[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Thor

Have you guys seen either of Dawkins two documentaries, "Root of All Evil?" and "Enemies of Reason" ?

I mean Maher will bring humour to the sillyness of Religion mixed in probably with some serious messages about the dangers of faith, while Dawkins took a similar approach minus the humour.

At least Maher is using humour ala George Carlin, its somewhat 'softer' than a Dawkins approach which is a hammer beating you on the head with logic and reason

I'm just a fan of raising awareness at this point, the rise of 'atheism' 'anti-theism' 'secular humanism' etc... are really needed in the age of rising radicalism and encroachment of Islam into the west.

I lived most of my first 30 years as an atheist, let bygones be bygones and only debated it when people wanted to debate. But a lot has changed in the last 8 years, 9/11 was a wake up call, Bush's administration was scary, and now we have Palin/Mccain who are creationists, believe abortion is wrong even in incest or rape situations, and Palin who could be 1 step from president thinks God is involved in US foreign policy.

People think this rise of Atheism is just a 'cool trend' but its reactionary to the frustrations most of us feel watching whats happening in the world. In the famous words of a British atheist comedian "Can we have our world back please..."

The problem is/has always been criticism of Religion is seen as rude, uncouth, wrong, mean, unfair, etc.. Maher, Carlin, Dawkins, me, etc.. Anyone of us share probably the same one idea, debating Religion IS important, IS reasonable and should be more part of the public discourse. Religion should not have any special 'no debate clause' because it hurts feelings.

If religion was benign and harmless, did not affect the laws of the lands we live in, didn't enourage irrational and dangerous belief, wars, skirmeshes, threatens peace, freedoms, etc.. Then sure I'd be quiet about it, but unfortunately I can't sit idly by while the world is seemingly reverting to backwards beliefs instead of moving forward.

I'm quite honestly more frightened about the future than I have ever been, and its Religious ideologies, Religious zealotry, Religious Intolerance and Religious Expansion that is for me some of our biggest threats to global destruction.

Least Bill can do it with humour, I'm just not that funny

I appreciate that he can do it with humour and I think it's a message that has to be sent, but it just seems to me that outright mockery of kooky religious ideas isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

The people that will agree with him already do, the people that don't will think he's an agent of the devil and will use his movie as an affirmation of their own silly beliefs. The people in the middle will say "yeah, I'm *religion X* but these fundamentalists don't represent me".

That being said, I say go for it. I'll watch him on The Hour and eventually see the movie. He'll be preaching to the converted when I watch it though, and those who should be watching it simply won't.

I read Pharyngula every day, and the last few months on that blog have demonstrated that mocking or denigrating religion just makes the followers crazier.