Religulous

Byrnzie

Anyone seen this documentary? It's pretty funny.

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/religulous.php

Religulous (2008)

"Bill Maher interviews some of religion's oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers' Chapel. (Sign outside: 'Jesus love you.') He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic."

SVRDhand13

I've seen it and I liked it. My only problem with it is that if you watch his show then there wasn't really much added to his thoughts on the subject. I guess he was just trying to reach a wider audience by getting it in theaters.

marcos

Bill Maher's show is really good and he seems very intelligent. I always thought he got carried away with the religion thing, but you're review makes it sound like an interesting film. Thanks for the post.

Byrnzie

SVRDhand13 wrote:

I've seen it and I liked it. My only problem with it is that if you watch his show then there wasn't really much added to his thoughts on the subject. I guess he was just trying to reach a wider audience by getting it in theaters.

I thought the first half was very good, but then it descends into a bit of a desperate editing frenzy when he doesn't get his own way. I've seen him behave this way on his own show before - he becomes a petulant brat when someone contradicts him. The scene in this film with the Jewish Rabbi who is against the state of Israel is a prime example. Bill Maher clearly edits the scene to death because things don't go the way he intended them to. He even crosses a line and makes it look as though the Rabbi supported the holocaust. Pretty despicable behaviour from Bill Maher that should have resulted in huge condemnation, or at least a law suit.

Anyway, the first half, when he's talking with Christian fundamentalists needs no such editing work, as the people he's dealing with do a good enough job of bringing the laughs on their own without any subterfuge or encouragement.

Byrnzie

I love it when the 747 flies over during the crucifixion.

brandon10

This movie should be mandatory for kids right around grade six. Right around when they learn that Santa Claus isn't real either.

DriftingByTheStorm

You can find ignorant, unintelligent, and crazy people to make ANY broad group look bad.

I used to find Maher mildly entertaining, got increasingly bored with his pseudo-intellectual sarcasm shtick, and then finally decided to loathe him after all the 9\11 inside job insult slinging.

To be honest, he really strikes me as the left wing ideologue equivalent of Bill O'reily, even more so than Olberman. Only Maher feigns dignifying his diatribes with anecdotes, observations, and witticisms conveyed as "facts", whereas O'riely rarely if ever bothers to venture beyond naked name calling and dogma dispensing.

Both of them, however, i suspect know better to the extent that their expressed opinions on air should be radically different from what they present via their "tv personality" personas. For example, Bill O'Reily reporting on JFK assassination "conspiracy" before he sold his soul. Note, that unlike his current, blatantly obviously Phony TV persona and fraudulent "reporting" of today, this clip is not only hard hitting "real" reporting, but substantiated by congressional testimony and very clearly "the truth".

My biggest problem with Maher is actually the subject of the OP here, because even though i am certainly not orthodox in any sense, his deliberate attempt to smear and discredit religion broadly over almost his entire career is (unlike all this "socialism is the new 'n word' crap") truly equivalent to repeatedly referring to all black people as niggers in order to express your hatred for a certain subsection of a larger racial group.

There are plenty of people that apply religion credibly, from a respectful, personally validating and globally beneficial perspective. For Maher, by way of argument, to lump these types in with the degenerate subsection of the "religious" group is a disingenuous smear campaign designed to provide educated, elite-think-indoctrinated-atheist liberals with both cheap entertainment, and social programming cues.

The concept of some sort of "god", tetragrammaton, or otherwise, has not been scientifically invalidated.
if anything science is closer to proving the concept of an infinite, intelligent, creative universal organizational principle or "force" (or "god") than disproving it.

To illustrate how the absurdity of science has kept pace with if not outpaced the absurdity of religion (to be honest, the two are beginning to merge in new [ancient] theoretical fields), CERN (the large hadron collider site in europe) has an open announcement on its site written up for web guests about secret dimensions.
The page ponders:

CERN Laboratory Webpage on Secret Dimensions wrote:

String theory intriguingly suggests that six more dimensions exist, but are somehow hidden from our senses. They could be all around us, but curled up to be so tiny that we have never realized their existence.

and goes on to discuss experimenting with other dimensions:

more CERN wrote:

High-energy experiments could prise open the inconspicuous dimensions[...] Who knows where such a discovery could lead!

Well certainly not to "god", i'm sure.


Can your mind fathom not only a 4th, but a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th dimension?
And why stop at 9? That is an oddly strange number of extreme Kabbalistic jewish significance (the most holy or "godly" number). It sure is hard to believe such a "scientific" liberal mind can accept the idea of other "dimensions", but not of a "god".

I think people just need to learn to accept that:
the new testament is more than likely either extremely corrupted through both honest and very dishonest translations and manipulations, or is a downright fraudulent perpetration but that the reported teachings of Jesus of Nazareth himself are often quite insightful, spiritually valuable, morally laudable, and socially cohesive and should be respected by intelligent people, and not rejected and ridiculed on the basis of a subsection of his followers (ever met a "bad" PJ fan? do you hate PJ?);
and that the old testament, in its more archaic forms is probably a quite informational volume containing many layers of meaning both overt and occult.

But liberal ideologue sheep herders (get the religious entendre?) recommending a closer examination of personal spiritual existence and principles would be out of the question for the authorities themselves, now wouldn't it?

Personally inquiry in to matters of religious "faith" could lead to personal enlightenment, spiritual growth, positive commitment towards idealistic precepts, and the revolutionary nonviolent spiritual overthrow of the current dogmatic fear based negativity spewing order which Maher himself is a part of.

I don't want to loathe those that, even if in their own confused, egoistic, or devolved way are searching for spiritual "truth".

Not only do i have better things to do with my time, but i would like to think that we all have more in common that not, and that religion, religious values, and the morality and culture from whence is derived, have their rightful place in the world.

Man must have SOMEthing to occupy his thoughts.
The world we know is scientifically reduceable to an objective-perception-neurolingguistic matrix. That is to say, all that we "know" is what we perceive and process in our brains.

The mind is a sponge to soak raw form and process through uniqueness of the personal human conscious experience we call perceive and label as "life". With that understood, one can make the choice to soak that creative sponge with toxic nueroliguistic transformations of the perceptive experience of that raw form, or one can bathe that sponge in a more fecund personal evaluation of the universe.

Losing the bad 6am-up for 36 hours straight-metaphor, what i am saying is, either you can choose to adopt positive mental constructs throughout your life and move forward in a productive fashion with your existence, or you can choose to focus on the negative.

Back to Maher,
there are a lot of idiots everywhere, religious or not.
Moreover, much of what is commonly misinterpreted as idiocy, is simply misunderstood ideology.
The guy outside the Obama townhall with a gun on his leg and a "time to refresh the tree of liberty" sign is not some nutcase. He is a concerned citizen, with a mind attuned to the same wavelengths as the greatest of our forefathers (J. Adams and Jefferson, i would argue) and the courage to express it publicly. The whore establishment media shadow government puppet simply loves to extol the craziness of that man, because it suits their agenda - namely, to demonize any opposition in as blunt, crass, and publicly affective (they expect you to be some fashion of idiot or another) method as possible, be this opposition political, or religious.

To close (so i can go outside and do some gardening before i pass out), this reminds me of this article i read the other day, by another "religious nut" who is attempting to describe how the atheistic communist system established in part by Marx (whom the author asserts to be an satanic illuminist, and NOT an atheist) is really just the anti-thetical anti-religous dogma to the western thesis pro-religious dogma, BOTH sides having been originally promulgated by the same illuminist orchestrators in an attempt to culturally engineer the new world synthesis occult "satanist" new age religion that is desired.

Just thought i'd throw that out there to close.
Damn this was a weird post.

Smellyman

Comparing Bill Maher to Bill O is preposterous. One does it on a meant for entertainment debate type show. The other pretends its real.

Byrnzie

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

the new testament is more than likely either extremely corrupted through both honest and very dishonest translations and manipulations, or is a downright fraudulent perpetration but that the reported teachings of Jesus of Nazareth himself are often quite insightful, spiritually valuable, morally laudable, and socially cohesive and should be respected by intelligent people, and not rejected and ridiculed on the basis of a subsection of his followers (ever met a "bad" PJ fan? do you hate PJ?);
and that the old testament, in its more archaic forms is probably a quite informational volume containing many layers of meaning both overt and occult.

I very much like the Gnostic Gospels - those Gospels that were deemed heretical by the Church Fathers and so not included in the orthodox canon. Like The Gospel of Thomas. These books speak of direct communion with God - something which is described as pervading everything, like the air we breathe - and which can be accessed/experienced without the intervention of a Priest or a Church. Maybe this is why the Church rejects these books?
And all of the earliest Christians were Gnostics, I.e, mystics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic The Church came a few hundred years later. The Church is just a power structure which in my opinion is the opposite of anything religious. You've just as much chance of having a religious experience in a fish and chip shop as you have in a Church.

Byrnzie

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

The world we know is scientifically reduceable to an objective-perception-neurolingguistic matrix. That is to say, all that we "know" is what we perceive and process in our brains.

Sure, the world can be reduced scientifically & rationally to a neurolinguistic matrix, but this doesn't mean that this is all there is to the world. Our rational understanding of the world doesn't encompass the whole. It's just one perspective.
And you're right that science is throwing up more questions than answers. Quantum physics has determined that behind our rational & material view of the world everything is connected and in flux. Behind the particles are waves. What we perceive are objects separate from one another. But behind this separateness there is a wave pattern where everything is inter-connected.
This is exactly what Eastern mysticism and shamanism has been saying for millennia. It's also what Western philosophy has deduced in the past couple of hundred years with the philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer.

Still, and I think this is the point...this has nothing to do with organized religion. If anything, organized religion, such as the Church, acts as a barrier to religious experience. We won't ever come to terms with such concepts as Gaia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis - and begin to understand the universe in which we live as long as we are still giving each other chocolate bunny rabbits at Easter time, and teaching our children that the world is 6000 years old, and that Jesus walked with dinosaurs.

Gern Blansten

Byrnzie wrote:

Anyone seen this documentary? It's pretty funny.

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/religulous.php

Religulous (2008)

"Bill Maher interviews some of religion's oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers' Chapel. (Sign outside: 'Jesus love you.') He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic."

Saw it....great documentary....I love how he visits the site of the supposed apocalypse

Random_Wookie

Does not the journey to anwers come with more questions? But as an idiot and an athesist I belive that religion is wrong and should not be allowed to exists. Though that comment means that I am wrong. But the only benifit of science or religion is that a sciencetist is more willing to be proven wrong.

Once I get home tonight I will sit and watch that movie, as for bill maher I was suprissed that he was different from the souless drone that he is today.

Gern Blansten

Sounds like you and Maher have similar beliefs

FiveB247x

I watched the film and thought it was ok... nothing anyone hasn't heard or known previously (for the most part).

Also, Bill Maher and openly denounced any conspiracy theories that 9-11 was an inside job and calls them nuts. I don't always agree with his opinions, but his show does over a wide variety of guests and viewpoints from all ends of spectrum...so comparing him to Bill O'Reilly is merely silly. O'Reilly passes himself off as a news commentator when 75% of his "news" is bogus or half-truthes. Maher is an opinionated comedian who has a talk show about politics which include some good interviews with varying guests.

Pepe Silvia

Byrnzie wrote:

SVRDhand13 wrote:

I've seen it and I liked it. My only problem with it is that if you watch his show then there wasn't really much added to his thoughts on the subject. I guess he was just trying to reach a wider audience by getting it in theaters.

I thought the first half was very good, but then it descends into a bit of a desperate editing frenzy when he doesn't get his own way. I've seen him behave this way on his own show before - he becomes a petulant brat when someone contradicts him. The scene in this film with the Jewish Rabbi who is against the state of Israel is a prime example. Bill Maher clearly edits the scene to death because things don't go the way he intended them to. He even crosses a line and makes it look as though the Rabbi supported the holocaust. Pretty despicable behaviour from Bill Maher that should have resulted in huge condemnation, or at least a law suit.

Anyway, the first half, when he's talking with Christian fundamentalists needs no such editing work, as the people he's dealing with do a good enough job of bringing the laughs on their own without any subterfuge or encouragement.

that was my problem with it, too. it started off good but then seemed get pretty anti-muslim

keeponrockin

I hate to say it, but Islam is the most dangerous religion IMO. I'm a practicing Athiest, and the shit some radicals are pulling (killing of Theo Van Gogh, the cartoon controversy, etc..) are downright scary...

Gern Blansten

yeah but Christianity spawns the murderers of abortionists, etc.

All religion is scary to me

Pepe Silvia

keeponrockin wrote:

I hate to say it, but Islam is the most dangerous religion IMO. I'm a practicing Athiest, and the shit some radicals are pulling (killing of Theo Van Gogh, the cartoon controversy, etc..) are downright scary...

before 2001 the majority of terrorism wasn't committed by muslims.

like in religulous he shows a muslim saying a site is sacred because Mohammed preached there, then it shows a single jewish person saying "Mohammed was never there" and from there on Bill Maher takes on this air of muslims don't have any right to the land. also, the israeli/palesitinian conflict goes deeper than religion

keeponrockin

Gern Blansten wrote:

yeah but Christianity spawns the murderers of abortionists, etc.

All religion is scary to me

Agreed.

FiveB247x

Whether someone is religious or not is one topic, but fundamentalism is what's truly wrong with religion. People should be able to practice and believe whatever they like, but telling, making or judging others to do things by your own personal standards is wrong. Some people nowadays associate islam with violence, but in all honesty, all religious have had a time frame when you can pretty much say violence occured or was carried out in gods name as a call of duty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNy6ziOyxoA

Gern Blansten

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{posting in tongues}

fuck

keeponrockin wrote:

I hate to say it, but Islam is the most dangerous religion IMO. I'm a practicing Athiest, and the shit some radicals are pulling (killing of Theo Van Gogh, the cartoon controversy, etc..) are downright scary...

that's strange... I don't feel dangerous... who knows what I'm capable of now!!

Byrnzie

George W Bush and Tony Blair both profess to be Christians, right? How many Iraqi's were killed in the past 6 years by these two cocksuckers? Over 1 million. And yet people think Muslims are dangerous?

Edit: I can't help being reminded of Israel's recent massacre in Gaza in January of this year. Israel killed 1,600 Palestinians, including an estimated 800 civilians, compared with 13 Israeli dead - 5 of whom were killed by friendly fire.
And what was the response from the West at the end of this carnage? "Hamas must lay down it's weapons and renounce violence!"

Oh the irony!

brandon10

Byrnzie wrote:

George W Bush and Tony Blair both profess to be Christians, right? How many Iraqi's were killed in the past 6 years by these two cocksuckers? Over 1 million. And yet people think Muslims are dangerous?

Edit: I can't help being reminded of Israel's recent massacre in Gaza in January of this year. Israel killed 1,600 Palestinians, including an estimated 800 civilians, compared with 13 Israeli dead - 5 of whom were killed by friendly fire.
And what was the response from the West at the end of this carnage? "Hamas must lay down it's weapons and renounce violence!"

Oh the irony!

I'm not sure why this is turning into a debate about which religion is worse?? All organized religion is shit.

Going by your standards, whichever religion has more access to weapons and economic power is more evil. Personally, I think they are all fucked. And I get the feeling Bill Maher feels the same way. Just because he is jewish, doesn't mean he is choosing sides. I would say much more of that movie was about Christianty than Muslim beliefs.

Some of the anti-jew people here really need to settle down. I agree that the state of Isreal is fucked. But blaming Bill Maher for taking sides is downright silly.

fuck

brandon10 wrote:

I'm not sure why this is turning into a debate about which religion is worse?? All organized religion is shit.

honestly the most thing that bothers me is just how stupid of a claim people end up making when they base their opinions off such a small percentage of a certain group of people. Religion (I never understood why people always threw in "organized" before the word "religion," since there's no such thing as an "unorganized religion") is not "shit." In fact, it plays a large role as the basis for ethics and morality, standards, etc. Now just because a few percentage of religious people abuse it doesn't make it shit. And I'll tell you something, if religion wasn't around, you think people would just stop killing each other? You think people would all of a sudden lead good lives? No matter what, those people who use religion to kill would use ANYTHING to justify what ever it is they are doing. And yet atheists who think they're geniuses because they were able to figure out that God isn't real love to talk shit and sit back and talk about how terrible and evil religion is, as it brainwashes people. It's the combination of ignorance and arrogance and those two combined are disgusting.

Some of the anti-jew people here really need to settle down. I agree that the state of Isreal is fucked. But blaming Bill Maher for taking sides is downright silly.

anti-jew? i think you need to settle down. i don't think anyone is insinuating that bill maher is taking sides because of his religious background, i think it's purely political.

brandon10

_outlaw wrote:

brandon10 wrote:

I'm not sure why this is turning into a debate about which religion is worse?? All organized religion is shit.

honestly the most thing that bothers me is just how stupid of a claim people end up making when they base their opinions off such a small percentage of a certain group of people. Religion (I never understood why people always threw in "organized" before the word "religion," since there's no such thing as an "unorganized religion") is not "shit." In fact, it plays a large role as the basis for ethics and morality, standards, etc. Now just because a few percentage of religious people abuse it doesn't make it shit. And I'll tell you something, if religion wasn't around, you think people would just stop killing each other? You think people would all of a sudden lead good lives? No matter what, those people who use religion to kill would use ANYTHING to justify what ever it is they are doing. And yet atheists who think they're geniuses because they were able to figure out that God isn't real love to talk shit and sit back and talk about how terrible and evil religion is, as it brainwashes people. It's the combination of ignorance and arrogance and those two combined are disgusting.

Some of the anti-jew people here really need to settle down. I agree that the state of Isreal is fucked. But blaming Bill Maher for taking sides is downright silly.

anti-jew? i think you need to settle down. i don't think anyone is insinuating that bill maher is taking sides because of his religious background, i think it's purely political.

The term "organized religion" is used to describe those that follow religion through the church or the bible. There are many people who believe in a higher power but will not be labeled by one God or another. And they don't need to gather to profess their faith. Hence the term "organized religion".

Sure, religion does have some positive aspects. But many people including myself feel that we don't need religion to lead a moral positive existence. And in my opinion the negatives of religion far outweigh the positives. So yes religion is SHIT.

fuck

brandon10 wrote:

The term "organized religion" is used to describe those that follow religion through the church or the bible. There are many people who believe in a higher power but will not be labeled by one God or another. And they don't need to gather to profess their faith. Hence the term "organized religion".

no, that's incorrect. if you believe in god, then you believe in god, but you don't follow a religion. like I said, there's no such thing as unorganized religion.

Sure, religion does have some positive aspects. But many people including myself feel that we don't need religion to lead a moral positive existence. And in my opinion the negatives of religion far outweigh the positives. So yes religion is SHIT.

oh yeah? well, what are the negatives that religion brings and how does it outweigh the positives? and I never said you need religion to lead a moral positive existence, I said religion is responsible for bringing morality, ethics, and standards, for the most part.

you know if i had to bet on it, i would say you learned most of what you know about religion from tv and you really have no true basis to say "the negatives far outweigh the positives" because you don't really know anything about it in general. not just that, but I hate when people say "religion" in general, as if all religions are the same tools of brainwashing. what a joke.

mca47

Loved the movie, and RealTime is one of my favorite shows!


And I also love that he is smart enough not to buy into the 9/11 Truther bullshit. My god! Let it f'n go!

mca47

_outlaw wrote:

oh yeah? well, what are the negatives that religion brings and how does it outweigh the positives? and I never said you need religion to lead a moral positive existence, I said religion is responsible for bringing morality, ethics, and standards, for the most part.

you know if i had to bet on it, i would say you learned most of what you know about religion from tv and you really have no true basis to say "the negatives far outweigh the positives" because you don't really know anything about it in general. not just that, but I hate when people say "religion" in general, as if all religions are the same tools of brainwashing. what a joke.

I studied religion in college...among other thing...and there is absolutely no question in my mind that organized religion is the biggest determent that has occurred to the human species. And I make no reference to any religion because they can all be drawn to, and pointed to the obscure and ridiculous in one breath.

fuck

mca47 wrote:

_outlaw wrote:

oh yeah? well, what are the negatives that religion brings and how does it outweigh the positives? and I never said you need religion to lead a moral positive existence, I said religion is responsible for bringing morality, ethics, and standards, for the most part.

you know if i had to bet on it, i would say you learned most of what you know about religion from tv and you really have no true basis to say "the negatives far outweigh the positives" because you don't really know anything about it in general. not just that, but I hate when people say "religion" in general, as if all religions are the same tools of brainwashing. what a joke.

I studied religion in college...among other thing...and there is absolutely no question in my mind that organized religion is the biggest determent that has occurred to the human species. And I make no reference to any religion because they can all be drawn to, and pointed to the obscure and ridiculous in one breath.

if it only takes one breath then how about you guys finally prove your point instead of just tossing around this weak rhetoric.

mca47

_outlaw wrote:

if it only takes one breath then how about you guys finally prove your point instead of just tossing around this weak rhetoric.

Since man has been around, how many wars have been caused (at the least) in part because of difference in religious ideology? 80-90% maybe?
What's going on in the middle east right now? Would not be happening if not for religion.


Take any religion and you can find people that have killed, maimed, and persecuted that religion based on other religious beliefs.
Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, etc....

You name it, they will fight and kill for their belief. That magic-bean belief to kill is just a fraction of what I'm taking about.

Not only has organized religion caused millions of deaths, but also...

Cessation and of scientific progression. (Ex. stem cell research, others)
Further progression of the spread of disease. The teaching of abstinence is an ineffective and immoral teaching. Not only will people do what they are evolutionarily designed for, but they will do so with or without Jesus. And in fact the belief that condom suppression is a "good idea"...wow...more deaths. Then again science is a bitch.

I can go on and on...

Don't get me wrong, I think having faith can be a wonderful and powerful thing...I just think that the organization of religion has been humankind's biggest downfall in our history.