Bill Maher: The GOP is divorced from reality.

[Mr. T]

Have you ever seen his show, T? I think you'd be surprised...

 

 

I have seen this jokers show, I laughed so hard at his idiocy, that I was sick for 2 days.

[Guest mz.]

I have seen this jokers show, I laughed so hard at his idiocy, that I was sick for 2 days.

 

So what you're telling me is you've never actually seen it...

 

[Guest Aloysius]

Religulous actually was the most critical when approaching Islam and hit its peak while mocking a dumbass Southern Democrat - both things our resident right-wingers would enjoy.

 

Maher's shtick is very much enjoyable. And for those who bitch about him engaging silly people, you'll see why that's ridiculous - even the smart people he talks to don't have any answers.

 

I have a pretty deterministic view on faith: people are either born or conditioned to believe in certain things, and it's very hard, if not impossible, to unwire them. So it doesn't surprise me that a half-Jew, half-Catholic like Maher would end up being a sarcastic Spinoza.

 

So even if reason militated against unbelief, I'm not sure a guy like Maher would end up religulous.

[We need Tom Tupa]

Maher's shtick is very much enjoyable. And for those who bitch about him engaging silly people, you'll see why that's ridiculous - even the smart people he talks to don't have any answers.

Allow me to bitch about the way he edited his interviews with "smart people". Unless Francis Collins has taken great pains to lie about it, he was asked to give an interview on the relationship between the human genome project and his faith. He claims to have spoken to Maher extensively on the compatibility of evolution and Christianity. But Maher's movie depicts Collins talking briefly about the history of the gospels, a topic with almost no relationship to the issues he expected to discuss, and one on which he shoves most of his foot into his mouth. So, you're right Alo, he doesnt just talk to silly people. He also spoke to intelligent people and then cut out their intelligent answers.

 

I find it hard to believe that you expected anything more.

[We need Tom Tupa]

Bill Maher:

This idea that there's somebody out there who can make a case for this and make it sound reasonable, that just doesn't exist.

 

This is the quote that I feel like youre flirting a little too closely with, Alo, when you said,

even the smart people he talks to don't have any answers.

 

I won't bother with a rant on his statement, assuming you don't agree with it. If you do, let me know and we can spend a few posts on it.

[heckofajobbrownie]

I thought the movie had some great laughs, but it's mostly a joke on fundamentalism, and people who insert certitude where there can be none.

 

It's not exactly high brow stuff, and neither is he, even if I agree with his basic point.

[Guest Aloysius]

Allow me to bitch about the way he edited his interviews with "smart people". Unless Francis Collins has taken great pains to lie about it, he was asked to give an interview on the relationship between the human genome project and his faith. He claims to have spoken to Maher extensively on the compatibility of evolution and Christianity. But Maher's movie depicts Collins talking briefly about the history of the gospels, a topic with almost no relationship to the issues he expected to discuss, and one on which he shoves most of his foot into his mouth. So, you're right Alo, he doesnt just talk to silly people. He also spoke to intelligent people and then cut out their intelligent answers.

 

I find it hard to believe that you expected anything more.

Didn't know the back story behind the interview. Either way, I stick behind my initial point. My understanding is that there hasn't been any absolute incontrovertible proof that there was a historical Jesus, just as every medieval proof for God's existence has had a modern whole punched through it.

 

That leaves a great deal of uncertainty. Some people take a leap of faith, others run in the opposite direction. My feeling is that move isn't completely voluntary, which makes something like Religulous more like an ethnography of people of different backgrounds/faiths than a real disputation between faith and reason.

 

[We need Tom Tupa]

My feeling is that move isn't completely voluntary, which makes something like Religulous more like an ethnography of people of different backgrounds/faiths than a real disputation between faith and reason.

 

The problem is that Maher portrays the movie as damning evidence of the incompatibility of faith and reason (yes, I know the two words dont go together, but it's late and I'm too lazy to be more careful at the moment (wow, I'm using a lot of parenthetical disclaimers today)), but what he gives us is one side of the story - explicitly ignoring the other side. He interviews idiots, and edits the clear rational answers from intelligent people out of the movie. That, to me, is pretty damning evidence that the movie was a waste of time.

 

 

 

I saw Collins give an interview on the movie in which he seemed pretty upset about how it played out. I have no idea where a transcript for that would be. Here are some links on background of his interview:

 

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/20...igulous-th.html

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/104/story/226061.html

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

You have to admit, the last line is priceless:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YkVtgD2R8M

 

Taken as entertainment, which is what he intended first and foremost, it works.

 

Taken as anything more than that, not so much.

[We need Tom Tupa]

My feeling is that move isn't completely voluntary, which makes something like Religulous more like an ethnography of people of different backgrounds/faiths than a real disputation between faith and reason.

Maybe you're just a Calvinist.

 

 

 

[Mr. T]

And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much

 

 

Obama gets ahead of prompter

 

You have to laugh, this guy must have a horrible memory problem.

 

If it wasn't for politics Maher & Obama wouldn't have jobs. These Lefties Obama and Maher act like they are running student council in a high school. The only differnce is that they now have soap box to stand on and people are actually fooled by them thinking thats how the rest of america thinks. well maybe on the left coast.

[Westside Steve]

Maybe you're just a Calvinist.

 

 

Can't do it. He spent too much time in Dallas....

 

WSS

[osusev]

Maher is what he is, a intelligent comedian/producer no more no less.

 

Tupa if Collins looked to be a bit idiotic for that particular moment thats ok. Fear of Death and the unkown often makes anyone of any intellectual level stupid at times. That clip which I am sure was a product of a longer interview does not take away from his personal scientific accomplishments.

 

Lets be realistic fear of the unkown and death can and does often trump reason in lots of people. They can operate on high levels 99% of the time but everyone has some sort of psychological chink in their armor. Lets be completely frank here, Most religions are all about the "afterlife" meaning the fear of death and or putting some self serving grandiose importance on why we are biological beings on this particular planet.

 

I personally subscribe to the I dont know and thats ok, I dont need to rely on hocus pocus or a religion who pretty much has ripped of its entire premise from others for my fear of the unknown. I think Maher just takes that line of reason and uses his media platform (for which he gets paid highly) to extrapolate and expose for his own comical purposes and entertainment value.

 

Now if someone wants to start a thread on the flaws of christianity Im all in

 

 

[Guest Aloysius]

Maybe you're just a Calvinist.

With a little Jewish guilt sprinkled in.

[Legacy Fan]

You have to admit, the last line is priceless:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YkVtgD2R8M

 

Taken as entertainment, which is what he intended first and foremost, it works.

 

Taken as anything more than that, not so much.

 

That was pretty good.

 

What worries/bothers me about Maher are the lines like his interpretation of the camel through the eye of a needle passage and his extrapolation to make a point that Jesus hates rich people. Or whatever it was.

I'm hoping that was for entertainment also, because that level of reading comprehension borders on illiterate. And it might serve some in here a good deal to read the passage (Matthew 19:24) for themselves, rather than just assume Maher knows what hes talking about.

[Legacy Fan]

Alright.

 

There is a litany of material on the web regarding this passage. Each site offering it's own translation of the passage. From Aramaic, to greek, to Hebrew, etc.

Camel is substituted for rope. There are suggestions that the needle might be a carpet needle (very large). Everyone of these "translations" purporting to display its gotcha and therefore debunk the entire passage/bible as some written by man, collection of stories.

 

However, when Jesus responds to His disciples who are still confused by the parable asking "Well who gets into heaven?", he says that the purpose of the parable is that it is impossible for man alone, but through God, all things are possible. And that line has transcended the translations. Funny how that works.

 

So here we are 2000 years later and scholars are still debating over the meaning of camel or rope or needle, and completely miss the point of the passage. Much like the disciples did 2000 years ago.

 

 

Regarding the different religions thing. Jesus often chastised those who "practiced their religion and lived it daily." The pharisees and priests were often targets of Jesus introspection. Because they so devoutly followed the letter of the law, rather than the spirit. They were often the ones posing questions to Jesus (such as asking the meaning of the camel), trying to trip Him up by revealing their own false interpretations of scripture. (Nearly identical to what Maher was doing to Cummings, except Cummings is an idiot).

 

I often have doubts that Jesus would turn His back on the Buddhist and therefore cannot predict the protocol should said meeting take place. I believe that He's after your spirituality & a relationship with Him, rather than how well you follow the Torrah, Qu'ran, or cherry-picked verses from the Bible. I'd like to believe that the Buddhist would be very overwhelmed if such a meeting took place and we wouldn't have to worry about what his name-tag says anymore.

[We need Tom Tupa]

Didn't know the back story behind the interview. Either way, I stick behind my initial point. My understanding is that there hasn't been any absolute incontrovertible proof that there was a historical Jesus, just as every medieval proof for God's existence has had a modern whole punched through it.

 

That leaves a great deal of uncertainty. Some people take a leap of faith, others run in the opposite direction. My feeling is that move isn't completely voluntary, which makes something like Religulous more like an ethnography of people of different backgrounds/faiths than a real disputation between faith and reason.

 

Geez, Alo. You need "absolute incontrovertible proof" that he ever even lived? That sounds like the kind of line that would result in incredulous mocking if used in reference to something like evolution. I would also recommend you not ask your parents for maternity and paternity tests - you might be tempted to run in the opposite direction when they say there is a 95% probability that you're theirs.

 

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in this from the NYT today, referencing a recent Pew poll:

 

“Most people are religious because they’re raised to be. They’re indoctrinated by their parents.”

 

So goes the rationale of my nonreligious friends.

 

Maybe, but a study entitled “Faith in Flux” issued this week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life questioned nearly 3,000 people and found that most children raised unaffiliated with a religion later chose to join one. Indoctrination be damned. By contrast, only 4 percent of those raised Catholic and 7 percent of those raised Protestant later became unaffiliated...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/opinion/...tml?ref=opinion

 

Pew:

 

http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=410

 

[We need Tom Tupa]

Geez, Alo. You need "absolute incontrovertible proof" that he ever even lived? That sounds like the kind of line that would result in incredulous mocking if used in reference to something like evolution. I would also recommend you not ask your parents for maternity and paternity tests - you might be tempted to run in the opposite direction when they say there is a 95% probability that you're theirs.

 

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index....l?videoId=11926

 

starting at about the 2:00 mark (not family friendly)

[Legacy Fan]

starting at about the 2:00 mark

 

[Guest Aloysius]

Geez, Alo. You need "absolute incontrovertible proof" that he ever even lived? That sounds like the kind of line that would result in incredulous mocking if used in reference to something like evolution. I would also recommend you not ask your parents for maternity and paternity tests - you might be tempted to run in the opposite direction when they say there is a 95% probability that you're theirs.

Already checked. Turns out Mel Kiper's my real father, which explains a lot (had a lot of bad hair days in high school).

 

You make a fair point about evolution, though it's not like anyone here's making crucial life decisions based on what the primordial ooze told them to do.

 

And thanks for the heads up about the Pew poll. I'll check it out in more detail later, but I want to make clear that I my argument about being conditioned towards belief wasn't meant to be as simplistic as the Times writer put it. It's not simply a matter of whether you were brought up religious: many of my more religious friends came from totally secular (and often unhappy) households. Others came to religion for other reasons, though usually more experiential or emotional ones. Faith is just as much an emotional issue, and that's not something that's simple or subject to logical argument.