On Bill Maher’s show, Christopher Hitchens et al go after the religious fellow travelers of Obama and McCain.
Sound bite from Dan Savage of Savage Love: “This is America. Australia got the convicts. Canada got the French. America got the Puritans. We’re stuck with them. We’re never going to have a presidential candidate who doesn’t believe some form of religious idiocy.”
Sound bite from Hitchens: “Mr. Lincoln didn’t believe any of this nonsense.”
If I wanted condescension, I’d be a Republican.
Bill Maher is insufferably smug. And I ain’t religious.
Maher is such a smug ass.
I ♥ Dan Savage
Christopher Hitchens for President. Tell the religionists to stuff it.
it didn’t get said very LOUDLY, and dumbass maher let it slide, but christopher hitchens in his mumbling way (albeit with a british accent so that you get bamboozled into thinking he knows what he’s talking about) neglected to mention that lincoln also owned SLAVES…so so much for the great massa lincoln and his opinion on anything!
Where’d you go to school, callgirl? How many slaves did Lincoln own, and what were their names. And did he kept them hidden in Illinois so’s he wouldn’t get arrested?
Oh, come on, Lincoln didn’t believe in God? Wow, well, his speeches sure don’t reflect as much.
Is it condescending for a straight guy to call a gay guy “my dear?”
Just asking.
Caligirl, I believe you’re confusing Thomas Jefferson with Lincoln, and Hitchens knows the fact only too well, as he wrote a book on Jefferson. He didn’t mention a lot of details in the debat, probably because they aren’t relevant. Thing is
a)what on earth does that have to do with the existence of God?
b) If a god-botherer had slaves too(and you must know that plenty did) doesn’t that make them doubly wrong?
c) You’ve committed a logical fallacy called ‘poisoning the well’ e.g ‘because a believes b his belief in c/anything he says can’t be trusted’. In the sense you used it it’s a fallacy because b and c aren’t related at all. it could work if you said something like ‘because a is a creationist his views on evolution can’t be trusted’ because the two subjects are inextricably linked. It doesn’t work in your example.
Lincoln was a racist and a tyrant. Maher and Hitchens are no better than Falwell, Farrakhan, etc. They are all smug know it alls who think THEY ALONE have all the answers. Hitchens also said on this same show that it is a fact that Iraq had ties to Al-qaeda. Now who believes in blind faith?
Lincoln was certainly a skeptic, at the very least, when he was younger - but his rhetoric got more and more religious over time, especially during the war.
benny, calm down. No-one is asking you to accept anything blindly. Maher, Hitchens, Savage, et al are entertainers who lure their following by making annoying and outlandish statements, often iconoclastic and unmistakeably clever. Hey, it’s a free country, so why not? It’s easy to discern that they have their own political views. Hitch’s tenous comment about Al-Qaeda and Iraq is of a piece with his support of the war from the outset. Although I think he has backtracked recently, I think he is just covering his pompous backside.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml8581.htm
Interesting observations on Lincoln’s beliefs. Certainly no holy roller. Definitely wasn’t a slave owner. The way the bible repeatedly justifies slavery is as good a reason as any to blow it off as the framework for a moral belief system. Maybe Lincoln had not gotten to that part when he said, “…take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.”