Bill Mahar's atheistic arguments

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I just got a glimpse of The View (something I don’t normally watch) and I saw Bill Mahar on it. Bill Mahar is not only extremely anti-Catholic, he’s extremely anti-Christian (meaning all of us Catholic and non-Catholic Christians.)

He gave an argument that the story of the virgin birth of Christ and also his death and resurrection after 3 days was in other cultures previously. That this was nothing new.

Now, I hold no stock in anything Bill Mahar has to say but I would like to be able to refute it intelligently. From what little I saw, the two Christian ladies there were stumped and limped along terribly. It was very shortly after that “argument” that they went to a commercial break after which he wasn’t to reappear so there’s no chance for a real rebuttal.

sigh (how many souls were lost due to this confusion and lack of information? This hit and run?)

Can anyone give me direction in how to rebut such an argument as my own brother is agnostic/atheist? (I might have such an opportunity come up again).

I could have answered at least one of the objections better than those two ladies but to be fair…the camera is on and time was oh, so short.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Sue
 
Bill Mahar does NOT have atheistic arguements–he has sneers and mockery.

Ignore his mockery and pray for his soul.
 
Mr. Mahar mocks God and Christians. He refers to religious belief as a “neurological disorder.” The same kinds of remarks are commonly found on atheist forums.

Pray for him.

God bless,
Ed
 
catholicleague.org/contact.php

I don’t watch the View or care to, but maybe someone should provide this information to Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League.In fact, their link for the organization is provided above. I know they are already working on the hatefulness of Bill Maher’s recent movie…which may be why he was on the program, I don’t know. But the so-called Christian women on that show are pitiful…they are Christian in name only, so don’t be surprised that they could offer little recourse. Now if they had Bill Donahue on the show or someone of some real Catholic apologetics, like Karl Keating etc, who could respond…that would be fair, but unfortunately this program, its directors, Barbara Walters etc have an agenda and it is not objective.
 
I would also go the way of the others and ignore Maher…he’s an intellectual insect. As to your family, I would go about preaching your faith by example, humility and conviction. You will be convincing if you are convinced.

If you are asked why we should believe the Virgin birth, just state from a purely historical-scientific angle, there are many witnesses to the events of salvation history, those early Christians were martyred for their beliefs, they testified to the miracles of Jesus, saw Him die, saw Him alive 3 days later, and had the faith spread to every corner of the earth like no other religion when, according to flippant atheists, they should have been received with laughter, and miracles continue to be performed to this day, there are the saints with scientifically validated stigmata, atheists converted on the spot at Fatima as I understand, etc…etc…

You will likely receive in response a claim trying to demonstrate one of those things as shaky evidence, like martyrs, and how lots of people die for false things…but it’s important that all of your evidence come as a package because nothing else on earth has all of Christianity’s qualities AT ONCE. It is the atheist who then is the one going against the evidence. And that’s from a purely non-spiritual perspective.
 
I appreciate all of your kind responses to my question. For all of Bill Mahar’s mockery, etc I wonder if perhaps he would secretly wish that someone would convince him. I don’t know.

I am sure that Bill Donahue is well aware of Mr. Mahar’s anti-christian activities. Maybe I should do a novena for this man’s soul. Hmmm.

Anyways, it is a good thing to take his “arguments” and prepare for them. Others might use them as well. ConallCernach, I will definitely check into your link. Thank you.

MarcoPolo (cool name :)), thanks for reminding me of stuff that I had forgotten. I guess that I need to write some of this down on paper so that I can practice. I don’t want to have to struggle with my answers.

Those two women, I believe, are real Christians. Everybody is on a journey, don’t forget. Cut them a little slack. I think they need a lot of training. But then again…so do I. :o
 
Just in brief, as I’m not sure what you are looking for:

As for Virgin birth, often they are talking about things like Zeus impregnating some women as a swan, a bull, etc. That’s not a Virgin birth, it’s bestiality.

I think it is Jonathan Z. Smith’s article in Eliade’s “Encyclopedia of Religion,” that demolishes the “similarity” between the Resurection and Adonis, Osiris, etc. I think the article is “Resurrection gods.” Look in the index.
 
I think Mr. Mahar mentioned something about Egypt. 🤷

Sorry. I wish I could be more helpful. Mostly, I remember him saying something about the birth of Christ and the story of the Resurrection being in other religions centuries before. But this was so hit and run that you had hardly enough time to digest what he said let alone respond. I really don’t think those 2 lone Christian women on the show were prepared for him. And who knows what Barbara Walters has told them what is allowed and what is not allowed. From what I understand, Elizabeth (don’t know her last name) is ready to walk from the show. Or was it fired? 🤷

Bill Mahar is an ex-Catholic as is Joy Behar. Maybe that explains the vitriolic behavior of those two. They have to justify their actions somehow.
 
I had some atheist’s make the argument that these things can be found in other pagan religions. One example they brought up was the story of how Zeus impregnated some woman who bore Hercules and then Hercules died and went to Hades for threes days before being resurrected and ascending to sit on the right hand of Zeus (followed by a ‘some comparative theology would enlighten those deluded morons’ type comments).

Obviously Zeus having relations with a woman to produce a half-god is not the same as the Virgin Birth. I don’t recall my Greek mythology to deal with the rest, but I seem to recall that Hercules didn’t die, but rather just traveled to Hades. Nor is his going to Mount Olympus (can’t recall if that happed either) the same as Christ ascending to the Father.

Others have tried to claim that the holy Name of Jesus is just a variation of Isis and also Zeus - yeah, they sound alike so they must be the same. :rolleyes:
 
SusanL said:
I just got a glimpse of The View (something I don’t normally watch) and I saw Bill Mahar on it. Bill Mahar is not only extremely anti-Catholic, he’s extremely anti-Christian (meaning all of us Catholic and non-Catholic Christians.)
Click to expand...
I don’t know about Bill Mahar… Bil Maher is a different story. 😉
SusanL said:
He gave an argument that the story of the virgin birth of Christ and also his death and resurrection after 3 days was in other cultures previously. That this was nothing new.
Click to expand...
Nothing new, indeed. Many prior religions had a hero born to a virgin… Of course they had no idea about genes and such, so they could not have known that a virgin birth (which is not actually impossible) would bing forth a biological equivalent of the mother… another female. So these ancient fairy tales should not be taken more seriously than what they are, old folklore, nothing more.
SusanL said:
Now, I hold no stock in anything Bill Mahar has to say but I would like to be able to refute it intelligently.
Click to expand...
Good luck! You sure will need it…
 
JMJ_coder said:
I had some atheist’s make the argument that these things can be found in other pagan religions. One example they brought up was the story of how Zeus impregnated some woman who bore Hercules and then Hercules died and went to Hades for threes days before being resurrected and ascending to sit on the right hand of Zeus (followed by a ‘some comparative theology would enlighten those deluded morons’ type comments).

Obviously Zeus having relations with a woman to produce a half-god is not the same as the Virgin Birth. I don’t recall my Greek mythology to deal with the rest, but I seem to recall that Hercules didn’t die, but rather just traveled to Hades. Nor is his going to Mount Olympus (can’t recall if that happed either) the same as Christ ascending to the Father.

Others have tried to claim that the holy Name of Jesus is just a variation of Isis and also Zeus - yeah, they sound alike so they must be the same. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
For the record Hercules was killed by Hydra poison in his tunic placed by his wife.

Also, Jesus is Joshua, not Jesus. =p
That usually puts a hole in that argument.
 
ateista said:
I don’t know about Bill Mahar… Bil Maher is a different story. 😉

Nothing new, indeed. Many prior religions had a hero born to a virgin… Of course they had no idea about genes and such, so they could not have known that a virgin birth (which is not actually impossible) would bing forth a biological equivalent of the mother… another female. So these ancient fairy tales should not be taken more seriously than what they are, old folklore, nothing more.

Good luck! You sure will need it…
Click to expand...
It should not be so hard to refute it once we understand what he is actually talking about. As I said earlier, this was very hit and run which is really a coward’s way of doing business.
 
As for Bill Maher and his malicious ilk,
pray for them.
They don’t realize the seriousness (for their eternal souls)
of what they are doing.
 
SusanL said:
It should not be so hard to refute it once we understand what he is actually talking about.
Click to expand...
Go ahead, then. He is talking about the nonsensical claims of “virgin birth” - with a male offspring - among other things. Just go ahead and show how is it biologically possible to have a male child as the result of virgin birth, where the woman’s genes are not combined with those of a male, and therefore the child will be the genetic replica of the mother.
SusanL said:
As I said earlier, this was very hit and run which is really a coward’s way of doing business.
Click to expand...
Modern TV talk shows do not lend themselves to in-depth analysis of complex questions.
 
SusanL said:
I just got a glimpse of The View (something I don’t normally watch) and I saw Bill Mahar on it. Bill Mahar is not only extremely anti-Catholic, he’s extremely anti-Christian (meaning all of us Catholic and non-Catholic Christians.)

**He gave an argument that the story of the virgin birth of Christ and also his death and resurrection after 3 days was in other cultures previously. That this was nothing new.
**
Now, I hold no stock in anything Bill Mahar has to say but I would like to be able to refute it intelligently. From what little I saw, the two Christian ladies there were stumped and limped along terribly. It was very shortly after that “argument” that they went to a commercial break after which he wasn’t to reappear so there’s no chance for a real rebuttal.

sigh (how many souls were lost due to this confusion and lack of information? This hit and run?)

Can anyone give me direction in how to rebut such an argument as my own brother is agnostic/atheist? (I might have such an opportunity come up again).

I could have answered at least one of the objections better than those two ladies but to be fair…the camera is on and time was oh, so short.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Sue
Click to expand...
As C.S. Lewis referred to this kind of issue, they are imperfect reflections of the perfect Truth. It supports Christianity–what Tolkien referred to as the True Myth.
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
As for Bill Maher and his malicious ilk,
Click to expand...
I wonder, why is exposing nonsense for what it is… malicious?
Jaypeeto4 said:
They don’t realize the seriousness (for their eternal souls)
of what they are doing.
Click to expand...
Now that is true! They sure don’t. 🙂

If only you could substantiate that there is an “eternal soul”, your argument would be worthy of consideration.
 
ateista said:
Go ahead, then. He is talking about the nonsensical claims of “virgin birth” - with a male offspring - among other things. Just go ahead and show how is it biologically possible to have a male child as the result of virgin birth, where the woman’s genes are not combined with those of a male, and therefore the child will be the genetic replica of the mother.

Modern TV talk shows do not lend themselves to in-depth analysis of complex questions.
Click to expand...
OK. I will show that it is biologically possible.

First category: Miraculous Virgin Births

In discussing miraculous occurrences of males being born to virgins (I only know of one such occurrence), we first make certain assumptions. The most important one of which is that there exists a being, namely God, capable of interfering in the natural order to such an extent that He can cause a virgin to become pregnant.

It is then no leap at all to decide that He could choose the sex of the child.

Second category: Non-Miraculous Virgin Births

Although I am not necessarily aware of these occurring very much among human females, it is certainly possible. I would even go so far as to say with some certainty that it has occurred.

Artificial insemination or in vitro insemination and then implantation could very plainly lead to a female remaining a virgin , becoming pregnant, and giving birth to a male offspring. With modern egg harvesting techniques this offspring could even be genetically hers.

It seems to me then that, in light of the second category, which man has achieved, it would seem foolish for one to attempt to argue that God is limited and cannot do such a thing. This is arguing from the assumption that God exists. I don’t really want to get into the existence argument right now, as I know that you don’t believe in God.

In case you missed it, the main point of my rebuttal is that your argument is not internally consistent and has no logical merit whatsoever.
 
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