Does he have a valid point?

[Zzyzx]

.

Bill Maher:
"When I hear from people that religion doesn't hurt anything, I say really? Well besides wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, 9-11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles. And I forgot blowing up girl schools in Afghanistan."

Some say "The good outweighs the bad." If so what is that weighty good?

Many say "That is just the other religions." Is that true?

[Lion IRC]

.
[Replying to post 115 by Lion IRC]

Isn't it fortunate (or unfortunate) that there is an abundance of self-declared moralists and religionists who claim to know what is best for everyone.

Maybe they do know best.
Let's hear what they have to say.
That way the contest of ideas isn't lop-sided in favor of atheists.
What do you think? Mono-culture or diversity?

...Those who oppose abortion shouldn't have one. Period. Full stop.

I'm pretty sure that those who oppose abortion...don't have abortions.
So it's kind of redundant for you to preach at them not to have one.

...Christian women have as many or more abortions per capita as other groups.

Well obviously if atheists use birth control more than Christians then the rates of unwanted pregnancy are going to differ.
If a person's religiousity had no bearing on rates of abortion, the abortion-on-demand lobby wouldn't care about religious arguments against abortion.

...Abstinence programs are a dismal failure in spite of all sorts of "pledges", promises and threats.

The way to stop abortions isnt avoiding unprotected sex. So abstinence is totally irrelevant because only pregnant people have abortions.
Abortions will stop when pregnant people decide NOT to have an abortion.

...Christians have as high a divorce rate

So what? Getting a divorce is a piece of cake. But at least it doesn't involve killing an unborn baby.

...Christians are incarcerated at rates as great as or greater than other groups.

They aren't incarcerated for blasphemy are they?
They aren't in jail for crimes against the church.
They are in jail for theft - (See the Ten Commandments)
They are in jail for murder - (See the Ten Commandments)
The point being that had they obeyed the Ten Commandments they wouldn't be in jail.
And as for the supposed myth about how few atheists there are in jail, I'll believe that when all the atheists pretending to be Christian clergy are gone.
(Yep, some atheists lie about being Christian, whether in jail or not.)

...So much for "Christian morals."

If a Christian is in jail for murder are they saying that murder is OK according to Christianity? No, of course they aren't! They are doing their time for something they confess is actually wrong. In fact it's kind of the central message of Christianity that we sin, we realise and regret our sin and we repent.
Other non-theistic world views assert that there really is no objective moral right and wrong and that if you want to abort your unborn child, that's your business.

...
Before preaching about what others should do "take the log from your own eye" and show by your actions what should be done.

Yep. This is the typical...mind your own business model of the abortion-on-demand lobby.
"My body, my choice"
Strange that the Church is never asked to mind it's own business when it is helping to feed the poor. Strange that the unmarried mother is happy to receive financial support from the same taxpayers who are told that a woman's pregnancy is solely her business.

[AdHoc]

And to be honest, my problem isn't with women who choose abortion my problem is with the PC climate that doesn't allow a reasonable debate about the issue

The problem with the way the issue is framed isn't that its overly "PC", its that its framed in terms of untenable religious ideas about ensoulment and such nonsense, rather than in terms of any real or relevant features of the issue.

That's a fair point. I can't speak for other people but I wouldn't raise the point about human fetuses having a spirit because to many people that's nonsense. I would focus on mundane natural facts and reason. But its kind of an unwritten rule that this isn't allowed in society.

If the facts are discussed and no one is coerced I believe most people will make a good decision.

What facts, specifically?

Exactly.

[BwhoUR]

[Replying to post 120 by Lion IRC]

"The way to stop abortions isn't avoiding unprotected sex. So abstinence is totally irrelevant because only pregnant people have abortions."

Abstinence is not irrelevant, it is a type of birth control, highly effective to those who freely choose it. Protected sex is much better as most young adults want to have sex and do so, sometimes while drunk sometimes against their will. If all the churches in the world provided comprehensive sex education and free birth control to all women without stigma, you would reduce unwanted pregnancy and ABORTION by more than 99.9%. If you did that today and reached the whole world, in 9 months you would reduce abortions to less than one percent and the church would have enough money left over to supply those women with a house and a car and a car seat and a nanny for the new baby. Why wouldn't you jump on that?

"Abortions will stop when pregnant people decide NOT to have an abortion."

By your reasoning fighting the laws about abortion is futile. Deal with it and concentrate on prevention. One other thing for you to consider, even if you eradicate all abortion clinics you will NOT stop abortions! And you will have more disfigured and brain damaged children, from unsuccessful abortion attempts, is that moral?

[Lion IRC]

[Replying to post 120 by Lion IRC]

"The way to stop abortions isn't avoiding unprotected sex. So abstinence is totally irrelevant because only pregnant people have abortions."

Abstinence is not irrelevant, it is a type of birth control, highly effective to those who freely choose it.

I simply make the point that abortion is only relevant to those who have so-called 'unwanted' pregnancies (aka - unwanted human beings.)

Thus, if you don't have sexual intercourse you will never find yourself in the position of having to decide whether or not to have an abortion so the issue at hand is not whether one has sex, it is whether or not one ends the life of an unborn human being.

Yes - they are alive (according to biology text book characteristics which define "life")
Yes - they are human beings. (Not some other species.)
Yes - they are unique, individual human beings. (A male embryo with a penis. To whom does it belong, the mother?)

...By your reasoning fighting the laws about abortion is futile. Deal with it and concentrate on prevention.

Why not both?
Persuading people to the view that unborn human beings have rights IS entirely about prevention.
And, I don't think arguing your case in the public square, contest of ideas is futile.
The world is run by those who show up.

... One other thing for you to consider, even if you eradicate all abortion clinics you will NOT stop abortions! And you will have more disfigured and brain damaged children, from unsuccessful abortion attempts, is that moral?

Wait, you mean people have abortions because they want to 'cleanse' society of people with disability? Down's Syndrome? ALS - Lou Gehrig's disease?
"How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 With ALS?"
http://www.americanscientist.org/scienc ... 0-with-als

[Lion IRC]

Bill Maher, comedian and friend to the Openly Secular campaign, said in a recent interview that America would probably elect a pedophile over an atheist.

What a disgusting thing to say about Americans.
Is that really the sort of thing which is going to endear Mr Maher to ordinary Americans?
It's just like the comments in the Op.
Ignorant, strawman polemics which betray a hatred of God by proxy.

[enviousintheeverafter]

Trying to control the discussion and censor those who think that religion - which is an integral part of human culture around the world - is relevant to the abortion debate, is exactly the type of PC thought-control attempt to which AdHoc is alluding.

Unfortunately, no one is trying to censor anything. If pro-lifers continue to frame the discussion in terms of untenable religious ideas like ensoulment, they're doing reasonable people like me a favor. My point is that in doing so, the discussion is already ill-posed.

Whether Bill Maher likes it or not, abortion-on-demand is something which offends many peoples moral values and opposition to abortion is NOT religious oppression of women.

Bad news once again: it is oppression of women, and is oppression on the basis of religious dogmas.

Agreed. I have never understood why abortion-on-demand activists seek to dehumanize a living human being who happens to reside in a womb. The only reason I can see why they would try to use such (scientifically false) propaganda is because they know that once designated as a human being, a living person, their opponent's argument from human rights and autonomy gains more traction.

Well, but of course the point is that granting that a fetus may be biologically designated as a member of the human species does not give their argument more traction, so its mostly a distraction. Since they're no closer to their conclusion if its granted that a fetus is human, one may as well just do so. Being human isn't pertinent, being a person is, and human=/=person.

Yes, that's right. Abortion-on-demand campaigners know that even after an unborn human is begrudgingly conceded to "be" an actual member of the same species, it is still necessary to try and minimise their value and worth.

Nah, but it is crucial to point out that fetuses lack the necessary features for the sort of moral judgment being urged by the pro-lifer.

But such semantic quibbling seems to justify a whole raft of other scenarios in which the moral implications are swept under the carpet. Would we tolerate rape if the victim didn't know what had happened because they were drugged? Would robbing a bank be OK if nobody noticed that the money had gone missing?

Not much of a problem here, since the rape victim still qualifies as both a person and a moral agent, and that no one notices harm doesn't entail that it was not done, so it doesn't follow that a person has NOT been harmed in this case either. Any better ideas?

Here we see the classic line of reasoning of those who seek to minimise the worth of a person if that person can't do what 'real' people can.

Here we see the classic hand-waving of those who don't have a cogent rebuttal to the fact that fetuses lack all of the things deemed pertinent to moral agency/status and personhood.

Did you see how "linguistic ability" is accounted as a marker for personhood.
"make plans/have goals"

How astonishingly close this reasoning is to that of European colonists who didn't count indigenous humans as 'real' people and took their land by force by the legal principle of terra nullius, because the 'uncivilised' natives weren't using that land according to someone ELSES idea of the importance of "making plans" and "setting goals", and because they lacked the "linguistic ability" to define the concept of land 'ownership'.

In other words, you don't have any actual counter-argument here. Noted- and not especially surprised. Let me know if you think of something.

The religious (God, soul, afterlife) arguments are the strongest.

I agree. Which is why their position is untenable; their best arguments are patently unsound.

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 124 by Lion IRC]

Many truths are uncomfortable or "disgusting." Most Americans consider atheists more disgusting than pedophiles. It's a sad state. But believers and atheists alike need to face it together, don't you think?

[enviousintheeverafter]

What a disgusting thing to say about Americans.

The fact that it may well be true is even more disgusting. Many Americans view atheists as being about on par with rapists, merely because we don't accept their religious myths.

Is that really the sort of thing which is going to endear Mr Maher to ordinary Americans?

Probably not, but the truth often hurts.

Ignorant, strawman polemics which betray a hatred of God by proxy.

Lol!

[AdHoc]

What a disgusting thing to say about Americans.

The fact that it may well be true is even more disgusting. Many Americans view atheists as being about on par with rapists, merely because we don't accept their religious myths.

I sure hope the link you provided is not your sole evidence of this extraordinary statement. This, and the pedophile statement before it in another post are, in my opinion, so false that they couldn't be more false. This belief is insulting to the American people and to any reasonable person's intelligence.

Can you produce even one American (who isn't a rapist or a pedophile) that would put them on par with an atheist?

The paper you linked does not say what you think it does and it has some problems.

1) The study was a Zoomerang poll of 350 "diverse" Americans. What is the confidence interval with that sample size? Was it hoisted by its own bootstraps to 95%? There are over 300 MILLION Americans. Do you honestly believe we could draw any conclusions from that sample? How many times was this test repeated? As far as I can tell it wasn't.

2) That poll did not have anything to do with comparing Americans views on atheism to any immoral acts like rape. Uh oh.

3) The views on rape come in when the writer of the paper started interviewing students from the University of British Columbia. And assuming that those findings could be extrapolated to the US because southwestern BC is less religious than the US and trust of atheists is inversely correlated to "religiousity" but the writer admits that Jewish people, for example, do not demonstrate this prejudice.

Another problem I have with the final interviews is testing people's generalizations by forcing them to make generalizations. E.g. Linda is a bank teller she is intelligent and outspoken is she more likely to be: A) a christian B) a muslim C) a feminist or D) a democrat. I would refuse to answer without more information... The only thing I could say for certain is that she is an intelligent, outspoken bank teller.

Where did you get this paper? Is it even peer-reviewed?

Is that really the sort of thing which is going to endear Mr Maher to ordinary Americans?

Probably not, but the truth often hurts.

Ignorant, strawman polemics which betray a hatred of God by proxy.

Lol!

If many Americans view atheists as being on par with rapists then why are Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens on the best selling list?

Please retract this ridiculous claim.

[AdHoc]

Bill Maher, comedian and friend to the Openly Secular campaign, said in a recent interview that America would probably elect a pedophile over an atheist.

What a disgusting thing to say about Americans.
Is that really the sort of thing which is going to endear Mr Maher to ordinary Americans?
It's just like the comments in the Op.
Ignorant, strawman polemics which betray a hatred of God by proxy.

Lion IRC,
If Mr. Maher is being accurately quoted above I would want him to explain why he has such a low opinion of the American people and democratic society.

Does he have any facts that he bases this extraordinary assertion on or is he just saying weird stuff to get attention?

If the latter is true that's fine, I'll just put him in the same category as Mr. Trump.

Entertainers.