Bill Maher appeared on Conan O’ Brien last night and said this of religious people:
“You can’t be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you’re drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god. That doesn’t make you a person of faith…That makes you a schizophrenic.”
O’Brien, looking a bit uneasy, then asked Maher whether anyone who is religious is schizophrenic. To which Maher replied, “Well, yes, sort of, because they have walled off a part of their mind.”
Well this is where Bill Maher has it all wrong. I try to be schizo 7 days a week.
January 8, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god…Wow! Where do I sign up for that?
But seriously, is God really only 2,000 years old? I had thought God would be older than my favorite rock in my rock collection (some type of flint). If he’s not, then who created all my rocks?
January 8, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Perhaps Mr. Maher would like to attend a conference on January, 20th, hosted by the Crossroads Cultural Center entitled “Can Faith Broaden Reason?” It’s free, you just need a ticket and will address this very issue.
http://www.clonline.us/images/Reason2008.png
January 8, 2008 at 8:21 pm
No. No. Silly goose faith and reason are two separate things entirely. Science is always right. Faith is always wrong. Didn’t you get the memo from Richard Dawkins?
January 8, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Yes, I got it, but since I am unreasonable, I threw it out. 🙂
January 12, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I have two issues which I’d like to raise (respectuflly and sincerely, of course).
First, although I’m not schizophrenic, or “schizo”,I don’t think it’s appropriate to use the term in a derogatory way, or to imply that it’s insulting. It’s actually very weird and insensitive to do this…like using the term “heart attack victim” as an insult.
Second, I notice that people often use “schizophrenic” when they really mean “having a split personality.” People with schizophrenia don’t actually have split personalities; they have multiple personality disorder (old term) or dissociative identity disorder (new term).
January 13, 2008 at 10:33 am
Intuitive people are oft labeled by the blind.