theophiles.org - Bill Maher Wants You To Think While Laughing At 'Religulous'

Bill Maher Wants You To Think While Laughing At 'Religulous'

Written by laika

Thursday, 02 October 2008 13:36

At MTV:

Bill Maher is a very funny guy whose new documentary, "Religulous," is, for most of the flick's 100 minutes, a very funny movie. But Maher — who told MTV News he set out to discover how "otherwise intelligent people, rational people, could believe in [religion]" — doesn't want you to leave the theater with a smile on your face.
He wants you to be angry. And scared. Because "religion is one day going to get us all killed," he matter-of-factly sighed.

Comments

PineHall - Sigh

|2008-10-06 22:51:09

Here is another person with an agenda who won't let the facts get in his way. Check out the trailer http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?vid=256092. I find the trailer scary because of its overwhelming bias. How many people will take this to be truth?

emperorbma

|2008-10-06 23:39:39

Watch, the militant atheists will champion this film as exemplifying the "evils of religion" instead of realizing that it is a contrived example of anti-religious sentiment. Things like this continue to foster a misunderstanding among people as to what religions really believe. Are people concerned with truth or do they just want to be entertained by dumping on others? I think Maher is, in fact, playing to the entertainment cult...

PineHall

|2008-10-07 10:27:01

Yes, he is playing to the entertainment cult. Not many people will believe the whole message (hook, line and sinker), but it will reinforce false perceptions of Christians being out of touch with reality, and people will wonder if that is truly dangerous. I think it is like the political process where you throw a lot of mud and hope that enough of the mud sticks to your opponent. The truth get twisted and lost.

Jim	\|2008-10-07 10:39:04

At the same time, Christianity should be in some ways out of touch with reality and should in fact be dangerous.

If everyone who claimed to be a Christian in the States started living by Christian principles, it would be dangerous for the country. Imagine: all those consumers not buying new cars, homes and HDTVs, but rather spending their disposable income on the poor? Not only is that out of touch with the larger culture, but the economy would fall apart completely.

emperorbma

|2008-10-07 12:50:18

Quote:

At the same time, Christianity should be in some ways out of touch with reality and should in fact be dangerous.

It's a careful thing, no doubt.

Unfortunately, there's a matter of interpretation at play as to just what "Christian principles" do dictate on this matter. Christianity itself simply does not have a common consensus of just where the line is between "necessary income" and what can be given to charitable causes. In some ways, I don't really think this is something we should dictate either because this is something that the Spirit must work into the hearts of the faithful.

Overall, in my opinion, I don't believe that the wealthy have to donate all their worldly gains to charity. However, they should not be uncharitable either. The parable of the rich man, to me, is describing a man trying to justify himself through the Law more than Jesus rejecting all wealth wholesale. Even then, I know that the "prosperity gospel" is patently absurd because God does not want everyone to have a Mercedes Benz and a house in Malibu.

It's really an interesting topic and, while I respect those with the mettle to have that degree of unusual self-sacrifice (such as the Amish), I'm not so sure the Gospel calls everyone to sacrifice in that manner. This uncertainty on the matter may, in fact, be why there is no overall Christian movement towards such standards. However, on the other side of that coin, I don't think any sane Christian would reject charity outright unless they were following someone like Creflo Dollar.

PineHall - Love

|2008-10-08 10:07:42

Love should be our motivation for living our life in Christ. It is not about degrees of self-sacrifice. God's love, mercy and grace is overwhelming, I can not even imagine how He could love each and every one of us completely. We are so self-centered that we can not love completely like God can. Even our self-sacrifice has self-centerednesss in it. Yet God calls us to follow His example and to in love give of ourselves, whether rich or poor. I think the degrees of self-sacrifice is a false metric because each person is different. We need to just reach out in God's love to those around us. I need to just do it (and turn to God for His love and forgiveness when I fail to love completely).

This love is what the critics ignore when attacking the Christian Faith. (This partly because we, Christians, try to justify our failure of not showing God's love to others.)

emperorbma

|2008-10-08 16:52:40

D'oh. I was actually wondering what that conviction of my conscience regarding my post above was about. I should, rather, be quite contrite for my failure to emphasize what you made quite clear in your point...

If we have not love, we are but a "clanging cymbal." Not as in "our love for Him," as if we could do so apart from His love for us. Rather His love for and in us.

Just when you think you are going swimmingly... you find that you lose sight of the most important point. Behold, I am a sinner, yet, by God's grace He is merciful.

laika

|2008-10-07 16:39:11

Jim wrote:

Imagine: all those consumers not buying new cars, homes and HDTVs, but rather spending their disposable income on the poor? Not only is that out of touch with the larger culture, but the economy would fall apart completely.

i think most Americans see wealth and its trappings as evidence of God's favor toward the individual, so don't go holding your breath if you're looking for anything less than enthusiastic participation on the part of Christians in the consumer culture.

i mean, witness our own emperorbma as he repeatedly goes to bat for Mammon if you want evidence of the American Christian's attitude towards consumption ;-)

relatedly, yesterday i had the luck of being in on a conversation about the young pastor of the local stealth-Baptist megachurch. seems as though this pastor, regularly described as "brilliant" and "anointed," is now advocating less participation in consumer culture and is actually getting out of the McMansion common to his flock and moving to a more human-scale dwelling and is selling his nice car for a functional older car and advising his people to do the same.

emperorbma

|2008-10-08 02:21:57

Quote:

i mean, witness our own emperorbma as he repeatedly goes to bat for Mammon if you want evidence of the American Christian's attitude towards consumption ;-)

Hey, hey... I don't go "to bat for Mammon." I may not believe in monkish poverty, but I certainly wouldn't advocate idolatry.

I've got my reasons for promoting a free market which do not involve money-grubbing.

steves

|2008-10-08 22:16:42

Quote:

it will reinforce false perceptions of Christians being out of touch with reality, and people will wonder if that is truly dangerous.

Remind me again how many Christians in America are creationists? Or how many Christians champion abstinence-only sex education despite its obvious failure? Or how many Christians believe that separation of Church and State is some ridiculous liberal lie?

Let's face it: Christianity has problems. If Christians were mostly rational, moral, educated people, Maher wouldn't have wanted to make a movie, let alone been able to. Instead, many Christians are anti-rational, immoral, and willfully ignorant. Not in spite of their religious beliefs, mind you; but because of them.

Frankly, this thread is a good example of why I'm quickly becoming ashamed to be a Christian.

WebbedFeetOfClay

|2008-10-09 08:03:11

While I don't disagree that there's a whole bunch of irrationality, immorality and willful ignorance, I hardly think it is isolated to Christians or religious individuals (and have some serious doubts that you've got your chickens and eggs in order regarding causation.)

All of these are pretty standard conditions of humanity and atheists and agnostics are no more immune to it than anyone else. People are often willing to suspend all sorts of morals and reasoning to get what they want. (I'd point you, along the lines of Religulous, to Mr. Maher as an excellent example of irrationality and willful ignorance in pursuit of his perspective.)

metallurge - Now on DVD

|2009-02-19 20:56:51

Spotted at the PSU Vanguard: wrote:

A man in space sends his son (who is actually him) down from the sky to be tortured and die.

Well, sort of … but not really. You see, he is able to rise from the grave and float back into the sky so that, one day, we can chill with him (them?) for all eternity.

Now doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Or maybe Religulous?

You may argue with my admittedly less-than-scholarly interpretation of Christian theology I threw at you just now, but you would have a hard time denying that the fantastical religious stories of talking animals, magic tricks, sacred underwear and zombie messiahs that most of us are told when we are children are fairly hilarious when you examine them closely.

j777 - re:

|2009-02-20 15:54:53

[quote=steves]

Quote:

Let's face it: Christianity has problems.

Frankly, this thread is a good example of why I'm quickly becoming ashamed to be a Christian.

"The problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, it is that it has been found difficult and left untried."
- Gk Chesterton

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