Bill Maher 6/9/17

[Brian37]

When you call someone a retard you are drawing a comparison between the person whom you are insulting and the mentally challenged.

We have already explained to you why with that particular word you are wrong. Please stop ignoring our posts.

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I agree, in the context of saying "retard" to someone merely saying something that is bullshit and factless, it is saying you are resistant to facts, much like if you are fireman wearing flame resistant cloths, you are retarding the fire. We are not equating the person to being mentally challenged, we are saying your desire dreamy eyed delusion is causing one to retard facts in favor of naked assertions.

"retard" also has the definition of deflecting something, and that definition has nothing to do with stigmatizing the mentally challenged. 

Just like the word "fly" can refer to an insect, but also can mean "that person is sexy, or is wearing something amazing, or owns something amazing."

"I am going to kill that fly"

"That women is fly"

"That suit the guy is wearing is fly"

Just like the word "gay" can be used as a slur. Long before it was, it merely meant happy. And even today gay can be used as merely meaning happy, or it can also be used as a slur, or it also can be used to refer to someones sexuality.

CONTEXT matters. I really do get down on the all or nothing attitude. If you don't know how someone is using a word, ask, don't assume.

My dictionary does not say that fly can be about someone's "fly" clothing, and I think this makes you a hypocrite. "Nigger" to me has many meanings, and to me it isn't even necessarily referring to black people. Language has evolved and the word nigger can be used in many different ways, kind of like the word fuck. I use nigger as a term of endearment for my white best friend, so the word doesn't even necessarily mean "black person". It can just mean any person, and you can't tell me that I'm wrong about that definition because you brought slang into this with the word "fly". When I say "that's so gay" or "stop being such a fag", in slang that means "that's so lame" or "stop being so annoying". Why can you use the slang version of fly but I can't use the slang version of gay? Homosexuals do not own that word. Some words in the english language have over 400 definitions, so why can't the word gay have more than two definitions (homosexual and happy)? Language evolves, as you obviously understand with your use of the slang term fly.

And about the Hitler thing, Christians do not equate us to Hitler. They use Hitler and others as a response to our claim that religion causes a lot of death/ poisons everything. They are just making the point that atheists do bad things too. It's no different than if I were to point out that Hitler was a vegetarian. By doing that I wouldn't be trying to say that all vegetarians are as bad as Hitler.

Um I agree language evolves over time. I am not sure we are in complete disagreement here. I agree that "nigger" can be used in certain contexts, like discussing the history of the word, or between people as a term of endearment. That is why I don't say "never" but depends on context of usage.

But I really don't know your long term experience with Christians, but if you think many don't equate atheists to dictators, then you don't have the same long term sample rate I do. I myself have run into Christians especially older ones who DO equate Stalin and Hitler and Po Pot as being godless, and that does stem from the cold war era. Maybe most here you run into dont, or maybe you live in a more liberal part of the west, but there most certainly are those Christians who do flip out when you divulge your position. The more well intended will say, "godlessness leads to dictators", the bigots will flat out call you "commie".

I cannot tell you how many Christians in my 16 years on COUNTLESS pages HAVE said Stalin and Hitler and Po Pot were atheists and how many times I have had to argue that their populations were not. I've also had to argue with Christians about the religious makeup of Cuba which is a majority Catholic.

And even with Hitler, that is just absurd to say no Christian has ever claimed Hitler was an atheist, I have seen plenty claim that. 

Just the word "atheist" alone can cause fear in some theists, you don't even have to mention politics or economics. I've had a guy try to have me fired from my pizza delivery job because his son saw my atheist bumper sticker. I also once had another guy outside a laundry mat repeatedly scream at me "WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE, WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE"... I am quite sure others here can tell you even worse stories. 

I would suggest you hang out at conservative pages and see how long you last there if you think no Christian ever argues the things I know they do and they do.