Atheism is a religion as much as abstinence is a sex position
Now, you have to give credit where credit is due, the quote from Bill Maher “atheism is a religion as much as abstinence is a sex position” is a funny quote.
The point here is that atheism is not a religion and is supposed to be belief in nothing and the nothingness of atheism is precisely the point of the belief.
However, a couple of problems here.
First, atheists claim to be the champions of reason, logic and rationality. Is it really rational to believe in nothing? Everything around us cries out for an explanation, whether it is the intricacy of a cell, the human body, human life, human consciousness, the universe, objective moral values or the reason for human suffering or the point of life. Is it really rational to believe in nothing and not try to explain these “somethings” which are so entrenched in everyday life? Does this not amount to burying one’s head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich?
Secondly, even sticking purely with the analogy, abstinence for most people is hard. Nobody is made up of wood and everybody (or at least the vast majority of people) “has needs”. A person abstaining has strong (usually religious)convictions about something they price higher than sex and this leads them to actively resist their urges. So is Bill Maher saying that atheism is an active (and possibly religious) resistance to the very natural “urge” that everything around us screams out that there must be a creator? Or is Bill Maher (as well as his atheist cohorts) just so loyal to his conviction that a creator does not exist that he will resist to the death all of the contrary evidence around him? If this is the case, whatever happened to “following the evidence where it leads?”
Third problem is that nothing cannot really be lived out. How do you really believe in nothing? Bill Maher himself believes in all kinds of rights and freedoms. He has even in recent times blasted the political left for their excesses. Wait a minute! I thought he believed in nothing?! How is this belief in nothing somehow grounding all these things Bill Maher speaks so passionately for and against? Faith without works is dead and if Bill Maher has faith in nothing, his works really do not line up with this belief.
In conclusion, it appears this Bill Maher quote is in very fancy language trying to attain “the atheist sweet spot” where they claim to believe in nothing so have nothing to defend and from that position express such a high degree of scepticism of all things religious that like Matt Dilahunty, they simply “cannot be convinced”.
