Find the Pope in the Pizza has been added as a related post - related requested by notarobot.

Is there Pope on a rope? *promote

A chance to piss off the Pope, free kinky sex and sandwiches?

Where can I sign up?!

Look @shinyblurry, nobody sane wants to mess with religious viewpoints regarding marriage. Your religious community gets to decide who can marry in your church and that is how it should be. Don't like it? Leave the religious community. Don't like, for example, the rules of the Amish? Stop being one. It's as simple as that.
The government can not afford to pick a religion. It needs to stay neutral. Would you like your government to simply endorse and act upon what the pope says? Imagine the government turns atheist and bans going to church. Nobody wants that.
That's why the government should stay the fuck out of who I or my children can marry. It's none of their business. As long as I want to marry a legal person that is neither a close blood relative (incest is bad, mmmmkay), married or underage, it shouldn't be their business. Neither trees nor dogs are legal persons.
I don't want big government to control my life. Why is that hard to understand? Why is this something that needs debating?

I suppose it's a bit of a chicken and egg question. I'd say that the reason you can make fun of the pope without repercussions is because of the relative prosperity and subsequent education levels in the west. It certainly wasn't always the case (the Inquisition, etc).

I tend to think that Islam would follow a similar course if it's adherents had a better standard of living. Education and comfort are kryptonite to religion

@newtboy @ChaosEngine --

I think there are a LOT of political/geographical influences that exacerbate underlying problems, like ChaosEngine is saying. But, a lot of the underlying problems can be traced to the religions themselves too. And while extremists / fundamentalists in Christianity and Islam are both very very bad, I don't necessarily think that both religions are "indistinguishable" in terms of generating those extremists.

Bill thinks that Islam is worse about generating those people than Christianity and other religions. That's where the "motherlode of bad ideas" thing comes from. I tend to think he's at least partially right -- but social/political/economic/geographic issues are certainly a very big influence that he doesn't usually touch on. And in the video Fareed makes a very good point about many Muslim countries NOT having high rates of extremist incidents that tends to support the importance of those other factors that aren't directly tied to religion.

Bill might come across as anti-Islam more frequently (especially of late), but I think he's really quite equal opportunity anti-religion in general. But one of the ways that he perceives Islam being worse than Christianity is that if you make fun of the pope, or suggest that he's a pedophile or something, you're a lot less likely to end up dead than if you say something critical about Mohammed.

As shitty as Christianity is / may be, in the west we've progressed far enough that at least we can criticize its faults without (too much) fear of being killed for pointing them out. And THAT has been very helpful in the rapid diminishing of Christianity in Europe and the UK, even though we haven't caught up in the US yet. I think that is where Bill makes a fair point, and something that potentially counters Fareed's seemingly more rational / steady Eddie take on the issue.

It's a joke. I found it funny, hence the upvote. Kinda like when someone says "does the pope shit in the woods?", they aren't actually suggesting that the pope defecates in arboreal settings.

...And they aren't necessarily anti-catholic bigots or "haters". If Bill Maher wants to say something negative about Islam, trends in Islamic populations, or faith in general ... he'll come right out and say it straight. I think if your goal is a "gotcha" moment of Maher showing his "true colors", you could easily pick one of his more serious comments on Islam, instead of something as silly, trivial, and clearly joke-oriented as this...

And that's why I like the guy.

The NHS is a non-theistic universal health care system.

Still the pride of the nation despite corrupt politicians trying to sell it off, and creating confusing policy changes and overhauls to try and slow it down and clog it up to make it look like it needs privatisation.

Are you trying to play down the positive influence that atheistic people have had on the world? Because even the pope would call you an imbecile for trying to suggest that the world would be better off without contributions from those who worked under an atheistic remit (i.e. one which was prepared to challenge the traditional, often religious answers). And vice versa - the problem with the world is people who can't find the value in things they don't understand or agree with.

How very small minded of you to think that a life without theism is a life not worth living. I'm sure an alcoholic would say the same to a teetotaller. I couldn't find meaning in a life without god =/= there is no meaning in a life without god.

I tell you what; i'll have a life without meaning as long as you're a coward who is crippled delusional by their fear of the possibility they will one day cease to exist. Do you think your god approves of your behaviour?

If there is a god, he'll prefer my company over yours - i didn't need the promise of sweets later to be good now. I did it because i'm good.

I feel like this is just unfair generalizing.

Not all religious people think this way. Even the Pope is ok with aliens (and evolution).

Hey i think the pope acknowledged evolution and other pretty good scientific theories last week or the week before! Said something like it was foolish to ignore those things, and foolish to expect 'god' to have made everything exactly as it is, rather than establishing a ruleset and giving us a push in the right direction.

I guess they realised they were starting to lose popularity in the 21st century.

You still don't understand science, do you?

First, John Coleman is not a "top meteorologist", he's a TV weatherman. He has no relevant academic credentials, and every single one of his points is either flat out lying or trivially refuted.

Second, don't bother posting anything from nipccreport.com. They're simply a front for the conservative Heartland Institute and are about as trustworthy and scientifically credible as the fox who assures you he has the chickens best interest at heart.

Finally, a former chief scientist at BP argues against climate change?? No fucking way! Get outta town! Next, you'll be telling me that the Pope believes in god....

and after all that, he's still wrong

Wow... his call outs... I can see Obama doing it. I can't see the Pope doing it, though he has tried to prove himself semi hip, so he just might. Not sure about the Dali Lama, though he also seems to enjoy fun.

Well, thank you for the compliment, fellow masterdebater.
Or did you mean "masturbator"? Then I'd have to disagree, I'm certainly not bad at that.

Yeah, my post was super hyperbolic but it was just a continuation of the thinking going on here. I took it to the next level. The basic message I took from this thread was "Fuck that guy, he's an insurance scammer and got what he deserved!"
I disagree.
First of all, his crime (scamming people out of money) makes him a huge asshole and definately someone I wish not much well being in general. However, he was slowly run over by a car! You have to do some really awful shit to deserve that kind of punishment. If that man was the pope, I'd have applauded the lady and asked her for a re-run because the pope supports child rapists. If that man was Jeffrey Dahmer, I'd ask if I could have a go. But he's, as far as we know, neither a rapist or murderer or anything else as horrible. He could be dead. He could be a vegetable. He could be disabled. None of that is a punishment fitting his crime. Not even a Bernie Madoff deserves that.
The second thing is this whole "he did something stupid and now he got what he deserves" debate. Look, I'm a person of schadenfreude. I have sadistic personality traits that fill my shrivelled, black heart with gleeful joy everytime somebody gets hurt. But there are limits.
My examples are horrible and gross but what sets them apart from what this guy did is mainly they're not criminal activities. Sure, if you shoot at cops and get shot, you deserve that. You committed and act of agression and got pwned. That man was not agressive towards anyone.
He didn't lay under a moving car, he lay beside a standing car that then rolled over him while making a turn because the driver didn't notice him. Misjudgement on his part? Sure. The same as playing russian roulette or shooting at cops? Nope. That's because his activity, running into a standing or slowly moving car and pretending to be hit, doesn't include certain death as certain possibility.
The only reason people here are so comfortable with this man getting run over is because he's an asshole criminal. If that would've happened to him while he was pulling an internet prank, everyone would be horrified. Imagine that guy wearing a ridiculous costume and talking into the camera at the beginning of the video how he'll make that woman think she hit him with the car and what a great prank that'll be. Is he still getting what he deserves?
People give a shit about the man in the terrible accident because they made a judgement that he is a criminal and not worth it.
See, John Oliver has a point when talking about prisons.
I saw a video of a man getting run over. It didn't upset me but the reactions to it did.

He never states that global (fill in the term du jour) is scientific fact. That is what the poster hopes you'll assume.
Further, consensus is not science. Centuries ago, the consensus was that the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth.
If you accept that global 'whatever' is man made, and the gov't s of the earth can do something about it, you have more faith than a whole peck of popes.

But certainly he is okay with circumcisions in third world countries since, as he noted, it does prevent certain diseases that kill? I see no reason to do it in the first and second world countries, but other nations live in conditions like old world Israel... Like the pope's distaste for condoms in Africa. He can suck a dick (The pope can)