I don't think I could so strongly disagree with anything more.
Maher's characterization that "Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking" is simply not true. That is a distortion of faith, a parody of faith. To set it up as his central argument is to create a straw man.
I'm not denying that there are religious people who are unthinking about thier opinions and actions, but that is true of a segment of all humanity regardless of whether they are religious or not. It's an argument as bogus as saying 'faith makes a virture out of having brown hair.'
True faith requires a lot of thinking. Blind acceptance is not faith. Unthinking acceptance is not faith. However, the irony in Maher's characterization is that since "faith" is virtually synomous with both "trust" and "confidence" and he is obviously full of confidence in his position, it could be said that I would have to stop thinking myself to accept his position.
I'm also offended by the line, "If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest" because it is reductionist and bigoted itself. It reduces a complex history to a series of charicatures as bad, if not worse, than the kind that says all black people are lazy and would rather sit around eating watermelons all day.
That is really a lot of accusation to pack into on sentence, but I'll address one point before I have to leave for work: the violence one. This one is sheer bunk, since it can be proved numberically that the Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Idi Amin between the four of them caused more death and destruction in one century than can laid any religion's feet over the past two millenium - and all for decided non-religious reasons.
Maher's characterization that "Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking" is simply not true. That is a distortion of faith, a parody of faith. To set it up as his central argument is to create a straw man.
I'm not denying that there are religious people who are unthinking about thier opinions and actions, but that is true of a segment of all humanity regardless of whether they are religious or not. It's an argument as bogus as saying 'faith makes a virture out of having brown hair.'
True faith requires a lot of thinking. Blind acceptance is not faith. Unthinking acceptance is not faith. However, the irony in Maher's characterization is that since "faith" is virtually synomous with both "trust" and "confidence" and he is obviously full of confidence in his position, it could be said that I would have to stop thinking myself to accept his position.
I'm also offended by the line, "If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest" because it is reductionist and bigoted itself. It reduces a complex history to a series of charicatures as bad, if not worse, than the kind that says all black people are lazy and would rather sit around eating watermelons all day.
That is really a lot of accusation to pack into on sentence, but I'll address one point before I have to leave for work: the violence one. This one is sheer bunk, since it can be proved numberically that the Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Idi Amin between the four of them caused more death and destruction in one century than can laid any religion's feet over the past two millenium - and all for decided non-religious reasons.
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