Brainwashing is a funny thing
Beck will be on. God Bless you all, God Bless Sarah Palin, and may God Bless these United States of America
Must go to fitness center, God bless you all, God bless Sarah Palin and may God bless these United States Of America.
Taking wife to dinner, maybe last time for a while in this economy. God bless you all,God bless Sarah Palin, and may God bless the USA.
Must work on Photo Shop. God bless you all, God bless Sarah Palin, and may God bless these United States of America.
Must go, God bless you all, God bless Sarah Palin and may God bless these United States of America
Oh no….we missed Palin’s birthday
Rape Is Wrong Because God Says So
Watch at your own risk, it’s almost ten full minutes of gibberish, but it’s a fantastic example of why atheists dislike religious people.
Does this zealot even want a debate? He doesn’t let anyone else speak but himself.
I never get tired of Christians saying they would rape and murder if God did not exist. I’ve never seen such amazing ignorance, and frankly I think people who say such things should perhaps seek therapy because they appear to be closet criminals just waiting for the chemical imbalance in their heads to push them far enough to commit these crimes they seem so anxious to enjoy. I do not understand why they choose to ignore human responsibility in favor of a book written thousands of years ago by unknown authors full of ridiculous contradictions.
Ignorance at its finest
The Friendly Atheist has a great post showing the ignorance of homophobic Bible thumpers. There is a link to a video, but the fun bit is at the end where one particular idiot proudly displays his anti-gay tattoo:
It’s a tattoo reading “[Thou] shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination. Leviticus 18:22″. Who else sees the problem here?
Leviticus also forbids tattooing. In the very next chapter.
“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:28″
Ignorance at its finest…
The Invention of Lying
Last night the husband and I went to the cinema, which is a rarity in itself ($18 for two tickets?!), and saw Ricky Gervais in his new film, The Invention of Lying. We normally do not see comedies in the movie theater. In fact, at $18 a pop we try to reserve our cinema experience to major blockbuster films that are better seen on the big screen. But there were two reasons for why we went to see The Invention of Lying last night. We’re huge Ricky Gervais fans, and though his films are funny and lighthearted and usually not theater-worthy, we had to see this instead of waiting a couple months for the DVD because of the religious controversy the film’s plot has stirred up.
I’ve read a couple of reviews of the film, most notably in the Telegraph where it was basically given two big thumbs down.
Gervais is threatening to turn into Woody Allen: a director who clogs his films with famous faces and whose plots revolve around pretty women realizing how wonderful he is.
Film reviews have never held any water with me; I tend to like movies that get panned by critics and am unimpressed with movies they declare “must see”. After all, when It’s a Wonderful Life premiered in 1946 it was considered a box office flop, but fifty years later the film is considered a holiday season staple, and the American Film Institute voted it as one of the best 100 films of all time.
But what intrigued me with this review was the critic’s obvious issue with one of the film’s lesser known aspects.
If the film’s reverse-Liar Liar premise is hard to sustain, that’s even more true of its religion-ridiculing middle section whose desire to poke fun at the delusions of mass devotion is undermined by the fervour with which it crams every other shot with product placements.
Another review, which is more positive in the Guardian refers to the “religion-ridiculing” moments of a bit of a “bait and switch” technique.
It is at this point that The Invention of Lying achieves vertiginous lift-off. Perhaps it also marks the moment when it becomes something rather radical. It’s one thing for Gervais to air his atheism on the standup circuit. It’s quite another to do so in the guise of a glossy, user-friendly sitcom pitched squarely at the huddled masses in the American multiplex. So Gervais bamboozles us and suckers us in. His comedy pretends to be unthreatening, a harmless little wheeze, and then pushes the envelope to its logical conclusion. For good measure, it is also smart and supple enough to acknowledge that lying is not all bad. After all, don’t the best kind of falsehoods amount to a valuable creative endeavour? They grease the wheels of social interaction and slap the world with a fresh coat of paint.
Airing his atheism? The movie suddenly became a “must see” for us. I’ve known Gervais was an atheist for some time, and I admit that may be one of the things I love about him. But he is a comedy genius, and The Office and Extras can never be matched. So we went to the movies last night and saw the film. Here’s a the official trailer in case you’ve been living on a Russian submarine:
Twenty minutes or so into the film we’d already seen most of what you just saw in that trailer. That’s usually a bad sign, especially in a comedy. But I soon realized why. This film has been very cleverly marketed to appeal to the broader American audience as a fun romantic comedy about an intriguing scenario of human nature. But there is a little something more…
I don’t like to spoil film plots, but I think if you’re an atheist and you hear the full plot of the film you’ll actually want to see it more.
The main character of the film, Mark Bellison (Gervais), suddenly becomes the only person in the entire world to evolve the skill of lying. We know this; it’s the main premise of the film. And though this makes for some hilarious antics, the plot picks up when Mark’s mother is on her deathbed. It’s actually a very touching scene, and the first time I’ve ever seen Ricky Gervais cry on camera. His mother is very dear to him and is extremely frightened of dying. Out of love and compassion, Mark tells her that there is an afterlife where she will get to see everyone she loves who has passed on, and where she will also get a mansion and live happily ever after for all eternity.
This doesn’t seem so bad on the grand scheme of things, but the build up to this moment is important. The world Mark lives in is brutally honest, and there is no fantasy, fiction, or make-believe. All movies are historical readings. There is no science fiction, no fairy tales, and there is obviously no religion…because how can you have religion if you do not know how to lie? Checkmate, creationists!
This point is really not brought up until this scene in the film where Mark “invents” the afterlife. When the touching scene is over and his mother dies, the two nurses and doctor (Jason Bateman) are in the room and have overheard the entire conversation. They stand there dumbfounded demanding Mark tell them more. By the next day the hospital staff have told everyone in town and a multitude of people, including media crews from all over the world, have descended on Mark’s apartment building much like the scene in the Life of Brian where they’re awaiting the “word” of their new messiah.
The next scene is probably the funniest and most memorable of the movie, and oddly I cannot find one clip or photograph of it anywhere on the internet (the photo below is right after this scene, Gervais is holding the pizza boxes). Mark finally comes out to speak to the crowd, and he brings along with him two pieces of paper listing the ten rules from the “man in the sky” which mark has affixed to two Pizza Hut boxes. This Moses scene is full of hilarity, blasphemy, and some highly intriguing questions from the people listening to the new rules. The crowd eventually embraces the new found religion and the “man in the sky” and look forward to the mansions which they will receive after they die.
It’s officially funny, but I can see why this would be very upsetting to Christians (though because the writing in the film only refers to heaven and hell, the man in the sky, and the ten commandments it really has the potential to anger all three biblical religions). Not only does the film imply religion and gods are concepts only brought to the world through the invention of lying, the marketing of the film is somewhat underhanded. And I think that’s fantastic. The film goes on to show how the invention of religion really doesn’t help the people any more than the lack of it did, so there really isn’t a happy ending for believers either. In fact, not to spoil the film for you anymore, but the final scene of the movie has much to do with free will, something not allowed to believers.
Of course by now the critics have really begun to pick up on this. The lack of video clips and photos of the Moses scene insures that the reviewers really had to see the film and be surprised like the rest of us at its atheist undertones. Some are commenting on them, but all around saying it’s just a film and have fun watching it, like Roger Ebert,
Then, in one of the funniest satirical scenes I can remember, Mark stands on his front steps and informs the world there is a Man in the Sky, and they will be happy up there with him after death. The world is ecstatic. This Man, Mark explains, is responsible for everything. “Even my cancer?” a woman asks. Yes, that too, but Mark asks his audience not to get bogged down in the details.
What we have here, in microcosm, is the paradox of a benevolent god creating a world of evil. Mark is hard-pressed to explain it, but greater men than he have tried. Think of the power you’d possess if everything you said was believed without question. Mark, under the circumstances, behaves reasonably well.
I saw the movie with a large audience, which laughed a lot. I have no idea what they thought of its implications. “The Invention of Lying” isn’t strident, ideological or argumentative; it’s simply the story of a guy trying to comfort his mother and perhaps win the woman he loves. Gervais, who co-directed and co-wrote with Matthew Robinson, walks a delicate tightrope above hazardous chasms.
Others have not been so kind like Kyle Smith in The New York Post,
Marketed as a romantic comedy, “The Invention of Lying” turns out to be a dour, shouty atheist manifesto. With a change of scenery it could have been called “Godless in Seattle.”
A labored and boorish satire turns bathetic in the end — from free will to whether Mark wins over the insipid girl — and its confidence in its own rationality often melts into a miserable certitude about the meaninglessness of everything. (Could a comedian possibly be depressed and convinced he’s smarter than everyone else? Nah.)
As for its attack on Christianity, that’s a soft target. Christians are seldom crazed. Let’s see how long it is before Gervais, or any other Hollywood star, delivers a feature-length assault on Islam.
Sorry, Christians are “seldom crazed”? Not sure where Smith has been living, obviously not in the United States. And as for an assault on Islam, why? That wouldn’t relate to the American film market, of which less than 3% are Muslim. And as I said before, aside from a short scene later in the movie where the main character looks like Jesus, the religious ridicule is mainly focused on the original idea of the old testament god, which in fact would offend Muslims as well as Christians. Oh wait, I forgot; most Christians think Allah is a whole different god, like Zeus or Thor.
S.T. Karnick at Big Hollywood said,
After a couple of weeks of unsubstantiated rumors, it has been confirmed that the forthcoming film The Invention of Lying is indeed intended to satirize religion and religious believers.
It will be interesting to see whether audiences take to the film as more people find out what The Invention of Lying is all about. Telling your audience that their most profound beliefs are stupid and wrong seems a fine plan for eliciting positive reviews from elitist movie critics but a very bad way to lure people into movie theaters.
Karnick responds to a blog post on www.rickygervais.com as if he were a teenager posting a response on Facebook; it’s a funny read as are the comments listed below his review, which appears to be based on Kyle Smith’s review in the New York Post. It doesn’t look like Karnick even saw the film, which is always a good starting point for reviewing one.
Many of the comments on that “review” are from people who are tired of atheists calling out Christians, and of course asking the question of why Gervais doesn’t make a film poking fun at Islam. They claim they are sick of atheist propaganda in films. Aside from this film, and maybe Contact, Chocolat, the Life of Brian and a couple of others, I don’t see atheism as a tired and played out theme in American cinema. If anything it’s the opposite. I mentioned how much I love It’s a Wonderful Life where the premise of the movie includes God, some saints and a guardian angel. I’m not offended by this and I find the movie to be a fine example of creativity teaching a life lesson.
The funny thing is, most of the offended believers are not so upset about the film’s plot, they’re more upset about the way it has been marketed as debated here at a Christian forums site. Yes, I admit they’ve cleverly hid the religious “inventing” though at the end of the movie, that’s really not what it’s about. It truly is a romantic comedy about a man who can have it all, but still can’t get the girl. It’s the classic “money can’t buy you love” theme.
But as is true with the most brainwashed of fundamentalists, they like to judge books by their cover, or as one woman at that forum site says, “I rarely go unless the priest himself has recommended a movie.” Why see something for yourself and judge for yourself when you can let others do it for you? Why ask questions when other people’s answers will suffice? So that’s why they are having such an issue with this movie. The trailers and cast promotion interviews did not show anything regarding religion, and so they feel they were lured into actually watching a film that had a surprising twist. Believers have been conned into having to figure something out for themselves.
And I think that’s brilliant.
Thunderf00t and Glenn Beck
Thunderf00t shows how Glenn Beck has yet again forgotten to take his medication.
where are the road-ragers when you need them?
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Don’t feed the trolls
