Religulous

[Proprioceptive]

IF he interviewed the spaghetti monster, I'd bite. Mmmm... spaghetti monster.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: Homerboy

Agreed 100%. He attacked the easiest targets and the lowest hanging fruit too. He simply attacked, what many people would tag as the crazies of XYZ religion and had no "deep" interviews with very few people of substance and "rank" in their church (Really Bill? TV Evangelists are frauds that are in it for the money? Thanks for the update). Just questions that mocked the people followed with movie clips further mocking the answer/person (though I must admit the movie clips were a nice touch and the only part that truly entertained me. Some were just genius and perfect for the part).

I did enjoy the fact that he spent literally more than half the movie on Christianity then just blurred a dozen other religions into the last 45mins.

You missed the point then. The mainstream churches are full of "crazies" and frauds as well. No sane and rational person would believe any of that crap. All religion is the same. The fact that god believers mock scientologists is especially ironic because the shit that they follow is just as made up.

Of course he interviewed a bunch of religious hacks, that's the point. He definitely touched upon this with the neurologist when he was talking about moses being crazy.

No, you missed the point that we haters of the movie are making: It's easy to attack the crazies, they can't defend themselves. What's the big deal about kicking a target that lacks the ability to fight back? The movie would have been far more powerful and effective if Maher chose to take on better targets. Go after the priests, the scholars, the supposedly educated people who teach the fairy tales. Making them squirm in their ignorance and the fallacy of their beliefs would be far more interesting. What he did was akin to an NFL team playing a bunch of 4th graders. Of course he won. For the victories to mean anything you need to pick on someone your own size. Maher didn't. It's not the fact that he scored so many easy hits, it's who he scored them against.

 

[Denithor]

Did Maher go after the low-hanging fruit? Of course he did, that's what makes the easy & obvious point more dramatic.

I personally don't have a problem with religions as long as they don't:
1) Tell you how to live your life.
2) Try to force their principles on other people.

Oh, wait - that covers 95% of religions out there, my bad...

 

[SlitheryDee]

I was underwhelmed by it. The same points have been made better by other people. The same jokes have been told better by other people. Nothing in that movie is going to convert anyone. It'll just make them cling to their faith all the harder by giving them a laundry list of items that they can find different between themselves and the poor fools Maher picks on. He attacks the voices, but not the message itself and its underlying faults. It's an hour and 45 min long ad hominem attack against people that few believers will be able to identify with and therefore will allow them an easy way to squirm out of actually examining their own faith critically. It accomplishes nothing in the end.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

No, you missed the point that we haters of the movie are making: It's easy to attack the crazies, they can't defend themselves. What's the big deal about kicking a target that lacks the ability to fight back? The movie would have been far more powerful and effective if Maher chose to take on better targets. Go after the priests, the scholars, the supposedly educated people who teach the fairy tales. Making them squirm in their ignorance and the fallacy of their beliefs would be far more interesting. What he did was akin to an NFL team playing a bunch of 4th graders. Of course he won. For the victories to mean anything you need to pick on someone your own size. Maher didn't. It's not the fact that he scored so many easy hits, it's who he scored them against.

The two best interviews were the 2 priests from the Vatican. Bill didn't come away as the "winner" and the priests didn't come away looking like idiots. There words were very carefully chosen, and didn't admit to knowing all the answers. Being religious is fine, but the truth is that we don't have the answers to everything and a lot of people use their "faith" as a blanket to answer the unanswerable.

And call his interviews easy targets but they have large followings. Maybe not as large as a lot of the other scams out there, but that's just because their lies are not as well developed.

The believers feel just as much faith as anyone else might towards their religion.

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
The movie was kind of like stealing candy from a baby. Maher was simply making the same points educated people have been making forever, interviewing the same ignorant people that have made religion a joke forever, exposed the same lack of consistency in the beliefs that has been understood forever, pointed out the glaring contradictions that have been seen forever. What was the point? The way he tackled the subject was akin to pointing out that water is wet. He broke no new ground, did nothing original and wasn't even particularly effective in driving home his point. The religious types get smacked around far more intelligently here than they did in the movie.

I haven't seen this yet, but I got the impression that it's akin to MM ambushing the elderly and senile Charleton Heston regarding the NRA. All rather sad and pointless.

Not to hijack the thread, but Heston was President and Spokesmen for the NRA until 2003. How in the fuck can you say he's elderly and senile in Bowling for Columbine while he's still holding that post?

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

No, you missed the point that we haters of the movie are making: It's easy to attack the crazies, they can't defend themselves. What's the big deal about kicking a target that lacks the ability to fight back? The movie would have been far more powerful and effective if Maher chose to take on better targets. Go after the priests, the scholars, the supposedly educated people who teach the fairy tales. Making them squirm in their ignorance and the fallacy of their beliefs would be far more interesting. What he did was akin to an NFL team playing a bunch of 4th graders. Of course he won. For the victories to mean anything you need to pick on someone your own size. Maher didn't. It's not the fact that he scored so many easy hits, it's who he scored them against.

The two best interviews were the 2 priests from the Vatican. Bill didn't come away as the "winner" and the priests didn't come away looking like idiots. There words were very carefully chosen, and didn't admit to knowing all the answers. Being religious is fine, but the truth is that we don't have the answers to everything and a lot of people use their "faith" as a blanket to answer the unanswerable.

And call his interviews easy targets but they have large followings. Maybe not as large as a lot of the other scams out there, but that's just because their lies are not as well developed.

The believers feel just as much faith as anyone else might towards their religion.

Ironic.

 

[ivan2]

he's funny, i will watch.

 

[seemingly random]

I thought the movie was accurate but pretty tame. As others have pointed out, discussing other's religious tendencies in the hopes of changing them is futile. (Although I, like others, can't resist the occasional barb toss at the blatantly dreamy religious.) This tame, non-screeching movie will be good for those who have not settled on a particular viewpoint - kids mainly. The religious haven't missed a trick in getting new recruits from the young. It's time for the non-religious to realize this.