Religulous

Bill Maher was on the Daily Show about it, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. I hear he went to Raleigh, NC for one of his examples of religious nuttery, so that certainly hits close to home.

Overall, I'm extremely sympathetic with his reviews, but occasionally, he cheeses me off with something right out of left field. And sure enough, right at about 6:20 or so, he says:

"I don't use the word "atheist" about myself, because I think it mirrors the certitude I'm so opposed to in religion. What I say in the film is that I don't know. I don't know what happens when you die"

Like I tried to explain earlier, atheism is nothing more than an eschewing of theistic beliefs - it's not a very exclusive club, all you have to do is not believe in gods. One certainly doesn't have to have certainty that gods don't exist, or how fundamentalists sometimes idiotically put it: "faith that God doesn't exist".

Look at it this way: most normal people aren't Scientologists and don't believe in the whole Xenu story. How many of you guys would say that you have faith in Xenu not existing? Or have "certitude" in the Xenu story not being true? You filthy, filthy dogmatists! Don't you know that you're not allowed to reject any religious claim unless you have obtained omniscience?

Atheist Jew is likewise peeved, and raises some excellent points on the matter. We should form a gang. ^_^