Has Bill Maher admitted problems with Religulous (2008)?

Cafe Society
41

Nothing more than hedging my bets a little. If someone came up with a cite that said, “No, Dec. 21, not 25,” I would not want anyone to say, “Well, that proves you to be totally wrong.”

Scientific American had, about 20 or 30 years ago, a lovely article suggesting that the key Mithraic Mystery was the cult’s knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes, the fact that the ascending node of the earth’s orbit moves, over time, from one Zodiacal constellation to the next. If Mithraism is that strongly linked with the equinoxes, then assigning the hero’s birth to a solstice makes perfect sense.

I’ve also heard it said that Osiris’ death and re-birth was a metaphor for the return of the seasons as the days begin to lengthen again after midwinter.

While I’m at it, what is your opinion re Noah/Utnapishtim? I hold with the view that the writers of the Noah story were basing it on the prior Babylonian fable. If I am able to concede that Odinism might have incorporated a Christian element, are you able to acknowledge that Judaism may have borrowed Noah from the Babylonians?

42

Yep. The belief that the King James translation is inspired by God and therefore the authoritative (and only) translation to be used by English speakers is not that that unusual among Protestants (not a majority view, but not that unusual, either). And of course there’s considerable overlap (approaching 100%) between those who believe the KJV to be inspired and authoritative and those who believe the Bible is inerrant and absolutely literally true, every word of it.

That said, most of those believers are well aware that it is a translation, and that the name “Jesus” is itself a rendering in another language of what was found in the original Greek text, which itself was a rendering of a non-Greek name.

I’ve met kind of the flip side of the coin of the guy you met – a strident (and stupid) atheist who insisted that because “Jesus wasn’t even his real name! It was Yehoshua! So the whole thing is wrong! I’ve just proven how stupid religion is!” He also said that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25, that nobody really knew the date of his birth. So, again, according to him, the idiocy of Christianity was proven.

I said something like “Dude, we *know *all this. Really. I mean, a lot of smart people have been looking at the Bible text, and thinking about this stuff, for a really long time. We know this.”

43

Ouch… It is always embarrassing when the stupid is (ineptly) on the side we, ourselves, hold. Stupid antagonists, sure; we kind of expect that. But stupid allies, oh, the humiliation.

(I’m still astonished at how recent the “Documentary Hypothesis” is – the notion that the Pentateuch is the result of merging of several ancient texts. It has such magnificent explanatory power; how did no one notice this in, say, 1500?)

44

Silly nit-picking on my part:

Now, now it wasn’t 2,000 years. For a decent portion of that time it was the Christians getting the thumb-screws.

And they were beating the shit out of you for your own good! What is this paltry time on Earth compared to the eternity of the after-life???

I like to tell people Jesus was one of those that would have left a pamphlet as a tip. Really…I think the Text backs me up.

45

The same guy was gobsmacked by the old question, “Where did Kane’s wife come from?” I was like come on, Inherit the Wind came out in 1960 and it’s not like the question was new then.

46

Wow!

With all due respect to the forty-some previous responders* I think John Clay grossly misinterpreted the footage that inspired his original post.

I watched Religilous at least twice on a NetFlix DVD and even made a point of watching the encounter in question a few more times because, in fact, something didn’t quite seem right.

The section shows Bill Maher standing asking an employee at the Creationist Museum theme park (not a groundskeeper or doorman but someone devoted enough to think he should take a job personifying the central figure of the mythology) and [I’m paraphrasing] saying, “Hey, did you know that the elements of the story of Jesus are not even original to Christianity?” and the guy says, “Oh really?” so Bill says, “Yeah. There’s an Egyptian god called Horus who does this bunch of things…” and the images that fly by include a little scene of a baby being lifted from a river#.

And the park employee goes, “Oh…wow. Well I don’t know about those I just know about my *one true religion *and…” then the movie cuts to a different scene.

After the third time seeing that exchange I still went, “What?!? How is it that a guy who spent a total of three weeks of his life in a church – most of which was over forty years ago and before the age of ten – knows bible tales better than a guy who’s found a calling in pretending he’s Christ? How is it that this unbeliever saw through Maher’s attempt to conflate the Jesus tale with the Moses myth while that devotee was completely hoodwinked by the ruse?”

And when I watched the scene a fourth time I realized it’s not mistake. Bill isn’t accidentally conflating the three tales. He’s shifting from one to the other – comparing Jesus and Horus and then throwing in the Moses distraction – intentionally in order to show (the cameras/the viewing audience) that these Creationists are really not very smart. He’s picking on the guy-who-would-call-himself-Jesus and practically nodding and winking and elbowing the phantom audience during the exchange. And the actor played right into his hands (“Well, sure, but I’m just sticking to my own faith…”) to help prove the point.:o

[Bill’s inexcusable error is the fallacious hasty generalization suggesting that all Creationists are unobservant idiots who can’t even distinguish between Torah versus New Testament fairy tales.]

So basically there’s no need to confront Maher about those claims; he knew exactly what he was doing and any effort to challenge him about it would merely serve to bolster his real point. :smiley:

But don’t worry, John Clay. Apparently you’re in good company for misinterpreting that section of the film. The Sorensen guy took it seriously enough to write an essay on it and presumably zillions of devout Christians (and perhaps a few hundred skeptics seeking some more information on the claim) took it seriously enough to view that response on the website. The only worthwhile passages I saw in the essay were those that encouraged people to be skeptical and find reputable authorities whose research is not blinded by faith. But, then again, if people strictly adhered to that advice, they’d ignore him and never see that advice. :confused:

ETA: It just occurred to me that maybe John Clay is hoodwinking the rest of us :smack: by using the same sleight-of-hand that Maher used in his documentary. If that’s the case, he’s done a great job but should note that, like the tropes in the Christian mythos, he is hardly being original…

–G!

  • Yeah, I know there are fewer responders and some are posting their debate points back and forth; I didn’t feel like counting the exact number of responders, so 40+ is just my count of responses.

To be fair, the actor would not have seen that little bit inserted into the stream of images while Bill was reciting his list of parallels. The larger point, by the way, is that, contrary to Sorensen’s claim, Hebrew and other cultures would have had plenty of interaction and cross-cultural exchange, including mythologies and they would have borrowed elements from each other in an age that predates Intellectual Property Laws. As I’ve mentioned in other threads, the monotheists’ innovation was to borrow and corrupt names of characters in other mythologies, and recast them as incarnations of evil in their own tales. That’s probably not even innovative; it’s just poor sportsmanship. :frowning:

47

I think you’re giving Maher WAY too much credit there in order to fit your own notions of creationists/Christians.

If that was the case, I would assume Maher’s infinite smugness would have taken over and he would have said, outright, that he did just that.

(If he did do that (I have not seen the film) then by all means let me know btw)

48

You are completely right here; what I said was factually wrong, and also should have been better balanced. Nero’s treatment of the Christians was as bad, perhaps worse, than what the Christians did to others (and to other Christians!) during the height of their secular power.

For some odd reason, this does not comfort me very much… :wink:

49

What’s worse is the smug meme “So since Adam and Eve only had Cain and Abel…I guess that makes Cain a motherfucker. HA Christians!!! IN YOUR FACE!!”

Ummm…ok if you’re going to mock something at least get your source material right. They had other kids, it’s right there in the Text

50

My own notions of creationists/christians can be seen in my response where I point out Bill’s argumentative error.

He didn’t come right out and reveal his rudeness, neither to the Jesus actor nor the viewing audience. But that’s not something he tends to do.

Having watched dozens of episodes of Real Time on HBO, I learned to recognize Bill’s aren’t-I-being-clever! gleam in the eye. He also has that expression in several other sections of his mockumentary, so it’s easy enough to spot if you then go back and re-watch the encounter in question (something theater viewers wouldn’t have had a chance to do).

And, as someone else noted way above, he produced that film in order to
A) Preach to the anti-choir, as it were
B) Make a profit off the devout (who knew before they ever bought tickets that the content would irritate them)
C) Make more profit off the resulting media controversy and the tickets sold therefrom

—G!

51

Not so fast there. In Genesis 4:16,17 it says

Now, since daughters didn’t merit a mention in the Bible, Cain is probably just a sister-fucker. But who the hell is in Nod? (The implication is his wife came from there.) And how were there enough people to build a city?
As for other children, pretty much everyone knows the the patriarchs were descended from the third son, Seth - who isn’t mentioned until after this passage.

52

Well, if decent portion means 10 years out of 300. From here

The years of persecution go up if you count Christians killing Christians, of course.
Being Jewish, I’m not terribly impressed by Christians complaining about about being persecuted. Sure it happened, but you guys were usually on the giving, not receiving end.

53

They lived a long time back then!! She could have been his distant cousin by the time Nod…which could be a fishing village by our standards…was built!

Yes…I’m clutching at straws. Though really you can breed a lot of people in some 800 years. I forget how long Cain lived, if it’s stated at all. I did see that Seth lived some 900+ years.

54

This happens because believers insist on pointing to their book as a moral authority. When you do that, you don’t get to pick one sentence that makes sense, cause we can agree any sentence makes sense and it doesn’t require the belief in the faith SUPPORTED by the book.

So yeah, believe whatever you want, but when you pull out a passage that has meaning to you from your book and treat that as authority simply because it’s in there I’ll pull out a passage from the same book that has a powerfully negative meaning to anyone who can read and you don’t get hand wave it away and go back to talking about your ‘personal’ faith.

55

I’m not sure what you mean… are you saying that that segment with the music is in fact factual? Or is it made up and Bill Maher is just trying to be funny?
You said “his mockumentary” - in mockumentaries they give the impression they are presenting facts and real people when in fact it is made up. Are you saying that is the case with this documentary?
BTW Zeitgeist mentioned similar supposed parallels between Jesus and myths - is it also a mockumentary?

Saying did you “know” implies the other part of the statement is a fact. I mean it would be weird to say “did you know the moon is made of cheese?” Saying yes or no implies that they agree that it involves a fact.

So is Bill Maher saying that the Horus thing is accurate or not? And the music part was only for the viewers, not for an actor playing Jesus. Are you saying that anyone who believes in his claims about Horus is “really not very smart”?

I don’t understand. I’m sure many atheist viewers (who had perhaps seen similar claims in Zeitgeist) would think the Horus thing is a good factual argument and then use it on Christians. But some of the Christians I talked to about this on Facebook were already aware with the problems with the supposed parallels.

What has the musical part that was directed to the viewers got to do with how knowledgeable a guy playing Jesus is? Again, is the stuff about Horus intended to be seen as factual? If it was a joke, why not just make up a completely different religion and gods rather than copy what Zeitgeist is saying is factual? The segment could have said “The Bugaboolian god, Boohoo, had a father called Josef, which is can be translated as “Joseph” and the stories were written 20,000 years before the stories of Jesus, etc”.
What about “Poe’s Law”:

“without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, parodies of extreme views will be mistaken by some readers or viewers for sincere expressions of the parodied views”

i.e. it seems that Bill Maher sincerely believes the contents of the Horus segment… or is that not the case?

It showed that Bill Maher’s Horus segment was not accurate. Do you dispute this?

So you’re saying that Maher used sleight-of-hand?

Exactly, so what has the Jesus actor got to do with it? (nothing really) Also it seems that the parallels are objective since they are “recited” using text on the screen, not by Bill Maher.

It is talking about specific claims about Horus. You seem to want to dismiss the entire article as quickly as possible. Why don’t you dispute its main points about the specific supposed parallels between Horus and Jesus.

Perhaps some borrowing is involved, but I don’t think most of the specific examples regarding Horus are accurate. Or do you have specific examples involving Horus that are accurate that Sorensen’s article was wrong about?

56

From Christians on Facebook:
Horus Ruins Christmas (humour which mentions Bill Maher)

A person saying “Horus has nearly the exact same bio” - the reply “this is garbage that is spread on the Internet”

57

Well it turns out that Cecil has talked about the Horus segment in Religulous:

58

You think he waited 500 years to hook up? With all those begattings, I suspect the patriarchs were plenty horny. :stuck_out_tongue:

59

I’ve added a section about Horus to the Wikpedia page. People can improve the references, etc:

60

That’s assuming that the Pope has ever made any “infallible” statements on this subject. Note the phrase, “certain circumstances”. Papal infallibility is rarely invoked.