Comments | zeppelin54: Religulous

zeppelin54

Religulous

May 31, 2009 02:21

I'm posting a movie review for a change. I know I'm already on a roll with posting period, but I want to express some thoughts about this movie. Some of the points are "duh" points for a lot of you, but still...it's not necessarily the common opinion which, in some cases, can be the real problem.

( Cut for length )

movie, religion, review, extremism, maher

Comments 6

demonakitty May 31 2009, 16:46:31 UTC

Gee, and I just wanted to know if it was good. ;)
Thanks!

zeppelin54 June 1 2009, 05:26:03 UTC

(read: it's good)
:)

bark2themoon May 31 2009, 17:56:16 UTC

It seems as though this movie brings up, once again, the idea of the blind men coming to an elephant in a clearing of a great forest (each touches a different part and has a different explanation for what they are "seeing").

Also, the Jesus character, while obviously being a dunderhead, missed one important point in the argument: God gave humans free will. If we were perfect, we would not have free will. Yes yes, odds are you're going to start in on how everything is either pre-determined, or all events in the world are totally random, but then, you're free to do that :-)

zeppelin54 June 1 2009, 05:25:13 UTC

That's actually kind of what Maher argued. Either God makes us whole to begin with (i.e. As perfect as we are gonna get) or either there is no God or there is, but this god is nothing like what we had envisioned, vis-a-vis the various scriptures. Either there is a divine plan and with it all sorts of logical contradictions, or we must question of there is a god andmif so what type. Either way, the literalist or fundamentalist view is easily eroded.

zeppelin54 June 1 2009, 05:27:23 UTC

Also, you need to take into account the third and most rational point of view: soft determinism

bark2themoon June 1 2009, 06:56:20 UTC

I'm all about trumping the funda-mentalists, but I'm not altogether convinced of self-determinism being the most rational point of view. I could be determined to bring down a country and that country can be determined to stop me; I think that the country would win.

A rather simplistic point of view, yes, but it fits in many cases. And after working with people, just what makes you think rationalism is going to prevail in the masses, eh? ;-)