iNow

So, are we talking about Bill Maher in general, or is the conversation limited to the premise of the OP and thread title... namely, the movie Religulous? I'm confused. Also, what did you think of the link I shared above whch went through a long comparison of Expelled and Religulous? Are you planning to argue that there is no difference between the films, are you planning to argue that the differences are too minimal to differentiate, or are you planning to argue something else entirely? Again... I'm confused.

It's mostly just semantics. In many senses, this is very much a liquidity issue, since liquidity reflects the ability to move money and wealth. If banks aren't lending to each other, then money isn't moving, and people contacting the banks can't get it either, further stifling the monetary kinematics.

So, Pangloss... Your recent thread on Religulous reminded me of this one. I'm curious, have you yet viewed the film to compare your initial outrage against the reality of the situation? Did the film validate and exemplify all of the negative things you claimed it did? Note: Unfortunately (and predictably), google removed the film from the link in my post above.

I appreciate your desire to support Pangloss, and also recognize that I can sometimes be a total ass, especially in response to him (although, he and I do share a mutual respect), I was responding to a direct follow-up from Blike when I made my comments. I was not sorting through the aether of my thoughts to make some tirade, nor was I repeating the same comments over and over despite not having viewed the film personally. With that said, I think we're all now in agreement that the comparison to Expelled by Ben Stein is invalid.

Knufper - Let's see. You think evolution is a delusion. You think that global warming is not impacted by humans, and that it's all a ploy by Al Gore to raise money in different technology sectors. You have yet to supply any proof or evidence of your assertions, and expect everyone to take you seriously... I have to ask... Are you a pastor or religious leader somewhere? The parallels are uncanny.

Again, I propose you watch the movie first and THEN report back with a more informed opionion of his appproach. We can speculate about all manner of things, but without tying said speculations back into reality, it matters not.

I would like to point out to the casual reader here that Knupfers posts on evolution can be safely ignored. You won't be missing anything of importance or any accurate reflections of reality by doing so.

I was going to leave this comment alone, but after reading your other 5 posts so far, and seeing that you called evolution a "delusion," I decided your statement warranted correction. Humans ARE apes. Most everyone already understood that organisms changed. Darwin simply described how and why. I'll give you credit for at least using the term ape instead of monkey, but evolution by natural selection is no delusion.

Intolerance [math]\ne[/math] Partisanship

It's funny, Edtharan. You didn't put the name in the quote, but I knew immediately that you were responding to Pioneer since the quoted comment was so sexist and ignorant. Funny how the world works sometimes.

What references do you have to support that?

It's the modern "weapon of mass distraction." Talk about the media and the moderators instead of the candidates and the policy. It's the modern day equivalent of gay marriage or abortion during election time.

Misled by stupid people then. Whatever.

I believe SkepticLance raises a good point.

You need more posts before the system will allow you to post in that topic. It's either 30 or 50.

Mass extinction event, here we come. It really is too bad that the stupid seem to outbreed the educated.

No assumption necessary when you use the big green smile.

Maybe the plan is to steal the election and have a force in place to suppress the revolt.

IMO, she actually looked like she was reading from note cards on a few responses. Way way way too vacuous and much more like a handily done theater performance than a talk about reality given to the populace by a leading statesperson. Parapharasing Palin: "That's an interesting question, Gwen, but I'd like to for a moment return to these other points on which I'm more prepared to offer talking points instead." I like Joe. I don't like Palin. I was biased going into this. Good thing I wasn't the moderator. line[/hr] You seem to be blatantly ignoring both context and history, but okay. Clearly I was completely off base by suggesting that Pangloss is far too often too quick to imply ideological bias where none may exist. Clearly, I just wasn't thinking rationally, and you're right to imply that my thoughts are irrational for even suggesting such a thing...

I feel the same way. She's one of my favorites, and I think that it bothered me when you pre-emptively implied that there was some increased likelihood of her being biased. If that was not the case, then mea culpa. I may have been a bit harsh with you, but my intentions were in the right place. It's one thing if you watched the debate and saw bias, then commented on it here. It's quite another to say you hadn't yet seen the debate and that you were already worried about bias from the moderator. It sounds to me like your mind has been primed by whatever information sources to which you've been paying attention recently. It's classic psychological leverage. Prime the audiences mind in a specific way and they will perceive the events much differently than a non-primed (or, differently primed) audience. (like when they play creepy music in scary movies, stuff like that also happens with commentary and rhetoric which impacts our gut reactions to tone and content). As an aside, my girlfriend is getting damn good at doing Palin impersonations. It's rather scary, really. She can even do it through txt msg... Don'tcha know.

Fair enough. Pangloss asked: why is this better than the same stuff from Ben Stein on Creationism? Isn't intolerance a far greater problem facing society than religion? I suppose "better" is subjective, and not all of us will agree. It is, however, different. Steins retarded movie Expelled was a propogation of lies, spin, and ignorance. It suggested some conspiracy theory as to why creationism and ID are not taken seriously, as opposed to the truth of the matter... how they simply don't work, and how evolution does. Religulous (now, bear in mind, I have not yet seen it) appears to represent truth. It makes people laugh, but does not change facts or attempt to sow the seeds of falsehood into the minds of our populace. Summarized: It's intended to make you laugh, not to perpetuate some lie. That's why. http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=22569ac8-9ec8-41eb-8a03-fc4e073ddd06 Unlike, say, a Michael Moore, Maher doesn't take himself too seriously. He is not sanctimonious. He also is funny. He takes the old velvet-hammer approach in this pilgrimage. "I'm just asking questions," Maher explains. "Michael is trying to make a point. We are trying to make points, too, but we do it through Socratic inquiry." And, mustn't forget, comedy. Maher asks seemingly innocent questions and allows his subjects to answer and, in the process, often dig holes for themselves. <...> Maher, who is half-Catholic, half-Jewish, but raised Catholic, has oft noted he doesn't have to make fun of religion: "It makes fun of itself." His thesis is proved correct more often than not in Religulous. http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/ny-ffmov5856561sep28a,0,4821158.story After its premiere at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, Variety critic Robert Koehler wrote: "To the film's credit, Maher never engages in Michael Moore-style gotcha tactics, but rather asks questions that raise more questions, in the form of a Socratic dialogue. To believers expecting a blind hatchet job, this will prove both thought-provoking and a bit disarming." Interestingly, my google search turned up a whole article talking about differences between the two [Religulous / Expelled] films (and this guy put a fair bit more effort into the comparison than I'm willing to): http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_movies_blog/2008/09/expelled-vs-rel.html EDIT: To answer Pangloss' actual question, no. Intolerance is not worse than religion. Case in point, I'm intolerant of lies, belief in the absense of evidence, discrimination, poverty, ignorance, and all manner of other things. Intolerance is not bad in and of itself. It's the subject of said intolerance which matters. It turns out that this is harder to support than I'd imagined. I first heard the idea that "moderate" religious folks were enjoying it when I viewed this clip online (via RichardDawkins.net News): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCrPWWqNl1I However, it seems my comment above was, in fact, off base. Thank you for calling me out on it. While finding that the religious reaction has been so frenzied is depressing and exasperating, it does appear that they are not happy about the film. I had an incorrect awareness of what was happening and was wrong. Perhaps it would have been better if I'd said, "Mostly it appears to be the extremist nutters with fatwah envy who seem to care very much about it."

If you haven't seen it, then why are you commenting? Didn't you do that with Wall-E? Also, the film has been extremely well-received by religious people. What's the problem again?

And it was when you said the above that I decided these waters weren't safe for the sharing of honest opinions. "It hasn't started yet, but Gwen Ifill is likely to be biased. I'll be watching." We're here to watch the candidates, not the commentators.

If it's feasible, that seems like an elegant solution which Klaynos has offered.

As far as I remember when I studied this in college (both in class and extracurricularly ) there were no significant differences by gender regarding sex drive. It was more that they were expressed differently and faced different social perceptions. Example: Stud versus Slut, yet same behavior.