada you don't get Fox news, you don't get Rush Limbaugh, you don't get satellite radio, you don't get anything that is conservative or is of anything conservative. Did the CBC interview Limbaugh or Hannity? No.
Canadians are kept ignorant of what is really happening in the U.S. The same way Canadian elites think of our ordinary folks as stupid and uneducated, so thinks Maher of Americans as dangerously sttupid:
"because the American public has a little learning" but he, himself, oh, HE, knows better and as somebody who has (or had) TV shows and radio shows and what not, can speak condescendingly of his compatriots. It is shameful it us unbearable.
In the same time, he sees Kerry as he is:
"Kerry dodged the bullets. He's a flip-flopper. If he was really a hero, he would have come home in a body bag."
Maher can not tell right from wrong. THat's why he is sneering on religion, exactly as you said, in a quite religious way. He is a real snerd, as we say it nowadays.

The decline of an elitist intellectual snob.

How tragic, I pity the doctors.

I just remember Ben Stein as the Lone Conservative on Maher's Politically Incorrect. It was sad to see how he was outnumbered by clueless celebrities who could only argue in non-sequiter soundbites although he had them intellectually outgunned on all fronts.

Is there a more pathetic example of a self-absorbed, preening prick? I mean Maher, not Kerry. Wait a minute, they're BOTH self-absorbed, preening pricks!

Maher's presentation and style have always reminded me of an adolescent girl, arguing with her parents and spilling it all to her friends later: "They are just. so. stupid! I can't wait till I can get out of here! Nobody likes them anyway, and they never do anything. All they do is sit and talk and read and work. I HATE them!"

Maybe Franken and Maher (and Garafolo and Carville...) could do a comedy bit together about how much they hate whatever it is they hate so much. Is help on the way for these clowns?

Dan Patterson

Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goo-ood by

It has taken a while for Sept 11 to start washing these useless, preening, oh so clever, intellectual wannabees out, but it's happening, slowly, painfully for them anyways. I'm basking in the schadenfreude of it all. I can't wait for Gore's network TV to launch than crash, than burn...oh so delicious.

We can never forget what Maher said about terrorists being brave. You would think he'd be more patriotic because if it wasn't for our free speech he'd be rotting in Gitmo right now for saying something subversive like that. Him and Jon Stewart together in one cell.

You people make a fetish out of places like Gitmo. But hey, what ever gets you over the edge. Why waste the Viagra?

Of course many terrorists are brave. It takes balls to blow yourself up, no matter how you cut it. It's just a matter of how you define courage - though most would probably say something like the ability to resist hardship, fear or pressure - and overcoming fear of death would seem to fit here. Being immoral and evil doesn't make you a coward. This type of descrition only undermines the authority of the speaker in other related matters. This is obviously true.

Bill Mahr is genious. Sounds like all you do is attack him for having an idea. Why would you do such a thing especially when he brings up a valid opinion? The fact is, people don't like to hear that they were taught wrong. That something is wrong with them. The way children are raised to become parots to their parents beliefs is ridiculous. How come the most educated of persons are non-religous? It's because there is no point in wandering around facts when the outcome has no relevance at all. So theres a god? Great, nothing changes in my life. There isn't a god? Amazing, again, nothing changes in my life. I'm still going to be trying to fulfill my own dreams and help others with theirs.

Don't have a belief, have an opinion.

In response to the comment by 'Nile':

First I will address your idea that "the most educated people are non-religious", in short, this is utterly false. Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Martin Luther(who was the first to translate the bible from latin to german), not to mention the countless numbers of christian scientists as well as scientists of other religions, and I only hope that you just happened to forget REV. DR. Martin Luther King Jr(in spite of the fact that his life is pressed so dramatically in the public and private school systems).

It is almost humourous to read how you belittle the existience of a god by writing that it is a fact or idea whose outcome has no relevance at all. (laughs)In following your logic I'm surprised that you did not belittle education since in order for one to continue one's existence the only requirments are food and water. I guess you did not realize that you were contradicting yourself either.

Another hilarious conclusion in your argument is when you make the generalization that 'people don't like to hear that they were taught wrong' and then you call it fact. Your generalization probably would have been more accurate if you had wrote: 'People with closed minds don't like to hear that they were taught wrong'. Should I discover that I am going in the wrong direction or am doing somthing the wrong way, as surprising to you as this may sound, I want to learn the right way.

To address your closing statement: "Don't have a belief, have an opinion". I am going to assume that you do not have a clear understanding of the word 'opinion' for an opinion is "A BELIEF or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof"(dictionary.com).

My point is simple. The overall flaw in your argument is that you lack knowlege of the subject matter and therefore, are simply not qualified to make such statements.

OrphaniLoka, the people you sight were not necessarily religious, even if they have said things that would lead you to believe that. People can fold under peer pressure. Do you think most atheists would refuse to swear on the Bible in court? Do you think every president who has repeated the words "so help me, God" was religious? Most people would not refuse on principle.

The problem with religion is that it discourages thought. Instead of figuring out the cause of thunderstorms, it's easier to just say the gods got angry. Look carefully and you'll notice the same pattern today. Instead of determining the origin of the universe (or of species), it's just easier to say "God made it all. End of story." Instead of accepting death, it's easier to invent a heaven. People accept lightning as a natural phenomena, but still desperately deny that their own religion could also be wrong.

Veculous, your statement: “the people you sight are not necessarily religious even if they have said things that would lead to believe that.” I suggest that you conduct some form of research on these people instead of conveniently stating that they were not religious. You accept the shifting of plates in the earth as the cause of earthquakes yet you were not the scientist who discovered this; you accept whatever you have read or heard about this subject as fact. Why? because in order to intelligently challenge this you would have to do research. It is not recommended that you use uneducated stereotypes as valid points to try form an argument against an educated opinion. In addition, swearing on the bible is symbolic BS used as a scare tactic; there is nothing religious about it. Jehovah’s Witnesses, arguably the truest practitioners of Christianity(don’t take my word for it do some research) REFUSE to swear on the bible AND they are one of the few religious groups completely exempt from military service. So, please do not necessarily accept the water cycle as the cause of rain even if you have read something that may have lead you to believe that(sound vaguely familiar?).

In response to your statement that "the problem with religion is that it discourages thought", give this some thought: Religion and science are two different spectrums. Science tells us "what" and religion tells us "why" and it appears you have the common but mistaken belief that they are the same, this is why people(you) select one over the other. This belief is not held only by atheists but by theists as well. Science will tell us WHAT happens during thunderstorms(water cycle etc, etc) however this does not tell us WHY there was a thunderstorm. If, as you say "the gods got angry" I would have to ask you to explain to me why that would not apply to the development of a thunderstorm. You see, if the gods got angry, wouldn't they have to do something in order to cause a thunderstorm? Would there not logically be a process to create such a thing? Of course there would be, and it is that process which is studied by scientists; however you have made them equivalent and therefore choose one and reject the other.

In determining the origin of species or saying that "god made it all" the above statement would still apply if you are a "grandfather theorist" or a person who believes that the process in which god used to "make it all" was through the evolution of species; if you are not, then I will address this by using the theory of evolution and the religious belief of intelligent design(I will use Christianity since it is the worlds most widely held belief system). Evolutionary speaking, humans are the 'newest' form of life coming after the many ages of animals before us and that the first forms of life appeared in the water. Biblically speaking, this is correct. Gen. 1:20-21 states that whales were the first form of life aside from plants(science will argue that it was a single cell that just popped out of nowhere first and then evolved constantly, a couple billion years later you’ve got humans, never the less, the writer of Genesis[some believe it to be Moses, but it is really unknown] knew thousands of years before Darwin that life first began in the waters).
The disagreement comes in Gen. 2:7 when it states that "the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground"(KJV); the creation of man was separate from the creation of the animals therefore the evolution of species would not agree with the biblical assertion. Hence, the statements in the previous paragraph would apply except for said disagreement.

The acceptance or lack thereof death, has nothing to do with religion. The majority of religions deal with what happens after death, not death itself. This is why you hear beliefs like heaven, afterlife, reincarnation, etc. If these people did not accept death then how could they believe these things since; if one does not die how can one attain heaven or be reincarnated?

Your final statement: "People accept lightning as a natural phenomena, but still desperately deny that their own religion could also be wrong." I would respond to this but I honestly don't know what point you're trying to make. What people? Religious people? If your saying that religious people accept lightning as a natural phenomena what does that have to do with the correctness of their faith or religious affiliation? ‘Truth’, is simply "A fact or belief that is accepted as true"(oxford university press); if that is the case then true can be anything that is accepted by a person; and if that is the case, what would happen if you take away humans? Who would be left to contemplate truth? The plants? The animals? If the animals contemplated truth it would be reflected in their culture(the recording of history). So, if you take away people, I suppose truth wouldn't exist then would it? Unless of course, you believe in god.

OrphaniLoka, I never said that those people were atheists. Just as you thought I presumed them to be atheists, it is just as wrong for you to believe they must have been religious. In times when one can be burned at the stake for not seeming like a good Christian, you shouldn’t take it for fact that a person is religious just because they followed the conventions of the day.

You may be surprised to learn that I don't plan to conduct research about lightning, tectonic plates, or the rain cycle. You might wonder how I can accept such conclusions if I cannot accept the Bible on faith. The difference is that the Bible is based on faith—belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence—as opposed to reason—an underlying fact or cause that provides logical sense for a premise or occurrence (Dictionary.com).

I’ll give you an example. The tectonic plate theory explains the cause of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountains, and tsunamis. It also explains why the continents have been inching apart over the years. It relates the events to one another and even helps us predict their occurrence. For instance, you don’t hear about volcanoes in the mid-west because the area doesn’t lie on a fault line. However, if a volcano were to erupt in the middle of a plate, the theory would be called into question. Whereas religion is not to be questioned, science can and does revise itself until the theory not only explains the past but predicts the future. It’s easy to believe an explanation when it works.

Religion, though, seeks only to explain the situation so that we can say we have an explanation, because we fear the unknown, and, by making it known to ourselves, we conquer our fear. Take creationism for example. The idea is full of holes. God created all life on Earth. Why have so many species gone extinct? Did God not like them anymore? What about the fossils which show animals somewhere between reptiles and birds? Did God put them there to trick us? What about the specimens whose age is older than the Earth according to their Carbon 14 content? Could God have made so many mistakes in his chemistry lab?

Science and religion are definitely different spectrums, but not in the same way you imagine. True, the questions “how” and “why” are different, but the bigger difference between science and religion is that science is based on observation whereas religion is based on faith.

If people accepted death, there would be little need for religion. Because people cannot emotionally accept death as their final end, they conjure up an afterlife. To believe that you will have an afterlife is to reject the idea that you will truly die. After all, what’s so bad about dying if you get to live again?

People recognize the fallacies of extinct religions like that of the ancient Romans. The word “religion” is eventually replaced with “mythology,” which indicates that no one believes in it any more. The irony is that no one steps back and looks at his own religion. How can we criticize the Romans for thinking Jupiter threw down thunderbolts when the modern Bible describes the sky as a solid dome?

While I respect the Oxford’s definition of “truth,” I don’t agree that “truth” is something that needs to be contemplated in order to exist. For example, one plus one always equals two, regardless of what species or how religious the counter is.

By the way, the meaning of the comment, "don't have a belief, have an opinion," is that one should always recognize that one's beliefs are opinions—as opposed to fact—no matter how fervently one believes in them.

Instead of a knee-jerk reaction, why not spend some time thinking about what Maher said? Is it crazy to believe that if one dies a martyr, one will get 90+ virgins in heaven (Islam)? Is it crazy to believe in Xenu, the supreme ruler of the galaxy, sending thetans (space aliens) to earth 75 billion years ago which were exploded by hydrogen bombs and entered every living system (Scientology)?

Do you think that your religion is any less absurd? Surely, every religion believes they have a monopoly on the truth, but they are all equally fantastical and truly delusional.

I cannot allow myself to believe that their is no deity or divine creator when my eyes tell me differently. I hope that one day, people will once again, learn to "see" that fact.

Ned Bulous

I’m awfully curious, how could one(such as yourself) who gives a “knee-jerk” reaction, actually hope to be taken seriously when he advises the opposite of what he has done?

Regardless, what is most interesting, is the theme of what you have stated: That religion is delusion. Let us entertain this for a moment. According to a 2000 census, there exist approximately 800 million atheists and agnostics out of the total population of 6 billion. This means that approximately 85% of the world adheres to a religious faith or doctrine of some form or another. Which in turn, shows that it is the atheist who is the abnormality. What would cause a person to reject the deity? The idea that the atheist is suffering from a neurological disorder holds the same validity as Maher’s contrary statement, in fact, it holds much due to this observation.

The point is, for you to assume that 85% of the population is suffering from delusions is quite an assertion that you have provided no substantial evidence to support. You simply state religious beliefs in an air of sarcasm to satisfy your disdain for them. Unfortunately for you, the manner in which we express ideas has no heft on the validity of the idea.

What do you people check your brains at the door?Accept nothing at face value. Question EVERYTHING!This isn't meant to be argumentative or confrontational,but instead of these feeble attempts to dazzle one another with your "Solzhenitsyn said" and "Your sarcastic insinuations blah blah blah..." How about getting up in the morning, then going to bed at night ,and in between that, being the best person you can be? In any event folks, That's my M.O. and I sleep just fine thank-you. Not because I posess a faith based fear where by if I don't genuflect every time I pass a Christian affiliated structure, I may slow roast on a spit eternally, I mean Christ, who could live like that? Take the brain for a spin once in a while.Where I come from this actually quallifies as excercise. Try it! For those of you with more than five neurons firing in your head at any given time it may provide you with some measure of original thought ,as opposed to arbitrary quotes and paraphrasing that quite frankly is entertaing and cute at best.Let's be rational,more importantly,let's be objective.Is any form of religion rational? We all know objectivity's out of the question.Suppose we did an updated ratio of believer to nonbeliever in West Virginia, I understand there's a new method of reasoning over there with respect to the ones who were boasting salvation through prayer.My heart is heavy for them all. However, I'd wager most confidently that it's currently raining "rationality" tonight in those parts.Again, tragic... ! Not to use those folks as an example, but it shouldn't take your entire world crashing down on you before you begin to question where you're focusing your efforts. Y'know it could just be me,it's been me in the past... Regards

Very interesting reading, indeed.

I sit here scrolling the internet for
information regarding a courtroom quote.
Not one to entertain religion, I'm searching
for the proper way to excuse myself from having
to swear on someone else's article of faith.

Regarding the fact that 85% of the population
(per a now seven year old census) is religious, consider they are trained since birth.
Taught since the word 'go' that a big man in the sky is watching them. They believe it,
their mothers and fathers, grandparents and peers believe it.

Of course the atheist population is low. Coming out of the atheistic closet in public is
like waving a wand of common sense around.
People are not used to thinking for themselves and it scares them.