I saw it Friday night... In the interest of full disclosure - I am an atheist. However, this flick was disappointing... it was like "Borat" but dealing with religious fanatics - as opposed to hillbillies and the uneducated... It was 90 minutes long - could have been a 30 minute long flick and gotten the message across... Maher's smug jokes got old REALLY fast.
I saw it today, and enjoyed it a lot, he points out a lot of hypocrisy and all major religions. I was particularly interested in the Horus vs Jesus comparison, where so many of Jesus attributes and stories had been written about before Jesus as being attributed to Horus. DD
please please please research this further. don't just leave it at what maher said...i've read the horus and osiris stuff and talked about it umpteen times. look specifically at how made up these correleations are...how there is zero support for the notion that these "facts" said about Horus are true. look to original sources...not what people tell you they say about them. Read Egyptologists on this subject....not people who are writing for agenda ON EITHER SIDE. I think you'll be astonished at how twisted this is. i'm not telling you this is proof for anything....there are perfectly good reasons to deny stories of Jesus. this is a particularly bad reason, though....i think you'll see that if you approach it honestly.
It would be far more interesting, dadakota, to investigate the religions of the ugaritic peoples prior to the advent of judaism. In particular, I recommend that you evaluate the named gods, and how those names compare to the many names for god in the books of the torah. El, elohim, yahweh etc. For me, the notion that asherah was originally the wife of yahweh is mind-blowing. While you are at it, I recommend taking a long look at St. Augstine's manichean upbringing and how it influenced/altered his ideas regarding the bible's message, and how it played a key role in St. Jerome's re-translation of the the original masoretic texts. Moreover, evaluate how these two enormously important scholars of the early church completely changed the bible's ideology regarding evil, duality, and the notion of fate.
awesome...can you provide me the names of some good books on these subjects?? as an aside...or maybe more to my point....i find the bible to be true because it is true. does that make sense. i'll paraphrase a favorite pastor of mine and say: It's not important to me that the story of adam and eve happened, because it happens. Get my meaning? We do turn to other things...we do turn from love....we do turn to ourselves...and there are real consequences for that....and we live disjointedly. At least I find that to be true for me. Having said that.....I believe the Gospels. I really do believe Jesus walked the earth...was crucified...and rose again. I really believe that. And I really believe it matters. Not because I'm hoping for a better day after I'm dead....but because it inspires me to work for a better day for other people right now. Because I find love and hope unmatched in the person of Jesus.
The Polytheism Of The Bible And The Mystery Of Lucifer by Frank T. de Angelis Great starting point - but the guy is not a very good writer and is 100% arrogant blowhard. Hard to read, but packed with interesting facts and observations. Also the most interesting analysis of translation/origin of the bible I have ever read. Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible by David Penchansky This one was more "general" than I like, but still facinating. The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard E. Friedman Just an awesome book on the historical background of the torah. Also: Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition? by Robert M. Price The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts by Robert M. Price But I have not finished reading either of them - I got kind of "religion-ed" out and moved on to some Mark Twain works and the original Conan stories by Robert Howard. Still the latter of those two by Price is insane - enormous amount of material, although I remember being somewhat curious as the validity of the translations - don't recall the details of where they were compiled from off hand... And max - I don't necessarily think that changing the background of particular stories negates validity - especially if you think them allegorical to begin with. I have no doubt that jesus existed - but I have no confidence in the meaning of that outside of my respect and admiration for his philosophy and guidance.
If you examine many of these religious texts within the context of the prevailing literature of the day, some of the "borrowing" of literary devices makes more sense. I don't believe that viewing the bible as allegory diminishes the value of the texts nor eliminates the possibility of being divinely inspired.
He really got off a bit on Islam and their hypocrisy as a religion of peace..... And how they are allowed to question, but then they try to kill outsiders who question...ala salmon rushdie. DD
Granted, but if you follow the links that he cites to more unbiased sources and studies of this horus guy, you will find that the link you cited contains several obvious flaws.
Umm... How else would you want to go out, if not with your pants down? Especially if one remains unconvinced of the afterlife.
A quick search shows it beat Religulous by around 300k, yet it showed on 3x the amount of screens (~1500 - 500). Not that this means anything, although for some reason you felt compelled to bring it up. And apparently a movie called 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' grossed 30 million...I've never even heard/seen what this thing is and don't want to know.
Just that they're both politically charged movies... that's all. And Chihuahua movie is a kid's flick. Won't see it either.
So called Christians do it all time. Look how much effort they are putting into preventing gay people from marrying.
