This new compilation of Bill Maher’s “rules for religion” is hilarious, and I’m posting it despite having put up a small section of this video a few months ago (that 5-minute video has, by the way, now vanished from YouTube). This video, 25 minutes long, is as good a collection of Maher’s views on religion as you can get. (I’m not counting “Religulous” since in that movie the faithful helped mock themselves. And I still haven’t seen it yet.)
The bits about Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and the ending showing a real scene of Sarah Palin rebuking witchcraft under pastoral incantation (24:10) are priceless.
What I like about Maher’s take on faith is the combination of hilarity and the dead serious points behind it. No living comic comes close, though George Carlin did when he was alive.
h/t: Barry
Oh this will be awesome! I remember when an atheist who wrote a book claiming the religious were being persecuted in America (I forget her name) said something like the media were always mocking religion and Bill said “no, it’s just me and a few cartoons”. Priceless and true.
I bet it was SE Cupp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._E._Cupp
Yep, that was her!
Maher is a good comedic entertainer — good enough to overlook his own notable dips in the Woo pool.
b&
Which woo was that? I think a while back he said something odd about vaccination, but I don’t recall what it was now.
That’s the woo.
b&
Yes. I think (hope) he might have back-tracked on that. Not sure.
I love that word “woo” by the way. Is it Jerry’s coinage? It’s perfect! (Merriam-Webster says nothing about it. I only see the conventional definition there.)
Woo comes from woo-woo which has been around for a while. Here is more info: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo
Great. Thanks for that. (I didn’t think to check Rational Wiki).
“Woo woo” is fine, but I like “woo” better!
Deepak doesn’t. 😉
Ha ha, a lot of that was from the debate with Sam Harris and Michael Shermer and the face palms and looks on Harris & Shermer were priceless. It was funny when Shermer actually called out Deepak’s bizarre musings as woo-woo because it made Deepak so angry.
Ban the woo!
Woo comes from woo-woo which has been around for a while. Here is more info: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo
And here I thought it came from Bobby Darin.
You should look up his interview appearance on the Canadian show “The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos”, where he addresses the reaction to his vaccination comments. He clarifies himself a bit, and makes it sound less ridiculous.
Yes, I agree he gets called out on being wooish more than he should be I already defended him here before and I’m too lazy to defend him again. 🙂
The video I found of Maher on that show, though entertaining, didn’t have any discussion of vaccination.
As I recall from the references from Diana’s last defense, he’s doing the “teach the controversy” bit, with the controversy being the usual suspects — nasty ingredients in vaccines, lots more vaccines today than a generation or three ago, and the like.
But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying his humor….
Cheers,
b&
Maher has coughed up his share of woo-ish-ness about medicine and diet, but as Joe E. Brown said to Jack Lemmon in the famous last line of Some Like It Hot, “Nobody’s perfect!”
Only Mary.
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Pretty much anything Maher says about food or medicine is wrong in some significant way.
He also goes off the deep-end on GMO food, and Monsanto conspiracies.
I think my favourite part was his discussion of Liberty College where he names a fictitious school the “Duelling Banjos College of Prayin’ & Preachin;”. Hilarious!
Good stuff… hadn’t seen this as we don’t have HBO. Lewis Black is another comedian you might want to check out. I just picked up his “Me of Little Faith” from the library.
I really like Lewis Black’s comedy. I picked up “Me of Little Faith” on a bargain table for a couple of bucks last year. I was disappointed and found it difficult to finish the book, though it was short. I may have been hoping for too much. He seemed quite willing to accommodate various bits of woo. Sort of a “all sides sound crazy to me, but I swear this weird thing really happened, and I don’t know what to think, but . . .”
Hilarious!
9:35 – “before I conclude it should be noted that in speaking of Muslims we realize of course the vast majority are law-abiding loving people who just want to be left alone to subjugate their women peace”
Love it!
That opening bit with Bill unbaptizing Mitt Romney’s atheist dead father-in-law (Edward Davies –- a scientist and engineer who worked for NASA) is so good it’s almost Dada for me. It’s transcendental and goes places where nobody’s gone befre — it left me floating on air when I watched it a year ago.
Once, my cousin and his wife (from Utah) visited us here in New Orleans. Long before, he had converted to Mormonism as a condition of his marriage. When they were here, I asked whether my wife and I had been secretly baptized, and though he wouldn’t give me a direct answer, it was clear we had been. So I didn’t bother telling them there was alcohol in the bread pudding we ate until after they’d eaten it.
When I was young I lived in Albuquerque NM (made many wrong turns there) which had a sizable Mormon presence. I joined a dance group that turned out to be mostly Mormon. Dated a Mormon, went to school with Mormons. Partied with Mormons. That was the real eye opener for me. They really knew how to party. Sex at relatively young ages was common and alcohol consumption was ubiquitous.
In general their behavior was extreme compared to what I had experienced up till that time. There was also more cruelty and fatalism on display than I had experienced up till that time. Games of chance risking serious pain & injury were fairly common (for example versions of Russian roulette), as was pressuring people to participate in them.
I’d be hard pressed to come up with as good an example of hypocrisy.
When they were here, I asked whether my wife and I had been secretly baptized, and though he wouldn’t give me a direct answer, it was clear we had been.
Whaaat? They didn’t even have the decency to wait until you were dead?
According to the website Why Evolution is True, you did, in fact, see Religulous this past January.:) http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/religulous/
Indeed! If I said I watched it, I did watch it. Now a few scenes are coming back to me. . . I can’t believe I forgot that in only a few months!
You know what they say — that it’s the mind that goes second.
I’ll be damned if I can remember what it is that goes first, though….
b&
I found it entertaining, but it’s not especially deep.
Maher also did a hilarious bit last year about the religious leaders in Jerusalem getting together to denounce the city’s gay pride parade.
Is embedding videos now kosher again? I’ve seen lots of ’em today….
b&
That was funny – the “bling bling” comment was hilarious.
Didn’t mean to embed it. I guess you need to omit the http.
Too funny. Thanks for that, a most enjoyable half hour. I’ve often wondered if all his guests are of the same mind.
You should watch “Religulous.” It’s quite well done.
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Hat dies auf Religion poisons everything! rebloggt und kommentierte:
Bill Maher ist einer der Künstler, die wirklich ein sehr genaues Auge auf das Unwesen der Religionen haben und dies (meist) auf den Punkt kommentieren.
more or less — (I) reblogged this on Religion Poisons Everything and commented: Maher is one of the artists who keep a close eye on the risibility of religion and comment (mostly) so incisively about it.
Here in the UK there has been a growing trend towards mixing comedy and the scientific world view. You might want to check out the science popularisation comedy radio show “The Infinite Monkey Cage”, and oddly enough on a cable channel devoted to reruns of Top Gear and Man V Food you can also find a show where comedians try to solve mathematical problems practically while others just use a white board and some pens – “Dara O’Briain’s School of Hard Sums” (based on a Japanese TV format I think). Not always successful but somehow encouraging.
The Infinite Monkey Cage is great & you can subscribe to the podcast!
That was great! When it comes to making fun of religion while making valid points Maher rules.
Enjoyed this but I couldn’t help but wonder at two things. The courage and perhaps a bit of arrogance for him to be this open verbally and slight fear that some nutcase will try and assassinate him for the same thing. How our world is so trying these days
He’s made some jokes about crazy people. He says he has a gun and made some remark about his dogs (which are small so that’s the funny). A lot of public figures, especially women, even if they aren’t saying what Maher says, get targeted. I know that there were women in relatively minor TV news roles for example that had body guards no matter what.
yes, no group is really spared. He can be extreme, but he has some important things to say for sure…i just know so many are so sick…its disheartening to watch what is happening to our world today.
I have all those saved on my DVR!
I wish I could have said it as well as Bill