Warning!!! Maher drops the F bomb. This video is not child friendly. Please use earphones or turn sound down.
I think Maher is often offensive and I rarely use him on Moonhowlings because he takes things over the top. He particularly offends me on religion. I have a house rule that involves not making fun of other people’s religion, even if you think it is ridiculous. You can challenge practices but you can’t make fun. It’s often been a difficult rule for me to keep. That would include snake handers, peyote smokers and polygamists , as long as they are consenting adults.
Maher crosses over, however, when he talks about science. You can believe what you want but I have a real problem with anyone graduating from a university who hasn’t had a science course that involves the scientific process. So who knows? How are topics like the Grand Canyon and major geology handled at colleges like Liberty? How are origins of the universe handled? Can we just say God did it and that covers the science? Has anyone taken a course at Liberty, Oral Roberts, Regent? How do dinosaurs fit in to the big picture?
Help me understand.
I’m not an expert here, but, a born-again explained to me that the dinosaurs were real, were created by God and were on the Ark. They walked the earth with men and later became extinct just like the dodo and passenger pigeon. She also said that dinosaurs were the dragons that we read about in fairy tales or see in paintings (St. George and the dragon). The Grand Canyon was created when the waters receded after the great flood.
Thank you, Rev. BS. You left off the time period. Some people believe that the earth is only 6000 years old. Now that freaks me out.
Many Christians do not believe that evolution and Creationism are mutually exclusive concepts, but that you can split the baby, so to speak.
I agree, Emma. Its the guiding hand theory. That is very plausible, at least to me. What I cannot handle is that it happened 6000 years ago.
What I find odd is that most Jews do not believe that the OT is literal. Yet Christians come along and want to go with literal interpretation. I also haven’t figured out how fundamentalists justify all the various translations down through the ages. But that’s just me. People can believe what they want about it.
I actually ENJOY making fun of people’s religion. I believe adults choosing to believe in fairy tales is fair game for jokes. But even I find Maher to be smarmy and overbearingly unlikeable on this issue.
Making fun of other people’s religion draws bad Karma. You can do it in your own head though. That doesn’t count.
Maher is fairly smarmy and overbearing about religion, isn’t he?
On the other hand, he can sometimes be hilarious as can Robin Williams. Robin seems to have calmed down since he ad a quadruple by pass or whatever it was he had.
@Moon-howler
I agree completely on making fun of other people’s religion. If I consider someone’s religious beliefs preposterous I keep that thought to myself and allow them the freedom to believe as they choose.
Anyone interested in reconciling science and faith should read Francis Collins’ “The Language of God.” Collins was for many years the head of the Human Genome Project. He approaches the subject from both a solid scientific background and Christian faith. Don’t expect a defense of the indefensible. Collins dissects and discredits both young earth creationism (i.e., dinosaurs and man shared the earth at the same time) and intelligent design, from a Christian perspective.
Collins took the title of his book from a quote from Bill Clinton. As Collins explains in the introduction to his book, he joined President Clinton for a ceremony at the White House regarding the Human Genome Project, where Clinton said, “we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift.”
This is all coming not from ignorant, biased, uneducated people but a leading genomic scientist and a Democratic President.
To believe a divine being exists is not mutally exclusive in the investegation of real science. Many amazing scientist believe in G-d. The crisis comes when people in power actually DIS-believe the theories of science and instead choose to push their chosen ignorance onto the public forum, i.e. teaching creationsism along with evolution in public schools.
I laughed my butt off when Maher said you can’t call Target a restaurant just because they server pizza!
@Elena
The Target comment made me laugh. Many years ago, when my granddaughter was quite young, we stopped in the Haymarket Sheetz for gas and I got her a hot dog. We sat in the little eating area while she ate it. I was old enough and had raised enough kids to know to keep kids and hotdogs out of my car. She went home and told her mother I had taken her to a fine restaurant. Her mother asked the name and she proudly told her, Sheets.
@Elena
@Moon-howler
Elena and Moon – my comment was not intended as a defense of Bill Maher; only of rationalism. I detest Bill Maher. I defend his right to say whatever he wants, however. Be sure to read my other comment this morning in the Blatty thread.
I think it’s very difficult to argue with one of the stars of 1983’s Academy-Award-Winning movie, D.C. Cab. Maher is star-power to the max!!
All I know is that the Catholic Church teaches evolution in schools and religion in religion class.
Good for the Catholic Church. Is it the Catholic Church or Catholic schools. Many Catholic schools have an excellent academic reputation. So do many Methodist and Episcopalian schools. Those certainly aren’t the only ones, just ones I am familiar with.
Some schools out there don’t separate between faith and science.I have a problem with those schools being fully accredited.
@Need to Know
I don’t despise him. I think he can be offensive. I would say Maher probably isn’t for public consumption. Neither is Rush Limbaugh. There are a whole host of comedians out there I could say that about.
Speaking of, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are back tonight.
Not impressed in listening to BM’s mad ranting; he is an unfortunate man. He and Limbaugh are cut from the same cloth – really can’t listen to either of them very long. Painful. I have never found mean-spirited mockery entertaining. As to creation science, I don’t know if I can help you understand, but having been raised in an evangelical, fundamentalist (in its classic meaning) environment, perhaps I can offer you a few insights. First, remember Modern Science has its roots in the Christian faith, especially philosophy and theology, the “queen of the sciences.” The university system is a Christian creation. This has some important implications, such as how we in the West, even non-religious, see ourselves and the world. All those ‘real’ universities started as theology schools, most still have theology depts. To the Christian, faith and reason, and their institutional embodiments, religion and science were always about the same thing – discovering the truth. God never meant for us to disengage our brains from our hearts. I personally believe in creation, as the Nicene Creed says, God created all things, visible and invisible. This is a right combination of both faith and reason. They both have their place and are both necessary. To mock faith or reason is to mock what is a part of every man, woman, and child.
Thanks for your perspective, Rick. I think UVA was the first univeristy that wasn’t first a theology school.
How do we explain the time difference between what science tells us and what is indicated in faith based teaching?
Not all ‘faith based teaching’ is at odds with ‘science.’ Perhaps a quote from a Cardinal during the time of Galileo will help, “The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.” That is not to say Sacred Scripture has nothing to say about Nature, just that that is not its purpose.
The ‘father’ of modern young earth creationism is the late Henry Morris. A geologist by trade and one time professor at VA Tech, almost all current YEC is based on his initial work. An extraordinary man, his last work, The Long War Against God, provides an excellent insight into that mindset. Because of my background I suffer from latent YEC tendencies. Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist, and Michael Behe, a biologist, are scientists who see the universe as a much older place. Dr. Behe is famous for his concept of ‘irreducible complexity,’ a criticism of natural selection as an evolutionary process. His book, Darwin’s Black Box, has never really been satisfactorily answered, just mostly dismissed (including a famous court case.) Dr. Ross represents the large number of Christian astronomers who believe in a universe billions of years old. He has developed a creation model that includes the latest research on Dark Energy.
A friend of mine, probably one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet, is totally convinced of Creation, quite apart from what the Bible says. He is not alone. There are multitudes of scientists who see no disconnect between a deep faith in God and honest scientific inquiry.