Thursday, January 8, 2015

Open Letter To Bill Maher

Hey, Bill. Last night on Jimmy Kimmel, you said:

"We have to stop saying when something like this that happened in Paris today, we have to stop saying, well, we should not insult a great religion. First of all, there are no great religions. They're all stupid and dangerous. And we should insult them, and we should be able to insult whatever we want. That is what free speech is like."

And here is some more of what free speech is like:

It's very depressing, but not at all surprising, that you jumped on the opportunity of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy to make one horrible thing seem to be all about Islam, you stupid islamophobic fuck. What you and Harris and Dawkins and all your dopey fans don't get is that Muslims are horrified by this massacre, the same way that anybody is horrified by any atrocity. They're kinda like people that way. They're speaking out against this horrible deed and saying that it was not done in their name, and you don't give a flying fuck. The same way that you make ISIS all about Islam and don't give a flying fuck that most of the people that ISIS have tyrannized and displaced and tortured and executed, and most of the people bleeding and dying fighting ISIS, are Muslims, and pay no attention to all of the majority-Muslims states who have denounced ISIS.

I agree with you that all religions are stupid primitive nonsense, and that the sooner they become history the better it will be for mankind. That's not rocket science, you don't need to spend so much time patting yourself on the back for having figured out something that simple. I'm not a believer attacking you for disrespecting religion, I'm an atheist attempting to point out to you that you and your nitwit New Atheist buddies are making atheism seem repulsive to most people. You're not helping.

Religions aren't the only form of stupid primitive nonsense currently plaguing mankind. Bigotry is stupid primitive nonsense, and it can be 100% religion-free, as you and the New Atheists constantly demonstrate by constantly holding billions of Muslims accountable for the deeds of a few psychopaths. What would it have been, if atheists, back in the 20th century, had reacted to every one of the atrocities of the KKK by saying: "See? This is what Christianity is like!"

One of the things that would have been is, unhelpful. The same way that it's unhelpful for you yahoos to insist that Islam is barbaric or "Medieval" and that Christianity has become more civilized than that, at the very same time that so many Muslim civilians are collaterally killed and maimed by the militaries of majority-Christian countries, countries which often enough pick the very unfortunate name of "crusade" to describe the military efforts in which those civilians are being killed and maimed.

You've figured out that religions are nonsense. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. You're right, they are. To quote William Goldman: "Give the genius a box of fucking Mars bars." Now, what are we going to do about that in a world where most people still are religious? Are your words and actions helpful? Or are you mostly just irritating, like some math-wiz Poindexter in elementary school who constantly rubs it in to everybody else that he can solve problems they can't solve, and never helps anybody with their assignments, and in general more than utterly fails to make math more sexy to the other students?

Most of the people you and I have to live with are religious, and aren't going to suddenly drop their religion and exclaim, "You're right! Thank you, Bill!" just because you insult them. Just try to keep that in mind. I don't think you should stop criticizing religion. I'm not going to stop criticizing religion. I'm not going to stop criticizing atheists when they're stupid and obnoxious for no damn reason, either, and I'm not going to stop telling comedians when they're not funny. We have to live with these people, these believers. I'm not trying to tell you what to say or do, I'm just saying that I don't think you're particularly funny when you talk about religion. Extremely monotonous, but not very funny, not full of the extraordinary insights which make for truly funny jokes. You're very funny most of the time, but when you get on religion, it's time to channel-surf for a minute because we've all already heard you say what you're about to say 100 times and get some fucking new material about it for the love of Jesus, so to speak! I'm not asking you to shut up, I'm begging you, on behalf of millions of fans who are getting more and more bored, to wise up. I believe in free speech just as much as you do, and I'm just as strongly opposed to people being killed over writing magazine articles and drawing cartoons as you and 99.9%+ of the rest of the people on this planet are, you stupid ugly fat-faced fuck.

Your pal,

Steven

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