Real Time comedian Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles are men on a mission: to destroy societys blind faith in God. The medium they chose to convey their doctrine is not a dusty old book, but an entertaining documentary which highlights the ridiculous aspects of religion, hence its name,Religulous.
In an effort to spread their brand of enlightenment, Charles and Maher embarked on a romp around the world, questioning religious beliefs in the places they began and the palaces they paid...
Great interview ! I'm so glad this movie comes out, I liked Richard Dawkins Root of all evil ? but with what I hear Religulous seems to make a stronger point.
Good interview. Definitely looking forward to this film. The tone, I think, is important. I love the books that have all come out lately, Dawkins and Hitchens and the others, but they are too wordy and, at times, too arrogant for the other side to really give them a chance. If you didn't already agree with their positions, it's unlikely you'd read those books all the way through.
This, however, makes it more accessible. Perhaps we can stop having people on national TV repeat "proofs of God" that have been taken apart over and over and over. I have no illusions that this will make people give up their religions, but it might give them a little bit of doubt and, with that, a little bit of flexibility and reason. That's all I want.
Good interview. I haven't seen this yet but am hoping that it tackles not just why belief in religion is absurd but also why keeping religion out of politics is vital to both our democracy and religion itself.
Ask me about my own epic Saga "Titan City" which details, among other things, the rise of the worlds first truly scientific sovereign nation. There are 6 routes of all evil. Religion is number ONE!
There is actually a good basis for the gospels refering to a figure around the beginning of the century. Quell, the document that all of the gospels draws on, is earlier than Mark, and other linking bits of Text are found elswhere, such as the Gospel of Thomas. There were more than 50 gospels in circulation, of which only 4 were chosen for the bible. None of the gospels were writen by disciples of Jesus, but by other authors long after the event.
The Jesus spoken of in the gospels was just a Jew with a message. Later "spindocters" made out that he was of the house of David and was born in Jerusalem because that was what was required to be the Jewish Messiah. He was one of 70 or so roaming prophets who disputed the Jewish dogma of the time, but was not hostile to Rome and so not targeted by them particularly. He traveled with a mob of people including his 12 disciples and a group of rich women like Mary Magdaline (who was the wife of a magistrate) who funded him and kept, what was a really just a bunch of Jewish boys, fed and in clean clothes.
Mark was in Rome and writing for a Roman audience, which is where you find the sympathetic Pontious Pilot (Pomntious Pilot was actually a complete barstard who was eventually booted out of Judea because of his cultural insensitivity)
Matthew and Luke were both writing for a middle eastern audience from Anatolia or Anitoch, and so were more subtle and less sypathetic to the Romans than Mark.
John writes last of all and is in Alexandria around 50 years after the event when he wrote. The Saduccees had Jesus' brother (Mark I think), who was the head of the Christian church in Jersualem, stoned to death in 66AD. Hence there was distinct animosty between Jews and Christian when John wrote, so in his gospel the blame for the death of Jesus is laid firmly with the Jews.
Aplogies for any gramatical or spelling errors, the above is from a semester called "Jesus Christ, fact or fiction" at La Trobe university in Melbourne Australia. It was done from the Jewish point of view and had loads of evidence for the existance of a Jesus at the time and places recorded in the Gospels.
i see a big part of the problem of society comes from group assignment. like said about atheism or agnosticism, everyone HAS to be branded with a strict structure of belief. that's just ridiculous. i can go to the vegetarian group here and listen to pescetarians (doesn't the word sound denominational?) call themselves "vegetarians" when the majority of the time they practice doing one thing, but every now and then they commit the mortal sin of having a little fish and they go straight to hell for being "wrong". people do take their beliefs way too seriously.
i liked that there was reference to the thc ministry, as well as the cerne abbas giant (i'm sure there's a way to make them go together as one could grow around the other). personally, two of my favorite religions would be the church of the flying spaghetti monster as well as the church of stop shopping. sadly, these did not make the list.
did it surprise you at all how it seemed so many people had hate for bill maher, mostly for posing questions that were well-founded? i have to wonder what the percentage of people is that just think him to be pure evil.
nicole_powers
NEWSWIRE
I'm lost
OCT 03, 2008 06:00 AM