Bill Maher: America 'Extremely Religious Because We're Young and Dumb'

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Irreligulouse
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8580258&postID=3277867847579662305

“Apparently, Bill Maher’s absecular new film, Religulous, mainly features him doing man-on-the-street interviews with stupid people, asking them about religion. This is done with the intent to demonstrate how stupid religion is, when it actually demonstrates how foolish and shallow Bill Maher is.

For example, what if he had conducted the identical exercise with regard to the U.S. Constitution, or the Theory of Relativity, or art ,or literature, or economics? Would the answers he elicited be a useful reflection on the value of these subjects? No, of course not.

But Bill Maher is not a serious man. Well, perhaps seriously bitter. Which is another point. Maher does not have the insight or depth of character to delve into the roots of his own bitterness and anger, which pose insurmountable obstacles to any understanding of the Subject of the subject he pretends to explore in Religulous. Thus, the whole exercise is one of triumphant self-justification and narcissistic exultation. Obviously, if he were truly curious about God, he could have dialogued with serious intellectuals possessing valid gnosis. But if he were to do that, he would look like the unlearned rube that he is. ...

...In the case of Maher, it doesn’t take a psychologist to see that he isn’t actually curious about religion. He has no desire to actually understand the Divine, much less to humbly take the steps necessary to develop an open relationship with That which transcends him. Rather, he is bound by a kind of childishly arrogant, intrusive, and presumptuous curiosity that imagines it can know All without any work or preparation, much less humility and surrender.

This is not at all like proper curiosity, which is much more analogous to patient openness to the Real, embodied in faith... Thus, Maher does not — and cannot — reach any useful conclusions about God, only foreordained ones that are implicit in his original arrogance and omnipotence. As such, the film will be a memorial to his own cosmic stupidity, nothing more. No wonder he’s so bitter, because the bitterness is merely the residue of some kind of deep disappointment. Bitterness is a “presence” that always conceals a “present absence.” So, what is absent in Maher?

It would be uncharitable to go down that route. We’ll just leave it alone for now. Rat faced homunculus. ...

....Often, when someone is speaking about a subject, the more important communication is the emotional tone of the communicant, not the supposed subject matter. Or, you could say that the subject matter is just a superficial excuse for the person to evacuate a primitive emotion. For example, we vividly see this in the left’s unhinged reaction to Sarah Palin. What is most noteworthy to the discerning listener is the primitive emotionality that she provokes — very similar to the primitive emotionality that women provoke in the Islamic world.

In the case of the latter, no men in the Islamic world seem to have the insight or maturity to turn inward and wonder at the source of the violence and contempt in their attitudes toward women. Likewise, with the left vis-a-vis Sarah Palin. There are actually some noteworthy exceptions who are alarmed and appalled at the primitive display, but for most of the left, their reaction is all about their own narcissistic trinity of envy, contempt, and triumph.

Imagine the envy Sarah Palin must provoke in desiccated old feminist hags such as Maureen Dowd, Erica Jong, or Gloria Steinem. The envy is intolerable, so it is quickly transformed into contempt and then triumph. But again, it is the triumph of a sick part of the mind, so it is obviously a pyrrhic victory; if you win, you lose. ....

.....Maher represents it as the bitter transformation of Paradise Lost to Paradise Doesn’t Exist and I Didn’t Want it Anyway; or, to put it another way, I’m Back in a Triumphant and Contemptuous Narcissistic Paradise of My Own Making. Plus, Hugh Hefner Invites Me to His Parties, So I Can Pretend That Those Airheaded Bimbos and Porn Stars Would Ever Be Attracted to a Rat Faced Homunculus Like Me if I Didn’t Have All This Money. ...” ~ Gagdad Bob bttt

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