BILL MAHER ON RELIGION
"I hate religion. I think it's a neurological disorder."
__________________________________________________
"I'm sorry, I don't. I don't respect religion. I don't respect superstitious thinking, which is what religion is. I don't respect childish thinking, which is what religion is.
We talked about this before, this whole gay issue wouldn't even be an issue except it says it in the bible. The bible, that book that has people lived to be 900 years old and says the world is 6,000 years old, and that there are people who lived in a whale. That infallible work of genius and slavery is OK. You should stone a guy to death if he works on Sunday. That's the book that says, sorry no queers.
So I'm sorry, I don't respect people who believe in religion.
I was religious when I was a kid. We all had dumb stuff drilled into our head. It doesn't mean when you get to be an adult you can't drill it out. I tell you something else they drilled into my head when I was a kid, mercury in my cavities. We found out later mercury is so bad we shouldn't even eat it when there is a trace of it in fish. But it was drilled into my teeth. So when I got older, I had it drilled out.
You can do the same thing with religion." [ June 2, 2004 Larry King Live; http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/02/lkl.00.html ]
__________________________________________________
I don't believe God is a single parent who writes books. I think that the people who think God wrote a book called the bible are just childish. Religion is so childish. What they're fighting about in the Middle East, it's so childish. These myths, these silly little stories that they believe in fundamentally, that they take over this little space in Jerusalem where one guy flew up to heaven? No, no, this guy performed a sacrifice here a thousand million years ago. It's like, "Who cares? What does that have to do with spirituality, where you're really trying to get, as a human being and as a soul moving in the universe?
__________________________________________________
We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies. We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep and conformists.
__________________________________________________
If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you Pope
__________________________________________________
Why is monotheistic faith better than polytheistic? I mean, either you believe – if you believe in, like, a magic person who can do magic things, why is it different – so different if it's Superman or the Fantastic Four?
__________________________________________________
The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.
__________________________________________________
New rule: If churches don't have to pay taxes, they also can't call the fire department when they catch fire. Sorry reverend, that's one of those services that goes along with paying in. I'll use the fire department I pay for. You can pray for rain.
__________________________________________________
Whenever you combine a secretive compound, religion, and weirdos in pioneer outfits, there's going be some child fucking going on.
"The greatest
miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing
called religion." -Thomas Paine (1737-1809)