According to our new arrival, life is more than mere survival, and we just might live the good life
yet. (there is a character limit on post titles after all)
I went to see "Religulous" tonight. I had forgotten, and my mom reminded me, that when I was in high school I was totally into Bill Maher and would stay up to watch (or program the VCR - god what a NERD) "Politically Incorrect."
Some ladies sitting next to me got up and walked out about a third of the way through, which is fine. I remember really wanting to walk out of "Sin City" and realizing after it was over that Sean had kind of hated by it too. Officially the only movie I've left in the middle was "The Nutty Professor" - that was with my parents - we got our money back and I remember being glad to know that you could actually do that. My point is that a LOT of movies suck way worse than this one, but it's your right if you wanna leave.
I've been thinking about Catholicism, not any more than usual, probably, but because the election is coming, and once again I have to hear first hand about my grandmother's church telling them they have to be single issue (re:abortion) voters. Also one of my undergrads has this amazing story of how she was born Baptist and converted to Catholicism, got kicked out of her parents' house, and then eventually moved back in and then converted them as well! I've been Catholic all my life, of course, and haven't made much of a move to slow the exodus of my family away from Catholicism. I am always fascinated by the energy converted people have, I guess I have the luxury of secret laissez-faire uncertainy that being born into a religion you can stomach affords.
Maher, 1/2 Catholic and 1/2 Jewish, makes fun of everyone he talks to in the movie except ex-Mormon musician Tal Bachman, and these two guys who are skeptics, who he gives a wider berth - an astronomer and this round headed old man he meets outside the Vatican - and they're both Catholic priests. He seems to respect them more than the other people he talks to, and doesn't (at least in the film edit) tape their answers to questions about isn't it crazy to drink wine-blood of a dead guy. It's not fair, but it was funny to me.
The astronomer points out that the scientific revolution occurred after the major religions of the world were already firmly in place. That's a pretty Eurocentric argument, but I do think it's a fun thought experiment to imagine living in a world where being a theologian would have put you on the cutting edge of inquiry.
The NYT review thinks the weakness is at the end, when Maher criticizes Islam. I felt that part was as fair as the rest, but begs the question of other religions - no mention of Hinduism or anything. Well, maybe they aren't a violent religion like the others, but in that case, his premise that religion itself is always dangerous falls apart. So I guess that's a reason to skip it.
My real two problems with the movie popped out, rather, near the beginning. Five minutes in, Maher says to a bunch of guys in a church made out of a trailer that he's privileged enough to not need religion - that a guy in prison or homeless, sure, needs god, but not Maher, and not, he says, seeming to think he's flattering his Christian hosts, You Guys either. I found that cynical in just the way that people depicted Obama's clinging-guns-religion gaffe to be - in fact, he goes even further and conflates this well-off-ness with intelligence: "you guys aren't dumb" he says "why do you need this?" That was one of the only parts of the movie that offended me, because while many of the people he talks to are arrogant and utterly defensive of their certitude, I think there are actually (1) smart people in prison who still need God (2) people who are affluent who, Christian or non-Christian, aren't that smart and (3) people who are religious who don't "need" religion.
Maher proclaims himself as a sort of prophet of doubt, and I do think it really is helpful to have someone saying what he does - I never would have walked out of this movie, "Dogma" or "The Last Temptation of Christ." But he has a couple examples of when he "turned to faith" - when he got dumped at 17 and when he quit smoking at 40. He talks about being glad to have the idea of God as a powerful figure as someone to turn to. I'm flabbergasted because, well, I haven't had a hard life, but I've gotten dumped hard, and you know, I never prayed to God to win the guy back, or to smite him, or whatever - it just seems cheap, like hitting up your rich uncle that you barely know for money. Also, if you admit that people in need turn to God, I'm not sure why the fact that people like Maher or myself, probably in the 5% most comfortably living people on the planet, should be able to assume that their freedom from want liberating them from a state of spirit-seeking is "natural" or "correct."
Ok, so this really brings me round to my number one problem with the movie. Right at the beginning, Maher says two things, one that it's too bad man learned how he could destroy the world with nukes before he learned to share and love and whatever across the globe. And sure, that does suck. But it also sucks that for all the evil religion has caused, no tool of religion will ever destroy the world completely - my money's on the way that will happen will probably be when the environment collapses as a result of technology and lack of human stewardship, which has happened globally and the Christian tinge of Manifest Destiny notwithstanding, irrespective of faith. Even if we do blow each other up, I'm not sure it will be a religious country that drops the first or second bomb. China's not religious, nor were fascist or Soviet states.
The real problem with the movie is when Maher says "people are rational about everything else, why not religion?" Well, you know what, people aren't rational, at least no person is all the time. They're not rational about love, about sports, about what they eat, how they dress - this woman at a MoveOn phone party today started talking to one of her contacts about vaccines and autism, and secular humanist though I am sure she must have been, she didn't have a clue what she was talking about scientifically. Even without religion screwing people up, Freud says we still have all this envy and jealousy built into our relationship with our parents, and that seems like it's true. People crafted religion, and whether there was a divine inspiration guiding that craft, human beings screw up everything they do. Everything. The movie was pretty funny and I learned some factoids, and I guess I probably still have a slight crush on Bill Maher like I do on all smart lapsed Catholics, but blaming religion for the world's problems, it doesn't getcha outta jail free. *wink*
I went to see "Religulous" tonight. I had forgotten, and my mom reminded me, that when I was in high school I was totally into Bill Maher and would stay up to watch (or program the VCR - god what a NERD) "Politically Incorrect."
Some ladies sitting next to me got up and walked out about a third of the way through, which is fine. I remember really wanting to walk out of "Sin City" and realizing after it was over that Sean had kind of hated by it too. Officially the only movie I've left in the middle was "The Nutty Professor" - that was with my parents - we got our money back and I remember being glad to know that you could actually do that. My point is that a LOT of movies suck way worse than this one, but it's your right if you wanna leave.
I've been thinking about Catholicism, not any more than usual, probably, but because the election is coming, and once again I have to hear first hand about my grandmother's church telling them they have to be single issue (re:abortion) voters. Also one of my undergrads has this amazing story of how she was born Baptist and converted to Catholicism, got kicked out of her parents' house, and then eventually moved back in and then converted them as well! I've been Catholic all my life, of course, and haven't made much of a move to slow the exodus of my family away from Catholicism. I am always fascinated by the energy converted people have, I guess I have the luxury of secret laissez-faire uncertainy that being born into a religion you can stomach affords.
Maher, 1/2 Catholic and 1/2 Jewish, makes fun of everyone he talks to in the movie except ex-Mormon musician Tal Bachman, and these two guys who are skeptics, who he gives a wider berth - an astronomer and this round headed old man he meets outside the Vatican - and they're both Catholic priests. He seems to respect them more than the other people he talks to, and doesn't (at least in the film edit) tape their answers to questions about isn't it crazy to drink wine-blood of a dead guy. It's not fair, but it was funny to me.
The astronomer points out that the scientific revolution occurred after the major religions of the world were already firmly in place. That's a pretty Eurocentric argument, but I do think it's a fun thought experiment to imagine living in a world where being a theologian would have put you on the cutting edge of inquiry.
The NYT review thinks the weakness is at the end, when Maher criticizes Islam. I felt that part was as fair as the rest, but begs the question of other religions - no mention of Hinduism or anything. Well, maybe they aren't a violent religion like the others, but in that case, his premise that religion itself is always dangerous falls apart. So I guess that's a reason to skip it.
My real two problems with the movie popped out, rather, near the beginning. Five minutes in, Maher says to a bunch of guys in a church made out of a trailer that he's privileged enough to not need religion - that a guy in prison or homeless, sure, needs god, but not Maher, and not, he says, seeming to think he's flattering his Christian hosts, You Guys either. I found that cynical in just the way that people depicted Obama's clinging-guns-religion gaffe to be - in fact, he goes even further and conflates this well-off-ness with intelligence: "you guys aren't dumb" he says "why do you need this?" That was one of the only parts of the movie that offended me, because while many of the people he talks to are arrogant and utterly defensive of their certitude, I think there are actually (1) smart people in prison who still need God (2) people who are affluent who, Christian or non-Christian, aren't that smart and (3) people who are religious who don't "need" religion.
Maher proclaims himself as a sort of prophet of doubt, and I do think it really is helpful to have someone saying what he does - I never would have walked out of this movie, "Dogma" or "The Last Temptation of Christ." But he has a couple examples of when he "turned to faith" - when he got dumped at 17 and when he quit smoking at 40. He talks about being glad to have the idea of God as a powerful figure as someone to turn to. I'm flabbergasted because, well, I haven't had a hard life, but I've gotten dumped hard, and you know, I never prayed to God to win the guy back, or to smite him, or whatever - it just seems cheap, like hitting up your rich uncle that you barely know for money. Also, if you admit that people in need turn to God, I'm not sure why the fact that people like Maher or myself, probably in the 5% most comfortably living people on the planet, should be able to assume that their freedom from want liberating them from a state of spirit-seeking is "natural" or "correct."
Ok, so this really brings me round to my number one problem with the movie. Right at the beginning, Maher says two things, one that it's too bad man learned how he could destroy the world with nukes before he learned to share and love and whatever across the globe. And sure, that does suck. But it also sucks that for all the evil religion has caused, no tool of religion will ever destroy the world completely - my money's on the way that will happen will probably be when the environment collapses as a result of technology and lack of human stewardship, which has happened globally and the Christian tinge of Manifest Destiny notwithstanding, irrespective of faith. Even if we do blow each other up, I'm not sure it will be a religious country that drops the first or second bomb. China's not religious, nor were fascist or Soviet states.
The real problem with the movie is when Maher says "people are rational about everything else, why not religion?" Well, you know what, people aren't rational, at least no person is all the time. They're not rational about love, about sports, about what they eat, how they dress - this woman at a MoveOn phone party today started talking to one of her contacts about vaccines and autism, and secular humanist though I am sure she must have been, she didn't have a clue what she was talking about scientifically. Even without religion screwing people up, Freud says we still have all this envy and jealousy built into our relationship with our parents, and that seems like it's true. People crafted religion, and whether there was a divine inspiration guiding that craft, human beings screw up everything they do. Everything. The movie was pretty funny and I learned some factoids, and I guess I probably still have a slight crush on Bill Maher like I do on all smart lapsed Catholics, but blaming religion for the world's problems, it doesn't getcha outta jail free. *wink*
Comments
So I guess I agree with you if you mean underprivileged in terms of coming from a small town. If you mean underprivileged in the typical sense of "poor," I don't. I think people who are economically comfortable are far more likely to take religion more seriously than they should, and I think this bears out: people who really need to be protected from something, like hunger or crime, are more likely to experience a shortcoming, divinity-wise, and thus be more skeptical. And people who have "succeeded" even modestly are more likely to think it's 'cause either they, or their God, is great. Most of the Christians I would characterize as unsettlingly sure of their own manifest destiny are firmly lodged in the middle class.
Maybe that doesn't directly contradict you. I just don't think poor people are manipulated MORE than other classes by religion in general (and Maher's focus on scammers in the film, to me, felt unbalanced. I would have loved to have seen him interview a completely self-absorbed libertarian atheist, you come out of there feeling like all Agnostics are dove-like starry-eyed Unitarians). At the same time, a feeling of protection by a sense of community, whether a religious one or ethnic or whatever, isn't something I've ever felt much, but it seems like it could be very satisfying and also maybe very constructive.