1) Religion is determental to society in many ways.

All relgions use the indgredents of

hope and fear inorder to maniuplte and to control people to take full advantegage of them
by using their time and mostly commonly their finanical resources. Religion can reach
the extremeist point causing the death of human lives. Islam itself is a volient religion,
the Quran itself even says to behead people who do not belive in the only God of Allah
which is very voilent. If Islam was never founded then we won't have islamic based terror
attacks, no 9-11, no beheading of inncoent individuals and etc. Chrrtinaity uses hope and
fear as well if you dont confess your sins to a priest then you will go to hell, the question
is that does hell exsist? or just an illusion Where is in the bible does it say that apostles
can forgive sins? In all esssence relgion only brings violence and political unstablitly
within various regions making relgion extremmely detreim to society. Relgion implants
false hope and fear into innocent people and that allows people in relgious power to
control them with a high degree of accuarcy.
2) Faith can make a virtue out of no thinking. It's a matter of just simply believing in
what relgions tells you to do and simply just follow the rules of the partlicualr relgion that
the einduvla belongs too. An exsesive amount of faith can lead to the igornoance of the
individual, not allowing the indiduval to contemplate on the really meaning of our
exsistance. Faith can blind the indivual to a certain extent that prevents them from
developing a sense of logically mentality, therefor the indivual in only restricted to the
laws of religion. Faith makes a virtue of not thinking. A philopsher Fredick Neitche said
that CHraitniity is like alchol it is meant to numb the pain, it is a metaphor for preventing
allow the individual to think for him or herself, it leads to indidual to follow the teachings
of the church, in which some sense they are not always right. This may of course conflict
or coside with person's own beliefs create this internal psychological warfare within the
indidvual. Faith can a virtue used to the postive and negitive mentality of the indivudal.
Thinking outside the box can lead to psycholical instalbity, as it confuses theoreatical and
practical concepts contemplatefd by the indiduvl. However having faith is proven to the
psychologically stable leading to the well being of the person, for example the priests
who have faith in their relgions are generally psycholly stable they are not psylogically
confused so they live happier and simple lives. But for some who is constantly
contenplating with their exsistance is proven to be psychgocally unstalbe and live painful
lives of questing and complicated lives.
3) Relgion can be dangourous as it allows human beings who don't have all the answers
to believe that they do. This give other humans the oppunitry maniuple other people and
this becomes a psyhlogical hazard, the ego and confidence starts to rise. They begin to
develop a sense of pride, which is theologically deadly according to the seven deadly
sins. Pride can cause the downfall of a human being. So yes it is dangours, as the people
in the movie whom Maher interview seem to know all the answers and show huge
amounts of pride. Jesus himself says that we are requrie to knock and to search for all to

find the knowledge, he gave us a mind body and a soul for a reason, so we can think for
ourseleves and not allow religion to manipulate them through false hope and fear. God
and religion are very different from eachother, God is creator and loves us all. relgion
uses god to maniuplate people through hope and fear. That's is can be dangours, it can
also get very extrermist and people start killing eachother due to relgious differences,
threaten people to convert to their religion.
4) Being good to "save one's ass" is not a real reason to ag guiading princple. This person
is just motivatived by the concept of fear and hope of the elments of relgions. In terms of
Christainity people hope that by being good that one day they will enter heaven, if we are
bad then we will suffer eternal hell. Again this is just the church just using hope and fear
to maniuplate people to turn humans into beliving into their relgion. Once they have
control of the individual then they can successfully take advatage of them, such as
collecting money from them, to them really powerful. Being good to save one;s ass is not
a legitive reason to be good, according to the philopher Immueal kant, he says that we
should be good for the sake of our moral duty, we should sacrifice our well being for the
sake of others, not for the sake of saving our own ass, which is complete greed. We must
take into account all the people around us not just outselves. People who are trying to
save their own ass, are very indivualistic and prideful and seem to know all their answers
5) Believing in something made up can good and bad at the same time. For example even
if God doesn't exsist, you can think of the church as an institution that does good and
moral things to people, such as point people in the right direction, which is quite
inquiteive. If Jesus never exsisted then we wouldn't have the teachings of Jesus. The
provide society was a base of teachings in which we can follow to acheieve the "good
life". The message of Jesus was to point humanity in the right direction, theoretical point
to the Kingdom of Heaven. But yes beliveing in something made can be good, if it helps
to maintain the well being of the indiduval. For example some people sacrifice their lives
to preach the teachings of Jesus such as priest they sacrifice their well being for the sake
of others to maintain their well being. Priest strongly believe in the teachings of Jesus and
that maintain their postive menatily and their well being. In essence that made up
substance can have a postive impact on the indidivual, which can cause them to spread
postiive, such as the preiests preachings the good news. Even if the concept is not
legitimite, it would be in our tendecy to make each other happy, according to the telogical
ethis of Aristole he says that happiness is found within the community, but to find
happiness the community's well being must be stable. So beleving in something that
made up can help them point them in the right direction, so they achieve the ultiate
happiness.
6) I don't know awser is quite acceptable, since us humans don't know the full reason to
answer, science can not answer these practical theory of question, but relgion can. But in
essence religion attempts to provide us with answers to philopical questions. As we

humans we don't have the full mental capacity to find the answers to these questions, but
we do have the capacity to contemplate about them. God gave us a mind, body and a soul
for a reason, we are ought to use it to our maximum potenital. Human's have been
programmmed to know everything that happens in the theoretical world, but also given
the mental capacity to reason the exsistance of practical knowledge such love and God.
For a religious leader to say "I don't Know" would be a bit ironic since they are suppose
to know all the answers to the practical questions. So for a religious leader to say this
answer would be just ironic, since they are suppose to know all the answers. People who
have strong faith, would usually know the answer to a philopsical questions, on the other
hand people who have very little faith tend to say "I don't know". In closing the "I don't
know answer" can be acceptable to a certain extent, one must condsider the indidivual.
7) Having no faith is quite a luxry in a sense that you are free, in sense that you can do
whatever you want, you are free to belive to follow you own path, not the path of
relgiion. WIthout faith you have the obligation to use your free will to the maximum
extent. Faith usually blinds the individual with igrnorance preventing the them to think
freely. Psycholigcall they are entrapped in this invisible box that can not allow person to
be free. In perception faith can be a preceied as a barrier that prevents the maximum
pchoyloigcal performance of a human being. In essence faith is like boundaries used to
block the maximum potential of the human being. It strickly tells the individual what's
right and wrong, it doesn't allow the person to use their consicence to contemplate to
make the descicion best for them. It is bascialy a psycholoigcal barrier for the induivaul
since they replace their conscience with faith, which is created by another being. Faith is
a tactic used by religion to psylogically maniupulate people in the sense that they can not
question themselves and question the religion, it basically removes self-awareness of the
indidivual. In closing having no faith is a luxruy since you are completely free from the
chains of society and religion, you have the ablity to fully reach you maximum potential.
8) Mahar thanked the one intervieww for being Christ-like instead of just Christain
because the concept of acting Christ-like and Chrstian is very different. Being Christ-like
would be basically to follow and to imitate the actions of Christ himself, such as
performing ethical actions. Examples of this would be to preach the good news, tell the
rich people to donate to the poor and needy and treat each other with respect. However a
Chritain is only a follower of Christ, and doesn't nessary act christ-like, in my own
personal experience I know many christians but none of them are Chirst-like. Jesus's
teachings have been transformed by the Church in many ways. For instance, Jesus say to
love everyone as you love your self, but the church says to love everyone exept
homosexuals. In essecence this is denying the oringal teachings of Jesus in place for manmade teachings. Another solid example would be how the Church uses their followers
(Christains) to give financial aid to the insistiution, but speaking from personal
experience most of the money collected by the Church often goes misused, only a small

portion go to funding the Church. Jesus would never ask his followers for money, he told
his followers to give up all their wealth and possesion and donate it to the poor, this
maintains the well being of the individual and the community surrouding them. In theory
a Christ-like person is likely to get into heaven as opposed to a Christain.
9) I agree with Maher's statement that religon is just a way to make money, get power and
take advatage of peoples fear. Religion in itself has caused many atrousities throughout
history. Most religions require you that in order from being punished, the indidivul must
donate money to their relgious insistuion so they are not punished in the afterlife. This
causes us to ask the ultimate questions, "Is there an afterlife?", "Was the afterlife a
creation due to religion?", these are the type of question that we should ask ourselves
when examing religion. Most religions use God as a tool to control people in many ways,
such as taking advatage of people's finincial resources and even taking advantage of their
talents to create this atmosphere full of illusions, so all the followers can just listen and
obey to what the people in power say. Of course having a huge amounts of followers
gives the people in authority vasts amount of power and allows them to control and
maniupualt the followers for their own advantage. In essence God and Religion are
different as there is only God who created us and in religion they use God to control and
to maniuplte people who are following the religion and of course take advantage of their
resoruces.
10) The comparism between rock stars and relgious leaders is fair comparision. Relgious
leaders usally follow moral laws to promote peace and justice, while rock stars basically
put on concerts for people's entertainment. However, both relgious leaders and rock stars
are famous and well admired people, so as a result of this people are willing to throw
money at them since they are look upon as idols or even gods. For instance, Bill Maher
calls the rockstar preacher a fraud right to his face since he claims to be a man of God.
This is how religious insititution make money, they have people claiming to be messagers
from God and ask people to donate money to support them, even though in reality most
of money is misused. Rock stars and relgious leaders look upon themselves as living gods
that have control over people's sence of dignity and their actions. In the philoshy of
Neitche he explaisn that the followers of CHristiainity are like herds of sheeps that follow
the sheperd which is the pope, in theory we are just puppets of the higher relgious
powers. Rock stars and Relgious leaders are the shepards and the people who follow and
admire them are the sheep or the herd.
11) In theory, yes we can be moral without religion since it is a man made creation used
just to control and to manipulate people. According to Arisistole telelogical ethics he says
that every action we perform is for the sake of our happiness and well being. So logically,
most humans would feel the moral tendency to perform postive actions towards other
people. God himself gave every human being freewill and soul, so we do have option to
be moral regardless if religion exsistance or not. In the doctrine of St. Augustine he says

that God gave us so much freewill, that have the freewill to deny God, in other words
with freewill anything is possible and that includes moral actions.
12) Maher is simply taking advatagege of people for the sake of comedy and other
miscellnaous reasoning. Some of the people interviewed weren't strong in their
communication and reasoning skills, so Maher had the power to take advatage of them
and make religion look riduclous. From his point of view, he can be doing this for a
couple of logical reasons such as to spread awareness of the fraudness of religion or he
can be doing this for the sake of making profit in the box office. In a sense the interviews
we're a bit bias as some of the people being interviewed were being contantly attacked by
Maher's arguements, he kept cutting off what the interviewee's were trying to say. In
essence, this is just another Hollywood stunt used directors to create profit for
themselves, this falls into the catergoy of capitalism. Our happiness has been capitalized
in a sense that in order to be happy, one must have money on them and be willing to
spend it.
13) The movie is a convincing arugement against relgion and faith in favour of science
and reason, or atleast doubt.