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Posts Tagged ‘Bill Maher’
Full length Religulous online
Happy 09! May it be a whole lot less religulous than last year. Speaking of that, should you have missed Bill Maher’s ungodly doc this year and are snowed in with no ability to rent it (do try to support this flick if you possibly can), the whole thing is up here.
Saw this on Reddit and thought it made a nice point…search this page for “God”.
Bill Maher’s Religulous: The Gospel of “I don’t know”
Topic Agnostic attends Religulous prescreening.
“I’m on the corner with doubt.” preaches Bill Maher in Religulous, a documentary that stares with baleful agnostic eyes into the heart of global religiosity. Indeed, Bill all but wears a sandwich board proclaiming his disdain and ill wishes for the spiritual snake-oil-and-war machine.
Let’s let Larry Charles, director [of Borat fame] synopsize:
“We…talk to clergy, extremists, scholars, politicians, ex-cons, the man on the street and even the man upstairs (that’s right, we interview God.)
The funny (is) scary, the scary wildly funny. The crazy…seem(s) sane and the sane absolutely and undeniably crazy. “
Bill and Larry’s excellent adventure includes
- a trucker chapel (inside a truck, obviously) with a reading material such as the pamphlet God’s Last Name…it’s not damn;
- Bill doing Xenu’s work in London to the strains of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy;
- conversations with theme park Jesus, replete with tourists applauding every time the cruel Romans smack up the bloody Lord;
- an enlightening list of famous people the Mormons baptised after their deaths such as the Buddha.
I assure you the Buddha will be mighty pissed if he’s rudely yanked out of nirvana to join Jesus in one of the 3 Mormon heavens.
Bill gets frustrated with nonsense more than you’d expect for a man travelling the world to interview nutbars. The film crew get tossed out of the Vatican and the Mormon Temple. Larry Charles keeps up the lulz, though, with cheesy vintage Lord Privy Seal cuts Expelled can only wet dream about.
Bill is pissed because he doesn’t know, and these guys don’t either. Only he has the humility (I know, when do you see Bill Maher and humility referenced in the same sentence, but stay with me) to admit it. That’s agnosticism. Acknowledging man’s inability to know, without “the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion”.
Religulous highlights the funny/sick/disturbing/sad/easy industry of separating fools from their money, but it ends on a very serious A-bomb spangled crescendo. It’s here that Bill presents his simple thesis: “Religion must die so that man can live”. Sound harsh? Man is dying all the time (like today) to keep religion alive.
The revolution started by the atheist authors a few years ago needs the public support of those who would see it succeed. Religulous stands up to be counted, edging that 16% ever upwards. Social change can happen in a mere few decades; as racism became publicly unacceptable in the 80s and 90s, and the climate was made largely safe and welcoming for homosexuals in the 90s and 00s, so let’s expect and help the next few decades to accept atheism and reason and recategorize religion as embarassing and childish.
Here’s hoping we laugh about it.
Religulous opens nations-wide this Friday.
Bill Maher tells Larry about Religulous
As pointed out by Topic Agnostic author Formo-Mormo in the comments of a previous post, here’s Bill Maher chatting with Larry about religion.
Hilariously, CNN’s QuickPoll during the show was “I love it when Bill Maher talks religion…OR politics…you decide!” - a thinly veiled attempt to gauge whether Bill the Agnostic offends the sh1t out of CNN’s audience. For the life of me I can’t find the results on CNN.com - if anyone saw ‘em, give me a shout.
Bill pointed out that around 16% of the population (American, I assume) is thought to be agnostic/atheist - which doesn’t sound like much, but he adds it’s more than Jews, homosexuals, and a bunch of other groups that have small-p political sway…activating that 16% through a movie like Religulous could help bring our voice to the big-P American political arena.
Pastor Rick Warren, oh gentle interviewer of Obama & McCain, oh Pope of the Superchristies (el oh el!) has said a couple times on tv recently that an American president could never be an atheist, because “it’s too big a job for one man”, etc. I suppose the aid of an imaginary man gives comfort to the silly, but I look forward to the day when good liberals don’t have to pretend to worship Jesus to become the CEO of America.
Bill Maher to appear on Larry King this Tuesday
Bill Maher will be chatting with Larry Tuesday night - always a good time. No doubt he’ll mention his new film, Religulous. Why don’t you send Larry some questions for Bill?
Disbeliefnet
There’s some good content over on Religulous‘ viral marketing blog, Disbeliefnet.com, including their YouTube favorites collection of insane preachers, wacky cults, and classic evolution vs. creationism nuttiness.
Enjoy also the link gallery of bizarre beliefs, the Blasphemy Box.
Bill Maher’s Religulous opens October 3rd
Bill Maher, one of the patron saints of unapologetic TV atheism, answers Ben Stein’s Expelled with what promises to be an eye-rollingly absurd exploration of world religiousity entitled Religulous. Here’s the trailer:
In a post on the film, the LA Times mentions that Bill Maher & director Larry Charles (of Borat fame) employed the very Expelled tactics so disparaged by fans of Dawkins and PZ Meyers…a fake film name, a fake premise, not telling them Bill Maher was in the film til he showed up to interview them etc. Worked for Borat and Expelled…what do you think, fair game? Ew, I got an L Ron chill there.
The Times appears to have interviewed/will be interviewing Maher and will post some of that on their site today…more on that as it unfolds. Religulous opens October 3/08.
Christopher Hitchens on Real Time
Atheist author Christopher Hitchens on Bill Maher, discussing politics, hypocrisy and the Pew Forum Report posted below.
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