bore me to tears

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13 Responses

1. on May 9, 2010 at 2:46 pm Audrey

   I don’t know, Bill… what about the xians who shoot doctors and bomb women’s clinics? What about the xian white supremacist groups who attack … well, anyone not white and xian? What about the whole Dominionist movement? And, we could go for days on the abuse perpetuated on children through the teaching of the whackjob Pearls and their ilk.

   I wouldn’t get so smug about having a “better” country because you think your nutters are less violent than someone else’s nutters. Your nutters are just better at covering it up.

   
   
2. on May 9, 2010 at 11:34 pm Barry

   I think he has a point, Audrey. I don’t want to minimize the horrific nature of Christian terrorist acts, but I don’t think a few abortion clinic shootings or Dominionists really match the cruelty perpetrated in the name of Islam in recent years.

   There is plenty of terrible behavior in Jesus’ name, but it doesn’t really come close to hijacked commercial jets flown into office buildings.

   
   
3. on May 10, 2010 at 10:21 am Nance Confer

   Not much of an argument, though, is it? It’s still evil in the name of religion. Above and beyond the everyday problems religion brings to all of us.

   
   
4. on May 10, 2010 at 10:26 am Barry

   No. And again, I am not trying to defend the indefensible. It’s just that there are valid distinctions.

   
   
5. on May 10, 2010 at 12:59 pm Lynn

   Okay, I’ve played the video 3 times now and, each time, I’m left more confused. Initially, I didn’t see it as a comparison between religions, but civilizations. One prohibits religion-inspired violence; one supports and encourages it. But, even if the U.S. govt were to start accommodating Christian Dominionists, allowing them to bring their “desert sh*t” to the “Big City,” I wouldn’t expect to start seeing genital mutilations or soccer field beheadings and stonings,… though that may just be because U.S. Christians have been forced to adopt western/secular mores over the years(?)…

   All the twists and turns in Maher’s argument – as well as his apples-and-oranges pairings – are just too much for my kumquat-sized brain, I’m afraid.
   :S

   (Pretend I was never here.) :]

   
   
6. on May 10, 2010 at 1:21 pm COD

   Maher is trying to compare the Taliban to mainstream US religious culture. That is not a fair comparison. Comparing US mainstream Christianity to mainstream Islam would be fair, but it wouldn’t be entertaining would it?

   Comparing the Taliban to fringe religious nutcases in this country would be the fair comparison, and as Audrey points out, it’s sort of a wash, and not entertaining.

   
   
7. on May 10, 2010 at 4:31 pm JJ

   Dunno — what about waterboarding and other torture, institutionalized and legitimzed by our government mind you, not some criminal lunatics out on the fringe of society.

   We’re not so much better than barbarism in the name of religion, if we listen to a main-party’s vp nominee last cycle, for instance.

   “Palins’s advice: “Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant — they’re quite clear — that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.”

   The bible and the ten commandments is some pretty barbaric stuff, you guys. We’d better face that and deal with it — these people are not just mainstream but majority depending on the issue, as well as there, and their world views all put religion above any government by mere humans. (Collateral damage in the coming apocalyse doesn’t matter so much when anyone lost is either a heathen or a martyr awaiting his reward in heaven . . .)

   
   
8. on May 10, 2010 at 10:10 pm Lynn

   Wow, that Palin/O’Reilly video was hard to get through.

   JJ: “The bible and the ten commandments is some pretty barbaric stuff, you guys. We’d better face that and deal with it — these people are not just mainstream but majority depending on the issue, as well as there, and their world views all put religion above any government by mere humans.”

   And, you’ve reminded me of Bill Maher’s closing lines in Religulous:

   The plain fact is religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people – by irrationalists – by those who would steer the ship of state, not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken.

   Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking – it’s nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable it, and elevate it, are our intellectual slaveholders – keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction.

   From this vantage point, ranking fundamentalist religions on the evil meter looks like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. :(

   
   
9. on May 11, 2010 at 9:50 am Nance Confer

   wouldn’t expect to start seeing genital mutilations or soccer field beheadings and stonings

   *********

   Well, at least no beheadings or stonings.

   http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5/7/2921/35409

   
   
10. on May 11, 2010 at 10:29 am Lynn

    Oh my god, Nance. I’m speechless. I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this. How widely publicized has this been?

    …a new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises.

    
    
11. on May 12, 2010 at 3:43 am Nance Confer

    I don’t know. I saw it at the link above but don’t really follow the issue. I have it neatly tucked into that portion of my brain with things I don’t have to worry about because we live in such a civilized country, doncha know.

    
    
12. on May 12, 2010 at 8:00 am Lynn

    Thanks for that link. The story is actually a picture-perfect example of “bringing old-school desert shit into the big city,” isn’t it? And, I thought Maher was referring (in part) to head scarves… Silly me. :(

    
    
13. on May 12, 2010 at 8:03 am Lynn

    By the way, later in the day, I noticed that TIME ran the story, dated May 11th.

    http://tinyurl.com/2fm7ful