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Religion
See other Religion Articles

Title: Bill Maher: Christians Have Neurological Disorder
Source: WorldNetDaily.com
URL Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42906
Published: Feb 18, 2005
Author: WorldNetDaily.com
Post Date: 2005-02-18 10:31:24 by Brian S
Keywords: Neurological, Christians, Disorder
Views: 2786
Comments: 76

Says parents 'drill' religion into kids' heads using biblical 'fairy tales'


Posted: February 18, 2005

Television personality Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," says Christians and others who are religious suffer from a neurological disorder that "stops people from thinking."

Appearing as a guest on MSNBC's "Scarborough County" this week, Maher told host Joe Scarborough:

"We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it's something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child. It certainly was drilled into mine at that age. And you really can't be responsible when you are a kid for what adults put into your head."

The former host of "Politically Incorrect" said the lack of enlightenment of so many Americans means the nation actually has more in common with its enemies than one might think.

Said Maher: "When you look at beliefs in such things as, do you go to heaven, is there a devil, we have more in common with Turkey and Iran and Syria than we do with European nations and Canada and nations that, yes, I would consider more enlightened than us."

Maher explained that he was not singling out evangelicals, but was targeting all "religious" people.

"I think the vote in Missouri [rejecting same-sex marriage] and a lot of other states is because people are religious," Maher said. "They don't have to be evangelical, but they're religious. They believe in religion, which as – I think it was Jesse Ventura who had that quote about religion is a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."

The television host told Scarborough he was convinced evangelicals' influence will wane.

Said Maher: "When people say to me, 'You hate America,' I don't hate America. I love America. I am just embarrassed that it has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality. It is the 21st century. And I will tell you, my friend. The future does not belong to the evangelicals. The future does not belong to religion."

Later in the interview, Maher returned to the childhood-religion theme, comparing fairy tales to Bible stories:

"When you were a kid and they were telling you whatever you believe in religion, do you think if they had switched the fairy tales that they read to you in bed with the Bible, you would know the difference?

"Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell."

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 45.

#20. To: Brian S (#0)

Fucking idiot is satan spawned! Anyone who would look to this moron for enlightment on anything is a bigger idiot than he.

rowdee  posted on  2005-02-18   19:02:11 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: rowdee (#20)

howdee, Rowdee. Good too see you again!

Samuel Gray  posted on  2005-02-18   19:04:33 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#27. To: Samuel Gray (#23)

Thank you, sir.... This is the pits.............sit back trying to control my mouth.....and some fuckin idiot form hollywierd has to open his! Grrrrr........

rowdee  posted on  2005-02-18   19:12:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: rowdee (#27)

Aw, hell, Dee, let 'er go. CAPPS is tryin to save my eternally damned soul, and I ain't buyin.

Jump right on in. ;)

I was raised in a Southern Baptist home, and I can sorta see a lot of what he means.

Samuel Gray  posted on  2005-02-18   19:16:25 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#34. To: Samuel Gray (#28)

If you can kinda see where he is coming from, then perhaps if he hadn't been such a fuckin idiot painting with the gawdawful broad brush, he coulda/woulda/shoulda presented a real argument/debate.

Naw..........couldn't do that, now! It wouldn't draw the potential headlines and bullshit from his loonyassed friends.

How is it that fucking idiots like him can swallow the bullshit that he is a monkey without blinking an eye, and yet deride Jonah being swallowed up by a whale? NOTE: Here I will concede that he and his ilk probably are descended from monkeys, though it is more believeable to say he's descended from jackasses.

And even here............discussing monkeys............if one actually wanted to believe he descended from a monkey, when God breathed into the monkey, he created something different and unique.

It bothers me not a whit that idiots on both sides of the aisle want to debate whether the earth is a million years old, or 10 million or 500 million. The Bible doesn't set a time frame........and a day of God's time could be a million years in human time.

There is no way I'm convinced all of our universe and what is in it happened by 'happenstance', or that it evolved from one single-celled 'it'. Most certainly none of the fuckin idiot hollyweird types could convince me. And I don't want the likes of falwell and robertson telling me how they see it!

rowdee  posted on  2005-02-18   19:46:53 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#39. To: rowdee (#34)

Try to look at it from the perspective of someone who has seen neither the belief system or the fairy tales, you're a hypothetical total outsider. You read stories about Jack and the Beanstalk, magic beans, geese that lay golden eggs, etc.

Then, you read stories about a giant boat that holds two of every animal species on earth, the commissioning of which was ordered by a giant booming voice from the sky, or a man who comes to earth, supposedly born of a non-sexual union between spirit and human, is tortured to death, and then resurrected, offering "atonement" for the sins of mankind, past present and future.

How would you differentiate between the two, which was "real" and which was made up? Then someone comes along and tells you that in one case, man made these stories up and they're nothing more than entertainment, while on the other hand, these stories were given to man from his "Creator" and contained the blueprint by which he should model his life.

You would probably be thinking "you're kidding me, right?"

You also have to concede that the knee jerk reactions of many professed christians seem to indicate a paucity of linear, logical thought. They react out of ignorance, or because of their perception that "God said it, that settles it" without applying critical thought to the situation.

Yes, Maher painted with a broad brush, and he did so deliberately, but you must concede he at least has a point, no matter how poorly he made it.

The other stuff about age of the earth, etc, we could discuss for days, and we'd end up at a philosophical loggerheads over God's concept of time. Did he, didn't he, how do you explain this, or can we let this pass unchallenged, and we'd still end up where we started, each with his or her own set of biases and conclusions, you believing, and me unbelieving.

Samuel Gray  posted on  2005-02-18   20:06:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#45. To: Samuel Gray (#39)

His news that there are phonies is absolutely NOTHING NEW. The Bible foretells of this and warns against falling for the false ones who lead people astray.

What is it about the resurrection you can't believe?

What about being tortured on the cross is unbelievable, when the past year has been full of news regarding mankinds inhumanity to man.

I don't recall that in Jack and the Beanstalk, nor Cinderella, nor other fairy tales telling people to love one another, to be moral/upright, or that the main character in the fairy tales declared they were the truth, or the light, or the way; nor that he was the way to get to his father.

rowdee  posted on  2005-02-18   20:54:55 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 45.

#46. To: rowdee (#45)

Jack and the Beanstalk,

Hey now "Jack and the Beanstalk" is my basis of "Belief"...

You gotta problem with that???

Brian S  posted on  2005-02-18 21:01:45 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#49. To: rowdee (#45)

Git 'R Done Dee!

CAPPSMADNESS  posted on  2005-02-19 00:54:12 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#63. To: rowdee, CAPPSMADNESS (#45)

What is it about the resurrection you can't believe?

Well, since I don't know of anyone who's ever come back from the dead, then I guess I'd answer your question as "all of it."

That was my point about the fairy tale aspect of it, Dee. If you had no frame of reference, ie, growing up in it "immersed" as I was, it would all sound like so much fantasy.

In my defense, I've tried it. There was a time where I even WANTED to believe, but it just never got a good "scald" on me. I showed up, I said OK, I'm ready to do this, and no one was in the office, so I never went back.

Now I watch my family get all wound up in that stuff, and I can't even answer the questions my daughters ask me without either risking a fight, or telling them outrightly that I no longer believe in God, Jesus, heaven, or hell anymore, so I just answer every question they have about God or Jesus with "I don't know" or "Ask your mother" and go on my way.

Sorry I had to leave the discussion last night, I was baking cookies with the girls.

Samuel Gray  posted on  2005-02-19 09:57:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 45.

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