[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Severian

[...]the other ½ he comes off as crass for the fuck of it, like an intellectual ladder rung or two above Howard Stern.

That's a gargantuan exaggeration. Don't shit outside the bowl.

Originally Posted by Severian

His questioning of Lord was satisfying, but talking to the guy that way just wasn't necessary to get his point across. He could have said anything other than "Don't bullshit me" (like, "Answer me honestly") and it would have had less of an echo chamber effect, for instance; rampant cheers from the Magee crowd, but he's not really accomplishing anything because he's playing for the folks who already watch and enjoy Bill Maher, so.. fuckit!)

"Answer me honestly" would have gotten loud cheers as well. Now, on that show oftentimes the audience's response does indeed drown out the "rival" interviewee and seem to prevent the conversation to move along. But let's not kid ourselves: the real problem is that most of the time the conversation has no place to move along to, because all the person being interviewed has to offer are euphemisms for bullcrap anyway.

Originally Posted by Severian

Also his whole stance on religion frustrates the fuck out of me. He's one of the main reasons I'm agnostic, and think bad thoughts when I hear the word "atheist." He's just as convinced of his own nonfalsifiable belief in that things don't exist as Christians are in their certainty that the very same things do. And his entire bullying way of shitting on people for their beliefs is only a few steps away from its own form of religious extremism.

This line of thinking REALLY irks the living FUCK out of me. You're taking part in an egregious false equivalency. Maher himself has said that irreflective atheism mirrors the blind conviction of the religious believer, which leads me to my personal stance (not unshared, hopefully; otherwise Rotten was dead right and there actually is no future): since we simply don't know whether there's any kind of afterlife, the only sane, rational thing to be is agnostic... in principle. In practice, when it comes to dealing with anything regarding this subject that's unproven but stated as fact or even trivial ("I dunno... I just believe that..."), you can't be anything but an atheist — ALL religions, cults, sects (synonyms, in the end) are based on the notion that somebody at some point knew what's "on the other side", THE greatest lie in mankind's history. You know how I know? Because I don't know. And whoever started each of these bullshitfests were nothing but other humans who didn't have any superabilities I don't possess. Worse yet, in 99% of these cases the scriptures and commandments and creeds, which are incalculably, unfathomably ridiculous and contradictory to say the very least, were written and rewritten by generations of ignorants who weren't even remotely aware of the atom or the DNA, let alone the Higgs boson: shit, everything science has discovered and keeps discovering and working on.

If one makes it all the way to this point in a conversation with a believer (seriously doubtful; they shut down way before), it's at this juncture when they admit they're believing in a lie (not that they'll ever use that word). So their answer turns to the lowest possible argument: "Well, if believing in the supernatural will make someone feel better about this terrible world, what's the harm?" "What's the HARM?" Gee, let us count the ways: the systematic rape of children, 9/11, the subjugation of women and all sorts of minorities, centuries jam-packed with abject carnage beyond imagination, want me to keep going? If you're selling something but nobody's buying, you're forced to sell off, and nothing better could happen to humanity — sell all your fucking temples and cathedrals to McDonald's for all I care. Nah, don't do that; keep them as music venues. The acoustics on some of those joints are just heavenly...

Originally Posted by Severian

But. Whatever.

Why do your posts always have to end like this? "Whatevs". "Blah". Put in a little effort, writer.