Saturday, October 04, 2008

A review of Religulous

Richard Dawkins goes to the movies.

14 comments:

Blue Devil Knight said...

I just saw it. It sucked.

I wanted to leave early, but my wife insisted we stay so the money wouldn't be wasted.

If I want to see two assholes try to outsmart each other, I'll go peoplewatching at the NC State Fair, or read the blogs, or you could just listen in on any random conversation about religion between two people in a freshman dorm. That's the level of crap that he threw about.

Just awful sophomoric rants, and it ends with a scene of nuclear explosions implying religion is going to destroy the world. I felt dumber when I left the theatre, and embarassed that this is the picture of skepticism people are seeing.

It reminded me why I could never stand being a member of atheist or skeptic groups, they are filled with people like Mahr (though strangely he is an agnostic).

Blue Devil Knight said...

PS I wish he had interviewed Dawkins for the movie. At least Dawkins is witty and funny when he makes fun of religion. Mahr thinks he is witty and funny, but he is pedestrian and typical, but has the sneer that says "I am so kicking your ass right now intellectually, I am so clever." I hate that in skeptics as much (if not more than) in the religious.

normajean said...

ps... blue devil knight is honest, fair and balanced as usual, which is one reason I like him though I'm not gay. The Billy M flick was weak, indeed!

Steven Carr said...

'...in this case it was a command in the Quran to kill unbelievers. When she said the verse was about a specific situation in the seventh century and did not apply today, Maher replied, "That's not how people read holy books."'

It seems that Muslims are very peaceful, and it is only the extremists, like Muhammmad, who taught that it was right to kill unbelievers...

For some reason, followers of religion always cut their heroes of faith more slack than they cut themselves.

We would all be horrified (Muslims included!) if a Muslim started behaving like Muhammad, asking for people to be assassinated, while Christians would be equally condemnatory of any modern Christian who wrote the bile-filled work, known today as 2 Peter.

But, of course, because those things happened more than a 1000 years ago, and religious people have outgrown the morality that existed when their religion was founded, the vast majority of religious people see no need to return to the culture of their Holy Books.

This is something Bill Maher should realise, before claiming that Muslims today want to kill unbelievers in the way that Muhammad did.

Steven Carr said...

Killing unbelievers?

'Maher's thesis seems to be that the lunatic fringe of any religious group is that faith's truest expression.'.

Yes, Muhammad was on the 'lunatic fringe' of Islam, and can hardly be counted among 'that faith's truest expression'.

In the real world, Muhammad, with his many orders for unbelievers to be killed, is not on the 'lunatic fringe' of Islam, and there are Muslims who are prepared to sink to the level of theire religion's founder.

Mike Darus said...

SC said: "We would all be horrified (Muslims included!) if a Muslim started behaving like Muhammad, asking for people to be assassinated, while Christians would be equally condemnatory of any modern Christian who wrote the bile-filled work, known today as 2 Peter."

EQUALLY??? How can a call to assignations be equal to criticizing greedy and dishonest charlatans?

Ilíon said...

Well, you know Mr Darus, very few 'atheists' even approach being intellectually honest. So, of course, Mr Carr is going to spout the non-stop non-sense of those two posts.

Anonymous said...

What bile are you referring to?

Steven Carr said...

It appears I was wrong.

Modern Christians would not be upset if Christians started calling each other 'slaves of depravity', 'dogs returning to their vomit', 'sows wallowing in the mud'.

In fact, I am spouting nonsense to suggest modern Christians would be upset if Christians of today started calling each other that...

Mike Darus said...

I do not think I would be EQUALLY upset if my pastor encouraged shooting non believers and also called a TV evangelist a slave of of depravity or even a dog eating its own vomit. If you stuck to the Islamic issue without trying to equate it with all religious expression, I would not have called you on it.

Steven Carr said...

Petty, pathetic point-scoring by Christians on this thread, apparently because they cannot challenge the idea that the writers of their Holy Book wrote in ways that Ann Rodgers claim are typical of the 'lunatic fringe' of their religions.


Revelation 2
So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead.

ROGERS
Their job is to study the historical context of ancient words, to find what something meant on the day it was written and try to work out how it applies to today.

CARR
Gosh, I had no idea that Biblical scholars spent their time working out how to apply to today New Testament calls to kill fellow
Christians...

ROGERS
Maher's thesis seems to be that the lunatic fringe of any religious group is that faith's truest expression.

CARR
I guess Maher was confused and didn't realise that the author of Revelation was part of the 'lunatic fringe'. He thought that Christians had no problems with Biblical claims that heretic Christians should be killed.

Anonymous said...

This thread just proves that old saying:

Steven Carr is an idiot.

Steven Carr said...

It seems that once more I was wrong with the idea that Christians have a problem with other Christians engaging in personal abuse.

Christians are quite happy to call people names and insult them.

Which is why 'Religulous' is so needed - to lift up the stone of religion and see what is crawling underneath.

Ilíon said...

Is there anything more ludicrous than an 'atheist,' with or without letters after has name, trying to saddle up his moralistic high horse?