Posted on 10/03/2008 1:28:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
She laughed.
I had invited Cheryl Hall to the screening of “Religulous” to get a faith-based reaction to comedian Bill Maher's diatribe on the divine. Hall's credentials: longtime member of the United Methodist Women and faithful San Diego churchgoer whose husband teaches a weekly Bible study class.
Surely, she would be offended at roasting religion as if it were a Hollywood has-been.
But she laughed. Several times.
Her defense: “I think God has a sense of humor.” And then she added: “If his point was to make religion look ridiculous, then he did a very good job.”
It did not, however, make her lose her religion. Nor did it leave her feeling educated, which isn't exactly high praise for a documentary.
Maher's “Religulous” isn't really a documentary so much as it's propaganda. Funny at times. Mocking often. Certainly clever. But in the end, his fervor unravels into a fire-and-brimstone conversion message for the other team.
“The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live,” Maher says in a melodramatic finish that is as smarmy as any late-night cable TV evangelist.
Anyone familiar with Maher's take-no-prisoners style – his stand-up work, the defunct “Politically Incorrect” TV show and currently HBO's “Real Time with Bill Maher” – knows what to expect. It's comedy by cannibalism: He eats their lunch while the hapless victims struggle for a comeback.
Maher tells us in “Religulous” that he was a church dropout as a young teenager, drifting from doubt to dismissal. But there's a zeal in this movie that goes beyond his deadpan style. It's as if this film is his personal crusade to out religion as, in his words, “detrimental to the progress of humanity.”
With the help of “Borat” director Larry Charles, Maher seeks out the least among them, coming up mostly with caricatures of religion – like the Bible theme park in Florida or the television preacher who wears lizard-skin shoes and gold bling. Then the comic lampoons, guts and serves his prey up for the world's snickers.
“The people want you to look well,” says the preacher in the pin-striped finery.
“That's what pimps say about their women,” says Maher.
The preacher tells of counseling a love-struck man to channel that passion toward religion. “ 'Turn that to God and see what happens,' ” he says he told the man.
Maher follows up with footage of a suicide bomber ramming another vehicle and blowing them both up in a fiery ball.
When the head of a ministry that tries to change homosexuals tells him that nobody is born gay, Maher retorts: “Have you met Little Richard?”
He pushes and pushes. How can anyone possibly believe the Bible? A talking snake? A man swallowed by a big fish? “Complete bull----,” he says.
Absent from “Religulous” are the charities, hospitals, soup kitchens and shelters spawned by faith. Absent, too, for the most part, are the best and the brightest of the standard bearers. They wouldn't suit his purposes.
In the final minutes of the film, when he launches into his sermon on the mound of dirt in Israel, the manipulation is blatant. “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking,” he rants. It is a call to arms for anti-religion forces to “come out of the closet and assert themselves.”
Suddenly, whatever meaningful points he made – from the divisions created by fundamentalism to the shocking violence of extremism – are overtaken by the realization that Maher has an agenda beyond entertainment.
“That's it,” Maher tells us. “Grow up or die.”
God, apparently, doesn't have a lock on fanatics.
Grow up or die? Is beating your girlfriend grown up, Bill? How about mocking those who tragically die, Bill? Is it grown up to use your D list celebrity status to molest 18 yr old girls at the Playboy Mansion, Bill? And why do you never bash Islam, Bill?
Well said.
Bill Maher started out going to church? I thought he was JEWISH?
I understand he once was arrested for beating his black girlfriend.
I have seen the commercial a few times, it looks like bits of islam are included.
One scene in the commercial shows an imam saying ‘islam means peace’ then cut scene to a video of a VBIED exploding at a Jewish outpost.
I don’t see any problem with this. Obviously the guy is off his rocker but I enjoy a good laugh at my own expense every now and then.
OF course there are negative aspects of religion, but that doesnt mean there aren’t overwhelming positives. Someone probably took away his weed and now hes strung out
The most rabid of the anti-religious are Homos (such as Maher) since they blame religion for not being accepted by society. For perverts to florish, religion must be weakened.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but a poster above said that Maher follows a scene showing a pastor urging someone to channel his passion toward God with footage of a suicide bombing. It sounds to me as though he’s going after Islam, Christianity and Judaism. I don’t know about Buddhism, Shintoism or Hinduism. The scenes in the teasers, at least, don’t seem to address them. You could do some funny/awful stuff with Hinduism, the caste system and so-called miracles performed by the gods.
Personally, I’d be kind of scared to go that high-profile with ridicule of Islam. Whatever else Maher is, I guess he’s brave.
Bet you 1000 to 1 the creep didn’t attack muzzies.
All mouth no guts.
I plan on seeing it this weekend, I’ll let you know what I think. Now, I’m atheist, but I do celebrate the First Amendment right to believe as you wish, as long as you’re not hurting others in the performance of your religious ‘duties’. And I’m somewhat broad in interpreting that; if you’re a muzzie cab driver, you don’t have the right to search my bags for liquor (yes, it’s virtually guaranteed to contain some.)
I wouldn’t walk across the street to see this movie even if someone paid me.
If you have to lie to people to make your movie I don’t think that person’s point of view can be taken seriously. Maher admitted that he is a liar and a whore.
******
the irreverent HBO “Real Time” host has a rep for railing against organized religion. (In “Religulous,” he again equates it with a brain disorder and warns religion must die for mankind to survive). So why, in heaven’s name, would Christian, Muslim and Jewish figures all over the globe – not to mention the big-bellied believers at the Truck Stop Ministries in Raleigh, N.C. – willingly go on camera for a mocking film whose title is a mesh of “religion” and “ridiculous?”
“We lied,” Maher fessed up to his, er, sin. “The working title of the movie was ‘A Spiritual Journey,’ which doesn’t sound so threatening. We would not tell them who the interviewer was, and they generally wouldn’t ask.”
Once the camera crew and klieg lights were in place, Maher strolled in. “There were a lot of long faces at that moment, or shocked faces like, ‘Oh my God, you didn’t tell us Satan was doing the interview,’ ” Maher said.
“They could pull their mike off and get up, but that looks bad. If you have such certitude about how wonderful your religion is, why not sit there and defend it? And let’s also say, like everyone else in America, even the religious are media whores.”
He’s almost certainly in the Rosie O’donnel camp, believing that radical Christianity is more dangerous than radical islam.
You know. A total moron.
MAHER: “Please, god, no, I'll bargain again with you if you get me out of this one.”
Maher on Larry King:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/19/lkl.01.html
(towards the bottom)
Maher takes advantage of God when he needs -— just like all of us.
The only reason he is doing this is TO MAKE MONEY. SHAME ON HIM
Oh for pete’s sake...what can we expect?
Romans 1:21 tells us that refusing to acknowledge, or honor, the God of creation constitutes a rejection that actually becomes bilateral.
What could be more satisfying to the ego of man than telling others how foolish they are for believing in a God that is actively hiding from that person doing the telling?
He got just enough Christianity to make him know that he was a slime ball, but as many do he channeled that into a hatred of God.
He never fit in, in a religious country, so he rebelled. Now he's reduced to sliming on sluts at Playboy Mansion parties. I hear Hef is having to turn the spigot down on that too.
If you are an atheist - I need to ask a question.
Just what do atheists believe in? What do they think happens after death? Is this it - this life and nothing else?
How do you explain the millions of flowers, insects, bugs, animals, all different, each with specific abilities to further its life?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning, No-one you see, is smarter than he, And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder, Flying there-under, under the sea!
Everyone loves the king of the sea, Ever so kind and gentle is he, Tricks he will do when children appear, And how they laugh when he's near!
They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning, No-one you see, is smarter than he, And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder, Flying there-under, under the sea!
lol
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