Hope this is the right forum....
In a nutshell, I will tell you I have been a Bill Maher fan for a long time going back to his early stand up days.... but I can tell you without Bias... Religilous is a fantastic movie.....
I guess it helps when you agree with Bill on the idea of religion as a whole, but his interviews which as classic Maher always is were funny and yet poignantly realistic(sad) snapshots of the people of this country that are brainwashed.....
I thought he did a great job on covering the absurd nature of all religions ... I think some scenes were a bit long and made their point (Marijuana Scene was funny though) and did not need to be as long.. but it did not take away from my overall rating of a 9 out 10 .
Maher's interview skills and methods were brilliant in bringing out some pretty raw and honest answers from people, which to me were as real as it gets... and as I said before making for some funny moments of absurdity.
Your thoughts?
I enjoyed the movie. I went and saw it opening night in a packed theater. Everyone was laughing at all the funny parts and no one walked out.
I think it was well done. There have been complaints from Evangelicals who will never see the movie that Bill tricked people into giving interviews but that did not seem the case at all.
I think anyone with any form of intelligence and knowledge of sarcasm will enjoy the movie.
It's from CNN, so it probably won't work, but here goes
Embedded video from CNN Video
ya, I saw this clip last night.... Maher and the director come right out and say they did lie to some of the interviewers about what they were doing.... on one side kind of dissapointed that they did lie.. but Honestly which one of those people who are obviously evangelecals who know they are full of SHIT .. would actually do the interview?
Some of the reaction is bullshit too... some of them actually are mad and saying "... If I had known Bill Maher was involved.. I never would have done it.."... UH.. Bill Maher was your interviewer.. how did you not know?
Here is an Excellent Review
FOr the most part I agree with your reveiw but there were two things that bothered me about the doc.
The first was the violent imagery of radical Islam used every time they wanted to show the dangers of religion - even when the segment was not about Islam. While I understand the reason, it was off-putting to many people I know with religious convictions. It was really just sloppy sensationalism.
The other was the mindnumbingly melodramatic and preachy ending. It felt like a fire and brimstone sermon and really out of place in a film that just spent a half hour mocking such theatrics. Maher's true distain for the intellect of the audience really shows in how heavy-handed he felt he needed to be in driving home the "message."
Other than those two points, I definitely agree that it was a very well done piece with surprising signs of humility from Maher that we don't often see in his TV show.
Git; once again I cannot disagree with you on your point regarding the ending... although I know the point Maher was trying to make and I agree with the concept of his point.. .the delivery was in paradox of the theatrics in delivering the message threw me a bit off... other than that I really did think it was great.
I'm not religious myself but I just saw this movie and I found it disgusting. How they edited the scenes to let Bill look like he's always right. The only dumb person in this movie is the maker of it. I almost feel sorry for him. Bill, you're not so smart..
I too enjoyed the movie, though I felt it conflates faith with superstition a bit much. It wasn't really a movie that made me reconsider my personal philosophy. It did however, make me laugh a lot, and reminded me of some of Michael Moore's work.
A couple of months ago, I wrote my own take on it here.
I haven't seen Religilous yet, but knowing Bill Maher, I'm sure all of your takes on his attitude are are accurate. However, I don't understand this desire to defend religion (at least the Abrahamic variety) against their connection to superstition. Universalists and deists are hardly representative the brand of religion being promulgated by any major Abrahamic sect. If religious people are fed up with being painted as 'superstitious', then why don't the flatly disavow the superstitious nonsense that permeates their religious texts? You know, why don't they come right out and say, "Genesis [insert lots of other biblical or other religious text as appropriate here] is utter bullshit - not only is it a collection of ahistorical fairy tales, but as often as not, it presents a warped, disgusting world view." As long as such disavowals are not forthcoming from the major religious factions, I don't see that they really deserve to be defended.
What proof do you have that Genisis is "utter bullshit"?
Are you serious?
Quite serious.
I've read it.
You may think you're serious, but you're not.
Hey now, who are you to say that he seriously doesn't take bullshit seriously?
In the begining I created the world.
What proof do you have that the sentence above is bullshit?
??!?!?
I have read most of, and I would like to know how you can scientifically disprove any of it.
Discussion with people who refuse to acknowledge that Genesis is superstitious bullshit long ago became a tedious exercise as far as I’m concerned. In my experience, people who won't accept the silliness of Genesis are either dumb as a stump or willing to tap an infinitely deep well of intellectual dishonesty. Find somewhere else to amuse yourself.
Why, what a coincidence! Please watch the very short video here, and let me know the answer to the question posed.
And actually, Genesis is easy to be disproven.
Evolution.
Need more?
I just asked a question. I don't see the need to call names. I am merely looking for the truth. I never said that Genisis is accurate and I never said that it is inaccurate.
I don't see what's so tedious about providing one simple scientific argument that shows that something in Genisis is not true.
And in reply to Andyo, I am also wondering how evelution has been proven. Again I am not saying that it has and I am not saying that it hasn't. I am just wondering.
C'mon - I'm not playing this game. A good portion of the scientific knowledge gained over the past five centuries provides mountains of evidence contradicting stories in Genesis - and the entire chronology it implies.) You are capable of putting together a grammatically correct sentence, so I think it quite reasonable to assume that have had some exposure to such evidence. I’ll just point you to the following books. They present a small fraction of the evidence supporting my contention that Genesis is bullshit. The first two are general books for the layperson. Three of the next four are more recent versions of textbooks I used as an undergraduate before I went on to becoming a professional chemist almost thirty years ago. (I'd provide links but they don't seem to work. Go the Amazon and look for them.) Knock yourself out.
History of the Universe (Joseph Silk)
The Selfish Gene (Dawkins)
Introduction to Physical Geology
Introduction to Physical Anthropology (Robert Jurmain)
Principles of Genetics (Robert Brooker)
Principles of Biochemistry (Lehninger)
Of course, I never had to go to college to know Genesis is bullshit – any fifth grader who has learned to think for himself at all can raise objections to the story of Noah's Ark that entirely obliterates its credibility. I tell you what - why don't you see if you can come up with reasons that the story of Noah's Ark doesn't make a lick of sense - I'm not interested.
I have not done subsequent reading in this area, but i will. After reading some of the books you have listed above if I still have any belief in the centent in the book of Genisis I would like to continue this discussion on a later date. If I do I would like to start a new thread because I believe that I have caused this thread to stray from to orginal post.
Evidence that genesis is, um, "inaccurate" (to be extremely kind) is all over the place. Probably the first bit of scientific information I remember vividly learning from a children's book was that the sun had been burning for 5 billion years, and it was halfway its life, and burn again in another 5. I remember it vividly because I asked my dad about it, since I was kind of scared.
So your first bit of evidence that Genisis is false is based on a children's book. Would I be correct in saying that?
Nice. I think you're either yanking our chains, or you're an actual extreme fundamentalist.
You can't say you're just demanding "proof" of both evolution and that genesis is true/bullshit equally.
And by the way, what I meant is that outside of the U.S., even in Latin American poorer countries, even children know genesis is bullshit.
To be clear. All of science proves genesis (and the flying spaghetti monster, FWIW) wrong. Evidence? You live the friggin evidence every day. Do you think your car, computer, cellphone, TV, medicine all work by magic? The principles that make those work contradict genesis and pretty much everything else in the babble that makes any assertion about the world.
I am not sure what principles you are talking about, and no, I do not think that electronics work by magic.
Of course. Figured just as much. So how about starting educating yourself about them? You don't need to get a science career, just read some secular books by scientists about it.
Carl Sagan's books, Stephen Hawing's A Brief History of Time are a good start. Cosmology somehow doesn't seem as threatening to religious people than evolution.
I don't feel threatened by ideas. In fact, I invite new ideas. I am willing, if I have the time to do, to read what ever you would like to reccomend. And no I am not saying I am to busy to read right now, infact I have plenty of time.
These religious wackos pretend that they want to have a serious discussion. My experience is that one end up going back and forth and back and forth ad nauseam. The religious wacko is a clever little animal who is adept at playing games. They troll around in an attempt to spread the gospel. They are a waste of one's time because they are disingenuous.
If you think that this discussion is a waste of time why did you bother posting?
I'm just warning people not to get trapped by you. I know your type.
Yeah - you might have detected very subtle clues in my responses that indicate my suspicion of "Till Wipton's" motives. [Discussion...long ago became a tedious exercise ... Knock yourself out ... why don't you see if you can come up with reasons ... I think it quite reasonable to assume that have had some exposure to such evidence ... I'm not interested.] You don't even have to participate in threads with fundamentalist zombies for it to induce nausea, just reading them is bad enough.
Well, since I have brought this discussion away from the topic for long enough I would like to talk about Religilous.
Throught out the entire movie Bill Maher interviews people who are not even close to being his intellectual equals. A group of truckers. Seriously. He also commits numerous fallacies in the movie. Such as, loaded word fallacy, ad hominum, equivocation, and bulverism just to name a few.
Bulverism - thanks for that Till. I hadn't heard of it before, but I like it.
I know you are new here, but generally, when you accuse someone of a logical fallacy, you should explain how that person committed that fallacy.
Surely the person who has bulverism in his regular vocabulary uses "ad hominem" much more frequently "throughout" his arguments. It's Latin, and it sounds philosophical!
LOVED the movie. It needed some interviews with Atheiests recovering from different religions to make it tops in my book. Didn't like the crazy heavy handed ending. In the end, the whole movie felt like an extended episode of Real Time.
Just watch Bill's movie on DVD - awesome.
Two reactions to this thread.
1) I did not think the ending was overly dramatic. But I might have if I hadn't read Sam Harris over the past two years. He makes a strong case for action against religion because of the threat it poses to us all. I am down with this agenda, so Bill's call to action seemed appropriate to me.
2) I think it funny that someone here wants to debate Genesis on first principles. Anyone capable of critical thought who is not suffering from indoctrination to dogma can deduce in short order that the story of genesis is inconsistent with the experience of modern life. It is clearly a mythology written by primitive man while struggling to understand the world around him with the tools at his disposal. Our tools are better. As an educated person you have a responsibility to use them constructively and not waste time debating the obvious.