Count Me Officially Not a Fan of Bill Maher

[dreams_of_wings]

This evening, after hearing some rave reviews of it from two people I very much like and respect, Tish and I went with in_parentheses and spooky_thing to see Bill Maher's film Religulous. And it would not be going too far to say that I hated it

Comments

[ayelle]

Well said.

[daniel_t_miles]

Wow, I'm surprised by your reaction. I liked it and thought it was important for reasons that are just too heavy for a LiveJournal comment. To be fair, I shared some of your uneasiness with the presentation but I thought the basic message was really important

[dreams_of_wings]

I haven't read either of the books you're talking about here, though I have heard of the Harris book and might give both a look through if I can find them at the library this week

[daniel_t_miles]

Ah, this might be a difference of lenses. I spent some time in the trenches with some "fundies" in their natural habitat (surrounded by other fundies) when I worked at HP (the whole company isn't one of fundies, I just happened to land in a nest of them). After that, I believe that trying to open a "real dialogue with fundies" will never get us anywhere. They're devoted to their beliefs with every fiber of their being and, perhaps most alarmingly, they believe their devotion to hatred and bigotry is a devotion to love and tolerance (your description of the UU church in Harvard Sq. reminds me of them, actually) and they think liberals the intolerant ones because we won't help "the gays" get better by telling them how wrong they are and we want the government to steal people's money

[daniel_t_miles]

...So putting Maher aside for a moment, I really liked what you had to say about presentation and I suspect the main stream religious people (non-fundie) didn't see what I saw in that movie. As a language professional, do you have any tips for a presentation that actually conveys that message?

[drwex]

Oh yikes! Thanks for the warning.