We are not laughing, Bill, we are sympathetic.

Not really, I'm laughing my ass off. Then again, I'm an ass hole.

At first I'm laughing because these yokels say such funny things, but then I cry because I realise they seriously believe what they are saying.

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We're not laughing. If it was Zimbabwe or Peru we might be laughing. But the country with the greatest economic and military influence in the world, not to mention the largest nuclear arsenal. Not very funny.

Don't worry about us. God said he wouldn't destroy the earth again. I'm sure our nukes are just for show.
>> ^Drachen_Jager:

We're not laughing. If it was Zimbabwe or Peru we might be laughing. But the country with the greatest economic and military influence in the world, not to mention the largest nuclear arsenal. Not very funny.

Just to fact-check Maher - Latin America, the Muslim world, and Africa probably all have much higher rates of creationism than the US.

So the capitals around the world laughing at creationism that Maher refers to would probably be mostly restricted to select parts of Europe and Asia.

>> ^chilaxe:

Just to fact-check Maher - Latin America, the Muslim world, and Africa probably all have much higher rates of creationism than the US.
So the capitals around the world laughing at creationism that Maher refers to would probably be mostly restricted to select parts of Europe and Asia.


Lets call a spade a spade: this isnt a factcheck, and it isn't really applicable to anything of Maher said. Especially as Maher's final remark in the video is obviously hyper-bole.

But even so, more education means less religiosity - and ergo less belief in a supernatural creation of the world. World leaders tend to be better educated (no source). So what Maher was getting at is creationists holding power is a anomaly amongst developed nations, which marries with the data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
http://www.gallup.com/poll/7729/does-more-educated-really-less-religious.aspx
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9786-why-doesnt-america-believe-in-evolution.html

@Raaagh


People in the audience genuinely come away with the belief this has something to do with the world. It's useful to point out when people's intelligence is being reduced.

It probably would have been more accurate to say 'People in the capitals of a dozen European countries are laughing at us!" There's a big difference between 'a dozen European countries' and 'all of humankind.'

Fact-checking is about facts.

Fact checking is not what you provided. And, this is good, because you were dealing with hyper-hole which is a purposeful exaggeration for (comedic?) effect.

Still:
a) You correctly used the word "probably" because you honestly didn't know for a fact. It was just an opinion.
b)i) Maher never said meant each individual existing in humankind. He said, 'what does the rest of the world think?' which is a hyper-bole - expressing how the public face of US government must be viewed with these ultra-religious outliers. This is still a relevant point.
b) ii) He also said something to the effect of 'They must be laughing at us in nearly every capital', which was also hyperbole - but makes a relevant point.

I'm not saying your comment was completely useless, I just didn't regard it as a fact check.

@Raaagh

For anyone who doubted it, here's a global map of degree of religiosity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_in_the_world.PNG

Of course, I agree. Realistically though, those other less developed parts of the world (Africa, Latin America, etc.) sorta have an excuse.

>> ^chilaxe:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Raaagh" title="member since March 25th, 2009" class="profilelink">Raaagh
For anyone who doubted it, here's a global map of degree of religiosity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Religion_in_the_world.PNG


I don't think that Raaagh is doubting you, but simply saying that your initial response wasn't a fact check as you said. And correct, in my opinion. Trying to steer the conversation to another point doesn't change that.

Ok, I can check off this week for jumping into the middle of other peoples' conversation.

This debate just seems to be about wording.

Why can't people just believe the fact that there is no god, there never was, and there never will be. The hide-and-seek theory behind god makes humans feel important, and gives a certain meaning to life - two fallacies that we are still struggling accept as an _evolved_ species because 70% of us are in pure denial.

A man of the world is different than a man of GOD.

Men of GOD will overcome men of the world.

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