Ok, so you don't condemn him because you don't know what he's done since "repenting" (but continuing to swindle the poor and elderly)....but you have seen numerous videos here of him using his religious position to claim the end is here, so you need to buy buckets of food from him to survive Armageddon. He's a pure charlatan huckster who preys on the elderly and poorly educated, and always has been.
He is one of the originators of charismania along with Tammy. He felt bad he got caught, but he never changed.

I'm certain enough that 99% + of the fish flopping is a put on, faked to get adulation from the flock as someone touched by God. The rest is epilepsy or another disorder. Same goes for speaking in tongues.

What did the bible say about those claiming to know the will of God, or the date of Armageddon? He does both, for profit, not as a prophet. Nuff said.

But, without exception, that is EXACTLY what religions teach, that only those who believe correctly are correct and thus deserving of the supernatural rewards. It's how they excuse proselytizing, often with force. Can you name a real religion that says "we are the proper way to God, but other ways are just as valid."? (And I don't count individuals stating that, only the written texts that codify the beliefs).

Yes, we do treat those other people with disdain, those of us who don't buy into one or more flock that is.

They can't see through the hypocrisy and idiocy because religion/churches demand you not question your religious leaders, absolutely do not think for yourself. Don't try to interpret your dogma for yourself. Doing that leads directly to excommunication or much worse.

None of this is exclusive to Christianity, but in European/American culture it is most prevalent there.

Side question: What good has religion done that could not have been done better without it? Be specific please, with examples.

I'm so sick of this "polls were all wrong" lie. The polls all said he could be elected, it was within the margin of error, and if you count votes not the electoral college, they were dead on correct....Clinton won.

Now, since Christian preachers all now stump far right hate politics directly from the pulpit., can we remove their tax exemption and let Cesar have what belongs to Cesar?

Side note....he seems to be describing the rapture, Christians suddenly dying world wide and going to heaven....and he seems terrified about it. I can't imagine why.

Upvote for exposing what Christian preachers are telling their flock, inciting murder as preemptive self defense....not because I agree with his insanity.

Birds of a mental illness flock together...?

But with population increases, even if it were up to 7% after decades, there wouldn't be a loss of business, just a slower increase, which still might be enough....but I think 7% is greatly inflated and includes non vegans and part time vegans who claim they are devout.

I think you're closer to the truth with your last. Free advertising, and vegans will flock to the business because they have so few businesses serving them, making them a good type of customer to have (at least until they start driving away non vegans with their anti-meat diatribes).

Lol. Good point.....dirty hippies. ;-)

Um....what? Vegans should want to avoid them almost as much as the hunter's helper and slaughterhouse sucker brand lozenges, not flock to the brand marketed at meat harvesters.

Um...really? You think non vegans fear a vegan culinary takeover or something enough to falsify studies/polls? That's hilarious.
As to the 7% number, even vegan organizations in Britain disagree, as does Wiki....
According to a 2018 survey by Comparethemarket.com, the number of people who identify as vegans in the United Kingdom has risen to over 3.5 million, which is approximately seven percent of the population, and environmental concerns were a major factor in this development.[140] However, doubt was cast on this inflated figure by the UK-based Vegan Society, who perform their own regular survey: the Vegan Society themselves found in 2018 that there were 600,000 vegans in Great Britain (1.16%), which is a dramatic increase on previous figures.[141][142]
United States: Estimates of vegans in the U.S. vary from 2% (Gallup, 2012)[143] to 0.5% (Faunalytics, 2014). According to the latter, 70% of those who adopted a vegan diet abandoned it.

"I bet it sounds like a chainsaw"

The literature says it is "all-electric". The pilots are not wearing heavy duty ear protection in the video. I submit that It probably sounds more like a large flock of hummingbirds.

Trump is a fucking disaster at every conceivable level. He's a terrible president, a shitty businessman and a failure on the most basic human levels.

The question is: do we call this a special circumstance and disregard our own standards of civil discourse? Do we NEED to abandon etiquette (and possibly ethics) because the alternative is so much worse?

Or does that just play into his hands? Insulting Trump like this is kinda like playing chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

And THAT is his one skill.

We had better hope they are dead wrong, and that they aren't robot proof jobs, because millennials aren't flocking to nursing, it's hard. If robots can't take over most of the work load (they can) then elder abuse will be the norm due to neglect. There will still be a need for human interaction (until the uncanny valley is bridged) but the grunt work can be automated.

Funny that they make this assumption about men's percieved ability to empathize, and ignore historical professional gender rolls that are only recently being challenged. Most of their points became culturally outdated in the 70's imo.

It's sad that the last woman, asking if nursing or men should change (implying men should) clearly still thinks "manly" men can't be empathetic and caring...should she be countered with the equally insulting "pretty" women can't be smart or strong? That thinking belongs back in the 1960's.

Your video, A Flock of Swifts "sucked" Into the Pipe., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Yeah, Trump is a complete tool. Guilty of all the stuff Maher said about him. Given that kind of "competition", what would the Democrats have to do to get those 20 states to flip their direction?

I can take a stab that that one, Bill -- he's sitting right next to you. If the Democrats had chosen Sanders as their candidate, I guarantee that at least some of those states would have gone blue on election day.

Firm, registered Democrats? They'd all happily vote for Bernie in the general, just like they will vote for Hillary.

Undecideds, moderates, and young people? Drastically more likely to vote for Bernie than Hillary. A huge segment of the voting population is disgusted with the two major choices, and would happily flock to a candidate that has a proven track record of honesty and integrity, instead of the dog and pony show that we have now.

Firm, die-hard Republicans? Maher is right; there is a certain percentage of people that would never vote Democrat. But, I don't think that number is above 50% of the population even in the reddest of red states. But even for many of those people that are completely dissatisfied by Trump, from their perspective Hillary is NOT a better option.


Let's consider how all the arguments against Trump play to that specific audience: (note that the responses are what *they* think, not necessarily what *I* think)

Trump is a womanizer / misogynist / predator. Yeah, and Clinton is married to a worse one who disgraced the Presidency while he was in office.

Trump lies constantly. As opposed to the Clintons, who would never lie. For example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" (Bill), "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" (Bill), and "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time" (Hillary).

Trump has no experience with government and would make an incompetent president. What's worse: a crooked / corrupt Washington insider that knows how to game the system, or someone with no experience?

etc. etc.

Hillary goddamn Clinton is NOT going to be seen as a reasonable alternative to Trump to those people. No matter how much he goes off the rails. No matter what crazy, foul, contemptible shit he says or does. No matter how many skeletons you dig out of his closet. Why? Because they are convinced (reasonably or not) that the Clintons have done just as much questionable shit and more, they are perhaps just better at covering it up.

But if the Democrat candidate was Bernie Sanders, I'm sure a lot more of those hard-line Republicans would be way more tempted to vote blue in November.

"Can I get a flock and train them to be my minions?!?"

You'll have to have them genetically modified to be yellow first.

Flocking to a demagogue who clearly is not capable of solving the problems that need addressing are the actions of idiots.
Being angry at your representatives for not being honest, then backing the least honest person you can find in the country is the act of idiots.
Believing the lies of someone who wrote a book about how to be successful by constantly lying is a thing only done by idiots (I'm also looking in your direction on this one, scientologists).
So I disagree, it's idiocy pure and simple.