stevesbets

I have now been in Las Vegas for about 6 days in anticipation of playing day 1d of the Main Event coming up on July 6. The tournament officially began today though I am not really watching updates carefully. I have been to Vegas for much or part of the summer ever since I have turned 21 and I have to say I am pretty over it by now. The shows don’t change enough, the casinos don’t change enough and I think I have seen most of what I want to see that is in this town. That leaves me with gambling which I can do anywhere so all in all I do not see too much point being in Las Vegas.

With that said, my hero Bill Maher was in town tonight so my friend and I got tickets. Aside from the fact that he spent too much time on politics and not enough on religion I have no complaints, he definitely delivered. My favorite part of the show is where he discussed the criticism he has received about his movie. The two critiques he spoke about really hit a chord with me because when I debate with friends, they make these same (absolutely horrendous) arguments to me. He said something to the effect of, “People tell me Bill why do you have to be so mean about religion, it gives people comfort and doesn’t hurt”. He then went on a 3 minute monologue of the many many ways historically and currently that religion is detrimental to society and it was hilarious. He went on about the other criticism he gets, “People say, in the movie your argument was irrelevant because you only interviewed total extremists…no, I interviewed rank and file members of those religions who held the beliefs that those religions preach. Now if they seem totally insane to you….Also people ask why I didn’t interview any coherent, smart religious people that hold those views…I tried and I couldn’t find any. One other funny thing he got in letters were people saying they wanted to see his movie but it wasn’t playing anywhere within 300 miles. His response was “I guess you will have to make the same trip to find a doctor to have an abortion”. All in all absolutely hilarious.

Now I just want to be clear, I am just quoting him and not saying there are NO smart religious people so don’t get all bent out of shape over that. With that said, my friends have given me some of those exact arguments and I think his response is right on. Even if religion has caused no death or violence throughout time, it still stands in the way of freedom and progression. Religious groups lead the fight against gay marriage, against stem cell research, against abortion and the nutcases in ‘Focus on the Family’ are currently leading a letter writing campaign against online poker.

As far as the argument about him only interviewing extremists and dumb people, I don’t think that could be more off. In his movie he interviewed many average middle American citizens as well as one of the few religious scientists he could find. He also found Islamic scholars and clerics. These were not extremists, they were simply par for the course.

Maher mentioned cultural relativism and it got me thinking. I first learned about moral and cultural relativism in a freshman philosophy class. Even then it seemed like a ridiculous notion to me that treating people morally varies by culture. To me the golden rule should always apply. After all, why would I feel OK doing something to another person that I know would hurt me. This made me wonder about traditional islamic women who are clearly treated as 2nd (or 7th) class citizens. My question is, as a group, how on earth are they OK with this? How can ANY culture be ok treating half of it’s members this way? I would love for a very strict Muslim woman to respond and explain why she willingly obeys these “traditions”. Anyway, I digress.

I’ll blog about my day 1 of the main event on Monday, until then, please please disagree with Maher’s comments, I love hearing thoughtful dissent because I simply cannot imagine it exists. I find even some very smart friends make downright silly arguments on this subject.