“Maybe a President who didn’t believe our soldiers were going to heaven would be less likely to get them killed” was the sucker punch that good comedic social critics are able to deliver. Get ’em laughing and them nail ’em with the truth.
The whole piece was good, but that line, in particular, was awesome.
(And I suspect that Rushdie was enjoying the hell out of it, too, considering what he’s been through because of religion.)
Carliesays
Bill Mahr just had a huge rant on his show about how public breastfeeding was gross and icky and people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. I don’t think he’s much of a rationalist.
I don’t always agree with Bill, but this made me cheer out loud!
madam Pomfreysays
Bill Mahr just had a huge rant on his show about how public breastfeeding was gross and icky and people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. I don’t think he’s much of a rationalist.
Saying that breastfeeding shouldn’t be done in public doesn’t automatically make one irrational. IMHO it’s too intimate for public viewing. That’s not a statement of fact; it’s an opinion. The “it’s perfectly acceptable to do it in public because it’s natural” assertion *is* fallacious, however. Using the toilet is natural, too, but you don’t necessarily want to see others doing it in public.
Jim Wynnesays
Using the toilet is natural, too, but you don’t necessarily want to see others doing it in public.
I would think that in a place where there are toilets in public view, using them would be no big deal.
Dsays
Was that Rushdie?
patricksays
While he was spot on here, his views on medicine/health care are far from rational. Chase down his recent appearance on Charlie Rose, for example.
Yep, that’s Rushdie and this appears to be the current episode (109), first aired last night (Sept 21). Here is the lineup for the show this week:
Bill welcomes singer Rob Thomas, novelist Sir Salman Rushdie, and comedian Janeane Garofalo. Plus, via satellite, terrorism expert Michael Scheuer and environmentalist/author Bjorn Lomborg.
I tried to find the download link for the segment from HBO and it wasn’t up yet. I’m glad that onegoodmove put it up so soon!
Andrewsays
As much as I want to cheer at what Bill Maher says here, I just can’t do it. Why? Because Bill Maher is NOT a rationalist.
Check this video:
The good stuff starts about halfway through the clip. Bill Maher tells Charlie Rose all about the irrationality of religion, then he tells Charlie how bad America is (“What have we done lately?”), and he tops it off by telling Charlie that he doesn’t believe in MODERN MEDICINE! This AFTER he tirades about stem-cell research! Apparently, Bill has a Holistic doctor and believes that it is true medicine (despite the negative findings of thousands of studies…).
When I say I am a rationalist, I am a rationalist. I don’t dismiss holistic medicine because it is Eastern. I dismiss it because science says its horseshit, and at best it’s a placebo. Bill Maher is a hypocrite.
JDsays
When I say I am a rationalist, I am a rationalist. I don’t dismiss holistic medicine because it is Eastern. I dismiss it because science says its horseshit, and at best it’s a placebo. Bill Maher is a hypocrite.
So true. While Bill can rant about the stupidity of religion with the best of them, he also has a penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth and coming off like a complete nutjob. It reduces his effectiveness as a voice for reason IMNSHO. The incident you cited is just one example of many. Maher was the same guy who insinuated Christopher Reeve deserved what happened to him. Apparently, riding a horse in his whacky world is animal abuse.
Bill Maher commenting about Reeve and his accident (Boston Globe, 1997), “I took it as animal abuse…If you try to make a horse jump over something that it doesn’t want to jump over, I think it really should throw you off its back.”
jfatzsays
Heck, he also bashed the iPhone, for that that he must PAY!!! PAYYYY!!!!!
We are all irrational in one way or another. Anyone who fears flying above driving is being irrational. Some people will not live near power lines but will happily move to a place where their kids have to be driven further to school instead. Many refuse to give their kids vaccines even after they’ve been shown all the statistics.
I would bet that even the most avowed rationalist does several irrational things a week. Does that make them all hypocrites, or simply human?
Now, Maher’s problem with modern medicine is a big issue. He holds himself up as a spokesman for rationalism and then poops a big one all over one of greatest advances in human history which was a triumph of rationalism over superstition. So he does deserve to be called out over it. Perhaps he should book a few private sessions with one of my favorite rationalists in the media — Dr Dean Edell.
I saw him live a couple of years ago when he was fielding questions from the audience at a convention center. There were a lot of irrational comments being made by the audience, the most common being the old chestnut about the drug companies not wanting to cure us (Maher shares that view), and he handled them all calmly and explained in simple terms why they were wrong.
sailorsays
This was good section. But Maher is anti vac and while
“Saying that breastfeeding shouldn’t be done in public doesn’t automatically make one irrational.” might not be automatically irrational comparing breastfeeding in public to masterbating in public as he did, is.
rpsays
“Maybe a President who didn’t believe our soldiers were going to heaven would be less likely to get them killed”
is a nice line, but I think he actually just thinks of them as counters in a game. I don’t think it helps that there aren’t pictures of coffins on the news every night, with interviews from grieving families reminding him that they were real people. It makes it easy for the little sociopath to avoid the whole issue.
Of course, as a cynical Canadian atheist fully as capable of projection as anyone else, I don’t believe that anyone actually believes in a god. I think they just say they do for social/political reasons or because of brainwashing as a child. In particular, I think Little Boots just picked up a Bible because it was politically expedient.
Michaelsays
Regardless of his past mistakes and current issues, this monolouge was wonderful.
I especially enjoyed the christian apologist in the comments employing the no true scotsman fallacy. I’ve been seeing this one a little too often lately and I think it lies at the heart of PZ’s irritation at believers saying that the religion we regularly criticize isn’t their religion or it isn’t a true representation of their religion. In each and every case the only true christian seems to be the one who’s talking.
When I say I am a rationalist, I am a rationalist. I don’t dismiss holistic medicine because it is Eastern. I dismiss it because science says its horseshit, and at best it’s a placebo. Bill Maher is a hypocrite.
While I agree that we are all irrational in one way or another, the reason Bill Maher irritates me is that he represents himself as being a rational atheist but is prone to all sorts of woo. He doesn’t believe in vaccination or in the germ theory of disease and has said so on his show, quoting the long-discredited story that Pasteur recanted on his deathbed in favor of Beauchamps. He’s heavily into PETA.
In other words, he thinks he’s a rationalist but he’s into as much loony woo as many fundamentalists. It’s just a different kind of loony woo.
MAJeffsays
I don’t think it helps that there aren’t pictures of coffins on the news every night, with interviews from grieving families reminding him that they were real people. It makes it easy for the little sociopath to avoid the whole issue.
I agree. Completely. Maybe if people here were more aware, first hand, of the hideousness of war they’d be less orgasmic about pursuing it. Maybe if they saw mutilated bodies, mourning families, and filled coffins, they’d be less willing to put others’ lives on the lines. Maybe.
Before we invaded Iraq, I did whay my undergraduate professors did prior to the 1992 Gulf War. I opened up my classroom to talk about it, be it their fears, their questions, whatever. (As an undergrad we did this during my French and German Diction class–I was a music major.) I’ll never forget one of my students saying, “I went to my fifth goodbye party last night and I don’t know if I’ll ever see my friends again.” I remember my students who’d signed up for ROTC because it was the only way for them to go to college, and hoping that they would never have to go over. I remember students from Pakistan and Sri Lanka telling me about their horrific experiences with INS, TSA and the like over the Christmas Holiday.
These are nothing compared to the people being bombed, losing their homes and loved ones. But they’ve stuck with me to this day.
While the majority of Americans may now be against this war, far too many of us are also still too willing to impose war on others. People in other countries may be no better, but I can only work where I live, and because I care about my students, wherever they be from, I want none of them to experience the horrors of war.
When I saw that last night, I wondered if he might have been prompted by your recent post about the nicene creed (intentionally uncapitalized, don’t bother to correct me) being a rationality test. And please, let’s not get too sanctimonious about Bill having some odd ideas. I doubt anyone here is right about everything, either. At least he is one of the tiny handful of voices who has a soapbox and is making some kind of effort to stop the rollback of the Enlightenment. Remember, modern medicine does have a lot of issues, what with the relentless parasite of the insurance industry making medical decisions as well as with the concocting of diseases like Restless Leg Syndrome and Attention Deficit Disorder. Restless Leg Syndrome is your body’s way of saying “put the fucking Cheetos down and let’s go for a walk, I need some exercise,” yet now we have large molecules we can wolf down that control that horrible urge and keep us still as death. Kid not paying attention in school? Give him speed! Modern, perhaps, but medicine? I’m not so sure about that.
…might not be automatically irrational comparing breastfeeding in public to masterbating in public as he did, is.
Right, guys have to pay to watch people masturbate on porn sites. Who pays to watch women breast feed?
If you know, please provide a link.
Andrewsays
And please, let’s not get too sanctimonious about Bill having some odd ideas. I doubt anyone here is right about everything, either.
I’m sorry but his stances on PETA and Holistic Medicine are hardly just “odd ideas”. They are irrational nonsense. Although, I appreciate how he publicly defends atheism, I KNOW that he really doesn’t think like me. And I don’t want him misrepresenting real rationalists with his holistic mumbo-jumbo.
MTransays
“Restless Leg Syndrome is your body’s way of saying “put the fucking Cheetos down and let’s go for a walk…”
Uh, no, it’s not. At least not for those whose legs pump furiously through the night (as well as day), destroying any possibility of sleep. No amount of pacing, power walking, jogging, or sprinting will suffice for this condition.
The name sounds silly, trivializes the disruptive nature of the condition, and subjects already self conscious sufferers to ridicule.
Just because a diagnosis has a funny sounding name, doesn’t mean it is fake or absurd.
MAJeffsays
Uh, no, it’s not. At least not for those whose legs pump furiously through the night (as well as day), destroying any possibility of sleep. No amount of pacing, power walking, jogging, or sprinting will suffice for this condition.
I’ve gone on 10-mile walks just to tire my legs out so the twitching and jerking wouldn’t keep me awake at night. Doesn’t work.
MAJeffsays
ok, not sure how the formatting got screwed up. Oh well.
Christian Burnhamsays
Bill Maher is a comedian and contrarian who has a whole range of views which I don’t agree with. However, he’s willing to debate and defend his views in a critical manner- and that’s the important thing.
He’s mostly right about modern medicine. American’s biggest health problem is their unhealthy lifestyle, and ingesting more drugs isn’t going to help much.
He’s also a critical thinker when it comes to animal cruelty. If you accept that humans are animals, then it becomes much harder to excuse ill treatment of other animals. Our notions of animal cruelty are perhaps largely derived from Biblical notions of animals being created to serve Man. Do away with religious justifications, and it gets much harder to rationalize the shoddy way in which we treat livestock.
No- I don’t agree with everything he says- but I don’t agree with everything P. Zizzy says either.
Jasonsays
He’s mostly right about modern medicine. American’s biggest health problem is their unhealthy lifestyle, and ingesting more drugs isn’t going to help much.
Yes, Maher is absolutely right to bring this up. It always gets ignored. All the political attention is instead focused on the problems of our health care system, which has a relatively small effect on health and longevity. Smoking alone causes 24 times as many premature deaths as inadequate health insurance. Why aren’t the presidential candidates touting their “Tobacco Reform” plans instead of obsessing over the number of Americans who don’t have health insurance?
urielsays
Restless Leg Syndrome is your body’s way of saying “put the fucking Cheetos down and let’s go for a walk, I need some exercise,” yet now we have large molecules we can wolf down that control that horrible urge and keep us still as death.
You really have no idea what you’re talking about.
Far from being a symptom of sloth, not only is there evidence that the condition is partially genetic, but excessive exercise exacerbates the condition.
Add to that its association with a number of non-lazybones conditions- everything from pregnancy, parkinsons, to taking anti-convulsives- and your armchair doctorin’ here seems pretty ill-informed.
As far as the still as death part goes- nice imagery, but again, pretty ignorant of the actual situation. No, what people who suffer from RLS _actually_ want is to be able to sleep on a regular basis, so they don’t have to operate in a state of perpetual exhaustion.
That may be short-sighted and selfish, I suppose. But since I don’t see the rest of the world suddenly shunning the idea that 6-8 hours of sleep a day is a good thing, in favor of 3-4 hours, or sometimes 0 hours, I’m not going to feel too bad about joining the sheeple.
Here’s a case study for you:
When I was younger, I used to exercise upwards of two hours a day between weight lifting, cardio and kick-boxing. I had 15% body fat- not great but certainly not obese. That didn’t mean I didn’t spend most nights staring at the clock trying to pretzel my legs into some configuration that would let me get some kind of sleep.
Then, I took an SSRI to quit smoking. Not only did my activity level not decrease- it increased, because even sitting in a chair for an extended period would cause my legs to ache, and the only way I could be comfortable was to stand or walk almost constantly.
BTW- I don’t eat cheetos.
So, would you say that maybe your original diagnosis might be slightly off? Or is your expert solution is that I should have been exercising 4 hours a day? 6 hours?
Maybe you should actually read up on the science, rather than spouting off on topics you clearly don’t understand.
Using the toilet is natural, too, but you don’t necessarily want to see others doing it in public.
Shouldn’t we all be pissing against walls? The Bible is always talking about “he who pisseth against the wall” implying that such behavior is everyday, normal practice.
urielsays
I’ve gone on 10-mile walks just to tire my legs out so the twitching and jerking wouldn’t keep me awake at night. Doesn’t work.
I’ve tried just about every kind of activity as a prophylactic- nothing helps. About the only thing that does seem to work is actually exhausting your legs during the attack. Unfortunately, that means jogging on my treadmill at 2:00 in the morning- which, of course, causes other problems.
If only I could just quit the cheetos. Sigh.
MTransays
“Then, I took an SSRI to quit smoking. Not only did my activity level not decrease- it increased”
I’m convinced that the large increase in the use of SSRI’s exposed a lot more doctors and patients to the Restless Legs Syndrome, and helped to hone in on the underlying mechanisms and possible remedies.
Prescribing physicians were talking about the growing frequency of the condition (as a side effect of medications) for more than a decade before it hit the mainstream press.
MAJeffsays
About the only thing that does seem to work is actually exhausting your legs during the attack. Unfortunately, that means jogging on my treadmill at 2:00 in the morning- which, of course, causes other problems.
I turn on a Simpsons DVD and give up on sleeping. Those three-hour non-consecutive sleep nights rock!
tacitussays
He’s mostly right about modern medicine. American’s biggest health problem is their unhealthy lifestyle, and ingesting more drugs isn’t going to help much.
On the contrary, he is mostly wrong about modern medicine, He may be right about the biggest problem being our unhealthy lifestyle, but he goes way beyond that saying that if we’d only stop ingesting all those drugs, America would become a healthier place. It wouldn’t. Many more people–those who depend on the drugs to keep them alive–would die.
I am all for better preventative health care, and for better education, promotion of healty lifestyles and pressure against the unhealthy ones (look out, libertarians) but this is a long, long way away from what Maher is advocating, which is the wholesale rejection of lifesaving and quality-of-life saving drugs. He really doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Neither of my parents would be alive today if they had followed his advice.
Menasays
This rant at the end of his show almost made up for the “transvestite Ann Coulter” bit at the beginning. Almost.
Juliansays
Seems to me its a hell of a lot more rational to pay a few bucks for gas and dignity than it is to deal with tsa’s B***shite these days.
Andrewsays
He’s mostly right about modern medicine. American’s biggest health problem is their unhealthy lifestyle, and ingesting more drugs isn’t going to help much.
Sure many Americans don’t eat right. That doesn’t mean that heart or diabetes-related drugs are not going to help. Sure the diseases are preventable, but once you have them, you need drugs. Bill Maher thinks that the Drug industry is corrupt because they charge so much, and he think a lot of diseases are made up so the drug companies can sell more drugs. This is simply not the case. Drug companies charge for their products because they need to make a profit. And they invest millions (sometimes billions) in R&D that may last three decades. Not to mention that costs also include failed avenues of research.
I think Bill just has a problem with capitalism… Drug companies can charge whatever they want for their product. It’s their product. The easiest way to destroy medicinal progress would be to nationalize it.
I am all for better preventative health care, and for better education, promotion of healty lifestyles and pressure against the unhealthy ones (look out, libertarians) but this is a long, long way away from what Maher is advocating, which is the wholesale rejection of lifesaving and quality-of-life saving drugs. He really doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Exactly. Well put.
Do away with religious justifications, and it gets much harder to rationalize the shoddy way in which we treat livestock.
How is that? I totally don’t understand your reasoning. Cows are not sentient beings, they are prey (albeit domesticate, genetically engineered prey). What do I care what happens to them? As long as the meat is healthy, I’ve got no problem (rationally) with how they get from A to B. Any other “feelings” are EMOTIONAL not logical.
I personally have no problem with Vegans who live that lifestyle because they find it healthier. I do, however, have a problem with people who believe that animals have some kind of rights beyond what WE ASCRIBE TO THEM. That is not rational. In fact, it borders on mysticism… all that gaia, one-world garbage.
Mattsays
Maher’s problem, along with millions of others, is his scientific illiteracy. I remember when he was still on ABC, in a very incredulous and dismissive way he said, “You can’t measure the speed of light!”
Nixsays
Madam Pomfrey@#5, eating is intimate? Really?
Milo Johnson@#19, if you’ve got ADHD, methamphetamines (and caffeine) have a *completely* different effect on you than they do on the rest of the population. They don’t make you jittery or hyperactive: they calm you down. (I’ve never tried meth, but large quantities of caffeine are an essential if I’m to concentrate on anything for any length of time.)
This works; it is known why it works (altering the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine towards levels that are in other people the norm); and claiming that ADHD is a sign of overmedication or a misdiagnosis of laziness merely shows your ignorance.
(Hey, would *you* think there was something wrong if your attention flicked between foci with an average interval of five seconds? Hint: That’s *not normal*, and it’s not something you can control, either.)
Jasonsays
Andrew,
Cows are not sentient beings, they are prey (albeit domesticate, genetically engineered prey).
Nonsense. Of course cows are sentient. All large mammal species are sentient. And so what if they are “prey?” That obviously doesn’t excuse mistreatment by human beings.
What do I care what happens to them? As long as the meat is healthy, I’ve got no problem (rationally) with how they get from A to B.
Are you indifferent to all animal suffering, or only that of cows? If a kid tortures a feral cat for fun, you’ve “got no problem (rationally)” with that either, do you?
I do, however, have a problem with people who believe that animals have some kind of rights beyond what WE ASCRIBE TO THEM. That is not rational.
Well, you’re not being very rational. Since rights are invented concepts, nothing has rights beyond what we ascribe to them. “Human rights” or “civil rights” or “constitutional rights” are not discoverable facts about the world, they are ideas invented by human beings. So are the rights of animals. You’re not saying anything relevant here.
Anton Matessays
Cows are not sentient beings, they are prey (albeit domesticate, genetically engineered prey). What do I care what happens to them? As long as the meat is healthy, I’ve got no problem (rationally) with how they get from A to B. Any other “feelings” are EMOTIONAL not logical.
What makes your desire for healthy meat logical rather than emotional?
Jasonsays
Or his desire to avoid eating, say, small children, for that matter.
Ichthyicsays
If a kid tortures a feral cat for fun, you’ve “got no problem (rationally)” with that either, do you?
Well, it depends on if the type of torture ends up tenderizing the meat or not.
Cat can be really stringy and tough if not tenderized properly beforehand.
Ichthyicsays
Since rights are invented concepts, nothing has rights beyond what we ascribe to them.
*ding*
you say the words, yet somehow I don’t think you grasp the meaning.
Jasonsays
Ichythic,
You seem hopelessly confused.
Ichthyicsays
You seem hopelessly confused.
leave it to you to not be able to figure out I’m making fun of you, and project your confusion onto me.
I take it he didn’t mention vaccines or PETA.
“Maybe a President who didn’t believe our soldiers were going to heaven would be less likely to get them killed” was the sucker punch that good comedic social critics are able to deliver. Get ’em laughing and them nail ’em with the truth.
The whole piece was good, but that line, in particular, was awesome.
(And I suspect that Rushdie was enjoying the hell out of it, too, considering what he’s been through because of religion.)
Bill Mahr just had a huge rant on his show about how public breastfeeding was gross and icky and people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. I don’t think he’s much of a rationalist.
I don’t always agree with Bill, but this made me cheer out loud!
Bill Mahr just had a huge rant on his show about how public breastfeeding was gross and icky and people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. I don’t think he’s much of a rationalist.
Saying that breastfeeding shouldn’t be done in public doesn’t automatically make one irrational. IMHO it’s too intimate for public viewing. That’s not a statement of fact; it’s an opinion. The “it’s perfectly acceptable to do it in public because it’s natural” assertion *is* fallacious, however. Using the toilet is natural, too, but you don’t necessarily want to see others doing it in public.
I would think that in a place where there are toilets in public view, using them would be no big deal.
Was that Rushdie?
While he was spot on here, his views on medicine/health care are far from rational. Chase down his recent appearance on Charlie Rose, for example.
Yep, that’s Rushdie and this appears to be the current episode (109), first aired last night (Sept 21). Here is the lineup for the show this week:
Bill welcomes singer Rob Thomas, novelist Sir Salman Rushdie, and comedian Janeane Garofalo. Plus, via satellite, terrorism expert Michael Scheuer and environmentalist/author Bjorn Lomborg.
I tried to find the download link for the segment from HBO and it wasn’t up yet. I’m glad that onegoodmove put it up so soon!
As much as I want to cheer at what Bill Maher says here, I just can’t do it. Why? Because Bill Maher is NOT a rationalist.
Check this video:
The good stuff starts about halfway through the clip. Bill Maher tells Charlie Rose all about the irrationality of religion, then he tells Charlie how bad America is (“What have we done lately?”), and he tops it off by telling Charlie that he doesn’t believe in MODERN MEDICINE! This AFTER he tirades about stem-cell research! Apparently, Bill has a Holistic doctor and believes that it is true medicine (despite the negative findings of thousands of studies…).
When I say I am a rationalist, I am a rationalist. I don’t dismiss holistic medicine because it is Eastern. I dismiss it because science says its horseshit, and at best it’s a placebo. Bill Maher is a hypocrite.
So true. While Bill can rant about the stupidity of religion with the best of them, he also has a penchant for sticking his foot in his mouth and coming off like a complete nutjob. It reduces his effectiveness as a voice for reason IMNSHO. The incident you cited is just one example of many. Maher was the same guy who insinuated Christopher Reeve deserved what happened to him. Apparently, riding a horse in his whacky world is animal abuse.
Bill Maher commenting about Reeve and his accident (Boston Globe, 1997), “I took it as animal abuse…If you try to make a horse jump over something that it doesn’t want to jump over, I think it really should throw you off its back.”
Heck, he also bashed the iPhone, for that that he must PAY!!! PAYYYY!!!!!
http://www.jonholato.com/2007/09/18/bill-maher-bashes-iphone-early-adopters/
We are all irrational in one way or another. Anyone who fears flying above driving is being irrational. Some people will not live near power lines but will happily move to a place where their kids have to be driven further to school instead. Many refuse to give their kids vaccines even after they’ve been shown all the statistics.
I would bet that even the most avowed rationalist does several irrational things a week. Does that make them all hypocrites, or simply human?
Now, Maher’s problem with modern medicine is a big issue. He holds himself up as a spokesman for rationalism and then poops a big one all over one of greatest advances in human history which was a triumph of rationalism over superstition. So he does deserve to be called out over it. Perhaps he should book a few private sessions with one of my favorite rationalists in the media — Dr Dean Edell.
I saw him live a couple of years ago when he was fielding questions from the audience at a convention center. There were a lot of irrational comments being made by the audience, the most common being the old chestnut about the drug companies not wanting to cure us (Maher shares that view), and he handled them all calmly and explained in simple terms why they were wrong.
This was good section. But Maher is anti vac and while
“Saying that breastfeeding shouldn’t be done in public doesn’t automatically make one irrational.” might not be automatically irrational comparing breastfeeding in public to masterbating in public as he did, is.
“Maybe a President who didn’t believe our soldiers were going to heaven would be less likely to get them killed”
is a nice line, but I think he actually just thinks of them as counters in a game. I don’t think it helps that there aren’t pictures of coffins on the news every night, with interviews from grieving families reminding him that they were real people. It makes it easy for the little sociopath to avoid the whole issue.
Of course, as a cynical Canadian atheist fully as capable of projection as anyone else, I don’t believe that anyone actually believes in a god. I think they just say they do for social/political reasons or because of brainwashing as a child. In particular, I think Little Boots just picked up a Bible because it was politically expedient.
Regardless of his past mistakes and current issues, this monolouge was wonderful.
I especially enjoyed the christian apologist in the comments employing the no true scotsman fallacy. I’ve been seeing this one a little too often lately and I think it lies at the heart of PZ’s irritation at believers saying that the religion we regularly criticize isn’t their religion or it isn’t a true representation of their religion. In each and every case the only true christian seems to be the one who’s talking.
While I agree that we are all irrational in one way or another, the reason Bill Maher irritates me is that he represents himself as being a rational atheist but is prone to all sorts of woo. He doesn’t believe in vaccination or in the germ theory of disease and has said so on his show, quoting the long-discredited story that Pasteur recanted on his deathbed in favor of Beauchamps. He’s heavily into PETA.
In other words, he thinks he’s a rationalist but he’s into as much loony woo as many fundamentalists. It’s just a different kind of loony woo.
I agree. Completely. Maybe if people here were more aware, first hand, of the hideousness of war they’d be less orgasmic about pursuing it. Maybe if they saw mutilated bodies, mourning families, and filled coffins, they’d be less willing to put others’ lives on the lines. Maybe.
Before we invaded Iraq, I did whay my undergraduate professors did prior to the 1992 Gulf War. I opened up my classroom to talk about it, be it their fears, their questions, whatever. (As an undergrad we did this during my French and German Diction class–I was a music major.) I’ll never forget one of my students saying, “I went to my fifth goodbye party last night and I don’t know if I’ll ever see my friends again.” I remember my students who’d signed up for ROTC because it was the only way for them to go to college, and hoping that they would never have to go over. I remember students from Pakistan and Sri Lanka telling me about their horrific experiences with INS, TSA and the like over the Christmas Holiday.
These are nothing compared to the people being bombed, losing their homes and loved ones. But they’ve stuck with me to this day.
While the majority of Americans may now be against this war, far too many of us are also still too willing to impose war on others. People in other countries may be no better, but I can only work where I live, and because I care about my students, wherever they be from, I want none of them to experience the horrors of war.
When I saw that last night, I wondered if he might have been prompted by your recent post about the nicene creed (intentionally uncapitalized, don’t bother to correct me) being a rationality test. And please, let’s not get too sanctimonious about Bill having some odd ideas. I doubt anyone here is right about everything, either. At least he is one of the tiny handful of voices who has a soapbox and is making some kind of effort to stop the rollback of the Enlightenment. Remember, modern medicine does have a lot of issues, what with the relentless parasite of the insurance industry making medical decisions as well as with the concocting of diseases like Restless Leg Syndrome and Attention Deficit Disorder. Restless Leg Syndrome is your body’s way of saying “put the fucking Cheetos down and let’s go for a walk, I need some exercise,” yet now we have large molecules we can wolf down that control that horrible urge and keep us still as death. Kid not paying attention in school? Give him speed! Modern, perhaps, but medicine? I’m not so sure about that.
Right, guys have to pay to watch people masturbate on porn sites. Who pays to watch women breast feed?
If you know, please provide a link.
I’m sorry but his stances on PETA and Holistic Medicine are hardly just “odd ideas”. They are irrational nonsense. Although, I appreciate how he publicly defends atheism, I KNOW that he really doesn’t think like me. And I don’t want him misrepresenting real rationalists with his holistic mumbo-jumbo.
“Restless Leg Syndrome is your body’s way of saying “put the fucking Cheetos down and let’s go for a walk…”
Uh, no, it’s not. At least not for those whose legs pump furiously through the night (as well as day), destroying any possibility of sleep. No amount of pacing, power walking, jogging, or sprinting will suffice for this condition.
The name sounds silly, trivializes the disruptive nature of the condition, and subjects already self conscious sufferers to ridicule.
Just because a diagnosis has a funny sounding name, doesn’t mean it is fake or absurd.
ok, not sure how the formatting got screwed up. Oh well.
Bill Maher is a comedian and contrarian who has a whole range of views which I don’t agree with. However, he’s willing to debate and defend his views in a critical manner- and that’s the important thing.
He’s mostly right about modern medicine. American’s biggest health problem is their unhealthy lifestyle, and ingesting more drugs isn’t going to help much.
He’s also a critical thinker when it comes to animal cruelty. If you accept that humans are animals, then it becomes much harder to excuse ill treatment of other animals. Our notions of animal cruelty are perhaps largely derived from Biblical notions of animals being created to serve Man. Do away with religious justifications, and it gets much harder to rationalize the shoddy way in which we treat livestock.
No- I don’t agree with everything he says- but I don’t agree with everything P. Zizzy says either.
He’s mostly right about modern medicine. American’s biggest health problem is their unhealthy lifestyle, and ingesting more drugs isn’t going to help much.
Yes, Maher is absolutely right to bring this up. It always gets ignored. All the political attention is instead focused on the problems of our health care system, which has a relatively small effect on health and longevity. Smoking alone causes 24 times as many premature deaths as inadequate health insurance. Why aren’t the presidential candidates touting their “Tobacco Reform” plans instead of obsessing over the number of Americans who don’t have health insurance?
You really have no idea what you’re talking about.
Far from being a symptom of sloth, not only is there evidence that the condition is partially genetic, but excessive exercise exacerbates the condition.
Add to that its association with a number of non-lazybones conditions- everything from pregnancy, parkinsons, to taking anti-convulsives- and your armchair doctorin’ here seems pretty ill-informed.
As far as the still as death part goes- nice imagery, but again, pretty ignorant of the actual situation. No, what people who suffer from RLS _actually_ want is to be able to sleep on a regular basis, so they don’t have to operate in a state of perpetual exhaustion.
That may be short-sighted and selfish, I suppose. But since I don’t see the rest of the world suddenly shunning the idea that 6-8 hours of sleep a day is a good thing, in favor of 3-4 hours, or sometimes 0 hours, I’m not going to feel too bad about joining the sheeple.
Here’s a case study for you:
When I was younger, I used to exercise upwards of two hours a day between weight lifting, cardio and kick-boxing. I had 15% body fat- not great but certainly not obese. That didn’t mean I didn’t spend most nights staring at the clock trying to pretzel my legs into some configuration that would let me get some kind of sleep.
Then, I took an SSRI to quit smoking. Not only did my activity level not decrease- it increased, because even sitting in a chair for an extended period would cause my legs to ache, and the only way I could be comfortable was to stand or walk almost constantly.
BTW- I don’t eat cheetos.
So, would you say that maybe your original diagnosis might be slightly off? Or is your expert solution is that I should have been exercising 4 hours a day? 6 hours?
Maybe you should actually read up on the science, rather than spouting off on topics you clearly don’t understand.
Shouldn’t we all be pissing against walls? The Bible is always talking about “he who pisseth against the wall” implying that such behavior is everyday, normal practice.
I’ve tried just about every kind of activity as a prophylactic- nothing helps. About the only thing that does seem to work is actually exhausting your legs during the attack. Unfortunately, that means jogging on my treadmill at 2:00 in the morning- which, of course, causes other problems.
If only I could just quit the cheetos. Sigh.
I’m convinced that the large increase in the use of SSRI’s exposed a lot more doctors and patients to the Restless Legs Syndrome, and helped to hone in on the underlying mechanisms and possible remedies.
Prescribing physicians were talking about the growing frequency of the condition (as a side effect of medications) for more than a decade before it hit the mainstream press.
I turn on a Simpsons DVD and give up on sleeping. Those three-hour non-consecutive sleep nights rock!
On the contrary, he is mostly wrong about modern medicine, He may be right about the biggest problem being our unhealthy lifestyle, but he goes way beyond that saying that if we’d only stop ingesting all those drugs, America would become a healthier place. It wouldn’t. Many more people–those who depend on the drugs to keep them alive–would die.
I am all for better preventative health care, and for better education, promotion of healty lifestyles and pressure against the unhealthy ones (look out, libertarians) but this is a long, long way away from what Maher is advocating, which is the wholesale rejection of lifesaving and quality-of-life saving drugs. He really doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Neither of my parents would be alive today if they had followed his advice.
This rant at the end of his show almost made up for the “transvestite Ann Coulter” bit at the beginning. Almost.
Seems to me its a hell of a lot more rational to pay a few bucks for gas and dignity than it is to deal with tsa’s B***shite these days.
Sure many Americans don’t eat right. That doesn’t mean that heart or diabetes-related drugs are not going to help. Sure the diseases are preventable, but once you have them, you need drugs. Bill Maher thinks that the Drug industry is corrupt because they charge so much, and he think a lot of diseases are made up so the drug companies can sell more drugs. This is simply not the case. Drug companies charge for their products because they need to make a profit. And they invest millions (sometimes billions) in R&D that may last three decades. Not to mention that costs also include failed avenues of research.
I think Bill just has a problem with capitalism… Drug companies can charge whatever they want for their product. It’s their product. The easiest way to destroy medicinal progress would be to nationalize it.
Exactly. Well put.
How is that? I totally don’t understand your reasoning. Cows are not sentient beings, they are prey (albeit domesticate, genetically engineered prey). What do I care what happens to them? As long as the meat is healthy, I’ve got no problem (rationally) with how they get from A to B. Any other “feelings” are EMOTIONAL not logical.
I personally have no problem with Vegans who live that lifestyle because they find it healthier. I do, however, have a problem with people who believe that animals have some kind of rights beyond what WE ASCRIBE TO THEM. That is not rational. In fact, it borders on mysticism… all that gaia, one-world garbage.
Maher’s problem, along with millions of others, is his scientific illiteracy. I remember when he was still on ABC, in a very incredulous and dismissive way he said, “You can’t measure the speed of light!”
Madam Pomfrey@#5, eating is intimate? Really?
Milo Johnson@#19, if you’ve got ADHD, methamphetamines (and caffeine) have a *completely* different effect on you than they do on the rest of the population. They don’t make you jittery or hyperactive: they calm you down. (I’ve never tried meth, but large quantities of caffeine are an essential if I’m to concentrate on anything for any length of time.)
This works; it is known why it works (altering the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine towards levels that are in other people the norm); and claiming that ADHD is a sign of overmedication or a misdiagnosis of laziness merely shows your ignorance.
(Hey, would *you* think there was something wrong if your attention flicked between foci with an average interval of five seconds? Hint: That’s *not normal*, and it’s not something you can control, either.)
Andrew,
Cows are not sentient beings, they are prey (albeit domesticate, genetically engineered prey).
Nonsense. Of course cows are sentient. All large mammal species are sentient. And so what if they are “prey?” That obviously doesn’t excuse mistreatment by human beings.
What do I care what happens to them? As long as the meat is healthy, I’ve got no problem (rationally) with how they get from A to B.
Are you indifferent to all animal suffering, or only that of cows? If a kid tortures a feral cat for fun, you’ve “got no problem (rationally)” with that either, do you?
I do, however, have a problem with people who believe that animals have some kind of rights beyond what WE ASCRIBE TO THEM. That is not rational.
Well, you’re not being very rational. Since rights are invented concepts, nothing has rights beyond what we ascribe to them. “Human rights” or “civil rights” or “constitutional rights” are not discoverable facts about the world, they are ideas invented by human beings. So are the rights of animals. You’re not saying anything relevant here.
What makes your desire for healthy meat logical rather than emotional?
Or his desire to avoid eating, say, small children, for that matter.
If a kid tortures a feral cat for fun, you’ve “got no problem (rationally)” with that either, do you?
Well, it depends on if the type of torture ends up tenderizing the meat or not.
Cat can be really stringy and tough if not tenderized properly beforehand.
Since rights are invented concepts, nothing has rights beyond what we ascribe to them.
*ding*
you say the words, yet somehow I don’t think you grasp the meaning.
Ichythic,
You seem hopelessly confused.
You seem hopelessly confused.
leave it to you to not be able to figure out I’m making fun of you, and project your confusion onto me.
you’re such a great target!
now don’t move…
I’m gonna go carve up some babies for snacks.