I have no idea what they are trying to say.
You can see the video that was originally quoted here: https://xcancel.com/billmaher/status/1844938477512675654#m
Bill Maher seems aggressively unfunny to me, but the gist of the video is that it’s a open letter to Chappell Roan (who is pro-Palestine), saying that Israelis aren’t colonisers, because the Bible mentions that they built a temple in that area before others in Middle-East settled there. It seems like a questionable claim to me, and there are plenty of replies to the video disagreeing with him.
I mean, the Bible also mentions exactly how they drove out and murdered the Canaanites that were living there before them. Sounds like a coloniser to me - not that they were special for doing that, in their day.
And we know that that is, historically, bullshit, because Hebrews and Canaanites were related tribes and Judaism is even an outgrowth of the Canaanite pantheon.
The bible also says that you’re supposed to murder noncombatants during war. I think we should discount the old testament as a guide of any kind
The New Atheist movement led by figures such as Richard Dawkins have recently changed their mind from “all religions bad” to “Islam bad”.
This affirm previous suspicions that the most hardcore atheists were simply Islamophobes. Coincidentally they are also the staunchest deniers of the genocide in Gaza.
Hardcore atheist here. All religions are equally fictional, and I’m not an Islamophobe.
You can be an atheist without being in the New Atheism movement.
Too bad the comment said “hardcore atheists” instead of that then.
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They’re saying Israel is a US Colony and that Athiests are frauds, particularly Bill Maher for quoting the bible.
Personally, I think OP and this Medhi Hasan guy can fuck right off, Religion is literally the cause of all of this and thousands of years of conflict in that region on top of that.
Not “atheists”. “The New Atheists”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
And he’s not saying that Israel is a US colony, at all. He’s saying Zionism as an ideology is centred around colonialism in the classic British sense of the word, e.g. “take other people’s shit by force”.
Frankly, Mehdi isn’t wrong here. Using a religious text as a source for historical information to excuse the genocide in Gaza is antithetical to what Maher says he stands for and makes a hypocrite of him.
Yes and he only cited the Bible to show that jews lived there thousands of years ago. He wasn’t citing the Bible to make any kind of religious claim, so this guy’s comment is completely missing the point.
You shouldn’t cite the Bible as a historical document. The Bible also says that the Jews were slaves in Egypt, but archaeologists say that isn’t true.
More like “they weren’t all enslaved in Egypt”
The point he was trying to make was that they did live there a long time ago. That fact is collaborated by other sources. He probably should have cited those other sources, but the Bible is just the best known one.
Multiple truths at play here. BM is a turd, and Zionism is the worst kind of colonialism (genocidal). For-profit atheism is not a good source of sane facts stated calmly.
Zionists use religious texts to justify genocide so it would make sense to use religious texts against them. Not sure how their relationship with the bible is these days, though.
I’m far from a Maher fan, but it seems this chode complaining is cherry-picking and/or didn’t really listen to what Maher said.
I thought Bill Maher was Jewish?
He has jewish heritage but was raised catholic and is an atheist
