Bill Maher 6/9/17

[FFaith]

You know what they say, hands on experience beats them all.

You used hands on and beat in the same sentence...he...he...he...

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

I read your rationalization and I'm not buying it. I doubt very much that you are thinking of fire-retardant anything when you say retard.

Yeah, you're right about that. People using retard are not talking about "retarding" facts like one would a fire. If that's how Bryan says he is using it, I take him at his word and accept that, but I'm pretty sure most aren't using retarded like that. They don't mean it as an insult to mentally handicapped people either, but you are right to point out the hypocrisy. Do I think being mentally disabled is a negative? Yes, it is. I think it's undesirable and so what if I call an argument retarded or whatever or compare someone's argument to a mentally disabled person. That in no way implies that I dislike mentally disabled people and don't have compassion for them and their families. It just means that I'm acknowledging that retardation is a negative. It's like if I call someone's argument lame or crazy. That doesn't mean I hate all people that are physically lame or "crazy". I'm just using those terms as negatives because they are, and if I were to accept that offending any group of people is unacceptable, I'd be left with no other insult to use but "that's a bad argument", assuming no one is offended by the use of the word "bad".

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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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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.

I'm glad we seem to agree for the most part.

I have seen many Christians say that most atheists aren't moral people or that we don't have a moral compass. I know we are often stereotyped as being people who just hate God or that we're just a bunch of devil worshippers. I know that some bring up Hitler and say that this is what a lack of godliness can lead to, but that's not the same as equating us all to Hitler. Maybe at times they use Hitler and other dictators to be representatives for atheism, but we kind of do the same thing when we say stuff like "science builds skyscrapers and religion knocks them down". There are plenty of good religious people but we often choose to focus on the Bin Laden's or the molesting catholic priests. It doesn't bother me when Christians bring up Hitler being an atheist, but of course you are right to point out to them that Hitler did not kill anyone in the name of atheism like many have killed in the name of religion.

As far as the word atheist being offensive, I've never seen any atheist get offended by the use of the word. I know that Neil Degrasse Tyson doesn't like being called it, but that's because he doesn't like the baggage that comes with it, not about the word itself being offensive.