Maher to Stewart: ‘Drugs are good, religion is bad’ and Obama’s spirituality is ‘bullsh*t’

[Warren Stupidity]

20. I made no such statement.

Your unorganized informal religious beliefs are no different to me as religious beliefs than organized formal ones. (Organized formal beliefs are in my opinion a much graver danger to society because their institutions have more political power.) I simply objected to the attempt to place "perverted beliefs" outside of "true religion", which you are also attempting to do.

The "idea" is revealed by individuals, by organizations, etc. It has no existence outside of its communication to others. The problem with religious ideas of all sorts, good bad indifferent, is that they are not subject to evidence based reasoning, but instead are deemed "true" by "other ways of knowing" - or false, as in the case at hand of "perverted beliefs" by similar methods. If your "spiritualism" informs you that you should steal infants and sacrifice them to your gods, that is your revealed truth and is no more or less valid than any other religious belief, even though it is obviously morally repugnant. If your religious beliefs inform you that same sex marriage is an abomination to the gods, that is your revealed truth and is no more or less valid than any other religious belief, even though it is obviously morally repugnant.