Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Bill Maher — Dawkins for the Unwashed Masses

William Dembski
July 30, 2008
Atheism, Culture, Religion
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Check out his forthcoming documentary RELIGULOUS (click here for the trailer).

Comments
I think it'll suck. If I really cared I could just head to any random humanist convention and get the same stuff for free!F2XL
July 30, 2008
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It is exceedingly easy to make religion look ridiculous. Anyone could do it, just by cherry-picking the right examples. It is so easy, in fact, that it hadn't ought to be worth bothering with. It certainly doesn't prove anything about religion. Anyone could do it, I say, yet only Bill Maher can do it in Bill Maher's unique way. Just as Dawkins is good in print, Maher is good on screen. And just as in a different sense Dawkins is very weak in print, Maher is also weak, probably even weaker than Dawkins, if that is possible in matters of religion. Maher is well-suited for comedy, but his comedic demeanor is such that you know he could pick any subject at random and make it look silly. The silliness is much more about Maher than it is about his subject. Taking that approach in this film may feed into puerile, adolescent anti-religionism, but it subtracts seriously from his persuasiveness. So what we have here is a double exercise in meaninglessness: Maher shows that religion can be made to look ridiculous. It can be made to look that way just by smirking at it, which he does better than anyone else. But that demonstrates nothing. It can also be made to look that way by featuring ridiculous extremes, which also demonstrates nothing. It'll probably sell tickets anyway. There's an audience for this kind of thing. Puerile, adolescent...TomG
July 30, 2008
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Thanks for that...the trailer is so full of rhetoric and sarcasm as to warrant someone that doesn't know better calling "Poe's law" on Maher. On the plus side, I guess I could use some of the footage to teach rhetorical devices to my logic students... In a blog post earlier this month, I pointed out how some parts of the internet seem to be function as a church for the "New Atheists" and that Universities often act as their seminaries. http://christianscribbler.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/church-of-the-new-atheists/ I forgot to include a description of Hollywood and it's function...bummer. Ah, well, future fodder I suppose.Kliska
July 30, 2008
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Awesome. Films like this just open doors for us to share a little REALITY on faith. I am sure this will escalate sales of Mere Christianity.Gods iPod
July 30, 2008
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Off Topic: The Cambrian Explosion - Darwin's Worst Nightmare http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=13d268e7356e095e9cadbornagain77
July 30, 2008
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