FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: samir on June 08, 2008, 11:13:09 AM
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So Bill Maher has a documentary coming out, from the director of Borat, about religion.
Here's the trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/religulous/
Thoughts? Is he a hilarious provocateur exposing the inherent contradictions and just plain silliness of antiquated beliefs?
Or just a self-absorbed and self-righteous prick who's beating a long-dead horse? I mean, people's blind faith and religion is a really, really easy target that plenty of comedians have made fun of.
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Who's listening to him? He's just preaching to his little choir, the ones who haven't realized that being a liberal snob is really unappealing to anybody else but themselves.
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The latter, Samir.
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Well, I'm a liberal snob and I still think he's a douchey ass.
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Who's listening to him? He's just preaching to his little choir, the ones who haven't realized that being a libertarian snob is really unappealing to anybody else but themselves.
Fixed.
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Thanks, Stupornaut. I'm with Lorry.
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Who's listening to him? He's just preaching to his little choir, the ones who haven't realized that being a libertarian snob is really unappealing to anybody else but themselves.
Fixed.
Agreed
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He strikes me as a liberal who wants to appear edgy, so he makes libertarian noises now and again.
Does he really think there should be no public money for schools or roads? If not, then he's no libertarian.
He and PJ O'Rourke should start some kind of club for ugly dudes.
I might be an atheist, but I'm still going to attend an organ recital tonight at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. †.
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Or just a self-absorbed and self-righteous prick who's beating a long-dead horse? I mean, people's blind faith and religion is a really, really easy target that plenty of comedians have made fun of.
Well, it's one thing to poke fun at religion, but plenty of people in this country at least are still uncomfortable with serious public declarations of atheism, or at least the term itself. A family member of mine, for instance, seemed resigned to the fact that I don't believe in God, but when I said I was an atheist they blew their top (this is also an anecdote from a Julia Sweeney play but the same thing happened to me recently when I dropped the whole "agnostic" thing). Remember that poll (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/02/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_/) a year ago that found Americans would be more likely to vote for a homosexual candidate than an atheist? Granted, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have lower Q ratings than Ellen, but come on.
Also, looking at the poster for Maher's movie his complexion appears slightly clearer in grilled cheese form.
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I'd be interested in watching this, and could probably enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed 'Friends of God' or any other of the religious documentaries out there with a heavily liberal slant. I've just always found Bill to be more than a little hacky, in the same style of hack as Carlos Mencia (for lack of a better example). Playing the incendiary boundary pusher, when the boundaries they push have already been pushed to the limit, then using that false sensationalism to cover up the basic lack of quality humor.
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Check out John Safran's stuff, Reg. Joe, if you haven't already seen it. I found it very entertaining and even sometimes illuminating.
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Safran's show was wonderful.
Goofiness and pointedness in equal measure.
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How to tell someone's a douchebag without ever hearing him talk:
(http://mrsunshinevegas.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/maher.jpg)
(http://theblackcordelias.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/bill-maher.jpg)
(http://www.tvpredictions.com/uploaded_images/maher-791422.JPG)
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ugh
I'm not religious really but that shit just straight up offends me.
what's the purpose here?
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Wow, an outie.
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I never liked outies much.
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I don't trust the doctors that cut outies' umbilical cords.
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I enjoy watching Bill Maher's show on HBO. Is that bad?
I'm a pretty dependable liberal, but I disagree with him a lot of the time, does that help? I tend to agree with some of his notions about religious orthodoxy, but his pronouncements on the subject often strike me as extremely high-handed and obnoxious. He still has me tuning in.
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I enjoy watching Bill Maher's show on HBO. Is that bad?
I don't know if "enjoy" is the right word but I watch it fairly regularly as well.
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Of course Bill Maher doesn't believe in God. Would a higher power be so cruel as to stick someone with a face like that?
Tom.
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Bill Maher is just contributing to the pundrity he says he hates in the news so much.
No one is going to see this and be converted to aethism, much less see it in the first place if they're inclined to disagree with him.
This will be released in what cities? Oh, New York, Chicago, and LA? The fundamentalist pillars of the world! Take that, Buchannen! Your house of cards is going down! I doubt Church Groups will be bussing people in to see it like they did for The Passion.
Bill is every bit the intolerant fanatic he rallies against, but in the opposite direction. This snob razzes me.
C
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It's not about converting. People like their ideas/feelings to be validated, which atheists don't get quite as much. Which is why the Julia Sweeney episode was the best selling TAL episode and the Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens books are best-sellers.
Hopefully this movie will interview at least one dumb atheist and one smart religious person, but I doubt it.
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I just saw that this is coming out and the very idea sends shivers down my spine.
I'm pretty liberal, and agree with about 75% of what he says. But I still want to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth. ugh.
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The people I've talked to who like Maher are conservatives who aren't religious. I always thought he was the radical left's Jerry Falwell but he isn't. People like to say he's just a comedian. No he's not. George Carlin inserted religion into his sets, he didn't set up TV shows and make movies to use as a platform. He's a man filled with intense anger just like all of the religious wackos he preaches against.
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the only thing more annoying than people extolling the virtues of their chosen religion unsolicited as a way of putting down all others and hoisting their beliefs up as the "one true faith," is an outdated blowhard pontificating about how stupid religion is, and actually taking (wasting) the time to wade through the hundreds of thousands of ways organized religion constantly contradicts itself. what a waste of time.
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I'd like to give an opinion without reading anything or looking at that silly link. Nevermind.
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I'm pretty liberal, and agree with about 75% 17% of what he says. But I still want to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth. ugh.
Done
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Of course Bill Maher doesn't believe in God. Would a higher power be so cruel as to stick someone with a face like that?
Tom.
Sure, if someone is so ugly inside, then God would give him such a face.
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the only thing more annoying than people extolling the virtues of their chosen religion unsolicited as a way of putting down all others and hoisting their beliefs up as the "one true faith," is an outdated blowhard pontificating about how stupid religion is, and actually taking (wasting) the time to wade through the hundreds of thousands of ways organized religion constantly contradicts itself. what a waste of time.
Bill Mahr is an unfunny dink.
But I have to disagree that combating superstition is a waste of time.
The approach of refuting individual claims is a tedious and futile task, the list of claims is endless.
Attacking the root of superstitious beliefs with reason is pretty important in a time when presidents that claim to talk to God launch wars on his advice and desperate killers think they are going to a glorious afterlife if they murder unbelievers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o2_U0ggvb8&eurl=http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
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Attack people using religion to further their agenda not religion itself. Expose "The Republican party is the Christian party" ideal as a lie. That's what people should be going after but I rarely see that brought up even in liberal circles. It's really unfortunate that there hasn't been a prominent Christian leader that has stepped forward and tried to put an to this big sham that Bush and McCain and whoever else are good Christian men. Make a movie about that.