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Nov. 9, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:06
1206 Movie Review - Religulous

hahahahaharrrmageddon! hohohohoholocaust!

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So let's get on. Who saw the movie tonight?
I saw it.
Anyone else?
Just me, I guess.
Oh, no one else saw it? Okay, sorry.
Spoiler alert. There's no God. I just thought we'd mention that.
What did you think? Um...
I thought that, well, there were parts of it that were really funny, and parts of it that were really horrifying.
Bill Maher is a damn good satirist.
And if I were to put it into a review soundbite, I'd say it was a pretty fun romp through his ability to get people to back themselves into a corner.
Mm-hmm. Just a whole series of clips of people, of him feeding people enough rope to hang themselves with, which at times was extremely funny.
But there were things about it that I thought were just really disturbing.
Like, everyone he interviewed, without exception...
I would boldly assert that, you know, the apocalyptic hellfire and brimstone end of the world was just around the corner and half of those people had kids standing next to them when they said it.
Yeah. You know, and to me that's just, that's gross.
Yeah. And then, you know, it's kind of like lighthearted sort of, you know, you know how Mar is, you know, with that sort of, you know, sarcastic kind of, come on, you're smarter than that kind of attitude.
Oh, yeah, he's snide.
And then right at the end, he just kind of kicks you in the head with this totally dead serious kind of just sort of, you know, Stop the Madness Now showing you clips of just all these horrifying clips of the Middle East and 9-11 and all these things.
It was just a total kick in the chest from the rest of the movie to me, it seemed.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was really bad on his part.
And I was completely embarrassed by the fact that the first place he went was Raleigh.
It had an air of inevitability, I thought, but yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I would say it's a great rental.
Right. But not much of a go-to film.
Right. Right.
What did you think? I mean, I thought he was entertaining.
He's a funny guy.
He's a stand-up, right? So he's funny.
I thought he was entirely not firm enough, frankly.
Oh, with the whole I don't know thing?
No, not even I don't care if he doesn't know.
It's just like when he went to go and see the imam, right?
And he says, Islam says this violent stuff, right?
Right. And the imam says, no, it doesn't, right?
Well, with everyone else, he had this list of things, right?
It says here, and it says...
Yeah. Right? He just says, oh, okay, well, I guess I've been misinformed, right?
Yeah, yeah. I remember that clip where he goes, oh, it seems like I'm always the wrong one, right?
Yeah. Right. Right.
And he didn't have the note sheet with the passages the way he did with the Christians.
Right. So he's sort of giving them a pass because, well, because he's afraid of them, right?
Right. And, you know, that's fine too, but it's not great.
I thought that was...
And with the Christians...
I just thought he was jokey, right?
Ha ha ha, it's so silly, right?
Yeah, like making fun of the one black preacher with the expensive suit.
Right, and the guy who thinks he's Jesus and the scary truckers.
I mean, so he's joking like, oh, you superstitious people who, right?
So it's funny, funny, funny, but it's the Jewish thing, right?
It's funny, and then it's the Holocaust, right?
Yeah. It's like, can't you people find a middle fucking ground anywhere?
You know, ha ha ha, so funny.
And they're going to blow the whole world up in a nuclear apocalypse.
Yeah, that's exactly how the film went.
And it's like, what?
I mean, if it's coming down to the actual survival of the species, can you stop being jokey about it?
Well, and I don't think a guy like Mar can actually.
Well, because of his mom, right?
Well, of course not, right?
I mean, his mom was in the movie, for those who haven't seen it.
Yeah, that I found really kind of gross.
How so? The interview of his mom was just...
I mean...
I don't know, it just bothered me.
It was... It just felt kind of awkward.
Like, there was his normal jokiness there, but it seemed more like he was pandering to her.
Oh yeah, he didn't.
Like that one phrase, like that one, there's one point where he goes, well, you're the mom, instruct me.
Right. And that just made my skin crawl.
And then how she was describing their experience in the Catholic Church in sort of dismissive terms, and then Bill Maher sort of corrected her, saying how, you know, I forget exactly what he said, but something along the lines of how much he hated it.
And then she kind of rolls her eyes and does that smacking noise with the lips and says, oh yeah, well you can say that now.
Right? And I just...
That got grated on me.
Right. And it's the untruth thing, right?
Which is that his mom or his family or his dad, let's say, who I guess is dad, his dad said...
Jesus is real, God is real, hell is real, right?
Right. And then he finds out years later, they stopped going to church so his dad could have a better sex life.
Yeah. I mean, isn't that hideous?
To terrify your child with hell and demons and It's disgusting.
Right? And then it's like, oh, all of this stuff which I told you was completely true and turned you over to priests and had them scare the shit out of you, I'm just stopping because I don't want to, like, because I want to use birth control.
Right. It has nothing to do with what I'm doing to you.
It's all about, you know, you know, you know, I need more sex.
Right. And his mom just said it, you know, like this was nothing, right?
Well, because of birth control.
It's like, what the fuck?
Yeah. I mean, why didn't anyone sit me down and say, we're sorry that we inflicted this religion on you?
We've had doubts.
You just stopped going to church, right?
Yeah, and Marr blew right past it.
And that's why he couldn't confront any of these other people, because he can't talk to his own mom honestly about any of this shit, right?
That's an excellent point.
I've seen the scene in question, and it really struck me as something that...
I mean, I felt really angry after watching it, because it's sort of making a mockery out of the on-truth conversation, right?
So I can imagine that after this video, there will be a...
percentage of atheists who will go to their parents and kind of laugh about their religious experiences, whereas really that would be kind of avoiding their real experience.
Does that strike you guys as something that might occur because of this movie?
Yeah, I think it could be.
I think the idea that we laugh at psychologically attacking children, and he said it was boredom and incredible terror was his experience of religion, right?
Yeah, and he was laughing out loud as he said it.
Right, right.
So, the fear that he experienced that his parents inflicted on him, which they obviously said was true, and then it's like, oh, well, we changed our mind because of sex, right?
And we just stopped going to church, right?
I mean, that's so fundamentally disorienting to a child that, I mean, no wonder he's all over the map, right?
Like, he's a semi-socialist or liberal, and every time he talks to the government, he makes them look like idiots, right?
Yeah. And he sometimes describes himself as libertarian, sometimes he describes himself as not, and it just, I guess, depends on the interview.
Yeah, he's all over the place, right?
Because he can't have this...
I mean, if he showed up but we didn't know who he was to the FDR boards, I mean, what would we say?
And he said this story about his childhood and then he stopped going to church because his parents...
Who wanted to use birth control?
Well, it reminds me of the guy who was in the chat room the other day, Steph, and was giving these horrifying things, and then LOL after everything.
Right. Oh yeah, those people freak the shit out.
They freak me out, like just completely, because they're just, whoa.
And Bill Maher's one of those in the flesh, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Can I ask you a question, Steph?
Yeah. How much did you laugh at that movie?
I laughed a little bit, a couple of times out loud.
I thought the senator was great.
Oh, that was priceless.
That guy's...
There's no IQ test to become a senator.
And then you could see it in his face, like, oh shit, I shouldn't say that, right?
Yeah, the expression on his face after he realized what he said was just precious.
Absolutely. Yeah, certainly towards the end it was less funny.
I certainly didn't find the text...
Joke about killing him from the Muslims, that funny.
I didn't find it that funny to see this woman praying in a dark corner.
You know, because he says, the women aren't equal in Islam, and the imam says, well, yes, they are.
They have their own little special corner to pray in, right?
That's just depressing as shit, right?
Yeah, that was pretty horrifying.
And he's smirking and chuckling at all this stuff, too.
And that's really what bugged the shit out of me.
I mean, he's talking about nuclear Armageddon all throughout this whole film.
That's the underlying subtext, is nuclear Armageddon as a result of irrational beliefs, right?
Yeah. And yet, as he points all these things out, he's smirking and chuckling at all of it.
Yeah, well, he's, you know, he's working hard to entertain, right?
And that's a mistake, because he bit off more than he could chew, right?
There's no comedy bit that ends with the death of mankind, right?
Right, there's no way that's going to be...
Yeah. And I also thought that...
Because every time he would talk to people where he'd say, you know, Islam seems to be quite violent, and everyone would say, oh, but that's politics, that's not religion, right?
Or every time he would talk about, so you think I'm going to hell, well, like the people would always, and Christians always do this, right?
They draw back from the logical results of their own premises, which are obviously stone evil, right?
Like an eight-year-old will go to hell, whatever, right?
If he dies. So they have these premises.
And then the moment you say, so he was kind of using the against me argument in terms of religion.
So I'm going to hell, right?
Or when that dishy soap opera Jesus guy was like, there's a hole in your heart the size of God and only Jesus can fill it or whatever.
And he's like, well, didn't Jesus say don't judge and you don't even know me and you're telling me that I'm missing something, right?
Right. So he's trying to personalize it, and the moment you personalize it, Christians back off, and the Israelites back off, and so on.
And he said, well, they just don't like admitting flaws.
To outsiders, right?
Which is kind of the argument that Johnny had with me on that podcast from last week.
Right, right. And I've heard that argument before, too, that people in the faith will tell those outside a different story than they tell each other.
Yes, but he thought it was just because—he gave the impression that they criticize within the faith, but they just don't—they like to present a united front to outsiders, right?
Right, right. But that's not true at all.
Like, don't criticize your own team.
Yeah, that's not true at all.
That's not true. I mean, Christians do not criticize within their own faith.
I mean, because in the same movie, we had those Mormons, right, who said, the moment you even question whether magic underwear works, your friends and your family will eject you, right?
And again, that's more confirmation to an old FDR thesis, right, that God is the fear of others.
Oh, yeah. Well, and it's not just Mormons.
I mean, it's Christians too.
Yeah, any of them, right? Any of them.
And Obama heads and all, right?
My own mother, who had a visceral hatred for the Catholic Church, would, you know, not look too kindly on any negative words said about Mass on Sunday.
Right, right.
So, yeah.
And even after all the criticizing they would do at the kitchen table, there's no way I could tell them that I was an atheist and get away with it.
Right, so I think he's wrong about that.
It's not that they don't like showing...
It's not like they have a different story to outsiders than insiders, right?
It's just that they speak a lot of evil...
And the moment that people point it out, right, they change their story, right?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, it's got nothing to do with inner side.
I mean, it's anyone, right? Anyone inside or outside who confronts the horror and absurdity of what they're saying.
What they do is they get offended, right?
They get confused and then they get offended.
That's the defenses, right?
Yeah, and you could see that in the expression on the face of that hippie Jesus guy.
Oh yeah. The one at that Orlando Jesus amusement park.
As Mar was sort of stepping him through the logic of it all, in personal terms, You could just see the tension growing in his face.
Oh, sure. And there is...
You fear...
I mean, I've certainly felt that fear with a variety of people.
You fear... Oops, you're breaking up.
Oh, sure. I'll just wait.
Start from the back of fear?
You see that fear, or you feel that fear, or at least I feel that fear, when...
That fear that the person simply won't be able to handle it, right?
That they'll have some sort of break, some sort of psychotic breakdown or some nervous breakdown or something, right?
Oh yeah, the anxiety was palpable.
When Mar just flippantly retorted to the guy, well, what if you're wrong?
I just felt my anxiety shoot through the roof and you could see the expression on the guy's face just go stone cold.
Right. Right.
And he paused for like three seconds, then took a deep breath, and then just started spewing again.
You know, and in that moment, it's like, okay, this guy could go postal right now.
Right? You never know.
Right. Or if he doesn't go postal, right, like the guy who ran the ex-Jew for Jesus, the guy whose miracle was it rained?
Yeah. What?
What's that? Yeah. Oh, this guy is a guy who's basically his miracle is, I wanted it to rain and it rained.
What? I don't know.
I know. It's pretty, as he said, it's pretty lame, right?
And that guy wouldn't go postal, but that guy would just shrivel, right?
Yeah. Yeah, just complete mental breakdown.
And the weird thing is, I mean, this is why I couldn't stop watching that guy's hands.
Because here's this guy, I mean, he's obese, right?
I mean, he's, I don't know, 100 pounds overweight.
And he clasps his hands in front of his belly the whole time.
That's right, yeah, I noticed that.
Like, that hides something?
I mean, like, it's crazy! It's like putting a postage stamp on a tent saying, look, what tent, what tent, right?
I mean, that just seemed so dissociated to me, you know, like if you put your hands on this huge guy, it's slimming.
Well, maybe he was doing that for, you know, maybe that was sort of like kind of I don't know, as long as we're psychologizing, like trying to hold himself in.
It could be, although I've seen that from people who obviously aren't comfortable with how much they weigh or how they look.
But the basic reality is that if you can rest your hands and your forearm on your gut, It's not slimming, right?
The very fact that you have a shelf means that it's not a flat wall, right?
Anyway, sorry, go on. Yeah, if you come complete with your own drink table, you need to get on the treadmill, right?
Just a little. But that's kind of the dissociation, right, that goes on.
And that's just, I mean, it is, it's, you know, terribly broken and sad people.
And of course, he pointed out, not too unsubtly, that it's all about money, right?
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Everything was commercial. Everything was money.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And the biggest, the most exaggerated example of that in the movie, I think, was the interview he did with that preacher with the $2,000 suit.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, that stuff was beautiful.
Well, but nuts or nut, I mean, they're just con men, right?
I don't think those guys had a scrap of religious faith at all.
Oh, hell no. Not at all.
They're just selling it, right?
Because they know that's what people want, right?
Right, and the Jesus hippie dude was, I mean, that's his gig, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, he's not going to, you know, Mars is not going to change his mind, right?
Because that's what's paying his bills, right?
Right. And the other thing, too, Christina was confused by the Vatican astronomer guy.
Oh, yeah. Right, who was saying, well...
I was wondering if you were going to mention that guy.
Yeah, I mean, because she was saying, well, that guy was saying that the scriptures were 2,000 years before Christ and 200 or 300 years after.
And then modern science arose a couple of hundred years ago.
So there's this gap of like 1,200, 1,300 years, right?
So, of course, there's no science in the Bible.
So trying to have the geological or anthropological record match so you've got dinosaurs with people doesn't make any sense because he says there's no science in the Bible, right?
Right. And so Christina was like, and he said, well, you know, Pope John Paul II said that evolution is a valid theory, it's no longer a theory, it's accepted, right?
Right. And Christina was like, well, what does that mean?
And I said, well, this is the bait and switch, right?
They say it's true, and when you prove that it's not true, they say it's an allegory, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
Which, by the way, was what I was doing in the social contract, right?
Right. So I would say that governments were formed because people wanted protection.
It's like, well, where's the evidence for that?
Oh, no, that's just an allegory, right?
It's like, no, no, no, you said it was true, and now it becomes an allegory, right?
Right. Yeah.
As a story, people need protection.
So that's why we have governments.
Right. But, of course, I claimed that it was an actual fact that this is how governments came about, as if that was even relevant.
But, you know, because what does a social contract in the Bronze Age mean to me in the 21st century, right, even if it were true?
But this is what people do.
They'll say it's true, and then when you prove it false, they'll say it's now.
Breaking up again. Okay, hang tight.
I'll call. Oh, no, I can't.
Time for a smoke break.
Yeah, I will call back in just a sec.
I'm trying out a couple of different settings on this router, but it is cutting out, so let me...
I'll call everyone back in just a sec.
Okay. All right.
That should be better. Yep, sounds much better.
So, yeah, I mean, I thought the film was...
I'm glad it's out there, I think.
But it's not going to do much to help us.
No, I don't think so either.
Because now when we get pissed off, and he should be pissed off, right?
I mean, if he thinks these people are going to end life as we know it, global warming and nuclear weapons, I mean, if he thinks these people are going to murder everyone, then, you know, fuck, let loose the little man.
Stop being so smart and jokey, you know?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
If you're going to throw the gauntlet down, then at least act as though you are throwing the gauntlet down, right?
And not just sort of making an act out of it.
Right, and don't mess with my head by having me laugh at people that you say are going to kill me and my family.
And also, don't make it tough for the atheists in the future who are a little more serious and a little more aggressive, because now we're going to be the humorless atheists, right?
Right. Right, and that's one of the reasons why I asked you how much you laughed at it.
Because I found myself, you know, I don't know if this is just old, like, scar tissue or whatnot, but I found myself both laughing out loud frequently, but also kind of realizing just how horrifying it was, what it was that he was showing.
Yeah, I didn't...
I mean, there were a few bits where I laughed just because the...
But I felt mostly anxiety.
And I wish he had just broken some of that anxiety by being appropriately aggressive given the stakes, right?
Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Colleen?
Yeah, I was just going to ask, do you guys think that it would be possible in this culture for somebody to do a documentary where they really just went for it as far as religion goes?
Not like the jokiness of this film or the sort of spinelessness of, what's his name?
Oh, the Dawkins film?
Yeah, Richard Dawkins.
Where you really went for the jugular?
Right. I mean, Richard Dawkins has this thing where in the abstract, he is appropriately enraged at everything, but then when he gets to people on the personal level, he's like, oh, I thought he was a very nice fellow.
Do you think it would be possible for there to be a documentary with complete emotional authenticity?
No, I don't think so.
I don't. I mean, I think that people become rationalists sometimes because they're afraid of their feelings, right?
Or what they've experienced is they've experienced passion as crazy destruction, right?
Like the passion of a preacher or, you know, whatever, or the angry parent or who knows, right?
And so they distance themselves from feeling and they take this ironic, skeptical distance to things, which seems to be very common in scientific and rational circles.
And... And so I think that for them, passion equals irrationality.
And there was not much passion in this film.
There was snarkiness, there was snideness, and there was intelligence.
He's a smart fellow, right? He's not a philosopher, of course, any more than I'm a comedian.
But I think it would just blow people's minds too much because so much propaganda has gone into passion equals irrationality that to have Passion and rationality is too weird.
I don't think people wouldn't know what to make of it, I think.
Well, and something else that rubbed me the wrong way, too, was the implication that certainty equals irrationality as well.
Right. He just about said that in the movie, too.
Well, at least he was sort of implicitly claiming that he had the rational position, and then explicitly he argued that he was selling doubt while the irrational were selling certainty, which leaves the impression in everybody's mind that if you come across anyone who's certain...
Whether they're religious or atheist or not, they're irrational, right?
Well, and we get that all the time, right?
So you guys have just as much dogma as religious people, and you're just as hostile as religious people, and you're just as...
I mean, we get that all the time, right?
Right.
And I'm sure if he had interviewed any hard atheists, he would have taken that position because through the whole film, he was all about how it's virtuous to be doubtful.
Right, right, for sure.
And doubt is great, but you cannot defend against a javelin with a fog bank.
It just doesn't work.
Right. Yeah, you can't.
You know, wondering whether the javelin actually exists or not does not save you.
It will not save you.
I mean, that's what I've been trying to do is to take some of what works in religion in terms of passion and commitment and ferocity sometimes and certainty and storytelling and entertainment, like trying to put that in the service of rational philosophy and Is tough, right? I mean, it is trying to put two opposites together.
It feels like you're pushing opposing magnets together sometimes.
Yeah, I can say for myself that experiencing that when I first came here was a huge breath of fresh air for me.
You mean some of the passion stuff?
Well, trying to fit into the sort of passionless, brooding, skepticism of the Dawkins-type crowd, you know, just...
That was kind of a small box for me to fit in.
And libertarianism is like that too, right?
They say that the Fed causes the murder of millions of people, but they always sound kind of whiny and complaining.
I don't know.
I've never seen a thundering pulpit libertarian speech.
Yeah, that's true.
I've never seen one myself.
That's quite true. I think that's a real shame.
I mean, I think that's a real shame because people will judge to some degree by the passion.
Yeah. Yeah, the last good one I saw was...
A speech by Reagan, actually, when he was...
Like, right after Goldwater had converted him, back in the mid-60s, Reagan...
And both Reagan and Goldwater were extremely passionate about limited government and the principles of individual liberty.
But... Not so much later on.
Right. But anyway, that's a digression.
Well, and this is the cheat, right?
Which is that he obviously has a lot of passion, which he unleashes at the end, saying, if we don't bring down these religious people, we're all going to die.
Right. Right, thus turning passion again into something really scary, right?
Right, and it's like, well, if you're fighting for your life, why are you making these stupid jokes?
If you're fighting to save mankind, right?
There was no, in Schindler's list, right?
Oscar Schindler didn't make fun of the Nazis.
And the Jews sure as hell didn't, right?
No, that's right. That's right.
You know, ha ha ha, they want to kill us, laugh out loud.
Look, he's texting, right? Yeah, that was irritating, actually.
I experienced that as irritating.
Like, you knew that wasn't what was going on on the phone, but...
Why he did, you know, it was just sort of a mockery, um...
It's one thing to put the mic and camera in front of these people and let them show themselves as ignorant and dangerous.
It's another to just be kind of flippant and mocking.
I mean, that didn't really...
Even as an element of humor, that didn't really add anything to the movie, right?
Yeah, I mean, if you were interviewing a savage serial killer or people who were in the mafia, and he had just cut from a guy who was shot and then had his throat slit by this Dutch filmmaker, right? Right.
Right. Right, that's right.
You know, it's disorienting to be told these people are evil and then to make little jokes about them.
Right, like with that Puerto Rican guy who believes he's the second coming, the constant cutaways to clips from Scarface.
Yeah, yeah, that's...
So, I mean, some questionable choices.
And I think it was tough to...
I think it would have been tough to go, as Colleen said.
I think it would have really had a tough time being released.
What, like as a major market film?
No, I mean, if he'd have...
I just want these guys to...
And I need to do this more myself, right?
I mean, this is something that this is a goal that I'm still working on for my own development...
Which is, I need to try and go for the jugular more.
With people. But the problem is that the moment you get that reputation, nobody will talk to you, right?
Right, right.
Like the press with the president, right?
Right, right. You ask tough questions and...
Yeah, your job is over.
Right. I mean, we're still so...
Sorry, is there anything else you wanted to say about that film?
I had something else that I listened to this week that I thought was interesting.
No, that's it for me.
I'm tapped out. Yeah, definitely worth seeing, though, for sure.
I think I'd recommend it. And again, I'm glad it's out there.
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