Bill Maher terrifies Bill O’Reilly: An atheist has the Fox News host running scared

[Binkie The Clown]

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All in all, rationalists should applaud O’Reilly and Coulter for having the courage to so boldly air their mendacity, mischaracterizations, and lopsided analogies, which are in fact illuminating. Namely, they both argue from a premise so widely accepted that they leave it unstated: that those who believe, without proof, fantastical, far-reaching propositions about the nature of our cosmos and how we should live our lives have nothing to explain, nothing to account for, while those of us who value convictions based on evidence, reasoned solutions, and rules for living deriving from consensus must ceaselessly justify ourselves and genuflect apologetically for voicing disagreement.

Beneath this unstated premise lies another more insidious notion: that there are two kinds of truth – religious and otherwise. That, say, the assertion that God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh might not be literally true, but it merits respect as “religious truth” (or, as Reza Aslan puts it, “sacred history”), as a metaphor for some ethereal verity, one so transcendental that boneheaded rationalists obsessed with superfluities like evidence cannot grasp it.

This is sophistry of the most contemptible variety. By such unscrupulous subterfuge the faithful (and their apologists) commit treason against reason, betray honest discourse, and hope to render their (preposterous) dogmas immune to disproof and open to limitless interpretation, depending on their needs of the moment. Either an objective proposition (say, that Jesus was the son of God, or that the Prophet Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse) is true or it is untrue. It cannot be whatever the one advancing it says it is; much less, true for some, but not for others.
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[Arugula Latte]

1. Great piece.

...That, say, the assertion that God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh might not be literally true, but it merits respect as “religious truth” (or, as Reza Aslan puts it, “sacred history”), as a metaphor for some ethereal verity, one so transcendental that boneheaded rationalists obsessed with superfluities like evidence cannot grasp it. ... Reminds me of that other forum ... other ways of knowing ... yada yada yada ...

[edhopper]

7. As I said on the other forum

if god does not exist, what possible truth, sacred, religious or otherwise, can be taken from the six day myth?

[Lordquinton]

2. They make an assumption that Atheists come from a different background

and not from the exact same one they do. Avast majority of atheists were believers once, so they do get the "sacred truth" aspect of it, just moved on to realize it's all a big scam.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. yes you have to search for the secret inner gibberish

hidden in the text of the outer gibberish. Only simpletons think the outer gibberish is the real message. Deep religious thinkers can pull the inner gibberish out from underneath the text and dazzle you with its brilliance.

[mountain grammy]

4. Excellent article K&R

[JNelson6563]

5. Many excellent points!

[nil desperandum]

6. Well

a guy whose made a career out of being a liar should be afraid of a great many truths as it were.

The truth of the concept that his life and his faith are all lies is probably terrifying to a coward like O'Reilly...perhaps he and Mr. Williams can get some ice cream, share some war stories and calm their tender sensibilities.

[AlbertCat]

8. This is sophistry of the most contemptible variety.

Bingo!


Gonna remember this phrase.

[Binkie The Clown]

9. And you know what the response will be?

Exactly the same response every "true believer" has for reasoned argument: